Eleazar (2 Maccabees)
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Eleazar was a Jewish martyr who died during the persecution of Judaism in Judea ordered by King
Antiochus IV Epiphanes Antiochus IV Epiphanes ( 215 BC–November/December 164 BC) was king of the Seleucid Empire from 175 BC until his death in 164 BC. Notable events during Antiochus' reign include his near-conquest of Ptolemaic Egypt, his persecution of the Jews of ...
. Together with the woman with seven sons, he is one of the "Holy Maccabean Martyrs" celebrated by the
Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...
,
Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodoxy, otherwise known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity or Byzantine Christianity, is one of the three main Branches of Christianity, branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholic Church, Catholicism and Protestantism ...
, and
Oriental Orthodox The Oriental Orthodox Churches are Eastern Christianity, Eastern Christian churches adhering to Miaphysitism, Miaphysite Christology, with approximately 50 million members worldwide. The Oriental Orthodox Churches adhere to the Nicene Christian ...
churches. In the Eastern Orthodox calendar their feast day is
August 1 Events Pre-1600 * 30 BC – Octavian (later known as Augustus) enters Alexandria, Egypt, bringing it under the control of the Roman Republic. *AD 69 – Batavian rebellion: The Batavians in Germania Inferior (Netherlands) revolt u ...
. The main source of information about Eleazar is the book
2 Maccabees 2 Maccabees, also known as the Second Book of Maccabees, Second Maccabees, and abbreviated as 2 Macc., is a deuterocanonical book which recounts the persecution of Jews under King Antiochus IV Epiphanes and the Maccabean Revolt against him. It ...
, although a variant account of someone named Eleazar is found in 3 Maccabees.


Depiction in 2 Maccabees

The books of Maccabees describe a period of intense persecution of traditional Judaism by
Antiochus IV Epiphanes Antiochus IV Epiphanes ( 215 BC–November/December 164 BC) was king of the Seleucid Empire from 175 BC until his death in 164 BC. Notable events during Antiochus' reign include his near-conquest of Ptolemaic Egypt, his persecution of the Jews of ...
, King of the
Seleucid Empire The Seleucid Empire ( ) was a Greek state in West Asia during the Hellenistic period. It was founded in 312 BC by the Macedonian general Seleucus I Nicator, following the division of the Macedonian Empire founded by Alexander the Great ...
that ruled Judea at the time (around 168–166 BCE). According to 2 Maccabees 6, Eleazar was an elderly and respected
scribe A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of Printing press, automatic printing. The work of scribes can involve copying manuscripts and other texts as well as ...
. As part of the persecution, Jews were forbidden from keeping Jewish dietary law (
kashrut (also or , ) is a set of Food and drink prohibitions, dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jewish people are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to halakha, Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed ko ...
); to break the practice, leading members of the community were required to publicly engage in performances of
pork Pork is the culinary name for the meat of the pig (''Sus domesticus''). It is the most commonly consumed meat worldwide, with evidence of pig animal husbandry, husbandry dating back to 8000–9000 BCE. Pork is eaten both freshly cooke ...
-eating. Eleazar was expected to do such a public performance. Some of his friends suggested he arrange to have some false meat ready, validly prepared under Jewish law, such that Eleazar could appear to be breaking the law, yet not truly break it. Eleazar sharply rebuked his friends and refused the offer, however, wishing to avoid even the appearance of breaking Jewish law. He did not wish for young Jews to think that Eleazar had gone over to a foreign religion merely to live a brief while longer and "defile and disgrace my old age". Instead, he dramatically spits out the food. As a result, Eleazar is dragged off to a torture device. (The Greek word is ''tympanum'' ( τύμπανον), usually meaning "drum", but in this case a circular drum-like rack.) There, he is tortured to death, but dies as an example of courage. The following chapter, 2 Maccabees 7, describes the martyrdom of the woman with seven sons, and is an immediate "answer" to Eleazar's concerns of setting a poor example: it shows seven Jewish youths remaining firm in their Judaism. In the narrative of 2 Maccabees, the wrath of God in allowing the persecution turns to mercy after the example of the martyrs, resulting in the eventual success of the
Maccabean Revolt The Maccabean Revolt () was a Jewish rebellion led by the Maccabees against the Seleucid Empire and against Hellenistic influence on Jewish life. The main phase of the revolt lasted from 167 to 160 BCE and ended with the Seleucids in control of ...
. The depiction of Eleazar's death bears some similarities to the death of Socrates, with both being exemplars of Hellenistic ideals of a noble and proper death. Eleazar makes a final statement of his principles, as if he is a defendant at a trial and calling on God as a witness. Due to a variety of reasons, 2 Maccabees was kept as part of the
Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...
, a collection of Jewish scripture in Greek that became the basis for the Christian
Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...
, but did not become a text in
Rabbinic Judaism Rabbinic Judaism (), also called Rabbinism, Rabbinicism, Rabbanite Judaism, or Talmudic Judaism, is rooted in the many forms of Judaism that coexisted and together formed Second Temple Judaism in the land of Israel, giving birth to classical rabb ...
, the form of Judaism that survived the decline of
Hellenistic Judaism Hellenistic Judaism was a form of Judaism in classical antiquity that combined Jewish religious tradition with elements of Hellenistic culture and religion. Until the early Muslim conquests of the eastern Mediterranean, the main centers of Hellen ...
and the destruction of the Second Temple. The result was that despite being martyred for keeping Jewish law, Eleazar was more honored in Christianity, where the "Maccabean martyrs" were considered as prefiguring the death of Jesus. Medieval and early modern Christianity often treated the martyrs more as proto-Christians than as Jews.


Depiction in 3 Maccabees

Eleazar also appears in the book 3 Maccabees, although that book is generally distrusted as a reliable source of history. It is set decades earlier than the reign of Antiochus IV in
Ptolemaic Egypt Ptolemaic is the adjective formed from the name Ptolemy, and may refer to: Pertaining to the Ptolemaic dynasty * Ptolemaic dynasty, the Macedonian Greek dynasty that ruled Egypt founded in 305 BC by Ptolemy I Soter *Ptolemaic Kingdom Pertaining ...
rather than Judea, and describes a claimed persecution during the reign of
Ptolemy IV Philopator Ptolemy IV Philopator (; "Ptolemy, lover of his Father"; May/June 244 – July/August 204 BC) was the fourth pharaoh of Ptolemaic Egypt from 221 to 204 BC. Ptolemy IV was the son of Ptolemy III and Berenice II. His succession to the throne was ...
. In it, Eleazar prays for deliverance of the Jews of Egypt, and God sends two invisible angels in response to his prayer who turn Ptolemy's elephants against his own men rather than the Jews. The Eleazar there is not explicitly identified as the same as the Eleazar of 2 Maccabees, but is described in similar terms, and seems to be a literary reference (as the Eleazar there is already described as old, but should be middle-aged if he was really the same person).. See


References


External links

* {{bibleverse, 2, Maccabees, 6:18-31, NRSV People in the books of the Maccabees Jewish martyrs 160s BC deaths