Justifying the Christian Cult of the Maccabean Martyrs

The Maccabean martyrs were Jews killed c. 167 BCE by the Greek king Antiochus IV Epiphanes. The first of the martyrs to die was the elderly scribe Eleazar, who was beaten to death for refusing to eat pork. The rest of the martyrs (seven young brothers and their mother) were then killed for the same offense. Interestingly, these martyrs came to be venerated as Christian martyrs during late antiquity, even though they were Jews who died out of loyalty to the Mosaic Law. In this essay, I examine the earliest known justifications for the Christian cult of the Maccabean martyrs, and I argue that these justifications share a fundamentally similar approach: they argue that the Maccabean martyrs are worthy of Christian veneration by establishing continuity between pre-Incarnation and post-Incarnation history through the figure of Christ. At the same time, however, I explain how the justifications differ, especially with regard to the identity of Christ.