INTRODUCTION

Gabriela Signori

The idea of defending faith through violence gradually took shape fol- lowing the decision by Antiochus Epiphanes (175–164 B.C.E.) to pro- hibit the from living according to their law, his desecration of their Temple, and his order to have all those killed who resisted his instruc- tions (1 Macc 1:17–29). In Modiin, a village northwest of , armed resistance formed under the priest and his five sons, John, Simon, Judas, Eleazar, and Jonathan (1 Macc 2:2–5). Each son’s first name had its own descriptive surname; that of Judas, “Maccabeus,” “the hammerer,” would give the four books treating the Jewish revolt against Seleucid rule their name. All four would be included in the Sep- tuagint.1 Later, St. Jerome (d. 419/420) would remove books three and four from the Christian canon of Holy Scripture.2 For his part, Martin Luther (d. 1546) declared book one and two, although “useful,” to be apocryphal, because they “did not count as part of the Hebrew Bible.”3

1 See Die Septuaginta zwischen Judentum und Christentum, ed. Martin Hengel and Anna Maria Schwemer, vol. 72, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum neuen Testa- ment (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994); Studien zur Septuaginta und zum hellenistischen Judentum, ed. Robert Hanhart and Reinhard Gregor Kratz, vol. 24, Forschungen zum Alten Testament (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999); John A. Beck, Translators as Story- tellers. A Study in Septuagint Translation Technique, vol. 25, Studies in Biblical Litera- ture (New York et al.: Peter Lang, 2000). 2 Hieronymus, Prologus in libris Salomonis de hebraeo translatis [Biblia sacra iuxta Vulgatam versionem, ed. Robert Weber (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 31983], 957. See Dennis Brown, Vir Trilinguis. A Study in the Biblical Exegesis of Saint Jerome (Kampen: Kok Pharos Publisher House, 1992); Stefan Rebenich, “Jerome: the Vir Tri- linguis and the Hebraica Veritas,” Vigiliae Christianae 47 (1993): 50–77; Christoph Markschies, “Hieronymus und die Hebraica Veritas. Ein Beitrag zur Archäologie des protestantischen Schriftverständnisses?” in Die Septuaginta zwischen Judentum und Christentum, 131–81. For the Third Book of see Sara Raup Johnson,His- torical Fictions and Hellenistic Jewish Identity. Third Maccabees in its Cultural Con- text, vol. 43, Hellenistic Culture and Society (Berkeley et al.: University of California Press, 2004), and Bruce M. Metzger, “An Early Protestant Bible Containing the Third Book of Maccabees, with a List of Editions and Translations of Third Maccabees,” in Text – Wort – Glaube. Studien zur Überlieferung, Interpretation und Autorisierung biblischer Texte. Kurt Aland gewidmet, ed. Martin Brecht, vol. 50, Arbeiten zur Kirch- engeschichte (Berlin-New York: De Gruyter, 1980), 123–13. 3 Martin Luther, Biblia: das ist: Die gantze Heilige Schrifft: Deudsch Auffs new zugericht / D. Mart. Luth. Begnadet mit Kurfürstlicher zu Sachsen Freiheit, gedruckt zu Wittem- berg Durch Hans Lufft. M.D.XLV, Bl. CVIb. See Luthers Vorreden zur Bibel, ed. Hei- 2 gabriela signori

Within ancient studies, the Maccabees have been extensively exam- ined on both a textual and an historical level.4 The same cannot be said for their millennia-old reception history, stretching from the Antiqui- tates Judaicae of the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (d. c. 95 C.E.) to Jonathan Kesselman’s film “The Hebrew Hammer” (2003), an American farce about Jewish resistance to Santa Claus’ dictatorship. The temporal and spatial dimensions of this history are intimidating.5 A comprehensive treatment of the theme in this sense is hardly pos- sible; it is also not the aim of the present volume. Rather, its focus is on a particular comparative problem, approached through selected examples: the different ways the Maccabean books were used as both an arsenal (in the original sense of armory)6 and practical text over a range of epochs and cultures.7 In the following pages I will first sum- marize the main features of the texts’ antique and medieval transmis- sion (I) in order to then move to the historical contexts in which their transmission was received (II). Finally, I will offer a brief overview of the ten contributions chosen for this volume, which spans the times of antiquity and the Middle Ages. There, will however, be three excur- sions into both the Early Modern Period and more recent history, for in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the theme of the Maccabees was becoming increasingly popular.

nrich Bornkamm, vol. 1550, Kleine Vandenhoeck-Reihe (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 31989), 159. 4 See most recently The : History, Theology, Ideology, ed. Géza G. Xeravits and József Zsengellér, vol. 118, Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2007). 5 In the sense of Hans Robert Jauß, “Literaturgeschichte als Provokation der Lite- raturwissenschaft,” in Rezeptionsästhetik, ed. Rainer Warning (Munich: utb, 41994) 303:126–62. 6 See Notker Hammerstein, “Geschichte als Arsenal. Geschichtsschreibung im Umfeld deutscher Humanisten,” in Geschichtsbewußtsein und Geschichtsschreibung in der Renaissance, ed. August Buck, Tibor Klaniczay and S. Katalin Németh (Leiden et al.: Brill, 1989), 19–32. 7 On approaches to the Bible, see Le Moyen Age et la Bible, ed. Pierre Riché and Guy Lobrichon, vol. 4, Bible de tous les temps (Paris: Beauchesne, 1984); The Bible in the Medieval World. Essays in Memory of Beryl Smalley, ed. Katherine Walsh and Diana Wood, vol. 4, Studies in Church History. Subsidia (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985); Das Buch der Bücher – gelesen. Lesarten der Bibel in Wissenschaften und Künsten, ed. Steffen Martus et al., vol. 13, Publikationen der Zeitschrift für Germanistik (Berlin et al.: Lang, 2006); Die Bibel als politisches Argument. Voraussetzungen und Folgen biblizistischer Herr schaftslegitimation in der Vormoderne, ed. Andreas Pečar, vol. 43, Beihefte der Historischen Zeitschrift (Berlin: Oldenbourg, 2007).