Commentaria in I Machabaeorum
Learn here morally how efficacious is zeal, so that like fire it overcomes and consumes all things. Hear St.
[zeal] made me pine away (for which St. Ambrose reads, sought out) my zeal. A priest ought to have zeal, who is eager to preserve the incorrupt chastity of the Church. And therefore the Prince of priests says: The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up. And Phinees was a priest, and the grandson of a priest and the son of a priest. A good and useful zeal in a priest, especially that he be not negligent or remiss. It is better that by the condemnation of one or two very many be freed, than that by the acquittal of two more be endangered.” And a little after: “Zeal for God is life; Elias had zeal, and therefore was taken up to heaven. Being zealous, he says, I have been very zealous for the Lord. Mattathias the son of John had zeal, who stirred up the people of God against the sacrileges of Antiochus. Those who have zeal count as their enemies all who are the enemies of God, even a father, brothers, sisters. To all he says: They are become enemies to me; as David says.” And, some things intervening: “Zeal therefore is charity. Finally charity is strong as death, zeal hard as hell. Hard is zeal, which no allurement of this life overcomes. Hard as hell, by which we die to sin that we may live to God. Angels also without zeal are nothing, and lose the prerogatives of their substance, unless they sustain it by the ardour of zeal.” Whence after a few words he concludes: “And why should we wonder if Angels have it? God the Father himself says: I will be jealous for Jerusalem with a great zeal; because God is great, therefore his zeal also is great, and according to the quality of each one’s power, so zeal is either moderate or great. By zeal Jerusalem is avenged, by zeal the Church is gathered, by zeal faith is acquired, by zeal modesty is possessed. The Lord Jesus also says: The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up; rebuking the Jews, because they had made the house of prayer a den of thieves, and a house of traffic.
25. BUT ALSO THE MAN WHOM KING ANTIOCHUS HAD SENT,
WHO COMPELLED THEM TO SACRIFICE, HE SLEW.—Josephus, book 12, chap. 8, calls this man Apelles. The same, however, in book 1 On the War, chap. 1, calls him Bacchides, and adds that the sons of Mattathias helped their father in this slaughter; for the soldiers with Apelles were slain. Mattathias did this rightly, God instigating him, as judge and avenger of Israel, and of religion and the worship of God, and by this deed he entered upon and consecrated his Pontificate and leadership, as Elias made himself leader of the faith by slaying the priests of Baal, 3 Kings 18; and Moses with the Levites by slaying the worshippers of the golden calf, Exodus 32, to whom therefore he himself says: “You have consecrated your hands this day to the Lord, every man in his son, and in his brother, that a blessing may be given to you.” And Phinees, slaying the Prince sacrificing to Priapus, Num. 25; see what is said there. So he judged of the blasphemer, and St. Chrysostom says: “If you hear any one blaspheming God, go up, rebuke him; and if it be necessary to inflict blows, do not refuse, strike his face with a slap, crush his mouth, sanctify your hand by the blow.” For indeed “zeal purges the deed,” indeed sanctifies it and makes it a sacrifice, and makes it as it were a holocaust, which he offers to divine justice and vengeance for an odour of sweetness.
Wonderful was the courage, fortitude and boldness of Mattathias in this slaughter, by which almost alone he opposed himself to a powerful, proud and cruel king, and drove the others to oppose themselves, generously exposing to danger for God, for the faith, for his country, his fortunes, family, children, reputation and life. He was therefore a renowned Hero, and made his five sons Heroes, when he led them out into the battle line against the tyrant: but faith and hope in God animated him, and made him superior to all dangers, so that like a lion with his five lion’s whelps he crushed all his enemies.
27. AND HE CRIED OUT, etc.: WHOSOEVER HATH ZEAL FOR THE LAW, AND MAINTAINETH THE TESTAMENT,—striving that the testament, that is, the covenant made with God, may stand in its vigour, as if to say: Whoever wishes religion safe and [the law kept, let him follow me]. Mattathias here sounds the trumpet, and calls all to the sacred war, that in it they may either bravely conquer, or generously die for God, faith and country. So at Rome C. Marius, opposing himself to Sulla invading the Republic, cried out:
“Whoever wishes the Republic safe, let him follow me” (which words we read even now at Rome carved in letters a span long on the stone lintel of the Angelic gate, by which he went out). On this saying Marius, going out to the neighbouring mountain, gathered troops. Scipio cried out the same after the disaster received at Cannae; and Nasica from the Capitol against Gracchus, as Livy, Paterculus and Valerius Maximus, book 3, chap. 2, testify; and long after, Narses under the Emperor Justin, opposing himself to the Gauls, as Agathias testifies, book 2. Finally Servius on book 8 of the Aeneid says: “If there was a tumult, that is, much fear from the nearness of danger, because there was no time to ask the soldiers one by one, he who was to lead the army there to the Capitol, bringing out two standards, one red, which summoned the foot, and the other sky-blue, which was the ensign of the horse, said: Whoever wishes the republic to be safe, let him follow me.”
28. AND HE FLED, HE AND HIS SONS—from Jerusalem, where he dwelt as a priest, and had struck down a Jew sacrificing to idols on the altar; “into the mountains, living among wild beasts, and feeding on wild herbs, that they might not be partakers of the pollution,” as is said in book 2, chap. 5, 27. They lived therefore on herbs, the milk of flocks, food sent by neighbours and the spoils of the enemy.
29. THEN MANY THAT SOUGHT AFTER JUDGMENT AND JUSTICE WENT DOWN,—that is, seeking from Mattathias what was equitable and just, namely what it was fitting to do in such a crisis of pressing persecution, namely to suffer exile, hunger, cold, nakedness, wounds and every bitterness, and death itself, rather than yield to the tyrant, and apostatize from God and his law and worship to idols.
37. LET US ALL DIE IN OUR INNOCENCY,—in the simple observance of the sabbath, that on that day we may observe the full rest prescribed by God, so that on it we may not fight, nay, not defend ourselves against those who attack us, but allow ourselves to be slain, like simple and innocent lambs. They said this not from superstition, nor from imprudence, as the Innovators will have it, but from zeal for perfect religion. For the sabbath was the highest religion among the Jews. Wherefore although they could by right have fought on that day and defended themselves, yet from zeal of religion they preferred to offer themselves to death, rather than violate even by appearance and shadow the worship and rest of the sabbath, because in this way they became martyrs: but martyrdom is a most noble act, and therefore far nobler than fighting and life. The Jews did the same when attacked by Ptolemy son of Lagus, and afterwards by Mithridates, as Josephus relates, book 12, chap. 1, and book 18, last chap., whom St. Ambrose praises for piety and religion, book 1 On Offices, chap. 40. So the Theban Legion, under St. Maurice, could have resisted the Emperor Maximian; but would not, and casting away their arms permitted themselves to be killed like sheep, because the faithful legionaries preferred to be martyrs rather than soldiers. So the Carthusians by vow abstain from flesh meat, so that they would rather die than eat flesh, even where the physician judges it necessary to preserve health and life. For religion and regular observance is better than health and life.
39. AND MATTATHIAS UNDERSTOOD IT.—He, as Pontiff, interpreted the law of the sabbath in such a case, namely where one is attacked by an enemy, as not binding, and said it was better to fight for God and the law, lest the whole people of God be destroyed: and so the Church and the worship of God perish. Whence the rest, following this his answer, resolved to repel with arms those attacking them on the sabbath day, as is plain from verse 41.