Dar Fr Ambrose,
Not murky, but fascinating. The 1 October feast is astonishing. Why have two
feast days, each based on a different family from 2 Maccabees, and both on
the first of a month? To some extent, I suppose the text could be understood
to imply a nice balance between the two families. Solomonia and her sons
suffer for their faith. The sons of Mattathias are rewarded for their faith
when the eternal light is rekindled. More exactly, the author might have
meant that both families are rewarded for their faith, although one in heaven
and the other on earth. But we don't know that anyone ever actually
understood the text in that way, or, even if they did, that it had any
doctrinal importance.
1) I read 4 Maccabees (couldn't fin 3 Macc.) and also looked at the Jerome
Bible Commentary. Like you, I understood that Judas Maccabeus was one of
seven brothers (the Hasmoneans). JBC has only five sons of Mattathias, and
again seems to have no names for the mother and her seven sons. Here's one
possibility. If the Orthodox Church has always used the LXX, and Jerome drew
on Hebrew sources (or at least sources other than the LXX), maybe the
Orthodox Bible gives the names of Solomonia and her sons and none of the
Bibles used in the West give their names. The JBC is very thorough, and if
they don't name the mother and her sons either, this reassures me that it
isn't just something I overlooked.
If I wanted to go out in New York City and buy an English translation of the
Orthodox Bible, how could I do this? Is there a Bible Society I could
contact? Just for my own information, I'd like to see the points of
difference and similarity.
2) The Catholic saint I was trying to remember was Saint Felicitas, who, like
Solominia, has seven sons who unflinchingly die for their faith after
terrible tortures.
3) 2 Macc. isn't printed in most Protestant Bibles, and I don't think it's
one of the more familiar Bible stories to either Protestants or Catholics
today. Dante seemed to me to be giving it more attention than I would have
expected, but perhaps it was more important in the past.
4) I have a note to myself not to believe anything I read in the newspapers
about the Ecumenical Patriarch unless I check out the information with you
first.
pat sloane
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In a message dated 12-9-1999 11:46:25 PM Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
> Dear Pat,
>
> I confess that today's investigation has been superficial and confined
> to consulting the current 1999 ecclesiastical calendars for the Russian
> and Greek Churches.
>
> Both concur that 1st. August commemorates the seven "Macchabean" martyrs
> mentioned in 2 Macchabees 7, with the names I sent earlier of their
> mother Solomonina/Solomonia and their tutor Eleazar and the seven young
> men.
>
> Mattathias and his sons, in distinction from the Roman commemoration on
> 1st. August, are commemorated on 1st. October. The entries read: "SS.
> Mattathias and the Macchabees: Judas, Jonathan, Simon, John, Simon.
> Onias, Eleazar & Onis."
>
> Sorry that this is becoming murkier rather than clearer.
>
> Fr Ambrose
>
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