Mattatias

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Mattatias (means "gift of God", also Mattathias , Mat (h) at (h) ias , Matthias , Hebrew : מתתיהו בן יוחנן הכהן, Mattitjahu ben Joḥanan haKohen ; † 166 BC , buried in Modeïn ) was a Jewish Priests and resistance fighters from the Aaronic family of priests , father of Judas Maccabeus and ancestor of the Hasmonean dynasty in Judea .

origin

Mattatias comes from the Aaronic priestly family Jojarib. His family tree is given in 1 Maccabees  2 and in Josephus : son of John, son of Simon, from the house of Hasmonäus. Hence the name Hasmonean for the dynasty founded by his son Simon and his descendants. His other sons were John Gaddi, Judas Maccabeus, Eleazar Avarnan, and Jonathan Apphus . The meaning of the Aramaic-sounding nicknames of his sons is not entirely clear.

Beginning of the survey

The cause of the uprising was the religious edict of the Seleucid king Antiochus IV , who wanted to forbid the Jews from practicing their religion and wanted to force them to demonstratively renounce their faith by making public sacrifices for the pagan gods. At that time Mattatias lived with his sons in the small town of Modein near Jerusalem, where an envoy from Antiochus finally came and asked the inhabitants to sacrifice to the gods and to burn incense on an altar. However, Mattatias and his sons steadfastly refused.

When a less firm Jew wanted to sacrifice on the altar, Mattatias was seized with “pious zeal” or “holy anger”: he killed the willing to sacrifice and destroyed the altar while his sons cut down the emissary of Antiochus.

This act is explicitly compared in 1 Makk 2,26  EU with the act of Phinehas , who followed another Israelite in “pious zeal” who had gotten involved with a “foreign-blooded” woman in his tent and pierced both of them with a spear. It was precisely that Phinehas and that zeal that became the model of the zealots later known as the Zealots .

Partisan war and death

After the bloody work was done, Mattatias exclaimed: Whoever zealously stands up for the law and the covenant, follow me! He then moved to the mountains with his sons and many like-minded people, where he began a partisan war.

He attacked and destroyed smaller troops, but avoided larger ones, destroyed the pagan altars and temples in the surrounding cities and circumcised boys who had not been circumcised until then for fear of Seleucid repression .

However, he soon got sick. Before his death in 166 BC He appointed his son Simon as the political leader and his son Judas Maccabeus as the military leader of the rebels. He was buried in Modein.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Flavius ​​Josephus : Jewish War ( DjVu ) on Wikisource . Translated by Philipp Kohout. Quirin Haslingers Verlag, Linz 1901, p. 20
personal data
SURNAME Mattatias
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Matthias; Mattitjahu; Mattitjahu ben Joḥanan; Mattathias
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Jewish freedom fighter
DATE OF BIRTH 3rd century BC BC or 2nd century BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH 166 BC Chr.
Place of death buried Modeïn