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The Courage of a Mother, one of Gustave Doré's illustrations for La Grande Bible de Tours, 1866.

• Relics from the biblical Maccabees are housed in Cologne Church
• Books of the Maccabees, Knox Bible

On the Solemnity of the Maccabee Martyrs, St. Augustine

(Sermon 300) 

The people of God was Christian before Christ, in fact if not in name. 
1. The glory of the Maccabees has made this day into a very special feast day for us; when the marvelous account of their sufferings was read to us, we not only heard about them, but could practically see them as spectators. These things happened a long time ago, before the incarnation, before the passion of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. These martyrs emerged in that first people, which produced the prophets who foretold these present realities. Nor should anyone suppose that before there was a Christian people, God had no people. On the contrary, if I may so put it, as is indeed really the case, though it’s not the usual way of talking, the people of that time too was Christian. 

I mean, it wasn’t only after his passion that Christ began to have his people; his too was the people born of Abraham, to whom the Lord himself bore witness when he said, Abraham longed to see my day; he saw it and rejoiced (Jn 8:56). So it was from Abraham that that people was born, which was enslaved in Egypt, and which was delivered from the house of bondage with a mighty arm through Moses, God’s servant, was led through the Red Sea as the waves sank away, tried and tested in the desert, subjected to the law, established in the kingdom. From that people, as I said, arose the prophets, from there these martyrs blossomed. Christ indeed had not yet died; but Christ who was going to die made them martyrs, witnesses to himself. 

These martyrs were Christians, though they suffered for the law of Moses in the way that the later martyrs suffered for the name of Christ. 
2. So the first thing I must impress upon your graces is that when you are admiring these martyrs, you shouldn’t think they weren't Christians. They were Christians; but with their deeds they anticipated the name Christian that was publicized much later on. But yes, it’s true, as though it wasn’t Christ they were confessing, they were not being forced by the godless king and persecutor to deny Christ, which the later martyrs were forced to do, and didn’t, and so obtained a similar glory. Subsequent persecutors of the Christian people, you see, were compelling those they persecuted to deny the name of Christ; those who persisted most steadfastly in the name of Christ suffered the same sort of things as we heard that these did, when the account was read. So those more recent martyrs, by whose blood in their thousands the earth has been empurpled, were being commanded and told by the persecutors, “Deny Christ.” When they didn’t do it, they suffered the same sort of things as these did. These though were being told, “Deny the law of Moses.” They didn’t; they suffered for the law of Moses. Those for the name of Christ, these for the law of Moses. 

The Old Testament is the veiling or concealing of the New,the New Testament is the unveiling or revealing of the Old .
3. Some Jew steps forward and says to us, “How can you reckon these people of ours to be your martyrs? How can you be so unwise’ as to celebrate their memory? Read their confessions; see whether they confessed Christ.” 

To whom we reply, “It’s true, you are one of those who did not believe in Christ, and being broken off from the olive remained withered outside, when the wild olive took your place; what are you going to say, being one of those 
faithless people? They weren’t openly confessing Christ, because the mystery of Christ was still concealed behind a veil. The Old Testament, you see, is the veiling of the New Testament, and the New Testament is the unveiling of the Old Testament. So about the unbelieving Jews, your ancestors, but in evil your brothers, about such as they see what the apostle Paul has to say: All the time Moses is read until now, a veil has been placed over their hearts. Now the same veil remains in the reading of the Old Testament, which is not being unveiled, since it is being made void in Christ. When you pass over, he says, to Christ, the veil will be taken away (2 Cor 3:14-16).” 

The veil, he says, remains in the reading of the Old Testament, which is not being unveiled, since it is being made void in Christ; not the reading of the Old Testament, but the veil which has been placed there. The reading of the Old Testament, indeed, is not being made void, but is being fulfilled by the one who said, I did not come to abrogate the law, but to fulfill it (Mt 5:17). So the veil is being made void, in order that what was obscure might be understood. This, of course, was still shut away, a closed book, because the key of the cross was not yet available.’ 

How Christ in his passion deliberately fulfilled even minor points of Old Testament prophecy .
4. To clinch the matter, turn your attention to the Lord’s passion, set him before your eyes hanging on the tree, and lying down like a lion when he wished, and in order to slay death, dying not of necessity but as an act of power. Notice this very point; see how he said on the cross, Z thirst (Jn 19:28). And when the Jews,’ ignorant of what was being enacted by means of them, of what was being fulfilled by the hands of the ignorant, bound a sponge with vinegar in it to a reed and gave it to him to suck on, he sipped the vinegar and answered, It is accomplished. And bowing his head he gave up the spirit (Jn 19:30). Does anyone set out on a journey as calmly, as deliberately, as he departed this life? With as much straightforwardness, as much authority as this man who had said, I have the authority to lay down my life, and the authority to take it up again. Nobody can take it from me, but I myself lay it aside from myself, and take it up again (Jn 10:17-18)? Anyone who reflects worthily on his authority as he dies 
will acknowledge his kingship and his kingdom as he lives. 

Now he had already said this to the Jews themselves through the prophet: I myself went to sleep (Ps 3:5). As though to say, “Why do you people pride yourselves on my death? Why do you indulge in vain boasting, as though you had overcome me? J myself went to sleep. I myself have gone to sleep, because I wished to, not because you have raged against me. I myself have fulfilled what I wished; as for you, you have remained in your crime.”! So having received and sipped the vinegar, he said, It is accomplished. 

What is accomplished? 

“What has been written about me.” 

What was written about him? 

They gave me gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink 
(Ps 69:21). 

So as he looked round at all the things that had been enacted in the course of his passion: those people had already wagged their heads in front of the cross, already given him gall,  already counted his bones as he was hanging there, stretched out; his garments had already been divided up, and they had cast lots for his indivisible tunic; so having looked round and after a fashion counted up all the things that the prophets had foretold about his passion, he noticed that goodness knows what still remained, some lesser point: And in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. In order that this small point that remained might be added to the list, he said, I thirst. And on receiving this lesser thing, he answered, It is accomplished. Having said that, he bowed his head and gave up the spirit (Jn 19:28-30). 

Then the foundations of the earth were shaken, then the rocks were split open and the secrets of the underworld laid bare, then the tombs gave up the dead; and, to state the point which everything I have said has been leading up to, because now was the time for everything that was veiled in the Old Testament to be unveiled and revealed in the mystery of the cross, the veil of the temple was torn away." 


In dying for the law of Moses, these martyrs died for Christ 
5. So from that moment Christ began to be proclaimed quite openly after the resurrection. The things that had been prophetically foretold began to be evidently fulfilled in him;'the martyrs began to confess him with the greatest 
constancy. The martyrs confessed plainly the same one as the Maccabees at that earlier time confessed in a hidden manner; the former died for Christ unveiled in the gospel, while the latter died for the name of Christ veiled in the law. Christ possesses both, Christ came to the aid of both as they fought the good fight, Christ crowned both. Christ has them both in his service, like some Very Important Person traveling along with a troop of attendants, some going in front, others following behind. So fix your gaze on him rather, as he presides in the chariot of the flesh;'° both those who march ahead are attentive to him, and those who follow behind are devoted to him. 

I mean, to show you, and to show you clearly, that those who died for the law of Moses died for Christ, listen to Christ himself, my dear Jew, listen; and may your heart at last be opened, may the veil be lifted from your eyes. If you believed Moses, you would also believe me. Listen to that, accept it if you can. “If the veil has been lifted by me, open your eyes and see.”!” If you believed Moses, he said, you would also believe me; for it was about me that he wrote (In 5:46). If it was about Christ that Moses wrote, those who truly died for the law of Moses laid down their lives for Christ. Jt was about me, he said, that he wrote. He was served by the tongues of those who confessed him, served also by the reed pen of those who wrote the truth about him. How will you people 
be able to understand the reed Moses wrote with, seeing you put vinegar on a reed?'If only you would eventually drink the wine of the one, to whom as an insult you offered vinegar to drink! 


A basilica very properly dedicated to the Maccabees in Antioch 
6. So the Maccabees really are martyrs of Christ. That’s why it is not unsuitable, not in the least improper, but on the contrary absolutely right for their day and their solemnity to be celebrated especially by Christians. What do the Jews know about such a celebration? Word is going round” that there is a basilica of the Holy Maccabees in Antioch; in the very city, that is to say, which is called by the name of that persecuting king. They endured the persecution of the wicked king Antiochus, and the memory of their martyrdom is celebrated in Antioch, so that both the name of the one who persecuted and the memory of the one who crowned them are heard together.! This basilica is owned by Christians, was built by Christians. It’s we who keep, we who celebrate their memory; it’s among us that thousands of holy martyrs throughout the world have imitated their sufferings. 

So nobody need hesitate, my brothers and sisters, to imitate the Maccabees, in case while imitating the Maccabees, you should think you weren’t imitating Christians. Of course, of course, we should cherish a fervent desire to imitate them in our hearts. Let men learn how to die for the sake of the truth. Let women learn from the extraordinary patience, the inexpressible courage of that mother; she really did know how to keep and preserve her sons.? She knew how to keep them, because she was not afraid of losing them. Each of them suffered by feeling pain in himself; she, by seeing what was done, suffered in all of them. Becoming the mother of seven martyrs, she was herself seven times a martyr; not separated from her sons as she watched, and added to her sons as she died.” 
She watched them all dying, she loved them all; she endured in her eyes what they all endured in the flesh. Not only was she not terrorized, she even encouraged them. 


The story of the mother's last son 
7. The persecutor Antiochus thought of this woman as a mother like other mothers. “Persuade your son,” he said, “not to perish.” And she said,” “I will certainly persuade my son to live, by encouraging him to die; you, though, want to persuade him to die by sparing himself.” But what a little speech it was, how full of family feeling, how motherly, how evenly balanced between spiritual and carnal considerations! Son, take pity on me. Son, she said, take pity on me, who bore you for nine months in my womb; I gave you milk for three years, and brought you up to this age; take pity on me (2 Mac 7:27). 

They were all expecting words like the following: “Give your consent to the king, don’t abandon your mother.” She on the contrary said, “Give your consent to God, don’t abandon your brothers. If you seem to abandon me, that’s when you don’t abandon me. I will find you there, where I will not have to fear losing you anymore. Christ will keep you for me there, and Antiochus won't take you away from me there.” He feared God, listened to his mother, answered the king, clung to his brothers, drew his mother after him. 

Source: Saint Augustine - Sermons in 11 vols