Mending Misdeeds, Maccabee Style

by Eliezer Segal

The familiar Hanukkah story tells about a clearly defined conflict pitting Jewish monotheists against hellenizing pagans, between followers of the one God of Israel and the idolatrous cult of the Olympian deities.

However, the Jewish fighters might not have been completely unwavering in their rejection of idolatry. We find a suggestion to that effect in the Second Book of Maccabees (“2 Maccabees”), a record of the Hasmonean uprising composed in Greek in Egypt or Libya shortly after the events. It describes how Judah Maccabee organized a force to collect the bodies of fallen soldiers and prepare them for burial in ancestral graves. While carrying out this task, they discovered, hidden under the tunics of the corpses, objects devoted to the gods of Jamnia. 

It is not clear whether the deceased soldiers actually worshipped those objects or had merely taken them as battlefield mementos. In any case, it was obvious to Judah and his followers, and to the pious authors of 2 Maccabees, that this lapse from Torah standards must have been the reason for their deaths. In recognition of this fact, “they all blessed the Lord who judges righteously and who makes the hidden things visible.” They prayed that God should now obliterate this weighty sin. Judah admonished the Jews to draw the appropriate conclusions and not be lured into the same fatal temptation.

Not content with all this, he took up a general collection from the populace, amounting to the immense sum of 2,000 silver drachmas which he sent to Jerusalem to purchase sin-offerings. The narrator commends Judah not only for the act itself, but for its underlying theological message. 

“For had he not expected that the fallen would be resurrected, it would have been pointless and silly to pray for the dead –and having in view the most beautiful reward that awaits those who lie down in piety, a holy and pious notion. Therefore he made atonement for the dead so that they would be absolved of the sin.” 

In fact, neither the rabbinic traditions nor any other ancient authors speak of sin-offerings or other sacrifices being offered on behalf of the dead. 

It has been suggested plausibly that Judah Maccabee was more concerned for possible immediate repercussions of his soldiers’ indiscretions, recalling the defeat that Joshua’s army suffered when Achan pilfered from the spoils of Jericho.

At any rate, the doctrine of resurrection was a controversial issue in the Jewish world at the time, and was rejected by sects like the Sadducees. Along with the Pharisees and the rabbis who succeeded them, the authors of 2 Maccabees were strongly committed to this belief and never missed an opportunity to insert it into their narrative. Some scholars speculate that the belief originated among the Egyptians who were famously obsessed with the afterlife, and it subsequently spread to major Jewish centres like Alexandria where 2 Maccabees was likely composed.

There is another closely related question that is raised by this episode: Is it really possible for later generations to benefit the souls of the departed? As regards sin-offerings, the established rule in rabbinic law is that a sacrifice whose original owner died is disqualified from further use.

The ancient Jewish sages spoke frequently of “the merits of the ancestors,” reassuring us (especially during the penitential season) that even if we are found wanting when we stand in judgement before the creator, we may draw from the stockpiles of merit accrued by our righteous forefathers. However it is hard to find examples in the Midrash and Talmud where the process operates in the reverse direction. 

One passage that was discussed in this context was an early Midrash explaining the procedure for expiating communal guilt when a murderer was not identified. The priest prays, “Forgive, O Lord your people Israel, whom you have redeemed.” The Midrash interprets that the desired forgiveness is meant to apply to the generation of the exodus, to the living and to the dead; and concludes: “This implies that the dead are in need of atonement.” This text was known to some medieval Jewish authorities but was generally not considered authoritative. 

Rav Sherira Ga’on, the tenth-century head of the Babylonian talmudic academy, wrote pointedly that a person’s fate in the afterlife “is only according to his deeds. Even if all the saints in the world were to pray for mercy on his behalf, and all acts of charity were performed for his sake, they would not benefit him one bit.”

The recitation of prayers for the souls of the dead does not appear in Jewish liturgies until well into the medieval era. The familiar Ashkenazic memorial prayers such as “Yizkor” or “E-l Male Rahamim,” are first attested in communal Memorial-Books like that of Nuremberg dating from the late thirteenth century. These prayers were for martyrs, prominent scholars or others who had made notable contributions to the community. 

Similar questions were raised in the ancient Christian church. In the early fifth century, Augustine was asked whether there was any scriptural foundation to the widespread practices of praying and performing other religious obligations on behalf of the deceased. He acknowledged, “In the books of the Maccabees we read of sacrifices offered for the dead.” However, what was crucial for him was not the flimsy textual evidence so much as the established practice of the church for whom the “recommendation of the dead” held an honoured place among the customary prayers. 

Although Augustine himself did not go so far as to include 2 Maccabees in the official Christian canon, he recognized that it was a convenient proof text for important Catholic beliefs like resurrection, duties to the dead, and even for the doctrine of Purgatory, the stage between death and final judgment. These questions would be revived during the Protestant Reformation. 

Thus, the Jewish Second Book of Maccabees continues to live among Christians as part of their “Apocrypha,” well after its abandonment by Jewish tradition.

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