2 Maccabees 14 – Around
161 BC, Judas learns that the son of Antiochus Epiphanes who should have
succeeded his father – Demetrius – has been released by the Romans and had
arrived at the port of Tripolis with a strong army and a fleet of ships. He had
killed his brother Antiochus V and Lysias.
A “former high priest” one Alcimus, approached the new king
and present him “with a olden crown and a palm, together with the traditional
olive branches from the Temple” (14:4), presumably to get on his good
side. When Demetrius calls him to learn
of the “dispositions and intentions of the Jews, he replied, ‘Those Jews called
Hasidaeans, who are led by Judas Maccabaeus, are warmongers and rebels who are
preventing the kingdom from finding stability’” (14:6).
Together with others around Demetrius who hate Judas, a plan
is hatched to send Nicanor as “military commissioner for Judaea” to “dispose of
Judas, disperse his followers and install Alcimus as high priest of the
greatest of temples. The pagans in Judaea, who had fled before Judas, flocked
to join Nicanor” (14:13-14).
When the Jews hear these men are coming, “the sprinkled dust
over themselves sand made supplication to his who had established his people
for ever and had never failed to support his own heritage by his direct
intervention” (14:15). Things turn out well for Judas. Nicanor send
representatives to offer the Jews a pledge of friendship and a treaty is
concluded that undermines Alcimus’ plan. “Nicanor took up residence in
Jerusalem and did nothing out of place there . . . He kept Judas constantly
with him, becoming deeply attached to him and he encouraged him to marry and
have children” (14:23-24). A Jerusalem Bible note says that the outcome here is at variance with
1 Maccabees 7:27 that focuses on there being a “clash” between Judas and
Nicanor.
Alcmius tries to get the king to turn on Judas and Nicanor
and appears to succeed. Demetrius writes to Nicanor expressing displeasure at
the treaty and telling him to break it. Nicanor does not want to turn on Judas
but he must obey his king. He eventually demands that Judas be handed over to
him and threatens to destroy the sanctuary if they do not do this. The priests
respond by turning again to God for help. One of the elders of the Jews, a man
named Razis, is threatened with arrest, but he falls on his own sword rather
than permit himself to be seized. His death is not quick, and they describe it
in some detail.
2 Maccabees 15 – When
Nicanor hears that Judas and his men are near Samaria, he plans to attack them
on the Sabbath. The Jews who were forced to be with him challenge him not to
behave in a savage way on this special day. He challenges their arguments, but
does not succeed in carrying out the “savage plan” he had started with (15:5).
Nicanor plans to “erect a public trophy with the spoils
taken from Judas and his men,” (15:6), “a cairn stacked round with the arms of
enemies fallen in battle” (717). Judas urges his men not to be afraid. “He put
fresh heart into them, citing the Law and the Prophets, and by stirring up
memories of the battles they had already won” (15:9). He relates again the
treachery they had endured from the Seleucids, and arms his men “not so much
with the safety given by shield and lance as that confidence that springs from
noble language” (15:11). He tells them of a dream he’s had, a vision of “Onias
stretching out his hands and praying for the whole nation of the Jews” (15:12).
Onias introduces the Prophet Jeremiah, a man highly regarded by the Jews of
this period. “Jeremiah . . . stretched out his right hand and presented Judas
with a golden sword, saying as he gave it, ‘Take this holy sword as a gift from
God; with it you shall strike down enemies’” (15:15-16).
Judas thus inspires his men. They face an enemy well
deployed with elephants and cavalry. Judas raises his hands and calls on the
Lord “who works miracles, in the knowledge that it is not by force of arms, but
as he sees fit to decide, that victory is granted by him to such as deserve it”
(15:21). Judas and his people win the battle and they come across Nicanor, dead
among the defeated. Judas orders his head to be cut off along with his arm and
his shoulder and taken to Jerusalem. When he presents these body parts to the
Jews in front of the altar, he also sends for the Seleucid soldiers stationed
at the Citadel. In front of them, he takes out the tongue of Nicanor, cuts it
up and feeds it in pieces to the birds. The head is hung from the Citadel.
Since then the city has remained in the possession of the
Jews.
“Friends’
Testimonies”
Part 12
The testimonies I have touched on in this chapter were not
the only ones. In the nineteenth century, Friends made it a very clear
testimony to avoid the use of alcohol and, later, drugs. They also frowned on
gambling or toying with “chance” or “luck” in any way. They adopted a testimony
against the use of capital punishment. But
the bottom line for early Friends was the idea of hearing and obeying—being
singularly attentive to the light and word of Christ in you and doing what he
commanded with undivided heart, even if it meant embracing the cross. The
cross, as I have said, was central to Friends.
“Where
the world is standing the Cross is not lived in. But dwelling in the Cross
to the world, here the Love of God is shed abroad in the heart and the Way is
opened in the inheritance, which fades not away. . .” (Fox, Letters, 45).
The Prophetic
Dimension of Friends’ Spirituality
The fact that Friends saw themselves as responding to God’s
living voice within made them see
themselves in some measure as prophets of his word to the world. Hearing
and obeying the word of God was the occupation of a prophet. You may not be
called to go out and do some great and memorable deed, but you were called to
do what God led you to do even if it involved risks. Mary Fisher, a simple
English housemaid, believed God was calling her to witness the gospel to the
Sultan of Turkey, who ruled over an empire that posed a military threat to
Europe in the seventeenth century. She traveled many months to obey this call
and even managed to get an audience with him. I have mentioned the Friends who
died obeying a call they belied they had from God to witness against the
Puritans’ prohibition against the free circulation of Quaker tracts in New
England. This prophetic dimension of Friends’ early witness is sometimes
overlooked in presentations of Friends’ testimonies and spirituality. But I
mention it because it played a role in my journey from the beginning, whether I
felt called to speak in vocal ministry or in other more worldly contexts or at
the end when I felt called to leave and return to the Catholic Church. The
sense of being in the same place in relation to God as the prophets has always
been something I felt as a Friend.
Modern Friends are much less reticent talking about the
testimonies Friends hold that they are about what Friends believe[d]
theologically. Many people, like me, were drawn to Friends precisely for these
testimonies, especially the peace testimony, so I experienced the difference in
what it was to see those testimonies prior to becoming Christian and after my
convincement. The antiwar movement of the sixties attracted many people to the pacifist
views of Quakerism. The track record of the Society—being so early an opponent
of slavery, recognizing the humanity of the American Indian tribes they settled
near, providing leadership to the women’s suffrage movement, and other
progressive stances they have taken over the years—these things were very appealing to many of us who grew up believing in
the struggle for civil rights for blacks and then for women, fighting
against the war in Vietnam, and struggling to bring about a society we thought
would be more just. The environmental movement of the seventies and eighties
also found values and commitment in Friends’ testimonies that supported their
concerns with the idea of stewardship over the creation. So many of the movements of the post World War II era found resonance
in the traditions and values of Friends.
The problem was [and
is in my opinion] that without a strong foundation and articulation of the
theological roots of all these testimonies, the modern Society tended to adopt
the secular reasoning and language of the wider movements. Quaker “guides” or disciplines tended to hold onto older quotations and
references back to early Friends beliefs, but the common parlance and logic
of Friends on these issues was hardly distinguishable from that of the
anti-establishment groups that existed outside Friends. What is missing from the
modern way of understanding and articulating Friends’ testimonies is any kind
of radical call to holiness especially in relation to personal, sexual behavior
And there is no room for the call to lowliness or self-abnegation; there is
little comfort with the sense of sin early Quakers found so important in coming
to the sense of God’s new covenant presence. But it is in the discernment
process (or lack of one) that one really sees what modernism has wrought among
Friends.
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