Daily Old Testament: 2 Maccabees 14-15 and My Own Article on "Friends' Testimonies" (Part 12)

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.

Daily Old Testament: 2 Maccabees 13 and My Own Article on "Friends' Testimonies" (Part 11)

2 Maccabees 13 – It is 162 BC. Antiochus Eupator [nine years old ???] advances  against Judea with Lysias, [brother?, tutor, vizier] and 110,000 Greek infantrymen, 5300 cavalry, 22 elephants and 300 scythed chariots.

Menelaus – Benjaminite brother of the High Priest Simon who suggested that the Temple be plundered back in chapter 4 - collaborates with the enemy, but Antiochus finally has him executed – thrown down from a high tower into a pile of ashes that surrounded it (13:5-6). “And indeed, this satisfied justice, for just as he had committed many offenses toward the altar of God, the fire and ashes of which are holy, so was he condemned to die in ashes” (13:8).

The writer says that the king – still just a boy – revealed himself “as more wicked to the Jews than his father” (13:9) had been. Judas realizes he will once again have to fight for his people. “And so, giving everything to God, the Creator of the world, and having exhorted his own to contend with fortitude and to stand up, even unto death, for the laws, the temple, the city, their country and the citizens: he positioned his army around Modin [or Modein]” (13:14).

Judas assaults the Seleucids before they arrive at Jerusalem and is successful. The details of what happens during the assault are very confusing. The Seleucid king realizes he had been outsmarted and agrees to make a treaty with the Jews.

“Friends’ Testimonies”

Part 11

Peace

The final testimony of early Friends that has had lasting value to Friends is the peace testimony. The peace testimony was not clearly enunciated by Friends until 1660. There is even some evidence that Fox may have believed in the 1650s that Oliver Cromwell’s army would have a role to play in the end-time scenario he believed his reproclamation of the “true gospel” might inaugurate in England. For an interesting discussion of Fox’s approach to this issue, see H. Larry Ingle’s excellent history of Fox entitled First Among Friends (New York: Oxford University Press). He discusses the history on pages 161-194.

Much of Fox’s most successful evangelization in the 1650s was among the soldiery of this army. This may have even been true, though he made it quite clear that he personally felt from the start that he had been called into “the virtue of that life and power that took away the occasion of all wars. . . .” (Fox, Journal, 65).

By 1660, however, Fox had become clearer on the matter. He and eleven other Quaker leaders issued a statement at that time that soon became official policy for all Friends. This was not a decision made by all Friends; it was made by the recognized “leaders”:

“We know that wars and fighting’s proceed from the lusts of men (as James 4:1-3), out of which lusts the Lord hath redeemed us, and so out of the occasion of war. .  . All bloody principles and practices, we, as to our own particular, so utterly deny, with all outward wars and strife and fightings with outward weapons, for any end or under any pretense whatsoever. And this is our testimony to the whole world.

. . .the spirit of Christ, by which we are guided, is not changeable, so as once to command us from a thing as evil and again to move unto it; and we do certainly know, and so testify to the world, that the spirit of Christ, which leads us into all Truth, will never move us to fight and war against any man with outward weapons, neither for the kingdom of Christ, nor for the kingdoms of this world” (Fox, Journal, 399-400).

Daily Old Testament: 2 Maccabees 12 and My Own Article on "Friends' Testimonies" (Part 10)

2 Maccabees 12 – While there is this new pact of peace made with the Jews, some governors – Timothy, Apollonius, Hieronymus, Demophon and Nicanor, still will not let them live in peace.

It isn’t long before there is another assault on the people - an unexpected drowning of people in Joppa. Judas takes revenge and then goes on to head off a similar assault on the Jews of Jamnia. Clearly, as he sees it the whole campaign embodies a recommitment of the Jews to their God. They believe in the resurrection of the body. Offerings for the dead are made so that they might be released from their sins. This is almost like the idea of a purgatory.

Judas and his men pursue all of the governors who refuse to join in the terms of peace. He is successful in all his battles and takes a terrible toll on his enemies towns. At Casphin, a city “inhabited by a crowd from many different nations” (12:13), he “made a slaughter without number, so much so that an adjoining pool, two stadia in width, was seen to flow with the blood of the slain” (12:16). These words are always hard to take in the scripture narrative; there must have been some innocent among the slaughtered.

Judas’ enemies are stricken with fear. He wreaks havoc on a number of populated cities. At Scythia, they learn that the inhabitants of the city have been kind to the Jews, so they do not assault them. At the end, the Jews return to Jerusalem for the “solemn days of the seven weeks were underway” (12:31). After Pentecost, the march against Gorgias, the leader of Idumea [or Jamnia]. After the battle, they find “some of the treasures of the idols that were near” (13:40) hidden amongst the remains. They see this as the reason for their success. It is confusing here. Clearly Gorgias is a Seleucid governor who was attacked for mistreating Jews under his authority, but the treasure found must have been associated with the Jews of the town – otherwise it is hard to understand why he would react as he does.

“So then, turning themselves to prayers, they petitioned him that the offense which had been done [by their compatriots??] would be delivered into oblivion. And truly, the very strong Judas exhorts the people to keep themselves without sin, since they had seen with their own eyes what and happened because of the sins of those who were struck down” (13:42). He send 12,000 drachmas of silver to Jerusalem to make a “sacrifice for the sins of the dead thinking well and religiously about the resurrection, for if he had not hoped that those who had fallen would be resurrected, it would have seemed superfluous and vain to pray for the dead” (13:43-44).

It is interesting to see the beginnings of a belief in the resurrection of the dead here so late in the narrative. I am not sure what I think when it comes to this. I tend to be somewhat analytical about things; I see the increasing faith in the “afterlife” and in the “resurrection of the dead” as ways of solving the problem of justice in this existential reality we must deal with. It is so clearly not something we can see solely within the parameters of the short lives we have.

“Friends’ Testimonies”

Part 10

Slavery

The question of racial equality did not really confront Friends until they began to travel to those parts of the world where slavery was practices. While Fox made it clear that Friends who were slave owners should exercise kindness and teach their slaves the gospel, he clung to the biblical letter here and did not see slavery as a fundamental offense against the gospel of Christ.

John Woolman, in eighteenth-century America, would be the one to lead Friends to the insight that any participation in the institution of slavery was inconsistent with Christian practice.

Modern Friends found early Friends’ testimonies about sex and race very meaningful, but not for the same reasons. Modern Friends’ testimony is based much more on the values and principles of the Enlightenment than on any principle early Friends articulated. The problem with that did not become entirely clear to me until some years later when I thought through some of the dilemmas modern feminism was causing us in the Society.

Daily Old Testament: 2 Maccabees 11 and My Own Article on "Friends' Testimonies" (Part 9)

2 Maccabees 11 – Lysias, the brother of Antiochus [a new fact about him here introduced] and head of the government, wants Jerusalem to be a city amenable to those who love Greek culture. He also wants the good old days back when they taxed the Temple, sold the high priesthood of the Jews for lots of money and basically ignored the will of God for the city.

“Lysias was so pleased with his tens of thousands of infantry, his thousands of cavalry, and his eighty elephants that he failed to take into account the power of God” (11:4). He invades Judea and attacks a fort about 19 miles south of Jerusalem.

Judas Maccabaeus urges men to join him in going to defend their fellow Jews, but not far from Jerusalem, “they noticed that they were being led by a horseman dressed in white and carrying gold weapons” (11:8). They see him as an angel or celestial man God has sent to help rout their enemy. They “charge into the enemy like lions, killing 11,000 infantry and 1,600 cavalry, and forcing the rest to run for their lives” (11:11).

This is in 164 BC. After this, Lysias sends an offer of reconciliation and Judas agrees to the proposals he makes. A letter from the king promises the Jews independence in cultural and religious matters. The Romans also send a letter agreeing with the terms of the agreement made between the Seleucid king and the Jews.

“Friends’ Testimonies”

Part 9

Equality of Persons

Early Friends’ testimony on the equality and worth of all men and women is another fruit of Friends’ faith from the beginning. But again the basis of this testimony has shifted over the years. Early Friends saw the equality of the sexes as something that flowed from the “restoration” Christ had brought to pass on earth. God had never intended men and women to be unequal (Gen. 1:26-27 and Gen. 2:18). The subordination of women to men had arisen in the fall (Gen. 3:16); but with the fall overcome in Christ, the subordination of women was meant to cease.

. . . man and woman were meet-helps [companions and helpers to one another] (before they fell) and the image of God and righteousness and holiness; and so they are to be again in the restoration by Christ Jesus” (Fox, Journal, 667).

The restoration came with Christ, with the institution of the New Covenant and the outpouring of his Spirit that had come at Pentecost. Again, Fox pointed to Peter’s first address to the people of Jerusalem, a speech I have already quoted in my discussion of early Friends’ theology. Christ’s coming was the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy that God’s Spirit would be poured out on all flesh. “Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy . . ..Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy” (Acts 2:17-18).

As women converts came into the life and power of Christ as Friends, they too began to preach and prophesy. Fox defended them in an England that saw this as an affront to proper church order. As to the admonitions against women preaching in Paul’s letter to Timothy (1 Tim. 2:12), Fox developed complex arguments to reconcile his views. He never doubted that women had a right and a duty to respond to Christ’s call in them to preach, teach, or prophesy. Women played a vital role in the building of the early Quaker movement. Many preached and some even traveled to the far ends of the earth to proclaim the gospel Friends were preaching. One woman, May Dyer, died as a martyr for responding to that call—hanged by the Puritans of Massachusetts in 1660 along with three Quaker men called to the same ministry.

It was this same sense of what life “in the restoration by Christ Jesus” was to be that shaped the Friends’ wedding ceremony. Just as God had joined Adam and Eve together without the mediation of any other human being, so Friends too believed it should be among them. Friends who desired to marry were not joined by any minister or officiating elder or clerk of the Meeting. They simply met in a Meeting for Worship and stood in the group to exchange their promises to love and care for the other, “with divine assistance.”

Daily Old Testament: 2 Maccabees 10 and My Own Article on "Friends' Testimonies" (Part 8)

2 Maccabees 10 - The Maccabaeans restore the Temple, pull down foreign altars and then encourage a penitent spirit among the people, begging God’s forgiveness and praying that never again will the people be subject to such cruel and godless oppression.

They celebrate for eight days and institute this celebration for future times as well – the Festival of Shelters [Sukkot].

Then the story goes on to the history of Antiochus’ Epiphanes’ son Antiochus Eupator – age 8. He [or someone] appoints a man named Lysias to be chief governor of Greater Syria, “replacing Ptolemy Macron, who had been the first governor to treat the Jews fairly” (10:12).

The king’s friends go to Eupator and accuse Macron of being a traitor because he abandoned the island of Cyprus, which King Philometor of Egypt had placed under his command, and gone over to Antiochus Epiphanes. . . . No longer able to maintain the respect that his office demanded, he [Ptolemy Macron] committed suicide by taking poison” (10:13).

Another military assault against the Jews is recounted, this time by Gorgias, governor of Idumea and the Idumaeans. Judas Maccabaeus and his men capture the town and kill about 20,000. About 9,000 take refuge in two forts and Judas has to move on to other places. He leaves his brothers Simon and Joseph behind to continue the siege. Some of Simon’s men are lured into accepting a bribe of some silver in return for letting some of the men escape from the fortresses. Judas is furious when he learns this and has the men executed (10:22). He then is successful in taking the forts.

A general named Timothy [or Timotheus] brings a large force from Asia against Judea. As “the enemy forces were approaching, Judas and his men prayed to God. They put on sackcloth, threw earth on their heads, and lay face downwards on the steps of the altar, begging God to help them by fighting against their enemies, as he had promised in his Law” (10:25-26).

The fight begins. “When the fighting was at its worst, the enemy saw five handsome men riding on horses with gold bridles and leading the Jewish forces. These five men surrounded Judas, protecting him with their own armor and showering the enemy with arrows and thunderbolts” (10:29-30). The enemy becomes so confused, they are easily defeated. Timothy escapes to a fortress at Gezer but Judas and his men take the fort on the fifth day, killing Timothy and his brothers. The Jews celebrate the victory “by singing hymns and songs of thanksgiving to the Lord, who had shown them great kindness and had given them victory” (10:38).

“Friends’ Testimonies”

Part 8

The other virtue closely connected with simplicity for early Friends was the call to integrity. When they stood before a magistrate, they refused to make a ceremony of honesty by employing oaths. They simply kept to “yes” and “no” as Jesus had urged (Matt. 5:37). Fox and other leaders continually stressed the importance of integrity as part of the witness they made:

Do rightly, justly, truly, holily, equally to all people in all things . . .

Wrong no man, over-reach no man, if it be never so much to your advantage, but be plain, righteous and holy. . . . Let justice be acted and holiness in all things, without any guile, fraud or deceit. . . .

Loathe deceit . . . hard-heartedness, wronging, cozening, cheating or unjust dealing. But live and reign in the righteous Life and Power of God . . . doing the Truth to all, without respect to persons, high or low whatsoever, young or old, rich or poor . . .

. . . live in the Power of Truth and Wisdom of God, to answer the just Principle of God in all people upon the earth. And so answering . . . it, thereby you come to be as a city set upon a hill. . . .So, let your lives preach, let your Light shine, that your works may be seen, your Father may be glorified, your fruits may be unto holiness and that your end may be everlasting Life. . . .” (Fox, Letters, 154-155).

        

Friends’ reputation for honesty and fair dealing became legendary and remains a source of justifiable pride among Friends. Honesty had always been something important to me, but now I fully recognized and acknowledged God’s part in that in my life.

Daily Old Testament: 2 Maccabees 9 and My Own Article on "Friends' Testimonies" (Part 7)

2 Maccabees 9 – Antiochus is outraged when he hears of the defeat of Nicanor and Timotheus. He races out to take revenge, but God strikes him with a terrible pain in his bowels and “excruciating internal torture” (9:5) that cause him to smell very bad. The author uses this as a lesson in how God takes his revenge on those who persecute even in this life, and no matter how exalted a man may be in power, his power is not greater than the power of God’s justice.

He actually seems to come to a realization of this on his own. When “he could not even bear his own stench, he spoke in this way: ‘It is just to be subject to God, and a mortal should not consider himself equal to God.’” (9:12). He seems to want to reverse all the terrible things he had planned – destruction of the city, massacre of the Jews and the plundering of the Temple. He even promises to “become a Jew himself, [so he could] travel through every place on earth and declare the power of God” (9:17).

He writes to the people, begging them to respect him and the son he has named to succeed him when he dies – a reality he sees as coming soon. So “The murderer and blasphemer, having been struck very badly, just as he himself had treated others, passed from this life in a miserable death” (9:28).

Philip the Phrygian flees into Egypt to Ptolemy Philometor because he is afraid of Antiochus’ son. Antiochus' son is supposed to have been nine years old at this time, so it is unlikely he was really afraid of him. His tutor and guardian is the man he is afraid of - Lysias.

“Friends’ Testimonies”

Part 7

The reduction of spiritual issues to political or social ones was deeply bothersome to me, as I have said several times. It sapped the faith of any real need for Christ and failed to recognize that the deepest barriers in us that kept us from God were not societal but spiritual. I already lived my life wary of the kind of materialism that capitalism promoted. Simplicity for me involved more things like avoiding political or philosophical fads, trying not to be overly cerebral about what I believed, speaking what was on my mind and heart simply and directly and trying not to be manipulative or devious in my dealings with others. These were the parts of the simplicity testimony that came to mean most to me, maybe because talking and arguing about ideologies was something I had done a lot.

If you believe that God dwells in you and works in and through you, then it is your responsibility to treat your words and acts with respect by making sure that what you say and do comes as much as is possible from a spirit of love, that it is sincere, and that it comes from a deeper place in you than off the top of your head. How what you say or do is received or whether it changes anything is not for you to worry about.

Examples of the kind of speech I am talking about are very common, such as words of apology or repentance for things you have said or done in anger or impatience. If, like me, you lose your temper with people in frustrating circumstances—you are forced to stand in line endlessly or have to deal with people who cannot understand some important, complex issue you need to work out with them—if the Lord puts a word of repentance in you to offer to that offended party, you have an obligation to act on it. It doesn’t matter that it was a week or two weeks ago. It doesn’t matter that you might go through the rest of your life without every having to cross paths with that person again, you have an obligation to go back and try to apologize.

Or perhaps you have a family member or friend with whom you have long-standing and intractable “issues”. In these situations too, you have a duty to speak thoughtfully, lovingly, and with integrity what the Lord gives you to say. I know I did. There were family members who had hurt me many times over the years, relationships that were tortured and difficult because my need for them had always been so great. People who come from broken, dysfunctional families like mine will easily be able to understand what I am talking about even without the boring details. There was a need and a call in me to “speak truth” in love to members of my family and also, for the first time, an ability to accept the broken reality I had always previously hoped would be healed by my silence or endurance. I could not cure things in my own will. Perhaps it would not be God’s will either that everything be cured the way I had in mind. But my job was not the end result. My job was only to be faithful to the little truths I believed God had given me to speak.

Daily Old Testament: 2 Maccabees 8 and My Own Article on "Friends' Testimonies" (Part 6)

2 Maccabees 8 – Judas Maccabaeus gathers together a group of 6000 men who are ready to fight. They “called upon the Lord: to look upon his people, who were down trodden by all; and to take pity on the temple, which was defiled by the impious; and even to take pity on the city by utter destruction, for it was willing to be immediately leveled to the ground; and to hear the voice of the blood that was crying out to him, so that he would remember also the most iniquitous deaths of the innocent little ones, and the blasphemies brought upon his name; and to show his indignation over these things” (8:2-4).

They fight guerilla style and are successful, the author says not so much because of their strength but because “the wrath of the Lord had turned into mercy” (8:5).

Philip the Phrygian writes to Ptolemy, the governor of Coelesyria and Phoenicia, to send help and he does. He sends Nicanor and 20,000 men, “to wipe out the entire race of the Jews” (8:9). Nicanor raises 2000 talents in money to be given by the king to the Romans as “tribute” by promising Jewish captives to willing supporters.

Some of the Jewish people with Judas Maccabaeas become so afraid of what is coming, they run away. Others pray that the Lord might rescue them “for the sake of the covenant which was made with their fathers” (8:15). Judas says to them, “these [fighters] trust in their weapons, as well as in their boldness; but we trust in the Almighty Lord, who is able to wipe out both those coming against us, and even the whole world, with one nod” (8:18). His words give them courage and confidence.

They meet the Maccabaean divisions led by the four brothers – Judas, Simon, Jonathan and Joseph – and are beaten by them. The brothers take the money given for their purchase.  The booty is divided in half – half for the fighters and half for the victims of the anti-Jewish persecutions. Nicanor, bereft of position and troops, escapes to Antioch “like a runaway slave.”

“Friends’ Testimonies”

Part 6

There was an eagerness to deny self not only by denying oneself things but by denying self-inflating impulses and expressions of every kind. Early Friends wore somber looks and refrained even from superficial conversation lest it proceed from a worldly, frivolous spirit rather than from God. They spoke slowly and with much deliberation. They avoided what we usually think of as simple distractions—games, sports, plays, and shows of all kinds because they believed that these things “trained up people to vanity and looseness and led them from the fear of God . . .” (Fox, Journal, 37).

Their suspicion of worldly customs and manners was profound, especially those that led away from the recognition of Christ’s centrality, such as religious holidays or festivals that Friends thought had corrupted the church—even day and month names that retained a trace of pagan influence. Friends stopped celebrating religious holidays they considered tarnished with pagan worship such as Easter and Christmas, much as evangelical Christians today are troubled by our modern celebration of Halloween.

But mostly they challenged secular customs that fed people’s pride or sense of self-importance—customs of class or social order that marked one person’s superiority or mastery over another. The contemporary custom of using the pronoun “you” to address social superiors and “thee” to address equals and social inferiors came under attack. Friends addressed everyone in the familiar form as a testimony against this distinction of persons. Similarly the custom of doffing one’s hat to social superiors (“hat honor”) or using common titles such as “Your Honor”, “Your Excellency”, “Your Highness”, or “Sir”—even Mr. and Mrs.—all these things were abandoned by early Friends.

Modern Friends continue certain practices that flow out of these testimonies but not all. They do not celebrate Christmas or Easter in a “liturgical” way any more than they celebrate Sunday (First Day) liturgically. But they do not challenge observance of the day of Christmas the way they once did, keeping their shops open. Friends are more like everyone else with respect to these holidays, trimming trees and going on Easter egg hunts with children. They do retain the use of nonpagan-based names for days of the week and months of the year—calling them by their number rather than any name; but their observance of this venerable Quaker custom is formal only. The offense taken to pagan cultural remnants is no longer there. Even among Christian Friends, the offense to such small remnants seems not to have endured over the years.

The main thing with respect to the simplicity testimony that has changed over the years is the loss of any deep or radical concern about either “the self” or “the world” as early Friends understood them. Indeed, the modern infatuation with “self” (self-esteem, self-actualization, self-determination, etc.) seemed fully to have captured Friends by the 1980s as it had captured most Americans. There is little sense among modern Friends that the self needs to turn from death to life or from “fall” to “restoration”. The only really negative talk you hear of “the world” is the world of capitalist enterprise—the materialism promoted by Madison Avenue, the manipulations of industrialists or manufacturers, or “Big Money”. In this, modern Friends are virtually indistinguishable from politically left-wing critics of American business.

The world is never the things that we are part of, that we are tempted by. As Fox once wrote, the problem is always “they”, “they”, “they”, never “I”, “I”, “I”.

Daily Old Testament: 2 Maccabees 7 and My Own Article on "Friends' Testimonies" (Part 5)

2 Maccabees 7 – Seven brothers are also models of the kind of Jewish revival the Maccabees seek. They refuse to comply when the king orders them to eat pig’s flesh. To punish them, he orders one of the seven – the spokesman – to be tortured and killed. He is cut up and fried. Both mother and other brothers look on but only encourage one another in accepting martyrdom. “Inhuman fiend, you may discharge us from this present life, but the King of the world will raise us up, since it is for his laws that we die, to live again for ever.” (7: 9)

This is the first time in scripture that belief in bodily resurrection is expressed. The note says the “doctrine of immortality [is] developed in the atmosphere of Greek thought and without reference to the resurrection of the body . . .For Hebrew thought however, which makes no distinction between soul and body, the notion of survival implied a physical resurrection . . .” Ironic that a book so dedicated to rejecting Greek influence would import such a Greek-influenced notion!!

It is the mother who is most highly praised. She says, “I do not know how you appeared in my womb; it was not I who endowed you with breath and life, I had not the shaping of your every part. It is the creator of the world, ordaining the process of man’s birth and presiding over the origin of all things, who in his mercy will most surely give you back both breath and life, seeing that you now despise your own existence for the sake of his laws” (7: 22-23).

A hard thing to understand is that all of these martyrs ascribe their sufferings not to the evil of the king but to the punishment of God for sins they have presumably committed: “We are suffering for our own sins; and if, to punish and discipline us, our living Lord vents his wrath upon us, he will yet be reconciled with his own servants.”

Everyone dies in the end here – and all are honored by both Jews and Christians for their faithfulness to the traditions of our faith.

“Friends’ Testimonies”

Part 5

Simplicity, Integrity, and Plainness of Speech

The idea of looking solely to God for one’s direction, of turning one’s gaze from all the pressures and preoccupations of the “world” one was living in, led to a kind of radical simplicity about what was important in life. For me it is especially hard to tease apart the testimonies of high importance to me, so I will deal with them here together.

Simplicity for Friends involved a turning away from the two things human beings are most likely to worship in place of God—the self and the world. The “world” in this context is not the “world of John 3:16,

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who belies in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

but the “world” of 1 John 2:15-16.

“Do not love the world or the things in the world. The love of the Father is not in those who love the world; for all that is in the world—the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches—comes not from the Father but from the world.”

The good “world” was the creation and humanity made in God’s image and likeness, the world that God’s love “was toward” as early Friends put it. It was the world God’s love went out to in spite of all the problems man’s disobedience brought. The “fallen” or bad “world” was the unjust and tawdry world of things that fed human pride and sparked human lust: superfluous possessions, customs and traditions that set one person or class or race up over another, transient and unimportant things that people loved instead of loving God. As people came into a sense of God’s real presence in them, however, the vanities and attractions of the “world” lost their allure:

“. . . we received the gospel with a ready mind, and with broken hearts, and affected spirits; and gave up to follow the Lord fully, casting off the weights and burdens. . . . Oh, the strippings of all needless apparel, and the forsaking of superfluities in meats, drinks and in the plain self-denying path we walked. . . . Our words were few and savory, our apparel and houses plain, being stripped of superfluities; our countenances grave. . . . .Indeed we were a plain, broken-hearted, contrite spirited, self-denying people; our souls being in an unexpressible travail to do all things well pleasing in the sight of God, for our great concern night and day was to obtain through Jesus Christ the great work of salvation, and thereby an assurance of the everlasting rest and Sabbath of our God” (Charles Marshall, Early Quaker Writings, Barbour and Roberts, eds. 81).

Daily Old Testament: 2 Maccabees 6:18-31 and My Own Article on "Friends' Testimonies" (Part 4)

2 Maccabees 6:18-31 – A man named Eleazar, an elderly man who is “one of the foremost teachers of the Law” (6:18) goes to an event at which he is compelled to eat “pig’s flesh.” He chooses to go “to the block” rather than submit to this desecration of Jewish Law. There are people at the event who respect him and try to save him by getting him to “pretend” to eat it (6:21). Instead, he “publicly state[s] his convictions” (6:23), fearing that the young might be misled by his appearing to break the law. So he dies, “leaving his death as an example of nobility and a record of virtue not only for the young but for the great majority of the nation” *(6:31)

A Jerusalem Bible footnote comments that Eleazar was a hero to the early Christian church as well – a pre-Christian martyr.

“Friends’ Testimonies”

Part 4

Dedication to the disciple of self-denial and attention to the Spirit of Christ brought results for early Friends. It transformed individual lives and it transformed the Christian life of the whole community of Quaker believers. People testified that they felt in themselves palpably passing from death to life, from spiritual bondage to Christian freedom, a resurrection of the “first Adam”. Early Friends firmly believed that a life lived in the power of God’s spirit did not have to remain fallen and unredeemed.

“Christ, the second Adam is come, that the dead in the first Adam might have Life, might be quickened and might be awakened to Righteousness. . . . And so, he invites all Adam’s posterity to come to him, that all through him might believe, come to the Light . . . to Life, and . . . up into Peace and rest. . . .” (Fox, Letters, 95-96).

This is what I felt too—profound love and the sense of being at the beginning of a journey into the depths of something utterly endless and boundless and good.

Daily Old Testament: 2 Maccabees 6:1-17 and My Own Article on "Friends' Testimonies" (Part 3)

2 Maccabees 6:1-17 – The king sends an “old man from Athens to compel the Jews to abandon their ancestral customs and live no longer by the laws of God; and to profane the Temple in Jerusalem and dedicate it to Olympian Zeus” (6:1) -- to compel the Jews to accept Hellenization.

The Temples in Jerusalem and Samaria are filled with idols and the “altar of sacrifice was loaded with victims proscribed by the laws as unclean” (6:5).  There is a monthly celebration of the Seleucid king’s birthday and people are forced to “wear ivy wreaths and walk in the Dionysiac procession” (6:7) when there was a feast for the god Dionysus.

A decree goes out “ordering the execution of those who would not voluntarily conform to Greek customs. So it became clear that disaster was imminent” (6:9). Two women are “charged with having circumcised their children” (6:10). They are “paraded publicly round the town, with their babies hung at their breasts, and then hurled over the city wall” (6:10).

“Other people who had assembled in the caves to keep the [Sabbath] without attracting attention were denounced to Philip [the Phrygian – officer in charge of the town] and all burned together, since their consciences would not allow them to defend themselves, out of respect for the holiness of the day” (6:11).

Then the author says, “I urge anyone who may read this book not to be dismayed at these calamities, but to reflect that such visitations are not intended to destroy our race but to discipline it.” (6: 12).

“Friends’ Testimonies”

Part 3

The silence of the Meeting for Worship is something that has come down through the years in the “unprogrammed” tradition that is mostly followed in the Eastern United States, and it remains what it always was, a place where you can encounter Christ. But people bring to the Meeting the expectations and theologies they have. If you bring to it an expectation of meeting Christ, you will meet him there. If you come expecting something less, that is what you will encounter. Meetings today seldom expect to encounter what early Friends expected, so the ministry you hear is very different.

The feeling of being called to give vocal ministry is a very powerful experience. As I became regular in my attendance at Meeting for Worship and grew in my understanding of what I was going and expecting, I found myself called more and more to speak. The feeling was always the same—the burdened feeling, the feeling in my throat, the beating of my heart. These experiences understood in the light of Friends’ theology were very special to me—like brushing the hem of Christ’s garment inwardly.

By all accounts, the early Meetings of Friends were rich in spoken ministry—inspired prayer, teaching, and encouragement. But there were also times when Friends spoke and “outran” the Spirit. Being attentive meant learning when you were not being called. If you were not being moved by God to speak, you were supposed to remain silent, even if what you had to say seemed very interesting or wise to you. Friends were eloquent in describing and exhorting each other to self-restraint and attentiveness, as I have pointed out in the 1656 advice quoted above. The experience of being called to vocal ministry is not self-inflating. Fare from generating pride, the idea that you might be “God’s mouth” in some small way generates a deep humility:

“. . . stand still in quietness and meekness, that the still voice you may hear, which till you come down within, you cannot hear. . . . So be low and still, if you will hear his voice, and wait to hear that speak that separates between the precious and the vile, now that which you must wait in is near you, yes, in you” (Howgill, Early Quaker Writings, Barbour and Roberts, eds, 176).

Worship was and continues to be the starting point of all Quaker spirituality, but listening and waiting in Meeting was and is not the end—even vocal ministry is not. The end or point of learning to listen for his voice was life in Christ. The discipline of hearing and obeying practiced in worship needed to be carried out of the Meeting for Worship into one’s daily life, into one’s activities in the world. Early Quakers were not contemplatives. They were simple laymen and women—married mostly, often rudely educated and active in every kind of human work. They lived in a tumultuous society at a tumultuous time in history. They traveled, preached, went to jail, challenged entrenched social customs, and tested the limits of religious orthodoxy. A generation later, a certain withdrawal from the world would become part of the Quaker way of life, but even in that more quietistic time, Friends never would withdraw from the daily routines of family, business, and ordinary human life. Also, the silence and inner stillness were never meant to bring one into any kind of contemplative state. They were meant to keep you in the life and power of Christ wherever you were.

The writings of early Friends are filled with words and phrases that evoke the waiting atmosphere of Meeting: “be still and silent”, “stand single to the Lord”, keep “the mind stayed upon the Lord”, and others. But these phrases, which can be plucked from Quaker writings like ripe fruit, rarely refer to Meeting for Worship, but rather to the general hustle and bustle of everyday life. Life was not to be divided into an hour or two of attentiveness to God each week followed by hours and hours of preoccupation with human affairs.

Daily Old Testament: 2 Maccabees 5 and My Own Article on "Friends' Testimonies" (Part 2)

2 Maccabees 5 - The author tells us that during an expedition against Egypt by Antiochus, a series of apparitions hits Jerusalem. During this time, on a false report that Antiochus had died, Jason leads an unexpected attack on Jerusalem. He slaughters many and causes Menelaus to take refuge in the Citadel, but he does not succeed and finally flees and dies abroad.

The king thinks Judaea is in revolt, so he comes and “storms the city” massacring 40,000 and selling 40,000 into slavery. On top of this, he enters the sanctuary, guided by Menelaus and seizes sacred vessels. The author explains his ability to do this without God’s immediate intervention by saying that the people had been forsaken temporarily for their offenses.

Antiochus leaves some high commissioners “to plague the nation” – Philip in Jerusalem, Andronicus on Mt. Gerizim and Menelaus as well. Judas Maccabaeus at this point along with nine others, withdrew into the wilderness and lived like wild animals but avoiding all defilement.

The next bit of my own writing I am going to post as New Testament related is part of the book I published called Leadings: A Catholic’s Journey Through Quakerism. This will likely continue until the end of the year, when the Daily Bible Reading will officially be ended. Then I’ll have to think of something new and different.

“Friends’ Testimonies”

Part 2 – Staying in Touch

Early Friends starred from the premise that the outward forms of religion were powerless to bring believers into the real “enjoyments” of Christ’s resurrected life—his peace, his holiness, and his victory over the world. But if professing creeds, participating in the sacraments, and obeying church ordinances could not bring believers into the promise, then what could? Only devotion to the inward Christ could do that—learning to hear and obey his voice in all things.

Doing this required that Friends stay in constant and dynamic “touch” with his presence in them, so that the law he had come to write on our hearts might be discerned and obeyed. Like Michelangelo’s great painting of the creator-God holding out his hand to the man he had created in his likeness, human life in its fullness consists in keeping in touch with that hand, cultivating a sensitivity to that light and word, and becoming ever more rooted in that God’s redeeming power.

But this place in us where God dwells is a place easily buried under the distracting clutter of worldly concerns, both material and immaterial. To see Christ in our hearts and minds and to draw from his presence the power to be obedient to his word requires a very special kind of spiritual discipline, a discipline that involves stillness, humility, attentiveness, and lots of patience. It also requires community and a connection with Scripture.

Christ’s Spirit is always in us, but our openness and readiness to receive it is very variable. There are times when his touch is easy to perceive and powerful in its operation on our wills, as well as times when he seems distant and dreadfully silent. Our task is not necessarily to assume we’re in touch but to try to be open to that touch when it is there and patient in waiting for it when it isn’t:

“. . . the very sum of . . . true religion . . . [is] either to worship in the Spirit, or to wait for the Spirit. He who hath not received the Spirit, he is to wait for the Spirit. He who hath received the Spirit, he is to wait in the Spirit for the movings and outgoings thereof, and to be obedient thereto. And Christians are to take heed, not only of a wrong spirit, but also of quenching the movings of the true Spirit in themselves or others” (Penington, Works 1:367).

Worship “in spirit and in truth” for early Friends was dedicated to the development of this discipline. If there was ever an “outward sacrament” instituted by Friends, it was the expectant silence of the Meeting for Worship. Here the concrete silencing of self and the shutting out of the world is achieved so that the inward grace they knew was available to all who came to the inner spring of eternal life could be received. There was no liturgy, no singing, no Scripture reading, no corporate prayer, no communion—nothing to distract the mind from the Teacher within. Still, Meeting for Worship was not an empty space but one rich in spiritual context. Meeting for Worship was the place where Friends came to know Christ in all his “offices”, all those modes of his presence, all those “figures” of divinity that were gathered into his person:

“It is a glorious pasture, to be fed a-top of all the mountains in the Life . . . by the living Shepherd, to be overseen by the living Bishop and to be sanctified and . . . presented to God by the living Priest . .  by an everlasting Priest, that sanctifies and offers you to God without spot or wrinkle, a perfect offering. . . .

Now you have an everlasting Preacher, whom God has anointed to preach, an everlasting Minister, that ministers Grace, Life, Salvation and Truth to you, an everlasting Prophet that God has raised up, who is to be heard; all the living hear him . . . So, none can silence or stop the mouth of them, whom he opens, or take away your Shepherd, your Bishop, your Minister, your Preacher, your Prophet, your Counsellor, etc. . . . Therefore, let him have your ears. Hearken to him. Let him be set up in your hearts . . .” (Fox, Letters, 273-274).

Friends sat quietly together to await the inward ministry of this Christ. If one tried to do anything in Meeting, it was to lay aside the “world” and the self and everything that flowed from them—worries, plans, notions, schemes, desires, grudges—everything that kept you from being attentive to the heavenly will that was not your own. But worship was not just silence; it was a silence in which everything Christ was could be sought after and savored. It was an expectant silence for anyone might be “chose” as a vehicle for Christ’s ministry to the group. If you were “favored”, the Spirit might give you something to offer those assembled, something to inspire or strengthen them, or something that simply assured them God was present among them. This kind of ministry was called vocal ministry and was thought to be really from Christ, not from the person who was the vehicle. A 1656 advice from Quaker elders in England reads,

“Ministers to speak the word of the Lord from the mouth of the Lord, without adding or diminishing. If anything is spoken out of the light so that “the seed of God” comes to be burdened, it is to be dealt with in private and not in the public meetings, “except there be a special moving to do so” (Faith and Practice: The Book of Discipline of the New York Yearly Meeting).

Daily Old Testament: 2 Maccabees 4 and My Own Article on "Friends' Testimonies" (Part 1)

2 Maccabees 4 – After Seleucus’ death, Antiochus Epiphanes succeeds to the kingdom, and Onias’ brother Jason usurps the high-priesthood. He is a Hellenizer – loves the athletic aspects of Greek culture and builds a gymnasium right near the Temple. Like American music and culture today, Greek culture at this time was a BIG DRAW to people, especially young people of the time. Just imagine how difficult it would have been to keep the youth of this “identity marked” culture from being swept up into the Hellenistic aura.

Apollonius, an agent of Antiochus, is sent to Egypt to attend the enthronement of the new Ptolemy – King Philometor. He learns that there might be some plot against him emanating from there. So he goes to Jerusalem, where he is given a warm welcome by Jason, and then on to Phoenicia.

Jason sends Menelaus, Simon’s brother to the king, but Menelaus succeeds in usurping the high priesthood from Jason – it is a matter of who will pay off the king better, I think. When Menelaus defaults on the amount promised, he is sent for and leaves Lysimachus as his deputy. There is too much conspiring to keep close track of, but Menelaus finally has Onias killed.

The king, Antiochus, punishes the assassin with death. The populace rises up against Lysimachus. Menelaus is put on trial but through bribery and the help of Ptolemy, he is let off while those who had championed the good of the city are punished. I don’t understand all of this. Too much intrigue.

The next bit of my own writing I am going to post as New Testament related is part of the book I published called Leadings: A Catholic’s Journey Through Quakerism. This will likely continue until the end of the year, when the Daily Bible Reading will officially be ended. Then I’ll have to think of something new and different.

“Friends’ Testimonies”

Part 1

The radically inward New Covenant theology of early Friends brought forth among them a whole different way of pursuing the Christian life, a unique testimony that was and continues to be deeply meaningful to me. The central principle of Quaker spirituality was the mandate to “possess” what Christians had always “professed” and to possess it with sincerity of heart.

As Fox wrote to his followers, “I do charge you all in the presence of the living God to dwell in what you speak and profess. None to profess what he does not dwell in and none to profess what he is not; a sayer, and not a doer” (Fox, Letters 33).

Friends’ success in doing this over the years has inspired respect for them among people everywhere, even people who know little about them. Their reputation for integrity and spiritual earnestness continues to this day. Modern Friends, even when they do not know or care much about what the earliest Friends thought theologically, respect the “testimonies”  they brought forth, among them simplicity, integrity, plain-speaking, equality of persons and the peace testimony. It is these testimonies that draw new attenders and members to the Society of Friends. It is what drew me in the years before my convincement. But the testimonies that have come down are not quite what they once were. They are not rooted in the same vision. In a way they have come down as “forms”, as venerated customs or patterns of Quaker practice that seem beyond question. In this chapter I want to focus on the testimonies, the way early Friends “possessed” what they “professed”, how they have come down to the modern era and how and to what extent they were meaningful to me.