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The Christian theologian Ambrose of Milan quotes from 1 Maccabees where Judas Maccabeus, left with a few hundred men, refuses to flee and says it is better to die bravely than live in shame. Ambrose uses this as an authoritative source for teaching.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
1 Maccabees 9:10
Deuterocanon
7 Judas saw that his army slipped away and that the battle pressed upon him, and he was very troubled in spirit, because he had no time to gather them together. 8 He became faint, and said to those who were left, “Let’s arise and go up against our adversaries, if perhaps we may be able to fight with them.” 9 They tried to dissuade him, saying, “There is no way we are able; but let’s rather save our lives now. Let’s return again with our kindred, and fight against them; but we are too few.” 10 Judas said, “Let it not be so that I should do this thing, to flee from them. If our time has come, let’s die in a manly way for our kindred’s sake, and not leave a cause of reproach against our honor.” 11 The army marched out from the camp, and stood to encounter them. The cavalry was divided into two companies, and the slingers and the archers went before the army, and all the mighty men that fought in the front of the battle. 12 Bacchides was in the right wing. The phalanx advanced on the two parts, and they blew with their trumpets. The men by Judas’ side sounded with their trumpets.
Date: 134–63 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Ambrose, On the Duty of the Clergy 1.200
Early Christian
200 But as fortitude is proved not only by prosperity but also in adversity, let us now consider the death of Judas Maccabeus. For he, after Nicanor, the general of King Demetrius, was defeated, boldly engaged 20,000 of the king's army with 900 men who were anxious to retire for fear of being overcome by so great a multitude, but whom he persuaded to endure a glorious death rather than to retire in disgraceful flight. Let us not leave, he says, any stain upon our glory. Thus, then, engaging in battle after having fought from sunrise till evening, he attacks and quickly drives back the right wing, where he sees the strongest troop of the enemy to be. But while pursuing the fugitives from the rear he gave a chance for a wound to be inflicted. Thus he found the spot of death more full of glory for himself than any triumph.
Date: 390–395 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Treatments of 1 Maccabees in patristic writings highlighted the religious and moral virtues of Judas Maccabeus. Tertullian (Adversus Judaeos 4.1–11) and Victorinus (Routh: 3.451–483) praised Judas Maccabeus for legitimately breaking the observance of the Sabbath in order to fight his enemies. Origen, who supposedly still had access to the Hebrew original, criticized the zeal of the Jews in his Commentary on Romans 8.1, yet he emphasized the zeal and jealousy of Mattathias as being righteous and according to knowledge (8.1.2). A shift in perception is evident in Cyprian’s Testimoniorum Libri Tres, his collection of biblical passages on the moral duties of the Christian life, in which he praises the virtue and courage of Judas Maccabeus. Similarly, Ambrose of Milan stressed the courage and bravery of Judas Maccabeus ... Augustine cites 1 Maccabees 2:69 as part of an argument that righteousness does not depend on circumcision. Jerome, who primarily translated the Vulgate, was also responsible for the inclusion of 1 Maccabees ..."
Jens Kreinath, “First Book of Maccabees,” in Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception, ed. Hans-Josef Klauck (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2019), 324–332.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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