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The Christian theologian Ambrose of Milan quotes the story from 2 Maccabees of the mother who watched her seven sons executed in a single day yet spoke courage to them in Hebrew, showing how Jewish traditions were incorporated into Christian teaching.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
2 Maccabees 7:20
Deuterocanon
18 After him they brought the sixth. When he was about to die, he said, “Don’t be vainly deceived, for we suffer these things for our own doings, as sinning against our own God. Astounding things have come to pass; 19 but don’t think that you will be unpunished, having tried to fight against God!” 20 But above all, the mother was marvelous and worthy of honorable memory; for when she watched seven sons perishing within the space of one day, she bore the sight with a good courage because of her hope in the Lord. 21 She exhorted each one of them in the language of their fathers, filled with a noble spirit and stirring up her woman’s thoughts with manly courage, saying to them, 22 “I don’t know how you came into my womb. It wasn’t I who gave you your spirit and your life. It wasn’t I who brought into order the first elements of each one of you. 23 Therefore the Creator of the world, who shaped the first origin of man and devised the first origin of all things, in mercy gives back to you again both your spirit and your life, as you now treat yourselves with contempt for his laws’ sake.”
Date: 160–63 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Ambrose, On the Duty of the Clergy 1.203
Early Christian
203 What shall I say of the mother who with joy looked on the corpses of her children as so many trophies, and found delight in the voices of her dying sons, as though in the songs of singers, noting in her children the tones of the glorious harp of her own heart, and a sweeter harmony of love than any strain of the lute could give?
Date: 390–395 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... The Christian reception of 2 Maccabees is appropriated to changing needs and contexts, which already started in the New Testament with the list of witnesses in Hebrews 11 and Paul’s notion of martyrdom. Besides, its impact on early Christianity cannot be underestimated as the Seven Maccabean Brothers were believed to suffer in their martyrdom for the sins of those who made concessions during times of persecution. Considering that 2 Maccabees stressed strict observance of the Jewish dietary laws, this book is unique in its Christian reception. Aside from glorifying the deeds of Judas Maccabeus, 2 Maccabees adds an interlude about the martyrdom of the seven Maccabean brothers, whose relics were supposedly buried in the Jewish district of Antioch with the tombs located in a synagogue or in a cave commonly visited by Jews and Christians. The veneration of these tombs in Antioch led to a unique local reception of 2 Maccabees and makes Antioch its most probable place of origin ..."
Jens Kreinath, “Second 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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