“... For his second example of the mastery of anger, the author refers briefly to the story found in Genesis 34, specifically the violent manner in which Levi and Simeon defend the honor of their family against Shechem’s sexual violation of their sister Dinah. In their minds, this affront to the family’s honor was not an occasion for civil negotiation, such as Jacob pursued with the family of Shechem, but for aggressive action on the part of Jacob’s family by means of which they would reassert their family’s honor. The author quotes not Jacob’s response to his sons’ action in Gen 34:30, but rather his deathbed pronouncement against their action in Gen 49:7. The recitation in 4 Macc 2:19 corresponds verbatim with the text of Gen 49:7 as it has come down to us in the major LXX manuscripts. The point of this example is that, since Jacob held them responsible for their actions committed in anger and even cursed their submission to this passion, it must have been possible for them to have restrained their anger (2:20). There is a noteworthy conflict within Jewish tradition concerning the memory of Levi and Simeon. Judith and Testament of Levi remember them as heroes specifically on account of their defense of the honor and purity of Israel’s family lines. [...] The author of 4 Maccabees, however, following Genesis 49, presents them as volatile renegades, acting against their father’s more prudent and judicious wishes for the situation. They have given way to the passion of anger, whereas the “all-wise Jacob” had found a rational and advantageous solution to the situation that presented itself in the wake of Shechem’s unbridled passion. Simeon and Levi had acted like Gentiles who did not know the law, rather than as Jewish philosophers (among whom Jacob, perhaps rather unexpectedly, takes his place both here and in Philo). The author’s sensitivity concerning these two patriarchs, however, leads him not to write that Jacob singled them out for censure, but rather censured their whole company (τoὺς περὶ Συμεωv καὶ Λευειv). ...”