1 AUGUST – THE SEVEN HOLY MACCABEES

At Antioch in Syria took place the martyrdom of the Seven Holy Maccabees, seven Jewish brothers who lived in Old Testament times. According to tradition their names were Habim, Antonin, Guriah, Eleazar, Eusebon, Hadim (Halim) and Marcellus. Their story is told in the two Books of Maccabees which the Catholic Church holds to be canonical scripture. They are also referred to in the Books of Meqabyan which are regarded as canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The empress Saint Helena brought their relics to Constantinople and they were subsequently translated to the Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome.

 

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The August heavens glitter with the brightest constellations of the sacred cycle. Even in the sixth century, the Second Council of Tours remarked that this month was filled with the feasts of Saints. “My delights are to be with the children of men,” says Wisdom, and in the month which echoes with her teachings, she seems to have made it her glory to be surrounded with blessed ones who, walking with her in the midst of the paths of judgement, have in finding her found life and salvation from the Lord. This noble court is presided over by the Queen of all grace, whose triumph consecrates this month and makes it the delight of that Wisdom of the Father who, once enthroned in Mary, never quitted her. What a wealth of divine favours do the coming days promise to our souls! Never were our Father’s barns so well filled as at this season when the earthly as well as the heavenly harvests are ripe.

While the Church on Earth inaugurates these days by adorning herself with Peter’s chains as with a precious jewel, a constellation of seven stars appears for the third time in the heavens. The seven brothers Maccabees preceded the sons of Symphorosa and Felicitas in the blood-stained arena. They followed divine Wisdom even before she had manifested her beauty in the flesh. The sacred cause of which they were the champions, their strength of soul under the tortures, their sublime answers to the executioners, were so evidently the type reproduced by the later Martyrs, that the Fathers of the first centuries with one accord claimed for the Christian Church these heroes of the synagogue who could have gained such courage from no other source than their faith in the Christ to come. For this reason they alone of all the holy persons of the ancient covenant have found a place on the Christian cycle. All the Martyrologies and Calendars of East and West attest the universality of their cultus, while its antiquity is such as to rival that of St. Peter’s chains in that same basilica of Eudoxia where their precious relics lie.

At the time when in the hope of a better resurrection they refused under cruel torments to redeem their lives, other heroes of the same blood, inspired by the same faith, flew to arms and delivered their country from a terrible crisis. Several children of Israel, forgetting the traditions of their nation, had wished it to follow the customs of strange peoples, and the Lord in punishment had allowed Judea to feel the whole weight of a profane rule to which it had guiltily submitted. But when king Antiochus, taking advantage of the treason of a few and the carelessness of the majority, endeavoured by his ordinances to blot out the divine law which alone gives power to man over man, Israel, suddenly awakened, met the tyrant with the double opposition of revolt and martyrdom. Judas Maccabeus in immortal battles reclaimed for God the land of his inheritance, while by the virtue of their generous confession, the seven, brothers also, his rivals in glory, recovered, as the Scripture says, “the law out of the hands of the nations, and out of the hands of the kings” (1 Maccabees ii. 48). Soon afterwards, craving mercy under the hand of God and not finding it, Antiochus died devoured by worms, just as later on were to die the first and last persecutors of the Christians, Herod Agrippa and Galerius Maximian.

The Holy Ghost, who would Himself hand down to posterity the acts of the Protomartyr of the New Law, did the same with regard to the passion of Stephen’s glorious predecessors in the ages of expectation. Indeed it was he who then, as under the law of Love, inspired with both words and courage these valiant brothers, and their still more admirable mother who, seeing her seven sons one after the other suffering the most horrible tortures, uttered nothing but burning exhortations to die. Surrounded by their mutilated bodies, she mocked the tyrant who in false pity wished her to persuade at least the youngest to save his life. She bent over the last child of her tender love and said to him: “My son, have pity on me, that bore you nine months in my womb, and gave you suck three years, and nourished you, and brought you up to this age. I beseech you, my son, look upon Heaven and Earth, and all that is in them: and consider that God made them out of nothing and mankind also: so you will not fear this tormentor, but being made a worthy partner with your brethren, receive death, that in that mercy I may receive you again with your brethren (2 Maccabees vii. 27, 28, 29). And the intrepid youth ran in his innocence to the tortures, and the incomparable mother followed her sons.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, the holy virgins Faith, Hope and Charity, who won the crown of martyrdom under the emperor Hadrian.

Also at Rome, on the Via Latina, the holy martyrs Bonus, a priest, Faustus and Maurus, with nine others, mentioned in the Acts of Pope St. Stephen.

At Philadelphia in Arabia, the holy martyrs Cyril, Aquila, Peter, Domitian, Rufus and Menander, crowned on the same day.

At Pergen, in Pamphylia, the holy martyrs Leontius, Attius, Alexander, and six husbandmen, who were beheaded in the persecution of Diocletian under the governor Flavian.

At Gerona in Spain, the birthday of the holy martyr Felix. After enduring various torments by order of Dacian, he was cut with knives until he gave his undaunted soul to Christ.

At Vercelli, St. Eusebius, bishop and martyr, who for the confession of the Catholic faith, was banished to Scythopolis and then to Cappadocia by the emperor Constantius. Afterwards returning to his church, he suffered martyrdom in the persecution of the Arians. His feast is kept on the sixteenth of December.

In the diocese of Paris, St. Justin, martyr.

At Vienne, St. Verus, bishop.

At Winchester in England, St. Ethelwold, bishop.

In the territory of Liswin, St. Nemesius, confessor.

And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.

Thanks be to God.