Context No. 3087 of 4322 · 1 Maccabees
Context · Reflection
1 Maccabees 1:10-15: in context
10There came out of them a sinful root, Antiochus Epiphanes, son of Antiochus the king, who had been a hostage at Rome, and he reigned in the one hundred thirty seventh year of the kingdom of the Greeks. 11In those days transgressors of the law came out of Israel and persuaded many, saying, “Let’s go make a covenant with the Gentiles around us; for since we were separated from them many evils have befallen us.” 12That proposal was good in their eyes. 13Some of the people eagerly went to the king, and he authorized them to observe the ordinances of the Gentiles. 14So they built a gymnasium in Jerusalem according to the laws of the Gentiles. 15They made themselves uncircumcised, forsook the holy covenant, joined themselves to the Gentiles, and sold themselves to do evil.
The persecutor Antiochus Epiphanes rises, called here a sinful root. And in those days lawless men come out of Israel itself and persuade many: let us make a covenant with the nations around us, they say, for ever since we separated from them, many evils have come upon us. The idea pleases them. They build a gymnasium in Jerusalem, remove the marks of the covenant, forsake it, and sell themselves to do evil.
This is the story of apostasy from within. Some in Israel, weary of being different, propose abandoning their distinctness altogether: let us stop being separate and blend in with the nations. Their reasoning sounds pragmatic, even sensible, our separateness has cost us; assimilation will end our troubles. But it meant forsaking the holy covenant, erasing the marks of belonging to God, and, the text says starkly, selling themselves to do evil. The pressure to fit in, to stop being conspicuously God's, is ancient and persuasive, and it can dress itself as wisdom while leading to the abandonment of everything.
Am I ever tempted, for the sake of fitting in and ending my discomfort, to quietly abandon the marks of belonging to God?
Sources
- 1 Maccabees 1:15: "They forsook the holy covenant, joined themselves to the Gentiles, and sold themselves to do evil."
- Romans 12:2: "Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."
- John 15:19: "Because you are not of the world... therefore the world hates you."