The Forgotten Jewish Holiday

The Alexandrian Purim: the festival of 3 Maccabees (part 1)

Since before the event that formed what people truly think of as the Jewish diaspora (scattering, implying intentional and traumatic social violence as there is one which scatters and one who is scattered), there have been Jews living in Egypt. The scattering in question is typically the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE- an event with a massive weight in the minds of most Jews, and which formed a bedrock of mainstream Jewish identity. However, this temple was not the only temple which Jews prayed at, nor was the First Temple. In a time when the bedrock is growing unstable, it has become necessary to revisit the story we tell ourselves about our past.

3 Maccabees is a relatively unknown work of scripture. It's written in fluent (frankly, quite evocative) Greek,¹ of Jewish authorship,² probably from the Ptolemaic era,³⁴ and not really accepted as canon by anyone today. The most it gets is being considered deuterocanonical by some Orthodox Christians. It's also not particularly long- though it is possible we have lost some of the beginning of the text.⁵ Reading an English translation aloud took me around 36 minutes, and a trained cantor could do it in even less time. This makes sense as most accept that its main purpose is to endorse a festival celebrated by Egyptian Jews, and it was likely read at this festival annually. A name, sadly, does not survive for this festival. In my head, I call it S’uda Shoshana, as the celebration is described as a banquet with crowns of flowers, as well as choral music.

The work starts with an account of Ptolemy IV attempting to enter the Jerusalemite Temple’s Holy of Holies, a desecratory act as only the High Priest could enter. Simon the High Priest prays for G-d to appear and be merciful. G-d saves the Jerusalemite Temple by afflicting Ptolemy with temporary paralysis, but does not appear. Angry, Ptolemy does not repent and returns to Egypt to begin persecuting Egypt's Jews, with the offer of conversion to escape. He has a census carried out, ending after 40 days because there are too many Jews to account for.⁶ The Jews who are registered are forced into a hippodrome with drunken elephants in an attempt to kill them.⁷

This plot is divinely thwarted for two days, but on the third day the Jews are forced back in the hippodrome once more. Eleazar the Priest, from the countryside, prays for G-d to appear and grant mercy. G-d appears and sends two angels to the aid of the captive Jews. After failing to kill the captured Jews, Ptolemy then repents. He gives them the supplies to feast for 7 days, which they do. They ask for permission to kill the apostates, which he grants. They were provisioned for travel back home, killing apostates along the way, and kept as holidays their 7 days of feasting, the day they killed apostates (which may be the last day of the feasting), and the days when each of them finally returned home. The repetition here may be owed to the author having multiple sources he referenced and did not reconcile.⁸ The only exact date given of these three mentioned celebrations is the first round of feasting, which went from the 7th-14th of Epip (corresponding in the Gregorian calendar to July 14st-21st).⁹

The incident with the elephants is also mentioned in Josephus’ Contra Apionem. There are two main conflicts in these accounts: one, they take place in different years. 3 Maccabees and Josephus assign it to two different kings, and the gap between the two is 61 years. This discrepancy has a lot of theories- some think one source is more accurate than the other, some think they had the same source but it was vague in identifying the Pharaoh, and some think neither account is really reliable. The other difference is that where 3 Maccabees recounts only a divine deliverance, Josephus relays that there was also a standoff involving Oniad mercenaries. Piotrkowski, in analyzing the two texts, argues that 3 Maccabee's miracle, too, was more Oniad mercenaries.¹⁰

The context of the work is, frankly, more interesting than the work by itself- again, it's a rather short story. Obviously, it's a piece of Hellenistic Jewish literature, and interestingly, uses the Egyptian calendar when giving dates instead of the Jewish calendar. The author uses themes from other, more popular, pieces of scripture, such as the Book of Esther.¹¹ A bit more controversially, it's suggested by Meron Piotrkowski the author may have been an Oniad Jew.

I can hear it now- an Oniad? What's that?

Onias was a member of the High Priest lineage in Jerusalem who had to flee Palestine due to political unrest and came to Egypt. In his exile, he established a new temple, as the Jerusalemite Temple had been desecrated. This temple stood until it's destruction by Roman forces in 73 AD- three years after the destruction of the Jerusalemite Temple, which was eventually reestablished after Onias' time. Onias was a savvy man, and cultivated a relationship with the Pharaonic ruler, then being from the Ptolemaic dynasty. He was not only awarded permission for a temple, but also granted a region for him and his fellow Jewish refugees to live in- the Land of Onias. All of this went down in Lower Egypt, mostly in the Delta region.¹²

Normally, 3 Maccabees is assigned an Alexandrian authorship because there was a large Jewish population in the city, and it's assumed to be the main center of Late Antique Jewish life.¹³ As the previous paragraph may clue you into, that's not exactly a safe assumption. The discovery of the Elephantine papyri, for example, has previously thrown a wrench into a lot of assumptions we had about Judaism. While we do not have a cache of documents from the Oniad Temple, we know they existed. As such, better care should be taken when assigning authorship to Egyptian Jewish texts of the era.

Ptiorowski argues for a connection between the Oniad Temple and the author based on a few things. One, the account from Josephus ties Onias in. Within the account, the presence and superior power of Jewish priests in Egypt is emphasized, suggesting they were relevant (i.e. there was a temple in Egypt that the author saw as legitimate). Diaspora literature of the time, typically lacking a temple, does not often emphasize priesthood. The fact that the High Priest, specifically Simon, is shown as inferior to a random Egyptian priest, and some textual similarities between 2 and 3 Maccabees hints at a sociopolitical tension between the author’s community and the Jerusalemite Temple.¹⁴

Eleazar’s countryside background also indirectly references the Land of Onias, which at the time was largely the countryside. This same mention also emphasizes that there are other priests in the countryside. Further, there is a strong implication that the Jews in 3 Maccabees were of a military or mercenary background, including them being detained in the Hippodrome specifically so they could not talk to the Pharaoh's troops. Such an occupation is a characteristic of Onaid Jews in Late Antique Egypt far more than it is of Alexandrian Jews. The phrase used by the Pharaoh when granting permission for the religious building (“topos proseuche”) also seems to reference a Temple, not just a prayer hall. “Proseuche” is commonly used to mean synagogue, or occasionally the Jerusalemite Temple, but in this sense it is never combined with the word “topos”. Meanwhile, 2 Maccabees uses “topos” to refer to the Jerusalemite Temple several times, and topos is used in the letters between Onias and the Pharaoh to refer to the site of his temple in Josephus’ recounting. Using “topos” implies a grander building than a localized synagogue, and may indirectly refer to the Oniad Temple.¹⁵

Much like how 2 Maccabees tries to persuade Egyptian Jews to fall in with Jerusalem by celebrating Hanukkah in the context of the newly independent Hasmonean Dynasty while Egypt was dealing with a succession crisis, 3 Maccabees in an Oniad context may be attempting to persuade Alexandrian Jews to recognize the Oniad Temple. Alexandrian literature makes very little mention of the Oniad community, suggesting tension between at least some Alexandrian Jews and the Oniads. If one accepts the main factual kernel of 3 Maccabees being Onias and his troops taking military action that helped defend Alexandrian Jews, this is an incident ripe with opportunity to legitimize his temple.¹⁶

The limited explicit mention of the Oniad Temple could be a tactical choice to make it easier for Alexandrians to accept the festival. Josephus implies that the festival certainly caught on in Alexandria.¹⁷ It may also have been attempting to promote the festival nationally, and not focused on Alexandria. 3 Maccabees may have been written after the festival had been celebrated for some time, at which point it had taken root in Alexandria already. Refutation of Hasmonean authority would still have been crucial,¹⁸ but then I would argue the Oniads were attempting to assert their own authority in elevating an established festival they had historic ties to, and that the festival would not necessarily be closely associated with the Oniads by Alexandrian Jews.

3 Maccabees is a response to 2 Maccabees. This is evident in its indirect references to the text, but also in its preamble, set in Jerusalem. This serves to parallel Egypt and Palestine, yes, to draw attention to the idea of temples and priests, and to assert equality, if not superiority,¹⁹ in the matter of temples, prayer, and divine intervention (which comes at one point before a single prayer is uttered), the latter of which implies divine approval. But it also catches the attention of a potential readership in Palestine itself.²⁰

In this line of thought we can examine the fact that, while Simon is inferior in the realm of prayer, the Jerusalemite Temple is not devalued. The Oniads most likely retained fondness for it in the first place, but it also serves not to alienate a potential audience. There isn’t a desire to sever relations between the two groups. I will admit this view (specifically, that Palestinian Jews, much like Alexandrian Jews, were being persuaded to accept the Oniad Temple) has some problems: for example, the prophecy from Isaiah is perhaps the best theological persuasion one could employ here, and it is not even indirectly referenced. However, if the surviving Greek text we have is the abbreviated festival scroll, this could explain the absence. It, like the preamble that is the main indicator we may have a shortened text on our hands, could be cut as it would not be relevant to the festivities. After all, its address to Palestinian Jews is not to make them celebrate S'uda, and the portions directed at them could reasonably be cut for celebratory use by an Egyptian audience.

Purim and the book of Esther are in a similar position. Originally Purim was a Persian Jewish festival, which gained popularity in Palestine before Egypt. This coincided with the Hasmonean rise, and this likely increased its popularity due to it having similar themes to Hannukah. The Greek version of Esther is addressed to Egypt, and could have been appropriated as a softer promotion of Hasmonean authority. The fact then that Esther is not explicitly referenced, but is alluded to in the same way 2 Maccabees is, could indicate a rejection of both. Further, the author of 3 Maccabees could have found it more suitable that Egyptian Jews celebrated these themes in an Egyptian context, rather than a Persian one. This underlines the desire to emphasize Egyptian Jewish loyalty and piety, which was seen by other Jews as a bit dubious, as evidenced by Rabbinic memories of Onias. This is also evident in 2 Maccabees, which opens with a letter implying Egyptian Jews need to repent to G-d and contains the timelessly backhanded sentiment of “I'll pray for you.” Hasmonean authority often took a dim view of the diaspora, even as it asked for its loyalty and cast itself as it's protector. How little things change!

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1. P. S. Alexander, “3 Maccabees, Hanukkah and Purim”, found in Biblical Hebrew, Biblical Texts: Essays in Memory of Michael P. Weitzman

2. Priests in Exile by Meron Piotrkowski, particularly Chapter 9 (pages 236-260)

3. D. S. Williams, “3 Maccabees: A Defense of Diaspora Judaism?”, Journal for the Study of the. Pseudepigrapha 13, https://doi.org/10.1177/095182079500001302

4. N. Hacham, The Third Book of Maccabees: Literature, History, and Ideology https://www.academia.edu/2502305/The_Third_Book_of_Maccabees_Literature_History_and_Ideology

5. Alexander, “3 Maccabees.” I think this could come down to the version we have possibly being the festival version of the text, abbreviated to not destroy the cantors vocal chords. The Cario Purim (a regional second Purim commemorating the death of a cruel Pasha in 1524, see “Multiglossia in Judeo-Arabic with an Edition, Translation, and Grammatical Study of the Cairene Purim Scroll” by Benjamin Hary) has a long and short version of its scroll, likely for precisely this reason. Hacham explicitly disagrees with this hypothesis, but I do not find his argument particularly convincing. He basically says it's too well written to be anything other than “unitary and complete”, an issue easily resolved by supposing the festival version was specially composed rather than being haphazardly shortened. The hypothetical longer text could even have been written by the same person.

6. This census covers the whole country but is implied to mostly be successful in large cities like Alexandria; the Jews of the countryside are noted as not being as severely impacted. The city of Ptolemais is mentioned as a stopping site on the return trip. P. S. Alexander identifies this as Ptolemais Hormos, a port near Fayum. There were a few more places called Ptolemais in Egypt, including a Ptolemais where El Mansha/Bsoi, an Upper Egyptian city, is today, from what I can tell. The Ptolemais near Bsoi was a major city in the Ptolemaic era, and like Alexandria, had Greek city status. In either case, the text does focus on Alexandria, with the hippodrome being nearby, but a nation-wide character is emphasized by mentioning Ptolemais, and by the key role of Eleazar, seeing as how he is explicitly from the countryside. Alexander's identification also argues there was a synagogue in Fayum founded in connection to 3 Maccabees; contrary to Ptiorkowski's identification of the “place of prayer” with the Oniad Temple. I follow Ptiorkowski, as the text does not actually say where specifically the topos proseuche was built, and I think his arguments for an Oniad connection are sound, whereas Alexander comes off as though he is making an inference. Not an unreasonable one, to be sure, but it is not definite. Both scholars find that the countryside Jews are the primary heros here, with the Alexandrians being secondary.

7. See also P.S. Alexander and D.S. William’s cited works.

8. Alexander, “3 Maccabees”; Piotrkowski, “Priests.”

9. I calculated this independently, based on my knowledge of the Coptic calendar, and verified it twice. (4) and (5) both give different conversions, and I don't understand how they got them. (4) says it's July 2nd-9th. (5) states it's July 1st-7th. If they were converting dates based on the year the events may have occurred, that would push the 7th of Epip back into June. They would not get these dates based on the previous round of date conversion, as the offset between the Coptic/Egyptian and Gregorian calendars occurs by 1 day per 199 years; further, neither paper was written before 1900. This cannot even be explained by the fact that the dates given somehow completely skip the month of Paoni.

10. Piotrkowski, “Priests.”

11. Livia Capponi, “‘Martyrs and Apostates: 3 Maccabees and the Temple of Leontopolis’, in Hellenistic Judaism: Historical Aspects, Henoch 29.2 (2007), 288-306.” https://www.academia.edu/3582777/_Martyrs_and_Apostates_3_Maccabees_and_the_Temple_of_Leontopolis_in_Hellenistic_Judaism_Historical_Aspects_Henoch_29_2_2007_288_306

12. Piotrkowski, “Priests.”

13. P. S. Alexander also goes against this grain, arguing based on his interpretation of where the “topos proseuche” might be for an author from Fayum.

14. Piotrkowski, “Priests.”

15. ibid.

16. ibid.

17. Contra Apionem by Josephus, 2.53-55, https://penelope.uchicago.edu/josephus/apion-2.html

18. Alexander, “3 Maccabees.”

19. Williams, “3 Maccabees.”

20. N. Hacham, The Third Book of Maccabees: Literature, History, and Ideology https://www.academia.edu/2502305/The_Third_Book_of_Maccabees_Literature_History_and_Ideology