ABSTRACT
The author aims to argue one basic point, namely that the nexus of politics and religion in the context of persecution and martyrdom was as true for ancient martyrs as it is for contemporary martyrs. An analysis of the martyrdoms in 2 and 4 Maccabees leads to the obvious conclusion that the social-political and religious aspects of the martyrs’ motivations for their self-sacrifice overlap and interconnect, also according to modern categories. 2 Macc is shown to highlight three motives: the martyrs functioning as models for other Jews, dying out of reverence for their deity and refusing to transgress the laws. The author demonstrates that the martyrs’ motivations in 4 Macc are manifold and complex, combining personal, philosophical, and political motives. In the final analysis, he shows that the uniqueness of the Jewish ethnos depends neither on institutions like the Temple nor on a territory, but on the Jewish way of life as exemplified by famous ancestors as well as the Maccabean martyrs.
