DEDICATION OF THE TEMPLE (Heb. Hānuk-Kāh). - A Jewish feast, which takes place on the 25th of the month of casleu, corresponding to December, and lasts 8 days, to commemorate the purification of the Temple of Jerusalem that occurred in 165-164 B.C. through the work of Judas Maccabeus.
By order of Antiochus IV Epiphanes the cult was interrupted in 168 B.C. After the victory of the Jews near Bethzur, Judas and his warriors first mourned for the profanation that had occurred. The altar that had been rendered impure was removed, a new altar was built, the whole Temple was purified, and then new sacred furnishings were put in place. On that occasion a feast lasting 8 days was begun; he ordained that it be celebrated every year (I Mach. 4, 36-59; II Mach. 10, 1-9). The Palestinian doctors enjoined by means of special letters that this feast be celebrated in the Jewish communities of the diaspora. In one of these letters addressed to the Egyptian Jews (II Mach. 1, 1-2. 18), Judas is placed, for his historical importance, alongside Moses, Solomon and Nehemiah.
In ancient times the return of the sacred fire upon the altar for the holocausts was considered the pivot of the solemnity. The feast was later linked to that of the pouring of water upon the altar, which was celebrated with the lighting of torches (Sukkáth, V, 3). Because the feast of the inauguration of the Temple under Solomon (I Reg. 8, 2) and Zerubbabel (Eid. 3, 4) took place during the feast of sukkáth, a connection was also created between the feast of the dedication and that of tabernacles or booths. Flavius Josephus defines the feast as φῶτα, while the author of II Maccabees defines it as the feast of the (sacred) fire (τοῦ πυρός). Josephus thinks that the lights symbolized the unexpected help of God (Antiq. Iud., XII, 325). The academy of Jamnia decreed that on the first evening only one light be lit and that each evening one more be added until reaching the number of eight. In the Talmudic period the story of the miracle is already known, according to which the supply of sacred oil for the lighting of the Sanctuary, sufficient for only one day, miraculously lasted for eight days, that is, the time necessary to prepare more sacred oil.
In Hellenistic usage, this feast was called ἐγκαίνια, Vulg. encaenia. In the week of the d., in the last year of his ministry, Jesus affirmed his divinity in the "portico of Solomon," at the Temple (Io. 10, 22-39; "it was winter").