Machmas (Hebrew Mikmās and Mikmās; Greek Μαϊζᾶζ; Arabic Muḥmās) (MACHMAS (EBR. MIKMĀS E MIKMĀS; GR. MAYZĀZ; ARABO MUḤMĀS))

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

MACHMAS (Heb. Mikmās and Mikmās; Gk. Mayzāz; Arab. Muḥmās). — A village 13 km. north of Jerusalem, famous for the valiant exploits of Ionathan (v.) son of Saul, against the Philistines who had come to fight Israel (I Sam. 13:5–7, 15 ff.; 14:1–23). After the exile it was repopulated with Benjaminites (Ez. 2:27; Neh. 7:31).

M. appears in Isaiah’s prophetic description of the Assyrian army marching on Jerusalem (Is. 10:28–29). Ionathan Maccabee, having defeated Bacchides, the Greek-Syrian general, around 158 B.C., established his residence there and administered justice (I Mach. 9:73). A Greek mosaic inscription, dated to about the sixth century, speaks of a Valentinus who, together with his wife and children, contributed to the construction and adornment of the local church. Not far from M., to the east, on the slopes of the Wādi es-Suwejnit, a name recalling the biblical Sene, where Ionathan fought, are the remains of a monastery commonly identified with that of Firminus, bearing a Syriac inscription in the baptistery.

BIBL.: L. Heidet, s. V. in DB, IV, cols. 507–11; M. Marcoff-J. Chitty, Notes on monastic research in the judaeian wilderness, 1928-29, in Palestine explorations fund. quart. stat., 61 (1929), pp. 167–71 (for the monastery); A. Mallon, Une église byzantine à Mikhmas, in Biblica, 13 (1931), pp. 117–19; R. V. Hamilton, Byzantine church at Mukhmas, in Quarterly of depart. of antiquities in Palestine, 1 (1932), pp. 103–104 (for the church); A. Fernández, El paso de Michmas, in Problemas de topografía

Article illustration — (courtesy of the Gripe Sisters of Montréal)

MACKENZIE, APOSTOLIC VICARIATE of — Cave of Our Lady of Lourdes (70° Istitudine) at Paularuk, journey of His Excellency G. Breynat, apostolic vicar, and of Sister Anna Lusignan, provincial superior of the Gripe Sisters of Montréal (1939).

palestinense, Barcellona 1936, pp. 126–33; F.-M. Abel, Géographie de la Palestine, II, Parigi 1938, p. 386. Bellarmino Bagatti