MATTATIA (Heb. Mattiñāh [ä], “gift of Jahweh”; Septuagint Mattañāh; Vulg. Mathathias). -
A priest of the lineage of Ioiarib who initiated the rebellion against the project of Antiochus IV Epiphanes to Hellenize the Jews. Invited by the King’s envoys to perform idolatrous MODI (v.), his homeland, M. killed an apostate judge together with the royal envoy and demolished the altar. Forced to go into hiding, he began guerrilla warfare, asidei (v.). But his activity was very limited; it was continued and expanded by his five sons (v. MACCABE). The brief biographical information on M. is collected in I Mach. 2:1–70.
This name was also borne by a Levite, son of Sellum, a descendant of Core (I Par. 9:31; 15:18; 16:5), a son of Idithun (I Par. 25:3, 21), and a priest with a foreign wife in the time of Ezra (Esd. 10:43), distinct from his namesake in Neh. 8:4. Angelo Penna