Modin (Seventy ΜΟΔΕΙ͂Ν and ΜΩΔΕΙ͂Ν)

MODIN (Seventy ΜΟΔΕΙ͂Ν and ΜΩΔΕΙ͂Ν). - A city of Judea, birthplace of the Maccabees (1 Macc. 2:1, 15, 23), where Mattathias and his two sons Judas and Jonathan were buried (1 Macc. 2:70; 9:19; 13:25, 30). The Talmud places it 15 miles from Jerusalem, and the Onomasticon near Diospolis (Lydda), where the tombs were to be seen.

The Madaba Map (6th century) places it between Kapar Eruta (Kefr Rut, west of Bethoron) and Diospolis, with this inscription: "Modeim, which is today Moditha, whence came the Maccabees." Moditha, according to the common opinion of scholars, corresponds to Medjeh or el-Midjah, the name of an Arab village until 1948, located 12 km east of Lydda. Nearby, to the south, at the place called el-Arba'in ("of the 40," with "martyrs" understood), remains have been found from the Iron Age, Hellenistic, Roman and Arab periods. The tombs, called those of the Maccabees, are hewn in the rock near the small sanctuary of Sejþ el-Garbāwī.

The localization, today agreed upon among scholars, was uncertain from the 12th century onward and is now sometimes indicated at Soba, sometimes at Qastal or at Ramleh, but generally on the Ramleh-Jerusalem road. Since the past century, and not without the influence of the Franciscan P. E. Forner, the localization has settled on Medjeh.

Bellarmino Bagatti