SETTE FRATELLI MACCABEI, saints. — From the title of the book (II Maccabei), which recounts their martyrdom, this is the name given to seven brothers who, together with their mother, faced death during the persecution of Antioco IV (175–164 B.C.) rather than eat forbidden meats.
The direct participation of the King, together with the ancient memory of their cult in Antioch, would suggest that they were martyred in the capital of the Kingdom; whereas, from the general historical context, it seems more logical to think of Jerusalem, the principal target of the persecution. The presence of the King suggests the period described in II Mach. 5, 11 ff. The chapter (II Mach. 7, 1–41) that recounts their cruel death, besides being an enthusiastic tribute to the steadfastness of the young men, is rich in theological teaching: on creation from nothing (7, 28), on the resurrection (7, 9–14), on the happiness or reward due to martyrdom (7, 36), and on the punishments awaiting the wicked (7, 17, 35).
The perpetuation of the memory of these young men and their mother in Judaism is documented in the apocryphal work IV Maccabei (1st century B.C.), which treats their violent death within a philosophical framework (IV Mach. 8, 1–18, 24), and in several references in later works. Their memory remained much more vivid in Christianity. Not only were they often held up as an example during the persecutions of Christians, but they were soon equated with Christian martyrs and, like them, honored with a genuine cult.
Liturgical feast. Their cult is already attested with complete clarity in the 4th century (cf. Ambrogio, Ep., 40, 16: PL 16, 1154; Giovanni Crisostomo, In sanctos Machabaeos, hom. 2: PG 50, 617–26; Teofilo di Alessandria, Ep., 100, 9 in the correspondence of S. Girolamo: CSEL, 55, 221; S. Agostino, Sermones, 300–301: PL 38, 1376–85; id., Serm., 17: PL 46, 874–81, ed. by G. Morin in Miscellanea agostiniana, I, Roma 1930, pp. 81–89). Their feast on 1 August is recorded in the Martirologio siriaco (which identifies the Jewish quarter of Antioch), in the Calendario of Carthage, in the Martirologio geronimiano, in the historical Martyrologies and in the Romano, in the ancient Sacramentario gelasiano (ed. A. H. Wilson, Oxford 1894, p. 188), in the Orazionale visigotico of the end of the 7th or beginning of the 8th century (ed. J. Vives, Barcellona 1946, pp. 368–69), and in the Sacramentari gelasiani del sec. VIII (cf. P. De Puniet, Le Sacramentaire Romain de Gellone [excerpt from Eph. Lit.], Roma [1938], pp. 124–25); from the latter the feast of the Maccabees subsequently passed into the Roman Messale and Breviario. The Sacramentari leoniano* and Gregorian
do not mention the aforementioned feast. Antioch was the center from which the cult of the Maccabees spread. Rome possessed relics of them, which were deposited in the basilica of S. Pietro in Vincoli; indeed, in 1876, during work undertaken to arrange the chains of S. Pietro, an early Christian sarcophagus was discovered beneath the high altar, internally divided into seven compartments by two sheets of lead bearing the inscription: «in his septem loculis recondita sunt ossa et cineres sanctorum septem Machabeorum» etc. (cf. G. B. De Rossi, cit. in bibliography).