In Literature and Liturgy
The story of the Maccabees can be found in the deuterocanonical books of 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees, in Josephus, and in Talmudic references (Shabbat 21b, Shabbat 23a - related to the candles).
The "Al Hanisim" prayer, added into the Amidah and Grace after meals on Chanukah, refers to the story of the Maccabees and to Mattathias by name.
Two persons named "Mattathias," one apparently from around the same time as this Mattathias, appears in the Gospel of Luke's account of the genealogy of Jesus. However, the son of Luke's Mattathias was named Joseph, and the historical Mattathias never had any known son by that name.
Read more about this topic: Mattathias
Famous quotes containing the words literature and/or liturgy:
“To me, literature is a calling, even a kind of salvation. It connects me with an enterprise that is over 2,000 years old. What do we have from the past? Art and thought. That’s what lasts. That’s what continues to feed people and given them an idea of something better. A better state of one’s feelings or simply the idea of a silence in one’s self that allows one to think or to feel. Which to me is the same.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“My liturgy would employ
Images of sousing,
A furious devout drench....”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)