The Second Book of Maccabees is fundamentally a book that narrates the conflict between the Hellenism prevailing in the Middle East, personified in the kings Antiochus IV Epiphanes and Antiochus V Eupator against the defenders of Judaism; although it also tells about the establishment of an independent Jewish kingdom through from approximately the year 160 BC.
While the great historians recognize the Hellenistic era as an era of advances and discovery with the fusion of the Greek language and culture with the peoples of Asia, the second book of Maccabees describes the situation with a certain pessimism, and there are strong indications in the history to consider that Judaism in its current form is actually a reaction to the Hellenism prevailing in the ancient world.
And among the most notable events in this rivalry between Hellenic paganism and Judaism is the martyrdom of Saint Eleazar.
This is how the Bible describes one of the most important decisions of Antiochus IV's against the inhabitants of Judea: "Not long after this the king sent an Athenian senator to force the Jews to abandon the laws of their ancestors and live no longer by the laws of God, also to profane the temple in Jerusalem and dedicate it to Olympian Zeus, and the one on Mount Gerizim to Zeus the Host to Strangers, as the local inhabitants were wont to be. This was a harsh and utterly intolerable evil" 2 Maccabees 6:1-3.
And so at one of the ritual banquets Eleazar, one of the most important teachers of the law, was forced to eat pork; and those who led this banquet because of Eleazar's refusal to commit such a sin condemned him to death, this saint had more fear of God than fear of men.
This is how the Second Book of Maccabees relates what Eleazar's words were before he died:
"It is clear to the Lord in his holy knowledge that, though I might have been saved from death, I am enduring terrible sufferings in my body under this beating, but in my soul I am glad to suffer these things because I fear him" 2 Maccabees 6:30.
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