Mattathias

Mattathias ben Johanan (Hebrew: מַתִּתְיָהוּ בֶּן יוֹחָנָן הַכֹּהֵן‎, Matityahu ben Yoḥanan HaKohen) (died 165 BCE) was a Kohen (Jewish priest) whose role in the religion-driven Maccabean Revolt against the pagan Greek Seleucid Empire is related in the Books of the Maccabees. Mattathias is accorded a central role in the story of Hanukkah and, as a result, is named in the Al HaNissim prayer Jews add to the Birkat Hamazon (grace after meals) and the Amidah during the festival's eight days.

The father of Judas Maccabeus, Eleazar Avaran, Simon Thassi, John Gaddi, and Jonathan Apphus, Mattathias was from a rural priestly family from Modi'in. Like all fit priests, he served in the Temple in Jerusalem. He was a son of Yohannan, grandson of Simeon, the Hasmonean, and great-grandson of Asmon or Hasmonaeus, a Levite of the lineage of Joarib for being the fifth grandson of Idaiah, son of Joarib and grandson of Jachin, in turn a descendant of Phinehas, third High Priest of Israel, according to Mattathias' own words in 1 Maccabees.

After the Seleucid persecutions began, Mattathias returned to Modi'in. In 167 BCE, when asked by a Seleucid Greek government representative under emperor Antiochus IV Epiphanes to offer sacrifice to the Greek gods, he not only refused to do so, but slew with his own hand the Jew who had stepped forward to do so. He then killed the government official that required the act.

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