Eleazar (2 Maccabees)

Eleazar was a Jewish man whose story is portrayed in 2 Maccabees 6:18-31. Verse 18 describes him as "one of the leading teachers of the law", and "of distinguished bearing".[1] We learn from verse 24 that he was ninety at the time of his death. Under a persecution instigated by Antiochus IV Epiphanes, Eleazar was forced to open his mouth and eat pork, but he spat it out and submitted to flogging.[2] He was then privately permitted to eat meat that he could pretend was pork, but he refused and was flogged to death. The narrator relates that in his death he left "a heroic example and a glorious memory," (verse 31).[1]

The Martyrdom of Eleazar the Scribe by Gustave Doré, 1866.

Along with the woman with seven sons depicted in the following chapter, Eleazar, although not actually a Maccabee, is celebrated as one of the "Holy Maccabean Martyrs" by the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. In the Eastern Orthodox calendar their feast day is August 1.