Sara Parks

sparks@stfx.ca

Biblical Hebrew is known for its creative avoidance of mentioning intimate body parts.[1] Did such euphemisms continue in Greek-speaking Judaism? Michael Peppard has argued for one in Papyrus 519 of the Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum, where he interprets “bearing a Jewish weight” as a euphemism for a certain type of penis.[2] I propose that there is another such case in an earlier Hellenistic Jewish text. Namely, the “Greek hat” in 2 Maccabees 4:12 is not (or at least not only) a literal chapeau or a vague metaphor for Hellenism, as has been suggested through the centuries. Instead, it is a sly euphemism for a foreskin.[3] In this piece, I argue that reading 2 Maccabees 4:12 as a reference to the practice of epispasm or “reverse circumcision”[4]works well in ideological context (2 Maccabees is passionately pro-Torah, and specifically pro-circumcision), in immediate literary context (the verse occurs within a tirade against the gymnasium), in historical context (foreskin reconstruction took place at the time), and in stylistic context (the author/editor[5] of 2 Maccabees has a jocular style, and the very phrase in question includes a cheeky pun).

Biblical translations and commentaries over the years have provided eclectic explanations for this petasos (the type of hat in question, well known to classicists);[6] interpreters of 2 Maccabees disagree on what exactly the “Greek hat” signifies for the author, to make him oppose it so vehemently. These struggles of biblical commentators to agree may indicate that something else is going on in the verse. Interpreters debate whether the hat means Hellenism in general,[7] gymnasium culture in particular,[8] or very specifically, ephebate training.[9] They speculate on whether what most angered the author was the petasos’s connection to nude exercises,[10] allegiance to foreign gods whether Hermes[11] or other deities,[12] or simply trends in fashion.[13] A number of these arguments are simultaneously plausible,[14] while others are far-fetched.[15] However, 2 Maccabees’ stance on the importance of circumcision, its loathing of High Priest Jason’s gymnasium project, its tendency towards puns and wordplay, and its surrounding context of hotly contested Jewish identities all help to support reading the verse as a hooded reference to the practice of epispasm.

The Text

The passage in 2 Maccabees that refers to a “Greek hat” is a tirade against ills introduced by the high priest, Jason, who is being depicted as illegitimate and corrupt/corrupting. It reads:

When Seleucus died and Antiochus, who was called Epiphanes, succeeded to the kingdom, Jason the brother of Onias obtained the high priesthood by corruption, promising the king through a petition three hundred sixty talents of silver and from another source of revenue eighty talents. In addition to this he promised to pay one hundred fifty more if permission were given to establish by his authority a gymnasium and a body of youth (ephēbeios) for it, and to enroll the people of Jerusalem as the Antiochenes in Jerusalem. When the king assented and Jason came to office, he at once shifted his compatriots over to the Greek way of life. He set aside the existing royal concessions to the Jews, secured through John the father of Eupolemus, who went on the mission to establish friendship and alliance with the Romans, and he destroyed the lawful ways of living and introduced new customs contrary to the law. He took delight in establishing a gymnasium right under the citadel, and he induced the noblest of the young men to wear the Greek hat (petasos). There was such an extreme of Hellenization and increase in the adoption of foreign ways because of the surpassing wickedness of Jason, who was ungodly and no true high priest, that the priests were no longer intent upon their service at the altar. Despising the sanctuary and neglecting the sacrifices, they hurried to take part in the unlawful proceedings in the wrestling arena after the signal for the discus throwing, disdaining the honors prized by their ancestors and putting the highest value upon Greek forms of prestige. For this reason heavy disaster overtook them, and those whose ways of living they admired and wished to imitate completely became their enemies and punished them. It is no light thing to show irreverence to the divine laws. (2 Maccabees 4:7–17).[16]

The audience is clearly not meant to come out impressed with Jason, nor with his new gymnasium and related culture. Appealing to Torah as authority, the author espouses the Deuteronomistic expectation that neglect of Torah leads to punishment (2 Maccabees 4:16; cf. Testament of Moses 8). In this context, epispasm could certainly be considered a regrettable “shift … over to the Greek way of life” (2 Maccabees 4:10). “Inducing” the choicest young men to “wear the Greek hat” may very well be one of the “new customs contrary to the law” mentioned in the previous verse. Calling out epispasm would be à propos when condemning a priest who inaugurated (what the author feels is) a move toward Hellenism … and away from Judaism.[17]

Ideological Context

2 Maccabees and 1 Maccabees both cover roughly the same events (the rise of the Hasmoneans after Seleucid genocide), but they are ideological sparring partners.[18] Both recount the successful grassroots revolt against Antiochus IV’s attempts to assimilate or annihilate Jews. However, where 1 Maccabees functions to legitimate the Hasmonean monarchy, 2 Maccabees is outraged by the appointment of the high priest Jason (2 Maccabees 4:10–16) and hostile to Hasmonaean rule. It instead works hard to show that the real heroes are the righteous women, children, and the elderly who died as martyrs to avoid forsaking Torah (2 Maccabees 4:17; 2 Maccabees 6–7).

Great importance is placed in 2 Maccabees on maintaining a Jewish lifestyle, even in the face of what it calls Hellenism, and for that matter even in the face of torture. The book mentions Torah observance over thirty times,[19] opens with a letter urging its recipients to keep the feast of Sukkot (2 Maccabees 1:9), is bookended by heroes who have given their lives to uphold circumcision and Torah, and connects a neglect of Torah with the downfall of the people: “It is no light thing to show irreverence to the divine laws” (2 Maccabees 4:17).

Circumcision is literally a hill on which to die for some of the text’s heroes, such as two women who “were brought in for having circumcised their children. They publicly paraded them around the city with their babies hanging at their breasts and then hurled them down headlong from the wall” (2 Maccabees 6:10).[20] The ritual of circumcision and the discourse around it is one of the major identity markers for Jews both ancient and modern who have a penis, as well as for Jewish parents of any gender. In the events described in the Maccabean literature, the practice of circumcision is outlawed in an attempt to either abolish or assimilate Jews; those painted as heroes in 2 Maccabees are willing to lose their lives over it. These defiant circumcisers are depicted as heroic martyrs in other ancient texts as well, such as The Scroll of Antiochus.[21]

Immediate Literary Context

The mention of the “Greek hat” in 2 Maccabees 4 is preceded by the harsh claim that Jason “destroyed the lawful ways of living and introduced new customs contrary to the law” (2 Maccabees 4:11). While not specifying which customs, the passage centres on the gymnasium. Lauding the maintenance of key signs of Torah observance (such as Sabbath, circumcision, kashrut, and festivals) in the face of difficulties and temptations is a major aim of the book. In 2 Maccabees 6:1, “the king sent an Athenian senator to compel the Jews to forsake the laws of their ancestors and no longer to live by the laws of God,” and 6:28 encourages Jews to “die a good death willingly and nobly for the revered and holy laws.” Sabbath is mentioned numerous times as a way of marking savoury and unsavoury characters throughout the work. The book works to normalise Sabbath observance, to commend those who observe faithfully even when it means their violent death, and to villainize those who seek to ignore or abuse Sabbath observance (e.g., 2 Maccabees 5:25, 6:6, 8:26-28, 12:38, and 15:3). The fact that circumcision is important in the book, and that the immediate literary context surrounding the “Greek hat” are the gymnasium and “unlawful” behaviours around it, begs us to think about epispasm.

Nina Livesey has demonstrated that although circumcision may not have had the same meaning across different Jewish geographies, time periods, and contexts, it was often wielded by ancient Jewish authors as a useful persuasive tool, and is almost always an important indicator of an author’s views.[22] It is clear that 2 Maccabees holds childhood circumcision rites as something worth dying for, even crediting the Hasmonaean victory to those executed for circumcising and other markers of Torah observance.[23] Indeed, that the author does not explicitly mention epispasm in a passage that rails against the new gymnasium urges us to look and see whether he hasn’t mentioned it in a more subtle way. In fact, several scholars surmise that epispasm must not have been going on during the Hasmonean period because it is not mentioned in 2 Maccabees 4, where one would most expect it. Erich Gruen writes:

It is often asserted that Hellenizing Jews had so far departed from tradition as to compete in the nude and even to undergo some form of reverse circumcision in order to conform to Greek practice. The silence of II Maccabees on this point is potent testimony against it.[24]

Jonathan Goldstein, too, finds epispasm’s absence in 2 Maccabees cause to doubt the historicity of 1 Maccabees’ claims that men would “make foreskins for themselves” (1 Maccabees 1:15).[25] Since epispasm is relatively well-attested for Jew and non-Jew alike across several centuries, including in the Hasmonaean period,[26] then perhaps Gruen is right on one count: 2 Maccabees 4 would certainly mention it. And, I argue, it has.

Historical Context: Reversing Circumcision

Epispasm, or the foreskinning of a penis that is unforeskinned or deemed inadequately foreskinned whether congenitally or surgically was—if the numerous references to it and instructions for it are an indicator—relatively common in the ancient Mediterranean from Hellenistic to Roman times.[27] In times and places where public nudity is a norm, such as the ancient gymnasium, the appearance of genitalia can be far from a private and personal matter. Euripides, Socrates, and Thucydides all consider male reticence to be seen naked as a marker of “barbarians.”[28] The pressure not to behave as a “barbarian” and the attraction of the gymnasium for social mobility[29] undoubtedly led some Jewish men to participate.[30] Louis Feldman somewhat dramatically declares that “a gymnastic education must have necessitated the betrayal of Judaism.”[31] His language here is essentialising, but numerous Jewish and non-Jewish references to epispasm in the late Second-Temple period suggest that it may indeed have been practiced, not only by Jews attempting to escape exclusion or scorn, but by others whose penises did not conform to Graeco-Roman ideals.[32]

A wealth of ancient evidence suggests that the wrong kind of penis could attract derision.[33] This is because exposure of the glans had powerful social and moral connotations;[34] there were specific standards of beauty around penises and specifically foreskins,[35] and the way a penis looked reflected not only one’s manliness but also one’s morals. The association of a tapered, covered penis with manly self-control led to the invention of cosmetic procedures to “correct” penises that did not measure up aesthetically. Antique references to epispasm are not only a reversal for circumcision, but a cure for the “defect” of being born with an exposed glans. Jody Rubin reports that:

The Greeks and Romans, who celebrated the nude human body in art and sport, viewed any abnormal appearance of the genitals with distaste, even amusement. Surgical procedures were developed in the Hellenistic period for those who had undergone circumcision or had been born with little or no prepuce and who subsequently wished to cover their bared glans in order to move inconspicuously in Greek and Roman society.[36]

There were at least four methods by which one might go from unforeskinned to foreskinned, which I will hide in a footnote out of consideration for the squeamish.[37] The procedures, some surgical, sound far from painless or risk-free, implying that anyone who underwent them must have been under considerable pressure to do so. The look of the male member was no minor matter. Karin Neutel and Matthew Anderson stress:

The male ideal of the body was something that people were reminded of every day. Nude statues of heroes, athletes, and members of the imperial family gave a clear indication of what the ideal male body, including its genitals, looked like. The ideal appearance of the penis, invariably described as “dainty” in the specialized literature, was the same in Roman as in Greek times: relatively small and covered with a foreskin tapering to a petite point. Even in rare depictions of erect penises, the glans was often still covered, signalling a man’s respectability and self-control. The foreskin was therefore of considerable importance.[38]

They go on to point out that if a male baby’s caretaker sees that his penis is not shaping up to the foreskinned ideal, she is to take steps to deliberately shape it, as described in this first- or second-century instruction from Soranus of Ephesus:

If the infant is male and it looks as though it has no foreskin, she should gently draw the tip of the foreskin forward or even hold it together with a strand of wool to fasten it. For if gradually stretched and continuously drawn forward it easily stretches and assumes its normal length, covers the glans and becomes accustomed to keep the natural good shape (Soranus of Ephesus, Gynaecology 2.34). [39]

Many early Jewish writings show awareness of epispasm, some of which use language as strong as Feldman’s “betrayal of Judaism” to condemn it. Testament of Moses, for example, prophesies ex eventu the Antiochan persecution around circumcision,[40] handily showcasing an extremely negative Jewish reaction to surgical reversal:

[God] will raise for them the king of the kings of the earth, and a power with great might, who will hang on the cross those who confess circumcision, but who will torture those who deny it. And he will lead them chained into captivity, and their wives will be divided among the gentiles, and their sons will be operated on as children by physicians in order to put on them a foreskin. But they will be punished by torments, and with fire and sword (Testament of Moses 8).[41]

Jubilees, too, puts an emphasis on circumcision throughout, and in Jubilees 15:33–34, those who “deny the ordinance” of circumcision cannot be forgiven in the world to come.[42] Awareness of epispasm continues in the New Testament, where Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:18 writes: “Was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised? Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision [literally: not seek epispasm].” Epispasm also seems to have been a contentious issue during the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132–135 CE).[43] Isaac Soon notes that rabbinic literature is “aware of Jews who had ‘extended’ themselves during the revolt and then were later re-circumcised back into the community.”[44] Soon cites the Tosefta: “‘The one who has extended [his foreskin] must be circumcised,’ Rabbi Judah said. […] And it says, ‘my covenant has he destroyed’ (Genesis 17:14)—to include the one who has extended his foreskin” (Tosefta Shabbat 16:6).

Of course, the most relevant Jewish reference to epispasm for a discussion of 2 Maccabees is its mention in 1 Maccabees. 1 Maccabees 1:11 vehemently condemns the reversal of circumcision as being encouraged by “renegades” and representing “a covenant with the nations.” More importantly 1 Maccabees overtly links the resulting construction of the gymnasium with the act of “making themselves foreskinned” (epoiēsan heautois akrobystias): “So they built a gymnasium in Jerusalem according to the customs of the nations, and made foreskins for themselves, and abandoned the holy covenant. They joined with the nations and sold themselves to do evil” (1 Maccabees 1:14-15). Right here in a text that 2 Maccabees was almost certainly aware of,[45] the construction of the Jerusalem gymnasium under Jason’s high priesthood is explicitly blamed for epispasm.

Taken together, the many ancient Jewish and non-Jewish Mediterranean texts that mention, laugh at, instruct about, or condemn epispasm show that it was a well-known topic for Jews and non-Jews alike, it was “in the air” at the time of the Hasmonaeans, and it provoked a wide range of responses and some controversy. Its overt mention within the parallel story of the construction of Jason’s gymnasium in 1 Maccabees makes it even more plausible that 2 Maccabees had a similar scenario in mind when retelling the same story of Jason the high priest. In the next section, I propose that it would not be out of character for the author to mention epispasm precisely where one would expect him to, and in a cheeky manner.

Stylistic Context: 2 Maccabees as Deliberately Entertaining

The likelihood that our author would make use of a punny euphemism for epispasm is heightened by the presence of snide remarks and jokes elsewhere in the work. There is some debate about whether the jocularity in tone came only from the editor who abbreviated 2 Maccabees or whether the historian Jason of Cyrene who wrote the longer now-lost history portion used wit and wordplay as well.[46] Either way, the work as it stands, despite its passion and pathos, is also prone to hilarity. For example, after explaining that the book is a work of condensation, the epitomist launches into a long-winded treatise about how the “toil of abbreviating” is “no light matter, but calls for sweat and loss of sleep” (2:26). He expounds for so long about “brevity of expression” (2:31) that he eventually ends the meandering excursus with the jibe, “At this point therefore let us begin our narrative, without adding any more to what has already been said; for it would be foolish to lengthen the preface while cutting short the history itself” (2:32). The conclusion is playful as well:

If it is well told and to the point, that is what I myself desired; if it is poorly done, that was the best I could do. For just as it is harmful to drink wine alone, or, again to drink water alone, while wine mixed with water is sweet and delicious and enhances one’s enjoyment, so also the style of the story delights the ears of those who read the work. (2 Maccabees 15:37–39)

He uses self-deprecation and a festive analogy to drinking wine mixed with water, which is likely a nod to his mixing of his own work with Jason of Cyrene’s to create “enjoyment” and “delight the ears.”

Even in the famous pathos-filled seventh chapter, where seven children and their mother meet a martyrly demise after refusing to eat pork, there is no small measure of mocking humour in how roundly ridiculous the sputtering tyrant turns out to be,[47] when his honour is bested by a Jewish woman and her children.

Indeed, there is even a pun in the very phrase under investigation. “Induced … the hat” is hypotassōn hypo petason. While James Moffatt once speculated that this “probably arose from dittography,”[48] Michael Coogan rightly observes that the choice of the word petasos in this construction “allows our author to show off here with an impressive Greek pun.”[49] This text’s demonstrated proclivity toward wordplay and wit, even in the very passage in question, is in keeping with my hypothesis that this “Greek hat” is a tongue-in-cheek euphemism standing in for a reconstructed foreskin. Despite the seriousness of 2 Maccabees’ claims and contents, the author clearly also aims to entertain and amuse.

Conclusion

There has been a longstanding lack of agreement on what would entice young male Jews to wear a petasos, and why 2 Maccabees would disapprove of it. 2 Maccabees 4:12 has been read in many additional ways, ranging from sensible to far-fetched. Some suggestions, such as the brimmed military helmet of ephebes in training for citizenship,[50] make sense in the context of this lament for youths making a shift too far towards Greek values at the expense of their own. But I suggest that however else we read this verse, we also read it within the age-old Jewish tradition of genitalia euphemisms. Our author lamented that under the high priest Jason, elite Jewish youths would flock to the gymnasium, gaining an education, prestige, and values that would leave little attraction to Torah and Temple—and in doing so, would feel pressured to modify the appearance of their genitalia to conform to very real Hellenistic ideals. Wearing the “Greek hat” (wink, wink) in order to fit in with non-Jewish athletes without being viewed as deformed, unmasculine, or different would be tempting, and the youths could slip away from the rest of Torah as well.

This reading of the “Greek hat” is supported by the focus on the gymnasium within the passage, and the importance of circumcision throughout the book. As a Diaspora Jew who clearly relished writing in eloquent Greek, and who praised earlier Hellenistic leaders who had maintained mutually respectful relations with Jews, the author of 2 Maccabees was not against Hellenism per se. His very writing style shows he participated in it. Rather, he was against the undermining of Torah observance. In his mind, Torah observance had worked nicely within Hellenism until the wicked high priest Jason came along and upset the balance, endangering not only circumcision but the whole Torah for which it stood, and bringing about the Antiochan genocide as divine punishment. But, like many other ancient Jewish authors, the punny epitomist would much rather use a euphemism than come right out and mention the penis.[51]

Works Cited

Bartlett, John R. The First and Second Books of the Maccabees. The Cambridge Bible Commentary on the New English Bible. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973.

Barton, John, and John Muddiman, eds. The Oxford Bible Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Boin, Douglas. Coming Out Christian in the Roman World: How the Followers of Jesus Made a Place in Caesar’s Empire. London: Bloomsbury, 2015.

Bonfante, Larissa. Etruscan Dress: Updated Edition. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003.

Celcus, Aulus Cornelius. De Medicina. Translated by W.G. Spencer. 3 vols. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1935–1938.

Cohen, Shaye. “‘Those Who Say They Are Jews and Are Not’: How Do You Know a Jew in Antiquity When You See One?” Pages 1–45 in Diasporas in Antiquity. Edited by Shaye Cohen and Emest Frerichs. Atlanta, GA: Scholars, 1992. doi:10.1525/9780520926271-005.

Collman, Ryan D. The Apostle to the Foreskin. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2023. doi:10.1515/9783110981728.

Coogan, Michael D., ed. The New Oxford Annotated Bible NRSV with Apocrypha: Fully Revised Fifth Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.

Cribiore, Raffaella. Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001.

Croom, Alexandra. Roman Clothing and Fashion. Stroud: Amberley, 2010.

Chrystal, Paul. In Bed with the Ancient Greeks. Stroud: Amberley, 2016.

Duggan, Michael. “2 Maccabees.” Pages 169–187 in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha. Edited by Gerbern S. Oegema. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021.

Feldman, Louis H. Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World: Attitudes and Interactions from Alexander to Justinian. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996.

Goldstein, Jonathan. 1 Maccabees: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Bible 41. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976.

Goldstein, Jonathan. 2 Maccabees: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Bible 41A. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983.

Goldstein, Jonathan. “Jewish Acceptance and Rejection of Hellenism.” Pages 3–32 in Semites, Iranians, Greeks, and Romans: Studies in their Interactions. Providence: Brown Judaic Studies, 2020. doi:10.2307/j.ctvzpv55g.5.

Gruen, Erich S. The Construct of Identity in Hellenistic Judaism: Essays on Early Jewish Literature and History. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016. doi:10.1515/9783110375558.

Haas, Peter J. “The Maccabean Struggle to Define Judaism.” Pages 49–65 in New Perspectives on Ancient Judaism. Vol. 1: Religion, Literature, and Society in Ancient Israel, Formative Christianity and Judaism. Atlanta, GA: Scholars, 1990.

Haber, Susan. “Living and Dying for the Law: The Mother-martyrs of 2 Maccabees.” Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary Journal 4.1 (2006).

Hall, Robert G. “Epispasm: Circumcision in Reverse.” Bible Review 8.4 (1992): 52–57.

———. “Epispasm and the Dating of Ancient Writings.” Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2 (1988): 71–86, doi:10.1177/095182078800000205.

Haydock, George. Haydock’s Catholic Biblical Commentary. New York: Edward Dunigan and Brother, 1859.

Hengel, Martin. Judentum und Hellenismus: Studien zu ihrer Begegnung unter besonderer Berücksichtigung Palästinas bis zur Mitte des 2. Jahrhunderts vor Christus. 3rd Edition. Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1988.

Himmelfarb, Martha. “Judaism and Hellenism in 2 Maccabees.” Poetics Today 19.1 (1998): 19–40. doi:10.2307/1773110.

Hodges, Frederick M. “The Ideal Prepuce in Ancient Greece and Rome: Male Genital Aesthetics and their Relation to Lipodermos, Circumcision, Foreskin Restoration, and the Kynodesme.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 75 (2001): 375–405. jstor.org/stable/44445662.

Honigman, Sylvie. Tales of High Priests and Taxes: The Books of the Maccabees and the Judean Rebellion against Antiochos IV. Oakland: University of California Press, 2014.

Keller, Sharon R. “Aspects of Nudity in the Old Testament.” Source: Notes in the History of Art 12.2 (1993): 32–36. jstor.org/stable/23202933.

Kerkeslager, Allen. “Maintaining Jewish Identity in the Greek Gymnasium: A ‘Jewish Load’ in ‘CPJ’ 3.519 (= P. Schub. 37 = P. Berol. 13406).” Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman Period 28.1 (1997): 12–33. doi:10.1163/157006397X00020.

Livesey, Nina E. Circumcision as a Malleable Symbol. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010.

McEleney, Neil J. “1–2 Maccabees.” 421–446 in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1990.

Miller, Stephen G. Ancient Greek Athletics. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014.

Mimouni, Simon C. La Circoncision Dans le Monde Judeen Aux Epoques Grecque Et Romaine: Histoire D’Un Conflit Interne Au Judaisme. Leuven: Peeters, 2007.

Moffatt, James. “2 Maccabees.” Pages 125–154 in The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English. Edited by R.H. Charles. Vol 1. Oxford: Clarendon, 1913.

Neutel, Karin B., and Matthew R. Anderson. “The First Cut is the Deepest: Masculinity and Circumcision in the First Century.” Pages 228–244 in Biblical Masculinities Foregrounded. Edited by Ovidiu Creanga and Peter-Ben Smit. Sheffield: Phoenix, 2014.

Newby, Zahra. Greek Athletics in the Roman World: Victory and Virtue. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.

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———. “1 and 2 Maccabees – Same Story, Different Meanings.”Pages 681–85 in George W.E. Nickelsburg in Perspective: An Ongoing Dialogue of Learning. Volume 2. Leiden: Brill, 2003. doi:10.1163/9789004531314_012.

Novenson, Matthew. “Paul’s Former Occupation in Ioudaismos.” 24–39 in Galatians and Christian Theology: Justification, the Gospel, and Ethics in Paul’s Letters. Edited by Mark W. Elliot et al. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2014.

Olson, Kelly. Dress in Mediterranean Antiquity: Greeks, Romans, Jews, Christians. London: T&T Clark, 2021.

Penner, Ken M., R. Brannan, and I. Loken. The Lexham English Septuagint. Second edition, revised with the assistance of Benjamin Pass, Christine Welles, and Dustin King. Bellingham, WA: Lexham, 2020.

Peppard, Michael. “Bearing a “Jewish Weight”: A New Interpretation of a Greek Comedic Papyrus About Athletics (CPJ 3.519).” Journal for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies 5 (2024): 21–41

Reid, Heather. “Athletic Beauty as Mimesis of Virtue: The Case of the Beautiful Boxer.” Pages 77–91 in Looking at Beauty to Kalon in Western Greece. Edited by H. Reid and T. Leyh. Sioux City: Parnassos, 2019.

Rider, Willam. The Apocrypha at Large; With Comments and Annotations, Theological, Historical, Critical, and Moral: By the Reverend W. Rider, A. B. late of Jesus College, Oxford, Sur-Master of St. Paul’s School, and Chaplain to the Worshipful Company of Mercers. London: “printed for the author,” 1766.

Rubin, Jody P. “Celsus’s Decircumcision Operation: Medical and Historical Implications.” Urology 16.1 (1980): 121–24. doi:10.1016/0090-4295(80)90354-4.

Schäfer, Peter. “The Bar Kokhba Revolt and Circumcision: Historical Evidence and Modern Apologetics.” Pages 119–32 in Jüdische Geschichte in hellenistisch-römischer Zeit. Edited by A. Oppenheimer. München: Oldenburg, 1999.

Scolnic, Benjamin. Judaism Defined: Mattathias and the Destiny of His People. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2010. Kindle edition.

Sekunda, Nicholas. The Ancient Greeks: No. 7 (Elite). Oxford: Osprey, 1986.

Soon, Isaac. “The Bestial Glans: Gentile Christ Followers and the Monstrous Nudity of Ancient Circumcision.” Journal of the Jesus Movement in its Jewish Setting 8 (2021): 116–30. doi:10.1093/oso/9780192885241.003.0006.

———. “‘In Strength’ not ‘By Force’: Rereading the Circumcision of the Uncircumcised ἐν ἰσχύι in 1 Maccabees 2:46.” Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 29.3 (2020): 149–167. doi:10.1177/0951820720902086.

Thiessen, Matthew. Contesting Conversion: Genealogy, Circumcision, and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Christianity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Tromp, Johannes. The Assumption of Moses: A Critical Edition with Commentary. Studia in Veteris Testamenti Pseudepigrapha 10. Leiden: Brill, 1992.

[1] On genitalia euphemisms in the Hebrew Bible, see Ryan Collman, The Apostle to the Foreskin (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2023), 141–42, doi:10.1515/9783110981728 and Sharon Keller, “Aspects of Nudity in the Old Testament,” Source: Notes in the History of Art 12.2 (1993): 34, jstor.org/stable/23202933.

[2] Michael Peppard, “Bearing a “Jewish Weight”: A New Interpretation of a Greek Comedic Papyrus About Athletics (CPJ 3.519),” Journal for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies 5 (2024): 21–41; see also Allen Kerkeslager, “Maintaining Jewish Identity in the Greek Gymnasium: A ‘Jewish Load’ in ‘CPJ’ 3.519 (= P. Schub. 37 = P. Berol. 13406)” Journal for the Study of Judaism 28.1 (1997): 12–33, doi:10.1163/157006397X00020.

[3] In 2005 I was translating 2 Maccabees as part of my MA work. When I got to 2 Maccabees 4:12, I chuckled and showed my then-fellow grad student, Meredith Warren. She urged me to check whether commentators had pointed out a pun; to my surprise, they had not. This article would not exist without her. I’ve since heard from others who share my reading, such as Ashley London Bacchi who let me know that she too has always read “Greek hat” with a “wink wink.”

[4] For more on epispasm, see Robert Hall, “Epispasm: Circumcision in Reverse,” Bible Review 8.4 (1992): 52–57, Jody Rubin, “Celsus’s Decircumcision Operation: Medical and Historical Implications,” Urology 16.1 (1980): 121–24, doi:10.1016/0090-4295(80)90354-4, and Collman, The Apostle to the Foreskin, 30–32.

[5] 2 Maccabees is the work of an editor (often dubbed “the epitomist”) who undertook to weave (compose?) letters and a now-lost five-volume history by one Jason of Cyrene into a cohesive shorter work that argues passionately for retaining respect for Torah and Temple alongside Hellenism. It is awkward to repeat “the author or condenser” or “the author/s” throughout, so I will simply use “author.”

[6] On Greek and Roman dress, including this and other hats, along with catalogues of ancient evidence, see Larissa Bonfante, Etruscan Dress: Updated Edition (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), especially 68–69, Alexandra Croom, Roman Clothing and Fashion (Stroud: Amberley, 2010), especially 17, and Kelly Olson, Dress in Mediterranean Antiquity: Greeks, Romans, Jews, Christians (London: T&T Clark, 2021).

[7] As in the note on 2 Maccabees 4:12 in Michael Coogan, ed. The New Oxford Annotated Bible NRSV with Apocrypha: Fully Revised Fifth Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 1633.

[8] As in Neil McEleney, “1–2 Maccabees,” The New Jerome Biblical Commentary (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1990), 442–443: “to take part in gymnastic exercises”; or in Bartlett, The First and Second Books of the Maccabees, 246: “the Greek athlete’s hat … a phrase perhaps meaning simply ‘to enter upon the training of the sports stadium’.”

[9] The word ephēbeion appears in the passage (2 Maccabees 4:9). Both Sylvie Honigman, Tales of High Priests and Taxes: The Books of the Maccabees and the Judean Rebellion against Antiochos IV (Oakland: University of California Press, 2014), 209 and the Lexham English Septuagint (LES) Ken Penner, R. Brannan, and I. Loken, eds., The Lexham English Septuagint (2nd edition; Bellingham: Lexham, 2020) rightly interpret the military version of the petasos as the hat of ephebes. Ephebes were “boys who had reached the age of puberty” who “had to do compulsory military training for two years before being enrolled as citizens.” John Barton and John Muddiman, eds., The Oxford Bible Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 738. They were given a petasos and other articles of equipment to mark success in the first level of their training. Stephen Miller, Ancient Greek Athletics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014), 195.

[10] So Benjamin Scolnic, Judaism Defined: Mattathias and the Destiny of His People (Lanham: University Press of America, 2010), chap. 6, § “The Petasos,” Kindle.

[11] So McEleney, “1–2 Maccabees,” 442–443.

[12] George Haydock, Haydock’s Catholic Biblical Commentary (New York: Edward Dunigan and Brother, 1859), in the footnote to 2 Maccabees 4:12, surmises that the petasos invoked both Hermes and Bacchus. Attestations for Heracles and the gymnasium can be found in Zahra Newby, Greek Athletics in the Roman World: Victory and Virtue (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 238. Castor and Pollux are suggested by William Rider, The apocrypha at large; with comments and annotations, Theological, Historical, Critical, and Moral: By the Reverend W. Rider, A. B. late of Jesus College, Oxford, Sur-Master of St. Paul’s School, and Chaplain to the Worshipful Company of Mercers (London: “printed for the author,” 1766), footnote to 2 Maccabees 4:12.

[13] So Douglas Boin: “New educational opportunities aside, some had also begun to dress in the Greek fashion, wearing trendy Greek hats.” D. Boin, Coming Out Christian in the Roman World: How the Followers of Jesus Made a Place in Caesar’s Empire (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), 63.

[14] The word “ephēbeios” does appear within the passage. Likewise, there is certainly Roman-era evidence for dedicatory inscriptions to Hermes and Heracles at gymnasia; see Newby, Greek Athletics in the Roman World, 238.

[15] Such as Bartlett’s suggestion that this hat stood in conflict with “traditional Jewish head-dress” (evidence for which is elusive). Bartlett, The First and Second Books of the Maccabees, 246, or Honigman’s assertion that the hat replaced “ceremonial clothes prescribed by the Law.” Honigman, Tales of High Priests and Taxes: IV, 209 (which included no indication of what ceremonial dress for young men this could mean.)

[16] Biblical translations are from the NRSVUE.

[17] I side fully with Martin Hengel (Judentum und Hellenismus: Studien zu ihrer Begegnung unter besonderer Berücksichtigung Palästinas bis zur Mitte des 2. Jahrhunderts vor Christus [3rd Edition; Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1988]) on Judaism and Hellenism as intertwined rather than dichotomous. I employ a binary construction deliberately here because the text itself seems to do so. Himmelfarb argues that 2 Maccabees innovates the rhetorical use of “Hellenism” in overt contrast to “Judaism.” See Martha Himmelfarb, “Judaism and Hellenism in 2 Maccabees,” Poetics Today 19.1 (1998): 19–40, doi:10.2307/1773110. Also see Matthew Novenson’s “Paul’s Former Occupation in Ioudaismos,” in Galatians and Christian Theology: Justification, the Gospel, and Ethics in Paul’s Letters, ed. Mark Elliot et al. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014), 34–35, 37.

[18] Jonathan Goldstein calls them “bitter opponents,” 1 Maccabees, 4 (Anchor Bible 41; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976). Nickelsburg concludes that they are “diametrically opposing interpretations of the same historical events” in “1 and 2 Maccabees – Same Story, Different Meanings,” Vol. 2 of George W.E. Nickelsburg in Perspective: An Ongoing Dialogue of Learning (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 673, doi:10.1163/9789004531314_012; Haas posits that 2 Maccabees was written to correct 1 Maccabees. Peter Haas, “The Maccabean Struggle to Define Judaism,” New Perspectives on Ancient Judaism. Vol. 1: Religion, Literature, and Society in Ancient Israel, Formative Christianity and Judaism (Atlanta, GA: Scholars, 1990), 52.

[19] 2 Maccabees 1:4; 2:2–3, 21–22; 3:1, 15; 4:2, 11, 17; 5:8, 15; 6:1, 5–6; 6:23, 28; 7:2, 9–10, 23, 30, 37; 8:17, 21, 36; 10:25–26; 11:30–31; 12:40; 13:7–8, 10, 14; 15:9.

[20] Compare 1 Maccabees 1:60.

[21] See Susan Haber, “Living and Dying for the Law: The Mother-martyrs of 2 Maccabees,” Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary Journal 4.1 (2006): especially the first section, on women’s active role in circumcision in late Second-Temple Judaism.

[22] See Nina Livesey, Circumcision as a Malleable Symbol (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010). Matthew Thiessen contributes to our understanding of circumcision discourse and practice as being far more variegated and nuanced across early Jewish texts and down through the centuries than sometimes assumed, in Contesting Conversion: Genealogy, Circumcision, and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).

[23] This is perhaps a key reason why 2 Maccabees was written—to shift credit for victory away from the Maccabean fighters and onto the martyrs who died for Torah and other pious upholders of festivals, kashrut, and circumcision (2 Maccabees 4:16–17; 5:20; 6:12–16; 7:1–2; 8:36). See Goldstein, 1 Maccabees, 12.

[24] Erich Gruen, The Construct of Identity in Hellenistic Judaism: Essays on Early Jewish Literature and History (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016), 352, n. 68, doi:10.1515/9783110375558.

[25] Jonathan Goldstein, “Jewish Acceptance and Rejection of Hellenism,” Semites, Iranians, Greeks, and Romans: Studies in their Interactions (Providence: Brown Judaic Studies, 2020), 22, doi:10.2307/j.ctvzpv55g.5. Benjamin Scolnic pushes back a little against Gruen and Goldstein, arguing that 2 Maccabees 4 most definitely implies nudity, but he stops short of saying the author was addressing epispasm (which he does acknowledge was likely occurring at the time, later in the chapter). Scolnic, Judaism Defined, chap. 6, § “The Petasos,” Kindle.

[26] Hall, “Epispasm: Circumcision in Reverse,” 53.

[27] To be more specific, it was relatively common in discourse, which cannot be mapped neatly onto how common it was in practice.

[28] These ancient citations and others are collected by Scolnic, in an extensive argument for public nudity as a norm for men, including many Jewish men, in the Hasmonaean period. Scolnic, Judaism Defined, chap. 6, § “Nakedness in the Gymnasium.”

[29] For more on identity politics in the gymnasium, see Raffaella Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001) and Louis Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World: Attitudes and Interactions from Alexander to Justinian (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 57–58.

[30] See Robert Hall for a good discussion of fluid Jewish interpretations of what counted as circumcision and whether hiding or reversing it was an option, Robert Hall, “Epispasm and the Dating of Ancient Writings,” Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2 (1988): 71–86, 10.1177/095182078800000205.

[31] Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World, 25.

[32] See Rubin, “Celsus’s Decircumcision Operation,” 124, and Simon Mimouni, La Circoncision Dans le Monde Judeen Aux Epoques Grecque Et Romaine: Histoire D’Un Conflit Interne Au Judaisme (Leuven: Peeters, 2007), especially 113–27. On circumcision as something practiced by non-Jews in antiquity as well, see Shaye Cohen, “‘Those Who Say They Are Jews and Are Not’: How Do You Know a Jew in Antiquity When You See One?” in Diasporas in Antiquity, ed. Shaye Cohen and Emest Frerichs (Atlanta, GA: Scholars, 1992), 1–45, doi:10.1525/9780520926271-005.

[33] For instance, Martial’s Epigrams VII 35 and 82 make fun of Jews wearing fibulae to shape their foreskins. “Numerous written sources from the second century B.C.E. to the early sixth century C.E. speak about epispasm,” writes Hall, “Epispasm: Circumcision in Reverse,” 53.

[34] See Paul Chrystal, In Bed with the Ancient Greeks (Stroud: Amberley, 2016); Frederick Hodges, “The Ideal Prepuce in Ancient Greece and Rome: Male Genital Aesthetics and their Relation to Lipodermos, Circumcision, Foreskin Restoration, and the Kynodesme,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 75 (2001): 375–76, jstor.org/stable/44445662; Heather Reid, “Athletic Beauty as Mimesis of Virtue: The Case of the Beautiful Boxer,” in Looking at Beauty to Kalon in Western Greece, ed. H. Reid and T. Leyh (Sioux City: Parnassos, 2019), 77–91.

[35] See Isaac Soon, “The Bestial Glans: Gentile Christ Followers and the Monstrous Nudity of Ancient Circumcision,” Journal of the Jesus Movement in its Jewish Setting 8 (2021): 116–30, doi:10.1093/oso/9780192885241.003.0006.

[36] Rubin, “Celsus’s Decircumcision Operation,” 121.

[37] The gentlest method is recorded in Dioscorides, who claims that the herbal remedy Thapsia will help the foreskin swell up, but cautions that it is not effective for restoring circumcision (De Materia Medica 4:153). Aulus Cornelius Celcus details two more gruesome methods of epispasm: “If the glans is bare and the man wishes for the look of the thing to have it covered, that can be done; but more easily in a boy than in a man; in one in whom the defect is natural, than in one who after the custom of certain races has been circumcised; … Now the treatment for those in whom the defect is natural is as follows. The prepuce around the glans is seized, stretched out until it actually covers the glans, and there tied. Next the skin covering the penis just in front of the pubes is cut through in a circle until the penis is bared, but great care is taken not to cut into the urethra, nor into the blood vessels there. This done the prepuce slides forwards towards the tie, and a sort of small ring is laid bare in front of the pubes, to which lint is applied in order that flesh may grow and fill it up. It is seen that a large enough part of the penis has been bared, if the skin is distended little or not at all, and if the breadth of the wound above supplies sufficient covering. But until the scar has formed it must remain tied, only a small passage being left in the middle for the urine. But in one who has been circumcised the prepuce is to be raised from the underlying penis around the circumference of the glans by means of a scalpel. This is not so very painful, for once the margin has been freed, it can be stripped up by hand as far back as the pubes, nor in so doing is there any bleeding. The prepuce thus freed is again stretched forwards beyond the glans; next cold water affusions are freely used, and a plaster is applied round to repress severe inflammation.” (De Medicina VII 25.1 [Spencer, Loeb Classical Library]). Robert Hall describes a third “option for a defectively short foreskin,” infibulation: “A surgeon would pierce the foreskin to receive a light wooden pin called a fibula. With the fibula inserted the foreskin was held neatly closed. […] Infibulation could also be used by those who had been circumcised.” Hall, “Epispasm: Circumcision in Reverse,” 53–54.

[38] Karin Neutel and Matthew Anderson, “The First Cut is the Deepest: Masculinity and Circumcision in the First Century,” in Biblical Masculinities Foregrounded, ed. Ovidiu Creanga and Peter-Ben Smit (Sheffield: Phoenix, 2014), 229.

[39] As translated by Neutel and Anderson, “The First Cut is the Deepest,” 229–30.

[40] Nickelsburg used Testament of Moses’s reference to outlawing circumcision and practicing epispasm to date the text during the Maccabaean period. George Nickelsburg, “An Antiochan Date for the Testament of Moses,” in Studies on the Testament of Moses, ed. G. Nickelsburg (Cambridge, MA: Society of Biblical Literature, 1973), 33–37.

[41] Translation from Johannes Tromp, The Assumption of Moses: A Critical Edition with Commentary, Studia in Veteris Testamenti Pseudepigrapha 10 (Leiden: Brill, 1992).

[42] Jubilees only mentions parents who do not circumcise male children, rather than referring to adult epispasm, but Scolnic makes the case that book’s focus on circumcision’s importance, and the fraught topic of foreskins in its historical context, means that epispasm could not escape the minds of Jubilees’ author/audience. Scolnic, Judaism Defined, chap. 6 § “Jubilees and the Issues of Nudity and Epispasm.”

[43] See Peter Schäfer, “The Bar Kokhba Revolt and Circumcision: Historical Evidence and Modern Apologetics,” in Jüdische Geschichte in hellenistisch-römischer Zeit, ed. A. Oppenheimer (München: Oldenburg, 1999), 119–32.

[44] Isaac Soon, “‘In Strength’ not ‘By Force’: Rereading the Circumcision of the Uncircumcised ἐν ἰσχύι in 1 Maccabees 2:46” in Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 29.3 (2020): 160, doi:10.1177/0951820720902086.

[45] It was likely a polemic against it; Jonathan Goldstein, 2 Maccabees, (Anchor Bible 41; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983) 4; Haas, “The Maccabean Struggle to Define Judaism,” 52 (as previously discussed in the section “Ideological Context”).

[46] Michael Duggan identifies the epitomist as marked by “irony and sarcasm” in M. Duggan, “2 Maccabees,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha, ed. G. Oegema (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), 171. Himmelfarb thinks both authors were cut from the same rhetorical cloth, in “Judaism and Hellenism,” 22.

[47] He “falls into a rage” twice (2 Maccabees 7:3, 39), feels he is being treated with contempt (2 Maccabees 7:24), is spoken about in Hebrew behind his back (2 Maccabees 7:27), is scorned (2 Maccabees 7:39), etc.

[48] James Moffatt, “2 Maccabees,” in The Old Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha in English, ed. R.H. Charles (Oxford: Clarendon, 1913), 137, footnote on verse 4:12.

[49] Coogan, New Oxford Annotated Bible, 1633. The pun makes the interpretive debate about the significance of the petasos style specifically even less important to the meaning of this passage.

[50] Nicholas Sekunda’s The Ancient Greeks observes two distinct types of hat that are referred to as a petasos—one with a brim used to protect from the sun during travelling or outdoor work, and the other not a hat at all but a military helmet shaped like a petasos. Sekunda, The Ancient Greeks: No. 7 (Elite) (Oxford: Osprey, 1986), 19–20.

[51] Many thanks to those who offered this article their sharp reading skills, namely, Shayna Sheinfeld, Meredith Warren, and Matthew Anderson, in addition to the truly helpful anonymous JIBS reviewers. My colleague Ken Penner pitched in more examples of commentators who wrestled with the verse.