Fundamentals of Self-Government in Ancient Jewish Writing 4 Maccabees

This paper discusses the fundamentals of self-government as presented in 4 Maccabees, a book deriving from a Jewish Diaspora community in ancient Syriaor Cilicia. The early Roman Empire allowed limited autonomy for Jewish communities in their urban environment. Their self-regulation was based on the arrangement of a politeuma, a quasi-autonomous civic body that enabled the Jews to live according to their ancestral customs based on Jewish laws. 4 Maccabees provides us within sight into how one of the Jewish Diaspora communities imagined its ideal way of life through the lens of the martyrdoms, which are highlighted in this work. The deeds and statements of the martyrs reflect key points of a proper Jewish life, which is based on faithfulness to God and his laws. The author argues that the martyrs restored a situation of eunomia – the people’s proper observance of Jewish laws –and enabled their fellow-Jews to return to their previous way of life (politeia) that took on the proper attitude to God and faithfulness to the Jewish laws within their minority community in one of the eastern cities of the Roman Empire.