Influence of IV Maccabees -- David deSilva "Introduction"

from the 2006 Septuagint Commentary series volume -- 4 Maccabees: Introduction and Commentary on the Greek Text in Codex Sinaiticus -- excerpts from pages xxxi - xxxviii (Brill Academic Publishers)
4 Maccabees appears to have exerted little influence within Judaism in the second century and beyond.  The author of Lamentations Rabbah, which presents the story of the martyrdom of Miriam bat Tanhum and her seven sons under Hadrian, appears to have know the story of 4 Maccabees.  The promises of the ancestors are held to bind the descendants (the martyrs), as if they had themselves sworn as well as in 4 Maccabees 5:29. . .The mother compares herself to Abraham, much as the mother of the seven sons is praised as the "woman of the same soul as Abraham" in 4 Macc. 14:20 (also 15:28 and 17:6), showing the growth of this tradition to a contest of "one-upmanship" between the mother and the patriarch: "You built one altar and did not sacrifice your son, but I built seven altars and sacrificed my sons on them.  And for that matter, yours was a trial but mine was a fact" (Lamentations Rabbah 1:16). . .
Because of the possibility that 4 Maccabees was written later than many of the NT documents, it is difficult to speak decisively about "influence" on the apostolic church in earliest decades. . .The Pastoral epistles share with 4 Maccabees the conviction that "desires," a subset of the "passions" impede moral virtue (2 Timothy 2:22; 3:6; Titus 2:12; 3:3; 4 Macc. 1:1, 3, 31-32; 2:1-6; 3:2), the elevation of "self-control" and "piety," the rare word "incontrovertibility" (I Timothy 3:16; 4 Maccabees 6:31; 7:16; 16:1) and the designation of the struggle to keep "faith" as a "noble contest" (I Timothy 6:12; 2 Timothy 4:7; 4 Macc. 16:16, 22).  Against 4 Maccabees, the Pastor (author of the Pastoral Letters/Epistles) asserts that the distinction between clean and unclean food is meaningless rather than a God-given expedient for the inculcation of virtue and a suitable diet (I Timothy 4:3-5; versus 4 Macc. 1:31-35; 5:25-26). . .Scholars never fail to observe that the Maccabean martyrs stand among the exemplars of faith in the Letter to the Hebrews (see 11:35b), referring consistently to 2 Maccabees 6:18 - 7:42 (resurrection is featured in both but is absent from 4 Maccabees; the verb used in Hebrews 11:35 for "torture" recalls specifically the t-y-m-p-a-n-o-n upon which Eleazar is executed in 2 Macc. 6:19, 28; while "release" from torture is also prominent in 4 Maccabees 6:12 - 23; 9:16, it is not absent from 2 Maccabees, as in 7:1-2,7).  However, there are numerous connections with the tradition of the martyrs in 4 Maccabees as well throughout the sermon (chapter 11, Letter to the Hebrews).  Both conceive of p-i-s-t-i-s (i.e. faith) in terms of faithfulness toward God and fixedness in regard to God's promises, and all this specifically within the context of the inviolable obligations of beneficiaries to their benefactor (4 Macc. 16: 18-22; Hebrews 6:4 - 8, 12; 10:29- 31, 39; 11:6; 12:28; 13:17).  Hebrews also introduces (usually in terms of "abiding," "lasting") throughout his discourse (especially 11:24-27), reflecting the same antithesis that figures so prominently in the martyrs' deliberations (4 Maccabees 13:14 - 17; 15:2- 8, 27). . .The benedictions in Hebrews 13:21 and 4 Maccabees 18:24 are almost identical, though this last parallel is the least impressive since it could easily arise from independent development of a common liturgical formula. . .Influence on Christian martyrologies continues to be felt into the third and fourth centuries. . .The example of the mother in 4 Maccabees appears to have left its stamp upon the portrayal of several female martyrs.  In Martyrdom of Montanus and Lucius 16: 3-4, the mother of these two martyrs is praised as a "daughter of Abraham," and is addressed in apostrophe: "O mother, dutiful in regard to piety!. . .O Maccabean mother!"  The vocabulary, the rhetorical convention of apostrophe and the direct reference to the story of the Maccabean mother all point to the author's familiarity with 4 Maccabees 14:10 - 17:6.  Among the martyrs of Lyons, Blandina is likened to "a well-born mother who had encouraged her children and sent them as victorious ones to the King, while also having measured out to her all the contests of her children, she sped after them" (Eusebius, History of the Church V.i.55).  Her role in those martyrdoms is very similar to the role of the mother in 4 Maccabees, providing encouragement for the other martyrs even while suffering herself (though psychologically and emotionally in 4 Maccabees, and not physically, as in Eusebius' account), before going to death herself at the last. . .Tertullian's "On Patience" 13 moves from a discussion of patience with simple diet and drink, patience in regard to controlling sexual desires, and finally climaxing in a discussion of patience under physical torture and execution, "the final proof of blessedness."  It is noteworthy that 4 Maccabees moves through such a gradatio as well, focusing first on "self-control" in regard to diet (1:31-35), then sexual drives (2:1-6), through a variety of other passions, and finally to the "proof of the pudding" in the martrys' mastery of physical pain.