Mattityahu ben Yochanan the Hasmonean מתתיהו בן יוחנן החשמונאי

Mattityahu was a priest of the course of Yehoyariv, living in the town of Modi'in, a day's walk from Jerusalem. When an officer of Antiochus demanded that he sacrifice publicly—as a respected man whom others would follow—he refused; and when another Jew stepped forward to obey, Mattityahu killed him and the officer, tore down the altar, and called after him everyone zealous for the Torah.

Five sons went with him into the hills: Yochanan called Gaddi, Shimon Thassi, Yehuda Maccabee, Elazar Avaran and Yonatan Apphus. The first question the new band had to settle was not military but legal: a thousand people who refused to lift a weapon on the Sabbath died in the caves without resisting. Mattityahu and his men ruled that if attacked one fights even on the Sabbath, "that we not all perish." That ruling has stood in the law ever since.

He died in the first year of the war, having handed military command to Yehuda and counsel to Shimon. In the Al haNissim prayer said through all eight days of Hanukkah he is called High Priest: he never held that office, but the memory of the people gave it to the man with whom it all began.