A notice of its history in 147 B.C. is found in 1 Macc. x.
A tradition preserved in 2 Macc. iii.
According to 2 Macc. xiv., Alcimus identified them with the whole party of the rebels, of which they were only one, though the most important, section.
An Aretas is mentioned in 1 Macc. xv.
At this point (r6r B.C.) Judas sent an embassy to Rome and an alliance was concluded (r Macc. viii.), too late to save Judas from the determined and victorious attack of Demetrius.
Both in trustworthiness and in style it is inferior to 1 Macc. Besides being highly coloured, the narrative does not observe strict chronological sequence.
But Judas did not lay down his arms, and added to his resources by rescuing the Jews of Galilee and Gilead and settling them in Judaea (1 Macc. v.).
Hippolytus tells us that in his time most Christians said " the Psalms of David," and believed the whole book to be his; but this title and belief are both of Jewish origin, for in 2 Macc. ii.
I-3) .1 True to their antecedents, the Ammonites, with some of the neighbouring tribes, did their utmost to resist and check the revival of the Jewish power under Judas Maccabaeus (1 Macc. v.
In 1 Macc. there is a keen sense of the part to be played by the Jews themselves, of the necessity of employing their own skill and valour; here they are made to rely rather upon divine intervention.
It is suggested that the name Aristobulus was taken from 2 Macc. i.
Keil's commentary on i and 2 Macc. is very largely indebted to Grimm.
Luther judged of it as unfavourably as he judged of I Macc. favourably, and even " wished it had never existed."
Re-dedication of the Temple on 25th Chisleu (December), I Macc. iv.
See the Icelandic account of the elephant, also a decidedly Alexandrian fragment upon the 7.iapyos, founded upon 4 Macc. i.
Simon, elder brother of Judas (i Macc. xiii.-xvi.).
Sixtus conjectures that it may have been a Greek translation of the " chronicles " of John Hyrcanus, alluded to in i Macc. xvi.
The Arabic " Book of Maccabees " contained in the Paris and London Polyglotts, and purporting to be a history of the Jews from the affair of Heliodorus (186 B.C.) to the close of Herod's reign, is historically worthless, being nothing but a compilation from i and 2 Macc. and Josephus.
The eschatology of 2 Macc. is singularly advanced, for it combines the doctrine of a resurrection with that of immortality.
The festival is first mentioned in 2 Macc. xv.
The History of Johannes Hyrcanus is mentioned in r Macc. xvi.
The remainder of the book runs parallel to 1 Macc. iii.
The salt monopoly is mentioned in I Macc. 30, 29; I I, 35, a suspected source, but supported in this detail by the analogy of Ptolemaic Egypt and Rome.
These statements are found in a part of 2 Macc. which.
This name Jewish authors naturally prefer to that of Maccabees; they also style i and 2 Macc. "Books of the Hasmonaeans."
Thus the mother of the seven brethren, whose martyrdom is related in 2 Macc. vi., vii., is called by early Christian writers " the mother of the Maccabees."
To the minority of strict Jews he was therefore " the abomination of desolation standing where he ought not "; but the majority he carried with him and, when he was dying (165 B.C.) during his eastern campaigns, he wrote to the loyal Jews as their fellow citizen and general, exhorting them to preserve their present goodwill towards him and his son, on the ground that his son would continue his policy in gentleness and kindness, and so maintain friendly relations with them (2 Macc. ix.).