8. Religious Character.—The religious character of the book corresponds to its trustworthiness as history. It breathes a spirit of genuine piety. The standpoint of the author is that of οὐ Πραὲς devotion to ‘the law and the ordinances’ (2*), and unqualified abhorrence of heathen presump- tion (135), blasphemies (7%), and enormities (1556), In presence of the direst disasters he retains his faith in an overruling Providence (153), and does not forget that a righteous cause is more essential than a great army (2% 3.8, But, in spite of the intense theocratic feeling that underlies the book, there is a remarkable reserve shown in the ex-
ression of it. The Maccabees are pious (458:
2° 16°) and devoted men (2% 3° etc.), but their triumphs are represented as due to their soldierly skill and diplomatic wisdom, and not to any special intervention of God. In this we detect a deviation from the mode of statement adopted in the older canonical histories. Yet the religious
* Fritzsche accepts as genuine all the documents called ‘copies,’ and τὶ js all the rest as free reproductions by the suthor. But this seems too artistic.
spirit of the book is such that Luther felt it mizht with advantage have been included in the Canon of Scripture, and altogether it stands ona higher Jane than the other ‘Books of Maccabees.’
evout Israelite as he is, however, the writer avoids the mention of the Divine Name, which (according to the true text) does not once occur in his narrative. Prayer is directed to the remote heaven, not to a present encompassing Jehovah (3° 41°), Except in the diluted form of a pathetic forward look towards ‘a faithful prophet’ who should announce the divine will with regard to pressing problems in Church and State (445 14%), the Messianic hope is absent from the book. Nor is there any reference to the doctrine of the resurrection.
9. Use in the Christian Church.—Although not extensively, 1 Mac would seem to have been used in the Christian Church from an early date. Tertullian (+220), adv. Judqos, ο. 4, says: ‘Nam et temporibus Maccabeorum sabbatis pugnando fortiter fecerunt’ (ef. 1 Mac 2318.) ; Cyprian (c. A.D. 250) quotes the book in his J'estimonia (iii. 4. 15, 53), each time with the formula in Machabaeis ; Clement of Alexandria (+ 220) speaks of τὸ (βιβλίον) τῶν Μακκαβαϊκῶν, and also of ἡ τῶν Μακκαβαϊκῶν ἐπιτομή, Strom. i. 123, v. 98; Hippolytus (+ 235) in his Comm. in Daniel, chs. 31-82, draws largely on 1 Mac, quoting almost verbatim 9535... Origen (t 254) also, in his Com. in Ep. ad Rom. (bk. viii. ch. i.), says: ‘Sicut Mattathias, de quo in primo libro Machabzeorum scriptum est quia “ zelatus est in lege Dei,”’ ete. (1 Mac 2™), References to our book as the First Book of Maccabees also occur in the Demonstr. Evang. of Eusebius (+ 338), and in the writings of Augustine (+ 430). On the other hand, the Maccabzean books are placed outside the Canon by Origen, and omitted from the lists of OT Scriptures given by Athanasius (+ 373), Gregory of Nazianzus (+ 390), and Cyril of Jerusalem (+ 386), and until the Council of Trent enjoyed only ‘ eccle- siastical,’ not canonical rank.
10. The MSS.— The Greek Text of 1 Mac, although not contained in the Codex Vaticanus (B), has a place in both the Codex Sinaiticus (x) and the Codex Alexandrinus (A)—MSS dating respec- tively from the 4th and Sth centuries. Next to these in age and importance comes the (8th or 9th cent.) Codex Venetus (V.). All the other (16) MSS are later than the llth century. The best modern editions are those of Fritzsche (Lib. Apoc. Vet. Test. Greece, 1871) and Swete (Old Test. in Greek, Cambridge, 1894, 2nd ed. 1899).
11. Versions.—«Only two old versions of 1 Mac are extant: (1) The Latin, which exists in two recensions, (a) the common text embodied in the Vulgate, and (δ) another containing chs. 1-13, Se in Sabatier’s Bibliorum Sacrorum Latine
Tersiones Antiqua, ii. ᾿ 1017 tf., and more recently discovered in a complete form in a MS now at Madrid. The latter appears to be the older recen- sion. (2) The Syriac. This version, like the Latin, was evidently derived from the Greek. The translator’s mode of giving the names of places, however, seems to point to his acquaintance with
“them in their Semitic form, and this circumstance,
while rendering the version exeyetically service- able, is also a testimony to its antiquity.
B. IL MAOCABEES covers the history from the close of the reign of the Syrian king Seleucus Ivy, Philopator (B.C. 176) to the death of Nicanor (B.c. 161), a period of little more than 15 years. This takes us back one year further than 1 Mac does but, on the other hand, the narrative stops short by a quarter of a century of the point reached in that work. Except that it deals with a relatively smaller section of the history, the Second Book thus virtually runs parallel with the First. For
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MACCABEES, BOOKS OF
190 MACCABEES, BOOKS OF the opening year (or rather more) of the period which it covers, t.e. for the events narrated from
3'—where, properly speaking, the book begins—to 4°, it remains the chief authority, but for the rest of this period it ranks only as an independent supplement to the First Book.