Of commentaries and exegetical helps we specially mention the works of Drusius and Grotius, reprinted in the Crilici Saci-i ; Calmet, Commentaire Literal, etc., vol. viii (Paris, 1724); Michaelis, Deutsche Uebersetzung des 1 Maccab. B.'s 7nit Ainer/d: (Gottingen luid Leipsic, 1778); FAchhorn, Binleit. in die ajwh-yphischtn Schrift. d.A.T. (Leipsic, 1795), p. 218-248; Hengstenberg, Gen- uineness of Daniel (English transl., Edinburgh, 1847), p. 235-239, 207-270 ; Cotton, The five Books of Maccabees (Oxford, 1832) ; Ewald, Geschichte des Volkes Israel, iv, 526 sq. ; the masterly work of Grimm, Kurzgefasstes ex- egetisches llandbitch zu den Apokryphen (Leipsic, 1853) ; (ieiger, Urschrift laid Uebersetzung der Bibel (Breslau, 1857), p. 206-219. See Apocuypha.
MACCABEES, the SECOND Book of, according to the order of the Sept., which is followed both by the an- cient versions and modern expositors of the Apocrj'pha,
MACCABEES, BOOKS OF 609 MACCABEES, BOOKS OF
I. Position. — This book ought, according to the his- toric order, to be the first of the Maccabees, because its narrative begins with an event which occurred in tlie reign of Seleucus Philopator, about B.C. 180, i. e. four years earlier than the preceding book. Its being placed second in order is evidently owing to the fact that it is both of a later date and of less intrinsic worth than the one denominated the first of the Maccabees. Cotton, in his translation of the Maccabees, has put this book as the third of Maccabees.
II. Desirjn, Contents, and Division. — The design of this book is to admonish and encourage the Jews to keep the religion of their fathers, and especially to inculcate in the Israelites resident in Egypt a reverence for the Temple in Jerusalem, urging them to take part in the celebration of the festivals instituted to commemorate the dedication of the Temple as the sacred and legiti- mate place for divine worship (x, G), and the defeat of Nicanor (xv, 36). To effect this design, the writer gives a condensed history of the ^Maccabees' struggles for their religion and sanctuarj^ beginning with the attempts of Heliodorus to plunder the Temple, cir. B.C. 180, and ter- minating with the victor}' of Judas IMaccabaaus over Ni- canor, B.C. IGl. The whole narrative, therefore, which is partly (iii, 1-iv, 6) anterior to 1 !Macc., partly (iv, 7- vii, 42) supplementary to the brief summary in 1 Mace, i, 10-64, and partly (vii, 1-xv) parallel with 1 Mace, iii, 1-vii. 48, embraces a period of about nineteen years, and is divided into three sections, each of which is made to terminate with the great event commemorated by the festival which the -writer is so anxious that his Egyp- tian brethren should celebrate.
1. The first section (i, 1-ii, 32) comprises two epistles, the relation of which to the substance of the book is ex- tremely obscure. The first (i, 1-9) is a solemn invita- tion to the Egyptian Jews to celebrate "the feast of tabernacles in the month Casleu" (i. c. the feast of the dedication, i, 9), as before they had sympathized with their brethren in Judrea in " the extremity of their trouble" (i, 7). The second (i, 10-ii, 18, according to the received division), which bears a formal salutation from ''the council and Judas" to "Aristobulus . . . and the Jews in Egypt," is a strange, rambling collection of legendary stories of the death of "Antiochus," of the preservation of the sacred fire and its recovery by Ne- hemiah, of the hiding of the vessels of the sanctuary by Jeremiah, ending, if, indeed, the letter can be said to have any end — with the same exhortation to observe the feast of dedication- (ii, 10-18). Then follows an ac- comat given by the writer of this book of the sources from which he derived his information, and of the trouble he had in compiling it (ii, 19-32).
2. The second section (iii, 1-x, 9) gives important in- formation about the origin of the persecutions (iii, 1- vii, 42), which is simply hinted at in 1 Mace, and then describes and supplements (in viii, 1-ix, 29) the events recorded in 1 Mace, concluding with the dedication of the Temple (x, 1-9), which is the great object of the book, cir. B.C. 180-165.
3. The third section (x, 10-xv, 37) records the vari- ous victories of the Jews, terminating in the crowning- success of Judas Maccabivus and the death of Nicanor, which led to the institution of the feast commemorating the victory over him, B.C. 164-161.
This is followed b)' an epilogue (xv, 38-40) which is wanting in C(n'erdale's (after the Zurich) Bible ; in Matthew's, 1537 ; in Cranmer's, 1539 ; and in the vari- ous reprints of these editions ; and which the Geneva Bible, 1560, followed by the Bishops', 1568, was the first to insert.
The latter two of the above sections, taken together, present several natural subdivisions, which appear to coincide with the " five books" of Jason on which it was based. The first (ch. iii) contains the history of Heli- odorus, as illustrating the fortunes of the Temple before the schism and apostasy of part of the nation (cir. B.C. 180). The second (ch. iv-vii) gives varied details of V.-Q Q
the beginning and course of the great persecution — the murder of Onias, the crimes of Menelaus, the martjTdom of Eleazar, and of the mother with her seven sons (B.C. 175-167). The third (ch. viii-x, 9) follows the fortunes of ,Judas to the triumphant restoration of the Temple service (B.C. 166, 165). The fourth (x, 10-xiii) includes the reign of Antiochus Eupator (B.C. 164-162). The fifth (ch. xiv, xv) records the treachery of Alcimus, the mission of Nicanor, and tne crowning success of Judas (B.C. 162, 161). Each of these divisions is closed hy a phrase which seems to mark the end of a definite sub- ject (iii, 40; vii, 42; x, 9; xiii, 26; xv, 37); and they correspond, in fact, with distmct stages in the national struggle,