Smith's Bible Dictionary.pdf - Online Christian Library

Smith's Bible Dictionary
Four books which bear the common title of “Maccabees” are found in some MSS. of the LXX.
Two of these were included in the early current Latin versions of the Bible, and thence passed into
the Vulgate. As forming part of the Vulgate they were received as canonical by the Council of
Trent, and retained among the Apocrypha by the reformed churches. The two other books obtained
no such wide circulation and have only a secondary connection with the Maccabaean history.
•THE FIRST BOOK OF MACCABEES contains a history of the patriotic struggle of the Jews in
resisting the oppressions of the Syrian kings, from the first resistance of Mattathias to the settled
sovereignty and death of Simon, a period of thirty-three years—B.C. 168-135. The great subject
of the book begins with the enumeration of the Maccabaean family, ch, 2:1-5, which is followed
by an account of the part which the aged Mattathias took in rousing and guiding the spirit of his
countrymen. ch. 2:6-70. The remainder of the narrative is occupied with the exploits of Mattathias’
five sons. The great marks of trustworthiness are everywhere conspicuous. Victory and failure
end despondency are, on the whole, chronicled with the same candor. There is no attempt to bring
into open display the working of Providence. The testimony of antiquity leaves no doubt that the
book was first written in Hebrew. Its whole structure points to Palestine as the place of its
composition. There is, however, considerable doubt as to its date. Perhaps we may place it between
B.C. 120-100. The date and person of the Greek translator are wholly undetermined.
•THE SECOND BOOK OF MACCABEES.—The history of the second book of Maccabees begins
some years earlier than that of the first book. and closes with the victory of Judas Maccabaeus
over Nicanor. It thus embraces a period of twenty years, from B.C. 180 to B.C. 161. The writer
himself distinctly indicates the source of his narrative—the five books of Jason of Cyrene, ch.
2:23, of which he designed to furnish a short and agreeable epitome for the benefit of those who
would be deterred from studying the larger work. Of Jason himself nothing more is known than
may be gleaned from this mention of him. The second book of Maccabcees is not nearly so
trustworthy as the first. In the second book the groundwork of facts is true, but the dress in which
the facts are presented is due in part at least to the narrator. The latter half of the book, chs. 8-15,
is to be regarded as a series of special incidents from the life of Judas, illustrating the providential
interference of God in behalf of his people, true in substance, but embellished in form.
•THE THIRD BOOK OF MACCABEES contains the history of events which preceded the great
Maccabaean struggle beginning with B.C. 217.
•THE FOURTH BOOK OF MACCABEES contains a rhetorical narrative of the martyrdom of
Eleazar and of the “Maccabaean family,” following in the main the same outline as 2 Macc.
Macedonia
(extended land), a large and celebrated country lying north of Greece, the first part of Europe
which received the gospel directly from St. Paul, and an important scene of his subsequent missionary
labors and those of his companions. It was bounded by the range of Haemus or the Balkan northward,
by the chain of Pindus westward, by the Cambunian hills southward, by which it is separated from
Thessaly, an is divided on the east from Thrace by a less definite mountain boundary running
southward from Haemus. Of the space thus enclosed, two of the most remarkable physical features
are two great plains, one watered by the Axius, which comes to the sea, at the Thermaic Gulf, not
far from Thessalonica; the other by the Strymon, which after passing near Philippi, flows out below
Amphipolis. Between the mouths of these two rivers a remarkable peninsula projects, dividing
itself into three points, on the farthest of which Mount Athos rises nearly into the region of perpetual
snow. Across the neck of this peninsula St. Paul travelled more than once with his companions.
412
William Smith