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The Second Book of Maccabees is not the sequel to or the complement of the First. It deals with events that took place between 175–161 B.C., at the time of the great persecution.
We are at the beginning of the Jewish resistance, which the First Book of Maccabees presents in its entirety.
The Second Book was actually written before the First and does not depend on it in any way. It is differentiated from the latter above all by its style and religious sentiment and also by its recital of the facts. Its author seems to be a Jew of Alexandria who is writing, a little after 124 B.C., in Greek. He states that he is summarizing the much larger work of another Jew from the colony of Cyrene (North Africa), a certain Jason, about whom nothing is known.
The work is artfully composed. Each of its two principal parts (4:1—10:8 and 10:9—15:36) follows the same plan: the account of the battles and the testimony of the martyrs always conclude with a victory whose memorial must be celebrated every year. We are dealing with a book about history but also a sort of “golden legend” of the martyrs, victims of the persecution of Antiochus IV Epiphanes.
In effect, the author turns into a preacher and wishes to capture the imagination and sensitivity of the reader. He exalts the heroism of the Jews, exaggerates the cruelty of their enemies, whose forces and losses he inflates, realistically evokes the supplications, and sets about describing the heavenly manifestations that intervene to upset the events.
Behind this taste for the pathetic and the marvelous, which was dear to readers of that era, lies a very real concern for historical truth; but the author is more concerned with religion than with politics. His purpose is one of edifying his Alexandrian compatriots; he invites them to remain faithful to the temple of Jerusalem and to celebrate the Feast of the Dedication.
In the story that unfolds, this passionate believer sees God at work to chastise the conduct of human beings: evildoers and persecutors are always punished for their crimes. As for the righteous, the angels protect them and the saints intercede for them; if they suffer unto martyrdom, it is because they are certain that one day they will rise again and obtain a reward in another life. Up to that time, the Jewish faith had not yet reached such a point in the mystery of retribution and of the afterlife.
These teachings constitute a considerable enrichment for the theology of the Old Testament.
Taken up and developed in the New Testament, they have ensured the success of the Second Book of Maccabees in Christian circles.
The Second Book of Maccabees may be divided as follows:
I: Letters to the Jews in Egypt (1:1—2:32)
II: Heliodorus’s Attempt to Profane the Temple (3:1-40)
III: Liberation of the Temple (4:1—10:8)
IV: The Acquisition of Religious Freedom (10:9—15:36)
V: Author’s Epilogue (15:37-39)