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•MACCABEES, BOOKS OF THE There were originally five books of the Maccabees. The first contains a history of the war of independence, commencing (B.C. 175) in a series of patriotic struggles against the tyranny of Antiochus Epiphanes, and terminating B.C. 135. It became part of the Vulgate Version of the Bible, and was thus retained among the Apocrypha.‌

The second gives a history of the Maccabees’ struggle from B.C. 176 to

B.C. 161. Its object is to encourage and admonish the Jews to be faithful to the religion of their fathers.

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