Heresy XII, Of the Books of Maccabees

OF THE BOOKS OF MACCABEES — Heresy XII (De Libris Maccabaeorum. Haeresis XII)

That the books of Maccabees are neither canonical, nor worthy to be numbered among the sacred books.

ASSERTORES HVIVS HAERESEOS [The Assertors of this Heresy]

This is the heresy of Luther and of the Anabaptists. For Luther, since he denied the suffrages of the dead, and the invocation of the saints, and the dedications of temples, and saw that these books opposed his errors, rejected their authority. But the Anabaptists — who, besides these [things], also affirm that the saints sleep perpetually outside the kingdom of heaven until the day of judgment, and pray for no one — when they noticed that their [own] assertion was destroyed by the testimonies of these volumes, subscribed to Luther in this same heresy.

IMPVGNATIO [The Refutation]

That the books of Maccabees are to be received among the divine and canonical scriptures, the authority of the Gospel and of the Church shows, and their vast usefulness persuades. For they are exceedingly useful for confuting especially the heresies of our times. For there are had, in the second volume of Maccabees, most clear testimonies concerning Purgatory, concerning the suffrages to be made for the dead, and concerning the prayers of the saints who have gone hence to immortal life. But to piety, and to all the virtues, they contribute very much — provoking us to fortitude, to patience, and to hope in afflictions, and to the sustaining of death, if need be, for piety’s sake, by the example of the noble Eleazar, and of those seven brothers who, for the sacred laws, suffered such dire torments: whom their pious mother, while they were pressed with diverse tortures, not only did not weep [over], but even, rejoicing, exhorted to the glory of [their] passion. ¹ These books are also worthy to be reckoned among the sacred writings, for the certainty and confirmation of many things which are found in the other books of sacred scripture. For very many things predicted beforehand by the prophets are read most truly fulfilled in these books. As, that which Daniel foresaw concerning the abomination to be [set] in the temple, these volumes indicate to have been fulfilled in Antiochus — who set the abominable idol of desolation (namely his own statue) upon the altar of God in the temple, and burned the books of the Law, and did other unworthy [things] here and there, which are commemorated in the present history. Likewise, that which God foretold through Zechariah — that he would visit upon the he-goats, and that there would go forth out of Israel [those] who should exact [vengeance from] and vanquish those he-goats in great glory — Jerome, not disapproving the opinion of the Hebrews, expounded [as] fulfilled in the Maccabees, who prevailed mightily against the he-goats, that is, against Antiochus, Demetrius, Gorgias, and Nicanor, who are designated by the he-goats by Daniel, in the kingdom of the Greeks. In the Gospel of John, too, a testimony is adduced concerning the feast of the Encaenia [Dedication] — that is, of the renewal of the temple — of whose institution treatment is made in the first and second volume of Maccabees. ² Nor are there lacking also most grave authors who, with Theodoret bishop of Cyrus, assert that Paul, writing to the Hebrews, understood [the reference to] the slaughter of the seven brothers, which is reported in the second book, when he said: “But OTHERS (Alii) were racked [stretched out], not accepting redemption” — which words agree with none more than those seven brothers, without any remission of penalties, torn apart through every kind of torments. Nay, also the most ancient custom of the Church approves these books as canonical, when, in the sacred mysteries which are performed for the dead, it takes out of the latter volume the history of Judas Maccabaeus offering gifts for the sins of the dead. And although so many were just in the Old Testament, nevertheless the Church of Christ, by a certain singular privilege (as Bernard says), decreed an annual solemnity for these alone out of all the ancient just. To these accede innumerable testimonies of the most ancient fathers, drawn out of these books as [out] of canonical scriptures. Origen, in the commentaries upon the fifth chapter of the epistle to the Romans, refuting the error of the Valentinians (who said that in the Old Law no one dared to die for the God of the Old Testament, because they knew that he was not good), using the testimony of this history as canonical, says: “But (Sed) what will they do? for we find, in the Law also, many martyrs. Let them read the books of Maccabees, where, with all constancy, the blessed mother, with seven sons, underwent martyrdom; who not only receive martyrdom patiently, but even heap reproaches upon the tyrants. And let them see whether what they say be true.” ³ Eusebius of Caesarea, in the twelfth book of the Evangelical Preparation — showing that the souls of the saints, loosed from the body, bring us help in [our] necessities — uses the authority of these volumes, saying: “It is to be believed, therefore, that the pious souls of the dead have a certain power, by which, even after death, they aid human affairs. Thus certainly the Jews contend it was handed down concerning Jeremiah, and the history of the Maccabees related, that he himself was seen, after death, to pray for the people.” Ambrose, in the first book of the Offices, builds up [confirms], by the examples of the Maccabean leaders, [that the saints…] ⁴

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[Ambrose, by the examples of the Maccabean leaders, builds up] that warlike virtue befits the saints also. Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria, writing to the bishops of all Egypt, in the fourth Paschal book, exhorts them to abstinence from meats, by the example (taken from this history) of the seven brothers, who, lest they should feed on unlawful meats, offered their bodies to torments. Augustine also, in the second book On Christian Doctrine, places the two books of Maccabees in the canon of the divine scriptures. And in the eighteenth book On the City of God, concerning the authority of these volumes he says: “The books of MACCABEES (Maccabaeorum), not the Jews, but the Church holds as canonical, on account of the vehement and wonderful passions of certain martyrs, who — before Christ had come in the flesh — contended, even unto death, for the Law of God, and bore the gravest and most horrible evils.” And this same [thing] he testifies also in other places of his works, but especially in the book On the Care to be had for the Dead, and in the 44th sermon to the brothers in the desert — in which places, out of the twelfth chapter of the latter book of Maccabees, he proves that prayers [and] sacrifices are to be offered for the dead. ⁵ I omit, for brevity’s sake, the third Council of Carthage, the epistle of Pope Innocent to Exuperius, the catalogue of Pope Gelasius, and the decree of the Council of Florence under Eugenius the Fourth — in which, out of the testimony of these volumes, the error of the Greeks concerning Purgatory was condemned — and other innumerable [testimonies] which protect the authority of these books; and, lest I beget tedium for the reader, I betake myself to the objections of the heretics.

OBIECTIONES HAERETICORVM [The Objections of the Heretics]

1. Many things are in these books which discrepate from the common consensus of all histories, and dissent from the truth of the Christian faith, on account of which they seem deservedly to be rejected. And first, as to what pertains to the truth of history, straightway at the beginning of the first volume it is read that Alexander the Macedonian, son of Philip, “first reigned in Greece.” To which opinion all the histories are repugnant. For Eusebius of Caesarea, the most diligent reckoner of times, and the rest of the Chronologers, write that many reigned in Greece before Alexander, and especially among the Macedonians: of whom the first was Gramaeus [Caranus], by some also called Carranus [Caranus]; at which time, among the Hebrews, there reigned in Juda Ozias [Uzziah], and in Israel Jeroboam. But Alexander the Macedonian reigned [as] the twenty-fourth in Greece, Jaddo [Jaddua] being high priest among the Hebrews, in the year of the world 4860, in the hundred-and-eleventh Olympiad. ⁶

2. There likewise it is written that Antiochus Epiphanes began to reign in the hundred-and-thirty-seventh year of the kingdom of the Greeks — which began from Alexander. But in the Chronicles of Eusebius, and in the other annals of the Greeks, numbering from Alexander to the beginning of the reign of Antiochus through the individual kings, many more years are found — namely, a hundred and fifty-three. Whence not ineptly did John Annius [Annius of Viterbo], a most skilled Chronographer, seeing that this controversy could not be settled, write in the commentaries upon the Chronography of Philo, that Josephus rendered these books apocryphal, while he wished to distinguish [set out] their history by ill-reckoned times. ⁷

3. Concerning the death of Antiochus likewise — and the kind, cause, place, and time of [his] death — the books of Maccabees narrate things as contrary to the histories of the nations as to themselves. For, concerning the kind of death, in the first volume it is written that he, from sadness of soul, fell into [his] bed, and — a testament being made, and a successor to the kingdom appointed — died: but, on the contrary, at the beginning of the second book, it is read that he perished by a violent death, being struck with stones (namely, by the priests), and, together with his companions, his head cut off, torn limb from limb. Then, in the ninth chapter of the same book, he is reported to have perished by yet another kind of violent death: namely, that, fleeing, he fell from his chariot, and — the members of his whole body crushed, his flesh withering everywhere, and worms swarming over his whole body — amid horrible pains and stenches, miserably expired. But concerning the place of death, in the first book he is said to have departed [this] life at Babylon, in his own bed, worn out by long sickness. But at the beginning of the second book it is written that he was slain by the priests of the temple, within the shrine of Nannaea [Nanaea], in Persia; while below, in the ninth chapter of the same book, he is read to have perished on the journey, having now passed over into Ecbatana. ⁸ Nor is the diversity less as to time: while the first [book] of Maccabees asserts that Antiochus died in the hundred-and-forty-ninth year of the kingdom of the Greeks; but otherwise, at the beginning of the latter book, it is narrated that the same died in the hundred-and-eighty-eighth year of the kingdom of the Greeks; and, from the ninth chapter of the same book, it is gathered that the same died in the hundred-and-forty-sixth year of the kingdom of the Greeks. For he died two years before the purgation of the temple of Jerusalem, made by Judas Maccabaeus; which indeed (as the first [book] of Maccabees testifies) happened in the hundred-and-forty-eighth year of the kingdom of the Greeks, on the twentieth day of the month Casleu [Chislev], that is, of the ninth month. Concerning the cause of his death too, the history of the Maccabees by no means agrees with the external histories of the nations. For Polybius of Megalopolis (whom Josephus names a most excellent man, and Livy calls a not-to-be-contemned author), and, together with Polybius, Diodorus Siculus — both report that Antiochus Epiphanes, trying to plunder the most wealthy temple of Diana in Elymais, and overwhelmed by the guards, and put to flight by the neighboring nations round about, [being] turned into madness by certain phantasms and errors, at last perished of disease for this cause: because he had wished to violate the temple of Diana. But each book of Maccabees casts the cause of all the evils and of the death of Antiochus upon the calamities unjustly inflicted on the Jews, and [upon] the Jewish temple, defiled by him with all impieties. ⁹

4. There is also an implacable contradiction concerning the deeds done by Judas Maccabaeus, and concerning his death, between the two books. For, while in the first volume the author testifies that the temple was purged by Judas, and the altar of God restored, in the hundred-and-forty-eighth year of the kingdom of the Greeks, on the twentieth day of the month Casleu — namely, one year before the death of Antiochus Epiphanes — in the second volume the same author writes that the same purification of the temple was made by Judas two years after the death of Antiochus, namely in the year of the kingdom of the Greeks ¹⁰

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[in the year] of the Greeks’ [kingdom] the hundred-and-fifty-first. To which Eusebius, in the Chronicles, consents, writing that Judas cleansed the temple from the images of idols in the second year of Antiochus Eupator, three years after it had been contaminated by Antiochus Epiphanes. Concerning the death of Judas likewise, in the first book of Maccabees it is said that he was killed at the outset, in battle against the generals of Demetrius Soter; in the sixth year of Demetrius (as Eusebius notes), that is, eight years after the death of Antiochus the Illustrious, but in the hundred-and-fifty-second year of the Greeks’ kingdom. But the beginning of the second [book] of Maccabees shows Judas living thirty years after this time — under Demetrius the fourteenth king of Syria (who reigned fourth after Demetrius Soter) — [and] writing, together with the senate of the Jews, a letter to Aristobulus the tutor of Ptolemy Philometor, in the hundred-and-eighty-eighth year of the Greeks’ kingdom. ¹¹

5. There are contained likewise in this history not a few fabulous and uncertain [things] which — what is even worse — are confirmed by testimonies falsely adduced from the books of the prophets. Such is that which is recounted in the latter volume: namely, that the priests, by command of the prophet Jeremiah, hid the fire taken from the altar in a valley where there was a deep and dry well; which, after many years, Nehemiah, returned from captivity, ordered to be dug out by the grandsons of those priests who had hidden it. And again, that Jeremiah, at the same time of the transmigration [exile], hid the tabernacle, the ark, and the altar of incense in a cave of Mount Nebo, onto which Moses, about to die, had ascended. Moreover, it confirms these [things] from the books of Jeremiah the Prophet and of Nehemiah — whereas nothing such is ever read to have been done, or said, in the whole Old Testament, nor was it even possible to be done: because Jeremiah, the whole time of the siege of Jerusalem, up to the last destruction of the city, was in prison (as appears from the 37th and 38th chapter of his book) — who, as he could not do these [things] before the destruction of the city, so neither after. ¹² For, the city being taken, the Chaldeans immediately seized all the precious things of the temple, and carried [them] away into Babylon (as is found written in the fourth [book] of Kings); but among the precious things, the most precious were the tabernacle — in which (as is read in Exodus) were innumerable golden rings, [and] boards and columns covered with golden plates, [and] golden and silver bases very many — [and] the ark too, covered within and without with plates of the purest gold. Which, who would believe that the Chaldeans, greedy for plunder, gave to Jeremiah as a gift — [they] who abstained not even from things of lesser price, breaking all the vessels of silver and of bronze, and carrying [them] with them into Chaldea? Which [things], even if Jeremiah had received them from them as a gift, he would not have been silent about — since he was not silent even about lesser benefits received from them, nor passed over in silence the victuals and little gifts received from the master of the Assyrian army. ¹³

6. Nor is it to be omitted that in these books some [things] also are proposed to be imitated against the divine and natural law — but especially at the end of the latter book, in which place the author, with quite magnificent words, extols the voluntary killing [suicide] of Razis [Razias], praising him because he bravely laid hands upon himself, and preferred to fall generously by his own hands, by a noble and honest death, rather than basely to live in the power of enemies, and, against the splendor of his birth, to experience insults from unworthy men. ¹⁴ Which deed, so far is it from meriting any praise of fortitude, that it is even worthy of the mark of the highest timidity and impatience — not only among the faithful, but also among the pagan [ethnic] philosophers; of whom the chief, Aristotle, indicated what he felt concerning this deed, in the third book of the Ethics [Morals], in these words: “But to procure death for oneself, in order to flee poverty, or love, or anything grievous, is [the mark] not of a brave man, but rather of a timid one. For it is softness to flee laborious [things]. For [such a one] does not seek death because death is honorable, but because he thinks to avoid an evil.” ¹⁵

7. Wherefore not undeservedly the Hebrews cast these books out of the canon of the divine scriptures, as profane, and as written by a profane and gentile author from the lying histories of the Greeks — as the author himself testifies in the second volume, in these words: “The books comprehended [gathered] by Jason of Cyrene into five [books], we have tried to abridge into one volume.” Which abbreviator some think was a certain Greek (as the style indicates), before the times of Christ; but others — among whom Jerome, in the book On Illustrious Men, and in the second book against the Pelagians — esteem to have been Josephus the Hebrew. ¹⁶

8. But of whatsoever author the history be, it is plain that among the ancient fathers it was of no authority. For if we speak of the Greeks: Origen, in the preface to the first Psalm, cut the books of Maccabees from the Canon; Melito, bishop of Sardis, responding to Onesimus (who consulted him concerning the canonical books), made no mention of this history in his catalogue; and Epiphanius, in the book On Weights and Measures, did not receive these books into the number of the sacred [books]. But among the Latins, Philastrius explodes [rejects] them from the catalogue of the divine volumes; and Jerome does the same, in the preface to Proverbs, writing these [things]: “The books of MACCABEES (Maccabaeorum) the Church indeed reads, but does not receive among the canonical scriptures for confirming the authority of the ecclesiastical dogmas.” And he repeats this same [thing] in the Helmeted Prologue. Nay, also Gregory, in the nineteenth book of the Morals, excusing himself that he receives testimonies out of the books of Maccabees: “We do NOT (Non) act disorderly,” he says, “if, out of books not canonical, yet published for the edification of the Church, we bring forth testimonies.” By which words indeed he indicates that in his time — namely, six hundred years after Christ — these books were not canonical. The Council of Laodicea also does not enumerate them in the catalogue of the holy scriptures. ¹⁷

DISSOLVTIO OBIECTORVM [The Dissolution of the Objections]

1. The Anabaptists, deceived by inexperience of histories, hallucinate in a matter clearer than light. For it is not to be understood that Alexander so “first reigned in Greece” [as] that no king was in Greece before him, but [rather] that he was the first who ruled over all Greece throughout — the other kings who reigned in it being excluded — as Metasthenes, a writer of that time, testifies.

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2. But what they assert in the second place, concerning the years of the reign of Antiochus, has so easy a solution that it is not necessary — with [John] Annius — to reject the reckonings of the years of this history as [things] super-added by Josephus: since Eusebius, in the Chronicles, easily recalls the present diversity of the reckonings to a true concord, saying that in each book of Maccabees the years of the kingdom of the Greeks are reckoned, not from Alexander the Great (as the external histories reckon), but from Seleucus surnamed Nicanor — who, eleven years being completed from the death of Alexander, began to reign in Syria: to which [years], if the five years be added in which Alexander reigned as monarch over all Greece, there results the number of a hundred and fifty-three years, which is had in the histories of the Greeks. Therefore, if according to the first volume of Maccabees we take the beginning of the kingdom of the Greeks, we find that Antiochus entered upon the kingdom in the hundred-and-thirty-seventh year of the kingdom of the Greeks. But if we reckon the years of the same kingdom of the Greeks from Alexander (as the histories of the Greeks do), we find that Antiochus began to reign in the hundred-and-fifty-third year of the kingdom of the Greeks.

3. But concerning the kind of the death of Antiochus, there are not lacking [those] who believe that that Antiochus — whose slaughter the epistle of the Senate of Jerusalem to Aristobulus reports — is a different [Antiochus] from that one whom the history of the Maccabees narrates to have perished from sickness of soul. We, however — esteeming that the same Antiochus is everywhere described — say that the parts of this history in no way discrepate among themselves; for each is most true: both that Antiochus, dismayed with grief of soul, fell into a languor (as the first [book] of Maccabees testifies), and that, oppressed with the same languor, he fled from Persia, and in flight was thrown from [his] chariot, and — by the collision of [his] limbs, and the convulsion of [his] entrails, amid pains and stenches — perished (as is read in the second [book] of Maccabees). ¹⁸ But concerning the diversity of times about the death of Antiochus, there is no dissension, if we recur to the various reckonings of times. For [Antiochus], who in the first [book] of Maccabees is written to have died in the hundred-and-forty-ninth year of the kingdom of the Greeks according to the reckoning begun from Seleucus, that same [Antiochus] is said, at the beginning of the latter volume, to have died in the hundred-and-eighty-eighth year — not indeed of the kingdom of the Greeks (as the crafty Anabaptists added), but in the hundred-and-eighty-eighth year of the Hebrew reckoning — reckoning, namely, the number of years, not from the beginning of the kingdom of the Greeks, but (as Rabanus, Lyra, and Hugh of St. Cher [Carensis] teach) from the twelfth year of King Assuerus, from which some of the Hebrews began their reckonings; because in that year happened that admirable liberation of the sons of Israel through Esther and Mardochaeus. From which time, if a reckoning be made through the individual years of the kings down to the death of Antiochus, a hundred and eighty-eight years are found. To which two computations a third reckoning also corresponds, which is gathered from the tenth chapter of the second book, where it is written that Antiochus died two years before the purification of the temple made by Judas. But this happened — not (as the Anabaptists dreamed) in the hundred-and-forty-eighth year of the kingdom of the Greeks, but in the hundred-and-fifty-first year of the same kingdom — as is gathered from the aforesaid chapter of the second book. Nor does that stand in the way, which is produced by them out of the first book of Maccabees — namely, that Judas purged the temple in the hundred-and-forty-eighth year of the kingdom of the Greeks, on the twentieth day of the month Casleu — since this is to be understood of the first purification of the temple, made by Judas one year before the death of Antiochus; but this [other], which is written in the second book, is to be understood of the second purification of the temple, made by the same Judas, again, two years after the death of Antiochus. ¹⁹

Concerning the place of the death of Antiochus likewise, all controversy is removed, if the words of the latter book — produced indeed by the Anabaptists, but not understood — be more diligently inspected. For they thought that Antiochus was slain in the temple of Nannaea [Nanaea] in Persia, together with [his] companions: because at the beginning of that book it is written: “And (Et) when Antiochus had entered the temple, [the priests,] casting stones, struck the leader, and those who were with him.” But from these words it is not elicited that Antiochus was slain, but only struck with stones. And what is immediately subjoined under the aforesaid words — “And (Et) they divided [them] limb from limb, and, the heads being cut off, cast [them] forth” — is referred to his companions; upon whose slaughter, while the priests were insisting too much, Antiochus in the meantime escaped. Nor does that discrepate from this opinion which is read in the ninth chapter of the same book — that Antiochus entered Persepolis (which is also called Elymais in the first [book] of Maccabees), the metropolis of Persia (as Ptolemy writes). And when he had wished to spoil the temple, the multitude running together to arms, [he was] turned to flight; in which, when he had now passed beyond Ecbatana, he fell from [his] chariot. And in the Babylonian region (as is read in the first and second book) — a successor to the kingdom, Antiochus Eupator, being left [behind] — he died, amid torments and stenches: not indeed for the cause written by Diodorus and Polybius, but for the sacrilege of the temple of Jerusalem perpetrated by him. As Antiochus himself, dying, confesses in each book, and Josephus, in the twelfth [book] of the Antiquities, confirms — refuting Polybius in these words: “I wonder (Miror) that Polybius of Megalopolis, a good man, says that Antiochus perished for this [cause]: that he wished to violate the temple of Diana in Persia. For he who in no way did the sin, but only thought [it], is held by no guilt of the deed. But if it seem to Polybius that Antiochus therefore ended [his] life, it is believed far more verisimilar that he perished on account of the sacrilegious devastation of the temple of Jerusalem.” ²⁰

4. I pass now to the deeds of Judas Maccabaeus, which suffer no difficulty at all, if they be distinguished according to the aforesaid reckonings. For it is agreed (as we warned above) that Judas twice purged the temple: first indeed in the year one before the death of Antiochus, immediately after it had been violated by him — that is, in the hundred-and-forty-eighth year of the kingdom of the Greeks reckoned from Seleucus (as is read in the first [book] of Maccabees); but the second [time], two years after the death of Antiochus, namely in the hundred-and-fifty-first year of the kingdom of the Greeks reckoned from Seleucus — for thus in the second book of Macca-[bees] ²¹

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for thus in the second book of Macca­bees it is written, and is had in Eusebius, that Judas purged the temple three years after it had been profaned by Antiochus. After which purgation, in six years or thereabouts, Judas dies, in the sixth year of Demetrius (as the first book testifies). But this Demetrius is not that one whom the Anabaptists, falsely transposing the names, lyingly [allege] — namely, the tenth king of Syria, surnamed Soter; but another Demetrius, the fourteenth king of Syria, in whose sixth year Judas fell in war — namely, in the hundred-and-fifty-sixth year of the kingdom of the Greeks reckoned from Seleucus, or thereabouts (as Eusebius hands down). But he [Judas] had earlier written the letter which is had at the beginning of the second volume, to Aristobulus, while Demetrius Soter reigned, in the hundred-and-eighty-eighth year of the Hebrew reckoning from Assuerus — which, according to the Greek reckoning from Seleucus, is nearly the fifty-fifth year: at which time it is openly agreed that that Aristobulus lived — the tutor of Ptolemy Philometor king of Egypt, a Jew by nation, a philosopher by profession, a Peripatetic by sect — who, to the same king of Egypt (Eusebius being witness), wrote commentaries upon Moses. ²²

5. But that which they say — that certain fabulous [things] are falsely introduced into this history from the sacred books of Nehemiah [and] of Jeremiah, which are nowhere read in those sacred volumes of theirs — is a calumny of the heretics: since nothing out of the divine and Canonical volumes of Nehemiah, or of Jeremiah, is cited in the second book of Maccabees, but only certain “descriptions” [records], and “commentaries,” of Nehemiah and of Jeremiah. For thus it is written in that place: “It is FOUND (Invenitur) in the descriptions of Jeremiah the prophet”; and a little after: “But they were brought in (Inferebantur) in the descriptions and commentaries of Nehemiah.” Which certainly no one who understands the signification of “commentary” will think to be those [books] which are counted in the Canon of the Old Testament. For commentaries, as appears from Cicero’s Brutus, are books in which the daily events are noted — not more broadly and more diffusely, as they are described in a [formal] history, but as briefly and as strictly as can be. But in the aforesaid books which are had in the canon, the single [events] are extended, in the manner of a history, drawn out into a long narration. It is to be believed, therefore, that there were of old other commentaries in which these [things] about the fire, the ark, and the hidden altar were contained — written either by Jeremiah, or by Baruch his scribe, or by some other; and, because they contained the deeds of Jeremiah, entitled with his name: which perhaps, because they had nothing pertaining to prophecy, were not received among the divine books. For Jerome also, in the 27th chapter on Matthew, testifies that he read a certain apocryphal book of Jeremiah, which a certain Jew of the Nazarene sect had brought to him. Nor is the author to be damned on this account — that he adduced testimonies out of apocryphal writings in true and sacred matters: since Paul, as we showed elsewhere, took testimonies not only out of apocryphal, but out of profane books — namely, out of Aratus, Menander, and Epimenides — and Jude, in his epistle, cited the apocryphal book of Enoch. ²³ But as to what they say — that it could in no way happen that the ark, the altar, and the tabernacle were hidden by Jeremiah — is asserted by them too impudently. For what forbids that these, before, or in the very destruction of the city, at the exhortation of Jeremiah (existing [then] in prison), could have been concealed by pious men? — as the very words of the history seem to intimate, when they say: “It is FOUND (Invenitur) in the descriptions of Jeremiah the prophet, that he commanded them to take the fire — [those] who were being transmigrated [into exile], as has been signified — and as he charged those transmigrated.” Nor are the ancient fathers lacking who believed this to have been most truly done by Jeremiah — as Theophylact, in the commentaries upon the ninth chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews; Epiphanius, in the life of Jeremiah the prophet; and Dorotheus, bishop of Tyre, in the Synopsis in which he embraces the lives of the prophets. Nor does it stand in the way, that in the second [book] of Maccabees it is written: “And (Et) Jeremiah, coming thither, found a place of a cave, and brought in thither the tabernacle, and the ark, and the altar, and blocked the door.” For it can happen that what was done by others — [when Jeremiah was] detained in prison, at the command of Jeremiah, before the sacking of the city — is said that Jeremiah himself did [it], according to the common custom of divine scripture, which frequently is wont to attribute to the author that which was done by others at the author’s command.

6. Concerning the deed of Razis — for whose cause the Anabaptists wickedly vituperate the whole history — Augustine, in the sixty-first epistle to Dulcitius, responds in these words: “In the books of MACCABEES, although Razis was praised, yet his deed is narrated, not praised, and set before the eyes rather to be judged than imitated: not by the judgment which we, as men, might have, but by the judgment of sober doctrine, which is clear also in those old books themselves. For that Razis was far from those words where it is read: ‘RECEIVE (Omne) whatever shall be applied to thee, and in pain sustain [it], and in humility have patience.’ For that man was not wise in choosing death, but impatient in bearing humility [humiliation]. It is written that he wished to die nobly, but not wisely. For God says: ‘The INNOCENT (Innocentem) and the just slay not.’” And the same [Augustine], in the second book against the second epistle of Gaudentius, ch. 23: “Razis — [the text] says — because he could not flee, is perhaps less guilty of his own blood, in that he inflicted death upon himself, than the enemy would have inflicted [on him] if [he had been] captured. Razis was praised as a lover of [his] city, as one very well spoken-of — that is, of good repute — because he was called father of the Jews, and because he held continence in Judaism. But it [Scripture] narrated that death of his [as] more wonderful than [it was] more prudent — how it was done, [it] praised, not as [something] that was to be done.” The heretics, therefore, lie, asserting that this deed was praised, and set before us for imitation. ²⁴

7. Concerning the opinion of the Hebrews about these books — whatever it be — it matters nothing, since the Catholic Church receives them in the canon. Nor is anything derogated from their faith [authority], even if they were written by a profane author — since the faith of a book depends not on the author, but on the authority of the Catholic Church. And what she has received, it behooves to be true and indubitable, by whatsoever author it be said — whom I would dare affirm neither sacred nor profane; nor did Jerome ever, out of his own opinion, [reprove] those books

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[nor did Jerome ever, out of his own opinion, reprove] those books, or affirm [them to be] of Josephus, or of any other; but, “JOSEPHUS (Iosephus),” he says, “is reported [to be] the writer of the [Maccabaean] history.” But that it was thus believed by some, came perhaps thence: because they had heard, in Eusebius or other authors, that Josephus wrote a book of the Maccabees, and thought this to be that [book] which is numbered among the canonical [ones] — which indeed is not so. For that book which Josephus wrote concerning the Maccabees still exists in Greek, and in some Bibles of the Greeks is placed immediately after the two books of Maccabees, with its author’s name prefixed — namely, Ἰωσήπου εἰς τοὺς Μακκαβαίους (Iosepou eis tous Makkabaious — “Of Josephus, upon the Maccabees”). Of which little book Eusebius, in the third book of the Ecclesiastical History, brought forth testimony with such [words]: “There is also (Est) another elegant volume of Josephus, entitled εἰ αὐτοδέσποτός ἐστι τῶν παθῶν ὁ εὐσεβὴς λογισμός (ei autodespotos esti ton pathon ho eusebes logismos — ‘whether pious reason is self-master [autocrat] of the passions’) — which little book some have entitled ‘of the Maccabees,’ for the reason that the contests therein, and the struggles undergone for piety’s sake by the Maccabees, are contained.” It is plain, therefore, that nothing certain can be affirmed concerning the author of the present history — except that it was written by diverse authors, as the diversity of phrase indicates, and the repeated iteration of the same history, which it is not verisimilar that one and the same author made. For to what purpose would he have wished to repeat again, in the second volume, those same [things] which he had abundantly narrated in the first volume? I, for my part, would believe (as I already indicated in the first volume of this work) that these books were written by three diverse authors: the first indeed by a Hebrew author, and in the Hebrew tongue (as the style shows, and Jerome, in the Helmeted Prologue, affirms that he read it written in Hebrew). But the second — except its first chapter, and the half of the second chapter (the beginning being taken from those words, “OF JUDAS MACCABAEUS AND HIS BROTHERS (De Iuda Maccabaeo et fratribus eius),” whence the preface of the second book begins) — up to the end, I judge was abridged by a Greek author out of the five books of Jason of Cyrene, as the abbreviator himself affirms in the preface. But the third part of this history — from the beginning of the second book up to the half of the second chapter, in which those two letters of the Senate of Jerusalem are contained — I think was written by a public scribe of the senate, to the Jewish brethren dwelling in Egypt, as the salutations of the letters themselves indicate. ²⁵

8. Finally, to those [things] which they object concerning the fathers who do not receive these books in the canon, we respond that most of them spoke, not of the canon of the Christians, but of the canon of the Hebrews. For thus Origen says on the first Psalm: “It is NOT (Non) to be ignored that there are twenty-two books in the canon of the Old Testament, as the Hebrews hand down”; then, after the enumeration of the books, he adds: “And (Et) in these they conclude the canon of the divine volumes; but the books of Maccabees they have extrinsically [outside].” But as to that which Jerome and Gregory seem to intimate — that neither of these volumes is of the canon of the Christians — I recall that I already responded above: that there are two orders of the canonical volumes, from the prior of which Jerome and Gregory deservedly exclude the books of Maccabees, because concerning these it was long doubted in the Church. ²⁶ And hence it is that the Council of Laodicea, and many of the fathers, did not number them in the catalogues of the sacred volumes — lest, in a matter so grave (concerning which many were not yet fully instructed), they should rashly define anything. But after — a diligent discussion being made — they recognized these books to be divine, then they referred them into the Canon, and left them to us so approved, that it is now no longer permitted to doubt concerning their certainty.