For his account of the Maccabean struggle he depends here primarily upon the First Book of the Maccabees, which in many parts he does little more than paraphrase. Neither the Second Book of the Maccabees nor the larger work of Jason of Cyrene, of which it is an epitome, appears to have been known to him. It is well-nigh certain that in writing the _Wars_ he had no acquaintance with the Jewish historical book, but was dependent on the less accurate and complete statement of a Hellenistic chronicle; and in the later work, though he bases his narrative on the Greek version of the Maccabees, and says he will give a fresh account with great accuracy, he yet incorporates pieces of non-Jewish history from the Greek guide without much art or skill or consistency. Thus, in the _Wars_ he says that Antiochus Epiphanes captured Jerusalem by assault, while in the _Antiquities_ he speaks of two captures: the first time the city fell without fighting, the second by treachery. And while in the Book of the Maccabees the year given for the fall of the city is 143 of the Seleucid era, in the _Antiquities_ the final capture is dated 145[1] of the era. He no doubt found this date in the Greek authority he was following for the general history of Antiochus--he gives the corresponding Greek Olympiad--and applied it to the pillage of Jerusalem. For the story of Mattathias at Modin, which is much more detailed than in the _Wars_, he closely follows the Book of the Maccabees, though in the speeches he takes certain liberties, inserting, for example, an appeal to the hope of immortality in Mattathias' address to his sons.[2] He turns to his Greek authority for the death of Antiochus, and controverts Polybius, who ascribes the king's distemper to his sacrilegious desire to plunder a temple of Diana in Persia. Josephus, with a touch of patriotism and an unusual disregard of the feelings of his patrons, who can hardly have liked the implied parallel, says it is surely more probable that he lost his life because of his pillage of the Jewish Temple. In confirmation of his theory he appeals to the materialistic morality of his audience, arguing that the king surely would not be punished for a wicked intention that was not successful. He states also that Judas was high priest for three years, which is not supported by the Jewish record;[3] and he passes over the miracle of the oil at the dedication of the Temple, and ascribes the name of the feast to the fact that light appeared to the Jews. The celebration of Hanukkah as the feast of lights is of Babylonian-Jewish origin, and was only instituted shortly before the destruction of the Temple.[4] [Footnote 1: Ant. XII. v. 3.] [Footnote 2: Ant. XIII. vi. 3.] [Footnote 3: In his own list of high priests at the end of the work, the name of Judas does not appear.] [Footnote 4: Comp. Krauss, R.E.J. xxx. 32.]