Rather, this work aims at consoling Jews in their sufferings and encouraging them to be steadfast "in their devotion to the Mosaic law".
Some believe that the work is little more than a summary of the events in the first four Books of Maccabees and the relevant chapters in Flavius Josephus.
Others hold this to be extremely unlikely, and believe it may have relied upon Jason of Cyrene, Justus of Tiberias, and/or Nicolaus of Damascus.
[3] The book was not called "5 Maccabees" until 1832, when the name was first used by Henry Cotton[4] and perpetuated by Samuel Davidson and others.
[1] The name "5 Maccabees" is also used to denote a text contained in the Translatio Syra Peshitto, edited by Ceriani, which however is nothing more than a Syriac version of the 6th book of Josephus' Jewish War.