Which writer’s history was abridged to form 2 Maccabees?

Jason of Cyrene wrote the five-volume history that was abridged to form 2 Maccabees. The original work is lost, so Jason’s history survives only indirectly through the later Greek epitome.

The opening of 2 Maccabees explains that its author is condensing Jason’s much longer account. The epitomist selected and reshaped material covering the persecution under the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the revolt led by Judas Maccabeus, the cleansing of the Jerusalem Temple, and subsequent victories through the defeat of Nicanor.

Jason was a Hellenistic Jewish historian from Cyrene, in North Africa, probably active around the middle of the second century BCE. Very little is known about him, and scholars cannot always determine which details belong to Jason and which were added, rearranged, or emphasized by the anonymous abridger.

A common mistake is treating 2 Maccabees as simply a shorter version of 1 Maccabees. They overlap historically but differ in emphasis, theology, chronology, and style. 2 Maccabees focuses especially on Judas, martyrdom, divine intervention, resurrection, and the Temple, while 1 Maccabees gives a broader dynastic history.