Maccabees, a body of Jewish patriots, followers of Judas Maccabæus, who in 2nd century B.C. and in the interest of the Jewish faith withstood the oppression of Syria and held their own for a goodly number of years against not only the foreign yoke that oppressed them, but against the Hellenising corruption of their faith at home.
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Macbeth * Maccabees, Books Of