The Israelite church did not accept them into the canon.
The Israelite church did not accept them into the canon.
§ 236. [VII] They were not accepted into the canon by the Israelite church, to which “the oracles of God” were entrusted (Rom. 3:2). Augustine, De civit. Dei, bk. 18, c. 36, and Contra epist. Gaudent., bk. 11, c. 23: “The Jews do not hold the Books of the Maccabees as canonical.” But neither do the doctors of the early Christian church consider these books as canonical; instead, they keep them out of the number of them. See Clement of Rome (Constitution., bk. 1, c. 7), Origen (in Eusebius, Hist. eccles., bk. 6, c. 25, in the Greek, where he gives the catalog of canonical books and says that the Books of the Maccabees are “outside of these”), Athanasius (Synopsis), the Council of Laodicea (canon 59), the Council of Carthage in the work of Balsamon (c. 47), Hilary (Prologue on Psalms), Nazianzen (Carmina), Amphilochius (Iambi ad Seleucum), Cyril of Jerusalem (Catech. 4), Rufinus (Symbol.), Jerome (prefaces to the Books of Kings, to Proverbs, and to the Book of Wisdom), the book which is called 
, and Richard of St. Victor (Except., bk. 2, c. 9).
Bellarmine makes the exception: “They are speaking of the canon of the Jews, outside of which they place the Books of the Maccabees. Nevertheless they are canonical among the Christians.” This he argues from Augustine, De civit. Dei, bk. 18, c. 36, where he writes: “The Church, not the Jews, considers the Books of the Maccabees as canonical.” We respond. We have explained earlier what is to be thought about the distinction between the canon of the Jews and that of the Christians. Here we say briefly: (1) “The Church by no means can make a canonical book out of a noncanonical book,” as Bellarmine correctly writes (De verbo Dei, bk. 1, c. 10, § Itaque). (2) As the Church of the Old and New Testaments is one, so also it is necessary that the canon of the books of the Old Testament be one and the same in the judgment of both the old and the new Church, for Christians receive the canon of the Old Testament from the people of Israel. (3) The teachers of the early Christian church exclude these books from the canon not only of the Jews but also of the Christians (as we made clear in the aforementioned place). (4) When Augustine and some others call these books canonical, they are taking the word “canonical” in a broader sense for a book not fully rejected but that can be read in the Church for the edification of behavior and read, nevertheless, in such a way that it does not have an authority equal to the rest of the properly canonical books. (5) This is clear from Augustine himself, who writes: “The computation of those times is found not in the Holy Scriptures that are called canonical but in other writings, among which are also the Books of the Maccabees, which the Jews do not hold as canonical but which the Church does, because of the severe and miraculous sufferings of some martyrs” (De civit. Dei, bk. 18, c. 36). Therefore he himself explains the reason why the Church considered these books canonical, that is, why it wanted them to be read for the formation of behavior—namely, “because of the suffering of some martyrs.” He writes (Contra epist. Gaudent., bk. 2, c. 23):
Indeed, the Jews do not hold this writing that is called the Books of the Maccabees as they hold the Law and the prophets and the psalms, to which the Lord gives His testimony as to His own witnesses. Rather, the Church has accepted this writing not without usefulness, if it be read or heard soberly, especially because of the Maccabees who, on behalf of God’s Law, suffered terrible indignities at the hands of their persecutors, like true martyrs.
But nowhere does he apply that caution “if it be read soberly” to books that are canonical in the proper and specific sense. (6) Here we cite similar statements of Augustine: “You see, it is not in vain that we discover nowhere in the canonical books a divine command or permission to bring death upon ourselves” (De civ. Dei, bk. 1, c. 20). Yet suicide is praised in these books. Augustine says, “What is not written in the canon of the Jews is less strong” (De civit. Dei, bk. 17, c. 20). In De mirab. Script., bk. 2, he distinguishes the Books of the Maccabees from the divine canon.