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The book of 4 Maccabees is a homily or philosophic discourse praising the supremacy of pious reason over passion. While once accepted as a deuterocanonical book by the Orthodox, it is increasingly relegated to an appendix of apocryphal works. The reasons for this include its inclusion of pagan thought and the differences between the dialog of the martyrs that it portrays and the one in 2 Maccabees. Amongst churches other than the orthodox, it has always been regarded as completely apocryphal.