Fourth Book Of Maccabees
1926 anthology, complete selected publisher reading text
Rutherford H. Platt
3 Then binding his arms on either side they scourged him, a herald standing and shouting out over against him, ‘Obey the orders of the king!’
4 But the great-souled and noble man, an Eleazar in very truth, was no more moved in his mind than if he were being tormented in a dream; yea, the old man keeping his eyes steadfastly raised to heaven suffered his flesh to be tom by the scourges till he was bathed in blood and his sides became a mass of wounds; and even when he fell to the ground because his body could no longer support the pain he still kept his Reason erect and inflexible.
5 With his foot then one of the cruet guards as he fell kicked him savagely in the side to make him get up.
6 But he endured the anguish, and despised the compulsion, and bore up under the torments, and like a brave athlete taking punishment, the old man outwore his tormentors.
7 The sweat stood on his brow, and he drew his breath in hard gasps, till his nobility of soul extorted the admiration of his tormentors themselves.
8 Hereupon, partly in pity for his old age, partly in sympathy for their friend, partly in admiration of his courage, some of the courtiers of the king went tip to him and said:
9 ‘Why, O Eleazar, dost thou madly destroy thyself in this misery? We will bring to thee of the seethed meats, but do thou feign only to partake of the swine’s flesh, and so save thyself.’
10 And Eleazar, as if their counsel did but add to his tortures, cried loudly: ‘No. May we sons of Abraham never have so evil a thought as with faint heart to counterfeit a part unseemly to us.
11 Contrary to Reason, indeed, were it for us, after living unto the truth till old age, and guarding in lawful guise the repute of so living, now to change and become in our own persons a pattern to the young of impiety, to the end that we should encourage them to eat unclean meat.
12 Shame were it if we should live on a little longer, during that little being mocked of all men for cowardice, and while despised by the tyrant as unmanly should fail to defend the Divine Law unto the death.
13 Therefore, O sons of Abraham, do ye die nobly for righteousness’ sake; but as for you, O minions of the tyrant, why pause ye in your work?’
14 So they, seeing him thus triumphant over the tortures and unmoved even by the pity of his executioners, dragged him to the fire.
15 There they cast him on it, burning him with cruelly cunning devices, and they poured broth of evil odour into his nostrils.
16 But when the fire already reached to his bones and he was about to give up the ghost, he lifted up his eyes to God and said:
17 ‘Thou, O God, knowest that though I might save myself I am dying by fiery torments for thy Law. Be merciful unto thy people, and let our punishment be a satisfaction in their behalf. Make my blood their purification, and take my soul to ransom their souls,,
18 And with these words the holy man nobly yielded up his spirit under the torture I and for the sake of the Law held out by his Reason even against the torments unto death.
19 Beyond question, then, the Inspired Reason is master over the passions; for if his passions or sufferings had prevailed over his Reason we should have credited them with this evidence of their superior power.
20 But now his Reason having conquered his passions, we properly attribute to it the power of commanding them.
21 And it is right that we should admit that the mastery lies with Reason, in cases at least where it conquers pains that come from outside ourselves; for it were ridiculous to deny it.
22 And my proof covers not only the superiority of Reason to pains, but its superiority to pleasures also; neither does it surrender to them.
CHAP. IV.
This so called “Age of Reason” may in this chapter read that the Philosophy of Reason is 2000 years old. The story of seven sons and their mother.
FOR the Reason of our father Eleazar, like a fine steersman steering the ship of sanctity on the sea of the passions, though buffeted by the threats of the tyrant and swept by the swelling waves of the tortures, never shifted for one moment the helm of sanctity until he sailed into the haven of victory over death.
2 No city besieged with many and cunning engines ever defended itself so well as did that holy man when his sacred soul was attacked with scourge and rack and flame, and he moved them who were laying siege to his soul through his Reason that was the shield of sanctity.
3 For our father Eleazar, setting his mind film as a beetling sea-cliff, broke the mad onset of the surges of the passions.
4 O priest worthy of thy priesthood, thou didst not defile thy holy teeth, nor didst thou befoul with unclean meat thy belly that had room only for piety and purity.
5 O confessor of the Law and philosopher of the Divine life! Such should those be whose office is to serve the Law and defend it with their own blood and honourable sweat in the face of sufferings to the death.
6 Thou, O father, didst fortify our fidelity to the Law through thy steadfastness unto glory; and having spoken in honour of holiness thou didst not belie thy speech, and didst confirm the words of divine philosophy by thy deeds, O aged man that wast more forceful than the tortures.
7 O reverend elder that wast tenser-strung than the flame, thou great king over the passions, Eleazar.
8 For as our father Aaron, armed with the censer, ran through the massed congregation against the fiery angel and overcame him, so the son of Aaron, Eleazar, being consumed by the melting heat of the fire, remained unshaken in his Reason.
9 And yet most wonderful of all, he, being an old man, with the sinews of his body unstrung and his muscles relaxed and his nerves weakened, grew a young man again in the spirit of his Reason and with Isaac-like Reason turned the hydra-headed torture to impotence.
10 O blessed age, O reverend grey head, O life faithful to the Law and perfected by the seal of death!
11 Assuredly, then, if an old man despised the torments unto death for righteousness’ sake it must be admitted that the Inspired Reason is able to guide the passions.
12 But some perhaps may answer that not all men are masters of the passions because not all men have their Reason enlightened.
13 But as many as with their whole heart make righteousness their first thought, these alone are able to master the weakness of the flesh, believing that unto God they die not, as our patriarchs, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, died not, but that they live unto God.
14 Therefore there is-nothing contradictory in certain persons appearing to be slaves to passion in consequence of the weakness of their Reason.
15 For who is there that being a philosopher following righteously the whole rule of philosophy, and having put his trust in God, and knowing that it is a blessed thing to endure all hardness for the sake of virtue, would not conquer his passions for the sake of righteousness?
16 For the wise and self-controlled man alone is the brave ruler of the passions.
17 Yea, by this means even young boys, being philosophers by virtue of the Reason which is according to righteousness, have triumphed over yet more grievous tortures.
18 For when the tyrant found himself notably defeated in his first attempt, and impotent to compel an old man to eat unclean meat, then truly in violent rage he ordered the guards to bring others of the young men of the Hebrews, and if they would eat unclean meat to release them after eating it, but if they refused, to torture them yet more savagely.