Septuagint (Greek Old Testament)

and knowing that it is a blessed thing to endure all kinds of hardships for virtue, would not, for the sake of religion, master his passion?

For the wise and brave man only is lord over his passions.

Whence it is, that even boys, imbued with the philosophy of religious reasoning, have conquered still more bitter tortures:

for when the tyrant was manifestly vanquished in his first attempt, in being unable to force the old man to eat the unclean thing,—

Then, indeed, vehemently swayed with passion, he commanded to bring others of the adult Hebrews, and if they would eat of the unclean thing, to let them go when they had eaten; but if they objected, to torment them more grievously.

The tyrant having given this charge, seven brethren were brought into his presence, along with their aged mother, handsome, and modest, and well-born, and altogether comely.

Whom, when the tyrant beheld, encircling their mother as in a dance, he was pleased at them; and being struck with their becoming and ingenuous mien, smiled upon them, and calling them near, said,

O youths, with favourable feelings, I admire the beauty of each of you; and greatly honouring so numerous a band of brethren, I not only counsel you not to share the madness of the old man who has been tortured before,

but I do beg you to yield, and to enjoy my friendship; for I possess the power, not only of punishing those who disobey my commands, but of doing good to those who obey them.

Put confidence in me, then, and you shall receive places of authority in my government, if you forsake your national ordinance,

and, conforming to the Greek mode of life, alter your rule, and revel in youth's delights.

For if you provoke me by your disobedience, you will compel me to destroy you, every one, with terrible punishments by tortures.

Have mercy, then, upon your own selves, whom I, although an enemy, compassionate for your age and comeliness.

Will you not reason upon this—that if you disobey, there will be nothing left for you but to die in tortures?

Thus speaking, he ordered the instruments of torture to be brought forward, that very fear might prevail upon them to eat unclean meat.

And when the spearman brought forward the wheels, and the racks, and hooks, and catapeltæ, and caldrons, pans, and finger-racks, and iron hands, and wedges, and bellows, the tyrant continued:

Fear, young men, and the Righteousness which ye worship will be merciful to you if you err from compulsion.

Now they having listened to these words of persuasion, and seeing the fearful instruments, not only were not afraid, but even answered the arguments of the tyrant, and through their good reasoning destroyed his power.

Now let us consider the matter: had any of them been weak-spirited and cowardly among them, what reasonings would they have employed but such as these?

O wretched that we are, and exceeding senseless! when the king exhorts us, and calls us to his bounty, should we not obey him?

Why do we cheer ourselves with vain counsels, and venture upon a disobedience bringing death?

Shall we not fear, O brethren, the instruments of torture, and weigh the threatenings of torment, and shun this vain-glory and destructive pride?

Let us have compassion upon our age and relent over the years of our mother.

And let us bear in mind that we shall be dying as rebels.

And Divine Justice will pardon us if we fear the king through necessity.

Why withdraw ourselves from a most sweet life, and deprive ourselves of this pleasant world?

Let us not oppose necessity, nor seek vain-glory by our own excruciation.

The law itself is not forward to put us to death, if we dread torture.

Whence has such angry zeal taken root in us, and such fatal obstinacy approved itself to us, when we might live unmolested by giving ear to the king?

But nothing of this kind did the young men say or think when about to be tortured.

For they were well aware of the sufferings, and masters of the pains. So that as soon as the tyrant had ceased counselling them to eat the unclean, they altogether with one voice, as from the same heart, said:

Why delayest thou, O tyrant? for we are readier to die than to transgress the injunctions of our fathers.

And we should be disgracing our fathers if we did not obey the law, and take knowledge for our guide.

O tyrant, counsellor of law-breaking, do not, hating us as thou dost, pity us more than we pity ourselves.

For we account your pity of us on the terms of unlawful escape to be worse than death.

And you think to scare us, by threatening us with death by tortures, as though thou hadst learned nothing by the death of Eleazar.

But if aged men of the Hebrews have died in the cause of religion after enduring torture, more rightly should we younger men die, scorning your cruel tortures, which our aged instructor overcame.

Make the attempt, then, O tyrant; and if thou puttest us to death for our religion, think not that thou harmest us by torturing us.

For we through this ill-treatment and endurance shall bear off the rewards of virtue.

But thou, for the wicked and despotic slaughter of us, shalt, from the Divine vengeance, endure eternal torture by fire.

When they had thus spoken, the tyrant was not only exasperated against them as being refractory, but enraged with them as being ungrateful.

So that, at his bidding, the torturers brought forth the eldest of them, and tearing through his tunic, bound his hands and arms on each side with thongs.

And when they had laboured hard without effect in scourging him, they hurled him upon the wheel.

And the noble youth, extended upon this, became dislocated.

And with every member disjointed, he exclaimed in expostulation,

O most accursed tyrant, and enemy of heavenly justice, and cruel-hearted, I am no murderer, nor sacrilegious man, whom thou thus ill-usest; but a defender of the Divine law.

And when the spearmen said, Consent to eat, that you may be released from your tortures,—

he answered, Not so powerful, O accursed ministers, is your wheel, as to stifle my reasoning; cut my limbs, and burn my flesh, and twist my joints.

For through all my torments I will convince you that the children of the Hebrews are alone unconquered in behalf of virtue.

While he was saying this, they heaped up fuel, and setting fire to it, strained him upon the wheel still more.

And the wheel was defiled all over with blood, and the hot ashes were quenched by the droppings of gore, and pieces of flesh were scattered about the axles of the machine.

And although the framework of his bones was now destroyed, the high-minded and Abrahamic youth did not groan.

But, as though transformed by fire into immortality, he nobly endured the rackings, saying,

Imitate me, O brethren, nor ever desert your station, nor abjure my brotherhood in courage: fight the holy and honourable fight of religion;

by which means our just and paternal Providence, becoming merciful to the nation, will punish the pestilent tyrant.

And saying this, the revered youth abruptly closed his life.

And when all admired his courageous soul, the spearmen brought forward him who was second in point of age, and having put on iron hands, bound him with pointed hooks to the catapelt.

And when, on enquiring whether he would eat before he was tortured, they heard his noble sentiment,

after they with the iron hands had violently dragged all the flesh from the neck to the chin, the panther-like beasts tore off the very skin of his head: but he, bearing with firmness this misery, said,

How sweet is every form of death for the religion of our fathers! and he said to the tyrant,

Thinkest thou not, most cruel of all tyrants, that thou art now tortured more than I, finding thy overweening conception of tyranny conquered by our patience in behalf of our religion?

For I lighten my suffering by the pleasures which are connected with virtue.

But thou art tortured with threatenings for impiety; and thou shalt not escape, most corrupt tyrant, the vengeance of Divine wrath.

Now this one, having endured this praiseworthy death, the third was brought along, and exhorted by many to taste and save his life.

But he cried out and said, Know ye not, that the father of those who are dead, begat me also; and that the same mother bare me; and that I was brought up in the same tenets?

I abjure not the noble relationship of my brethren.

But they, highly incensed at his boldness of speech, dislocated his hands and feet with racking engines, and wrenching them from their sockets, dismembered him.

And they dragged round his fingers, and his arms, and his legs, and his ankles.

And not being able by any means to strangle him, they tore off his skin, together with the extreme tips of his fingers, flayed him, and then haled him to the wheel;

around which his vertebral joints were loosened, and he saw his own flesh torn to shreds, and streams of blood flowing from his entrails.

And when about to die, he said,

We, O accursed tyrant, suffer this for the sake of Divine education and virtue.

But thou, for thy impiety and blood-shedding, shalt endure indissoluble torments.

And thus having died worthily of his brethren, they dragged forward the fourth, saying,

Do not thou share the madness of thy brethren: but give regard to the king, and save thyself.

But he said to them, You have not a fire so scorching as to make me play the coward.

By the blessed death of my brethren, and the eternal punishment of the tyrant, and the glorious life of the pious, I will not repudiate the noble brotherhood.

Invent, O tyrant, tortures; that you may learn, even through them, that I am the brother of those tormented before.

When he had said this, the bloodthirsty, and murderous, and unhallowed Antiochus ordered his tongue to be cut out.

But he said, Even if you take away the organ of speech, yet God hears the silent.

Behold, my tongue is extended, cut it off; for not for that shalt thou extirpate our reasoning.

Gladly do we lose our limbs in behalf of God.

But God shall speedily find you, since you cut off the tongue, the instrument of divine melody.

And when he had died, disfigured in his torments, the fifth leaped forward, and said,

I intend not, O tyrant, to get excused from the torment which is in behalf of virtue.

But I have come of my own accord, that by the death of me, you may owe heavenly vengeance a punishment for more crimes.

O thou hater of virtue and of men, what have we done that thou thus revellest in our blood?

Does it seem evil to thee that we worship the Founder of all things, and live according to his surpassing law?

But this is worthy of honours, not of torments;

As he said this, the spearbearers bound him, and drew him to the catapelt:

to which binding him at his knees, and fastening them with iron fetters, they bent down his loins upon the wedge of the wheel; and his body was then dismembered, scorpion-fashion.

With his breath thus confined, and his body strangled, he said,

A great favour thou bestowest upon us, O tyrant, by enabling us to manifest our adherence to the law by means of nobler sufferings.

He also being dead, the sixth, quite a youth, was brought out; and on the tyrant asking him whether he would eat and be delivered, he said,

I am indeed younger than my brothers, but in understanding I am as old;

for having been born and reared unto the same end, we are bound to die also in behalf of the same cause.

So that if thou think proper to torment us for not eating the unclean;—torment!

As he said this, they brought him to the wheel.

Extended upon which, with limbs racked and dislocated, he was gradually roasted from beneath.

And having heated sharp spits, they approached them to his back; and having transfixed his sides, they burned away his entrails.