on

And Antiochus, looking on him, said: 'Before I allow the tortures to begin for you, O venerable man, I would give you this counsel, that you should eat of the flesh of the swine and save your life; for I respect your age and your grey hairs, although to have worn them so long a time, and still to cling to the Jewish religion, makes me think you no philosopher.

But it will be still greater folly, I think, on your part if with idle vapouring about truth you shall proceed to defy even me to your own punishment.

Will you not awake from your preposterous philosophy? Will you not fling aside the nonsense of your calculations and, adopting another frame of mind befitting your mature years, learn the true philosophy of expediency, and how to my charitable counsel, and have pity on your own venerable age?

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!'

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.

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?'

There they cast him on it, burning him with cruelly cunning devices, and they poured broth of evil odour into his nostrils.

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.

Have pity then on yourselves, whom even I, your opponent, pity for your youth and your beauty.

'Alas! miserable creatures that we are and foolish above measure! When the king invites us and appeals to us on terms of kind treatment shall we not obey him?

Let us take pity on our own youth and have compassion on our mother's age; and let us lay to heart that if we disobey we shall die.

Let us take pity on our own youth and have compassion on our mother's age; and let us lay to heart that if we disobey we shall die.

And even the divine justice will have mercy on us, if compelled by necessity we yield to the king in fear. Why should we cast away from us this dear life and rob ourselves of this sweet world?

So by his orders the scourgers brought forward the eldest of them and stripped him of his garment and bound his hands and arms on either side with thongs.

And on it the noble youth was racked till his bones were out of joint. And as joint after joint gave way, he denounced the tyrant in these words:

As he thus spake they set hot coals upon him besides, and intensifying the torture strained him yet tighter on the wheel.

War a holy and honourable warfare on behalf of righteousness, through which may the just Providence that watched over our fathers become merciful unto his people and take vengeance on the accursed tyrant.'

War a holy and honourable warfare on behalf of righteousness, through which may the just Providence that watched over our fathers become merciful unto his people and take vengeance on the accursed tyrant.'

And on this they twisted his spine till he saw his own flesh hanging in strips and great gouts of blood pouring down from his entrails.

Lo, now thou art God's enemy and makest war on those that worship God.'

As he spake thus the guards bound him and brought him before the catapult; and they tied him thereto on his knees, and, fastening them there with iron clamps, they wrenched his loins over the rolling 'wedge' so that he was completely curled back like a scorpion and every joint was disjointed.

And thus in grievous strait for breath and anguish of body he exclaimed, 'Glorious, O tyrant, glorious against thy will are the boons that thou bestowest on me, enabling me to show my fidelity to the Law through yet more honourable tortures.'

But the mother, speaking in the Hebrew tongue, as I shall tell later on, encouraged the boy, and he said to the guards, 'Loose me, that I may speak to the king and to all his friends with him.'

For which things the divine justice delivers thee unto a more rapid and an eternal fire and torments which shall not leave hold on thee to all eternity.

And then standing on the brink of death he said, 'I am no renegade to the witness borne by my brethren.

But in this cam it was not so; on the contrary by their Reason, which was commended in the sight of God, they rose superior to their passions.

For even as towers on harbour-moles repulse the assaults of the waves and offer a calm entrance to those entering the haven, so the seven-towered right Reason of the youths defended the haven of righteousness and repulsed the tempestuousness of the passions.

They formed a holy choir of righteousness as they cheered one another on, saying:

But though nature, companionship, and their virtuous disposition increased the ardour of their brotherly love, nevertheless the surviving sons through their religion supported the sight of their brethren, who were on the rack, being tortured to death; nay more, they even encouraged them to face the agony, so as not only to despise their own tortures, but also to conquer their passion of brotherly affection for their brethren. 34 O Reasoning minds, more kingly than kings, than freemen more free, of the harmony of the seven brethren, holy and well attuned to the keynote of piety!

And think it not wonderful if with those men Reason triumphed over the tortures, when even a woman's soul despised a yet greater diversity of pains; for the mother of the seven youths endured the torments inflicted on each several one of her children.

O how may I express the passionate love of parents for children? We stamp a marvellous likeness of our soul and of our shape on the tender nature of the child, and most of all through the mother's sympathy with her children being deeper than the father's.

She saw the flesh of her sons being consumed in the fire, and the extremities of their hands and feet scattered on the ground, and the flesh-covering, torn off from their heads right to their cheeks, strewn about like masks.

Thy firstborn, giving up the ghost, did not alter thy resolution, nor thy second, looking with eyes of pity on thee under his tortures, nor thy third, breathing out his spirit.

Neither didst thou weep when thou beheldest the eyes of each amid the torments looking boldly on the same anguish, and sawest in their quivering nostrils the signs of approaching death.

When thou sawest the flesh of one son being severed after the flesh of another, and hand after hand being cut off, and head after head being flayed, and corpse cast upon corpse, and the place crowded with spectators on account of the tortures of thy children, thou sheddest not a tear.

And although she saw the destruction of her seven children and the many and varied forms of their torments, the noble mother willingly surrendered them through faith in God. 20 For she beheld in her own mind, even as it had been cunning advocates in a council-chamber, nature, and parenthood, and mother-love, and her children on the rack, and it was as if she, the mother, having the choice between two votes in the case of her children, one for their death and one to save them alive, thereupon regarded not the saving of her seven sons for a little time, but, as a true daughter of Abraham, called to mind his God-fearing courage.

'My sons, noble is the fight; and do ye, being called thereto to bear witness for our nation, fight therein zealously on behalf of the Law of our fathers.

SOME of the guards declared that when she also was about to be seized and put to death, she cast herself on the pyre in order that no man might touch her body.

For truly it was a holy war which was fought by them. For on that day virtue, proving them through endurance, set before them the prize of victory in incorruption in everlasting life.

For when the tyrant Antiochus saw the heroism of their virtue, and their endurance under the tortures, he publicly held up their endurance to his soldiers as an example; and he thus inspired his men with a sense of honour and heroism on the field of battle and in the labours of besieging, so that he plundered and overthrew all his enemies.

The Lord is on my head like a crown, and I shall not be without Him.

. . . I put on:

And his members are with him. And on them do I stand, and He loves me:

For who is there that shall put on thy grace, and be hurt?

A cloud of darkness shall fall on their eyes; and an air of thick gloom shall darken them:

And He is as a garland on my head and I shall not be moved; even if everything should be shaken, I stand firm;

He was reckoned like myself in order that I might put Him on;

For I know them, and before they came into being I took knowledge of them, and on their faces I set my seal:

An everlasting crown for ever is Truth. Blessed are they who set it on their heads:

A stone of great price is it; and there have been wars on account of the crown.

Put on the crown in the true covenant of the Lord.

And the Lord was like the sun shining on the face of the land;

And I worshipped the Lord on account of His glory; and I said, Blessed, O Lord, are they who are planted in thy land! and those who have a place in thy Paradise;

I have put on incorruption through His name: and have put oft corruption by His grace.

And the thought of truth led me on. And I walked after it and did not wander:

And they who receive in its fulness are the ones on the right hand.

But put on the grace of the Lord without stint; and come into His Paradise and make thee a garland from its tree,

And put it on thy head and be glad; and recline on His rest, and glory shall go before thee,

And put it on thy head and be glad; and recline on His rest, and glory shall go before thee,

My heart ran over and was found in my mouth: and it arose upon my lips; and the exultation of the Lord increased on my face, and His praise likewise. Hallelujah.

He who brought me down from on high, also brought me up from the regions below;

And that the foundation for everything might be thy rock: and on it thou didst build thy kingdom; and it became the dwelling place of the saints. Hallelujah.

Joy is of the saints! and who shall put it on, but they alone?

Love is of the elect? And who shall put it on except those who have possessed it from the beginning?

And His thought was like a letter; His will descended from on high, and it was sent like an arrow which is violently shot from the bow:

And the name of the Father was on it, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, to rule for ever and ever. Hallelujah.

Or who can rest on the Most High, so that with His mouth he may speak?

For I am ready before destruction comes; and I have been set on His immortal pinions:

And according to His mercies He exalted me: and according to His excellent beauty He set me on high:

And He stood on a lofty summit and uttered His voice from one end of the earth to the other:

I am your judge; and they who have put me on shall not be injured: but they shall possess the new world that is incorrupt:

Where one is surrounded on every side by beauty, there is nothing that is divided.

I rested in the Spirit of the Lord: and the Spirit raised me on high:

And made me stand on my feet in the height of the Lord, before His perfection and His glory, while I was praising Him by the composition of His songs.

And it became to me a haven of Salvation: and set me on the arms of immortal life:

And my foundations were laid on the hand of the Lord: because He established me.

And those who walk on them without blemish shall not be afraid.

Put on, therefore, the name of the Most High, and know Him, and you shall cross without danger, for the rivers will be subject to you.

The Lord has bridged them by His word; and He walked and crossed them on foot:

And His footsteps stand firm on the water, and are not injured; they are as firm as a tree that is truly set up.

And the waves were lifted up on this side and on that, but the footsteps of our Lord Messiah stand firm and are not obliterated and are not defaced.

And the waves were lifted up on this side and on that, but the footsteps of our Lord Messiah stand firm and are not obliterated and are not defaced.

So also is my hope on Thee, my God.

My expansion is the outspread tree which was set up on the way of the Righteous One.

And those who had died ran towards me: and they cried and said, Son of God, have pity on us, and do with us according to thy kindness,