May 19 4 Maccabees 10-14

10When he too had endured a glorious death, the third was led in, and many repeatedly urged him to save himself by tasting the meat. 2But he shouted, ‘Do you not know that the same father begot me as well as those who died, and the same mother bore me, and that I was brought up on the same teachings? 3I do not renounce the noble kinship that binds me to my brothers.’* 5Enraged by the man’s boldness, they disjointed his hands and feet with their instruments, dismembering him by prizing his limbs from their sockets, 6and breaking his fingers and arms and legs and elbows. 7Since they were not able in any way to break his spirit,* they abandoned the instruments* and scalped him with their fingernails in a Scythian fashion. 8They immediately brought him to the wheel, and while his vertebrae were being dislocated by this, he saw his own flesh torn all around and drops of blood flowing from his entrails. 9When he was about to die, he said, 10‘We, most abominable tyrant, are suffering because of our godly training and virtue, 11but you, because of your impiety and bloodthirstiness, will undergo unceasing torments.’
12 When he too had died in a manner worthy of his brothers, they dragged in the fourth, saying, 13‘As for you, do not give way to the same insanity as your brothers, but obey the king and save yourself.’ 14But he said to them, ‘You do not have a fire hot enough to make me play the coward. 15No—by the blessed death of my brothers, by the eternal destruction of the tyrant, and by the everlasting life of the pious, I will not renounce our noble family ties. 16Contrive tortures, tyrant, so that you may learn from them that I am a brother to those who have just now been tortured.’ 17When he heard this, the bloodthirsty, murderous, and utterly abominable Antiochus gave orders to cut out his tongue. 18But he said, ‘Even if you remove my organ of speech, God hears also those who are mute. 19See, here is my tongue; cut it off, for in spite of this you will not make our reason speechless. 20Gladly, for the sake of God, we let our bodily members be mutilated. 21God will visit you swiftly, for you are cutting out a tongue that has been melodious with divine hymns.’
The Torture of the Fifth and Sixth Brothers11When he too died, after being cruelly tortured, the fifth leapt up, saying, 2‘I will not refuse, tyrant, to be tortured for the sake of virtue. 3I have come of my own accord, so that by murdering me you will incur punishment from the heavenly justice for even more crimes. 4Hater of virtue, hater of humankind, for what act of ours are you destroying us in this way? 5Is it because* we revere the Creator of all things and live according to his virtuous law? 6But these deeds deserve honours, not tortures.’* 9While he was saying these things, the guards bound him and dragged him to the catapult; 10they tied him to it on his knees, and fitting iron clamps on them, they twisted his back* around the wedge on the wheel,* so that he was completely curled back like a scorpion, and all his members were disjointed. 11In this condition, gasping for breath and in anguish of body, 12he said, ‘Tyrant, they are splendid favours that you grant us against your will, because through these noble sufferings you give us an opportunity to show our endurance for the law.’
13 When he too had died, the sixth, a mere boy, was led in. When the tyrant inquired whether he was willing to eat and be released, he said, 14‘I am younger in age than my brothers, but I am their equal in mind. 15Since to this end we were born and bred, we ought likewise to die for the same principles. 16So if you intend to torture me for not eating defiling foods, go on torturing!’ 17When he had said this, they led him to the wheel. 18He was carefully stretched tight upon it, his back was broken, and he was roasted* from underneath. 19To his back they applied sharp spits that had been heated in the fire, and pierced his ribs so that his entrails were burned through. 20While being tortured he said, ‘O contest befitting holiness, in which so many of us brothers have been summoned to an arena of sufferings for religion, and in which we have not been defeated! 21For religious knowledge, O tyrant, is invincible. 22I also, equipped with nobility, will die with my brothers, 23and I myself will bring a great avenger upon you, you inventor of tortures and enemy of those who are truly devout. 24We six boys have paralysed your tyranny. 25Since you have not been able to persuade us to change our mind or to force us to eat defiling foods, is not this your downfall? 26Your fire is cold to us, and the catapults painless, and your violence powerless. 27For it is not the guards of the tyrant but those of the divine law that are set over us; therefore, unconquered, we hold fast to reason.’
The Torture of the Seventh Brother12When he too, thrown into the cauldron, had died a blessed death, the seventh and youngest of all came forward. 2Even though the tyrant had been vehemently reproached by the brothers, he felt strong compassion for this child when he saw that he was already in fetters. He summoned him to come nearer and tried to persuade him, saying, 3‘You see the result of your brothers’ stupidity, for they died in torments because of their disobedience. 4You too, if you do not obey, will be miserably tortured and die before your time, 5but if you yield to persuasion you will be my friend and a leader in the government of the kingdom.’ 6When he had thus appealed to him, he sent for the boy’s mother to show compassion on her who had been bereaved of so many sons and to influence her to persuade the surviving son to obey and save himself. 7But when his mother had exhorted him in the Hebrew language, as we shall tell a little later, 8he said, ‘Let me loose, let me speak to the king and to all his friends that are with him.’ 9Extremely pleased by the boy’s declaration, they freed him at once. 10Running to the nearest of the braziers, 11he said, ‘You profane tyrant, most impious of all the wicked, since you have received good things and also your kingdom from God, were you not ashamed to murder his servants and torture on the wheel those who practise religion? 12Because of this, justice has laid up for you intense and eternal fire and tortures, and these throughout all time* will never let you go. 13As a man, were you not ashamed, you most savage beast, to cut out the tongues of men who have feelings like yours and are made of the same elements as you, and to maltreat and torture them in this way? 14Surely they by dying nobly fulfilled their service to God, but you will wail bitterly for having killed without cause the contestants for virtue.’ 15Then because he too was about to die, he said, 16‘I do not desert the excellent example* of my brothers, 17and I call on the God of our ancestors to be merciful to our nation;* 18but on you he will take vengeance both in this present life and when you are dead.’ 19After he had uttered these imprecations, he flung himself into the braziers and so ended his life.*
Reason’s Sovereignty in the Seven13Since, then, the seven brothers despised sufferings even unto death, everyone must concede that devout reason is sovereign over the emotions. 2For if they had been slaves to their emotions and had eaten defiling food, we would say that they had been conquered by these emotions. 3But in fact it was not so. Instead, by reason, which is praised before God, they prevailed over their emotions. 4The supremacy of the mind over these cannot be overlooked, for the brothers* mastered both emotions and pains. 5How then can one fail to confess the sovereignty of right reason over emotion in those who were not turned back by fiery agonies? 6For just as towers jutting out over harbours hold back the threatening waves and make it calm for those who sail into the inner basin, 7so the seven-towered right reason of the youths, by fortifying the harbour of religion, conquered the tempest of the emotions. 8For they constituted a holy chorus of religion and encouraged one another, saying, 9‘Brothers, let us die like brothers for the sake of the law; let us imitate the three youths in Assyria who despised the same ordeal of the furnace. 10Let us not be cowardly in the demonstration of our piety.’ 11While one said, ‘Courage, brother’, another said, ‘Bear up nobly’, 12and another reminded them, ‘Remember whence you came, and the father by whose hand Isaac would have submitted to being slain for the sake of religion.’ 13Each of them and all of them together looking at one another, cheerful and undaunted, said, ‘Let us with all our hearts consecrate ourselves to God, who gave us our lives,* and let us use our bodies as a bulwark for the law. 14Let us not fear him who thinks he is killing us, 15for great is the struggle of the soul and the danger of eternal torment lying before those who transgress the commandment of God. 16Therefore let us put on the full armour of self-control, which is divine reason. 17For if we so die,* Abraham and Isaac and Jacob will welcome us, and all the fathers will praise us.’ 18Those who were left behind said to each of the brothers who were being dragged away, ‘Do not put us to shame, brother, or betray the brothers who have died before us.’
19 You are not ignorant of the affection of family ties, which the divine and all-wise Providence has bequeathed through the fathers to their descendants and which was implanted in the mother’s womb. 20There each of the brothers spent the same length of time and was shaped during the same period of time; and growing from the same blood and through the same life, they were brought to the light of day. 21When they were born after an equal time of gestation, they drank milk from the same fountains. From such embraces brotherly-loving souls are nourished; 22and they grow stronger from this common nurture and daily companionship, and from both general education and our discipline in the law of God.
23 Therefore, when sympathy and brotherly affection had been so established, the brothers were the more sympathetic to one another. 24Since they had been educated by the same law and trained in the same virtues and brought up in right living, they loved one another all the more. 25A common zeal for nobility strengthened their goodwill towards one another, and their concord, 26because they could make their brotherly love more fervent with the aid of their religion. 27But although nature and companionship and virtuous habits had augmented the affection of family ties, those who were left endured for the sake of religion, while watching their brothers being maltreated and tortured to death.
14Furthermore, they encouraged them to face the torture, so that they not only despised their agonies, but also mastered the emotions of brotherly love.
2 O reason,* more royal than kings and freer than the free! 3O sacred and harmonious concord of the seven brothers on behalf of religion! 4None of the seven youths proved coward or shrank from death, 5but all of them, as though running the course towards immortality, hastened to death by torture. 6Just as the hands and feet are moved in harmony with the guidance of the mind, so those holy youths, as though moved by an immortal spirit of devotion, agreed to go to death for its sake. 7O most holy seven, brothers in harmony! For just as the seven days of creation move in choral dance around religion, 8so these youths, forming a chorus, encircled the sevenfold fear of tortures and dissolved it. 9Even now, we ourselves shudder as we hear of the suffering of these young men; they not only saw what was happening, not only heard the direct word of threat, but also bore the sufferings patiently, and in agonies of fire at that. 10What could be more excruciatingly painful than this? For the power of fire is intense and swift, and it consumed their bodies quickly.
An Encomium on the Mother of the Seven11 Do not consider it amazing that reason had full command over these men in their tortures, since the mind of woman despised even more diverse agonies, 12for the mother of the seven young men bore up under the rackings of each one of her children.
13 Observe how complex is a mother’s love for her children, which draws everything towards an emotion felt in her inmost parts. 14Even unreasoning animals, as well as human beings, have a sympathy and parental love for their offspring. 15For example, among birds, the ones that are tame protect their young by building on the housetops, 16and the others, by building in precipitous chasms and in holes and tops of trees, hatch the nestlings and ward off the intruder. 17If they are not able to keep the intruder* away, they do what they can to help their young by flying in circles around them in the anguish of love, warning them with their own calls. 18And why is it necessary to demonstrate sympathy for children by the example of unreasoning animals, 19since even bees at the time for making honeycombs defend themselves against intruders and, as though with an iron dart, sting those who approach their hive and defend it even to the death? 20But sympathy for her children did not sway the mother of the young men; she was of the same mind as Abraham.