4 Maccabees · Updated Brenton English Septuagint
4 Maccabees 6 Updated Brenton English Septuagint
Notes on this text (1)
- Same Septuagint text as Brenton, with modernised spelling.
4 Maccabees is not in RV1909.
1 When Eleazar had in this manner answered the exhortations of the tyrant, the spearbearers came up, and rudely haled Eleazar to the instruments of torture.
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2 And first, they stripped the old man, adorned as he was with the comeliness of piety.
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3 Then tying back his arms and hands, they disdainfully used him with stripes;
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4 a herald opposite crying out, Obey the commands of the king.
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5 But Eleazar, the high-minded and truly noble, as one tortured in a dream, regarded it not at all.
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6 But raising his eyes on high to heaven, the old man’s flesh was stripped off by the scourges, and his blood streamed down, and his sides were pierced through.
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7 And falling upon the ground, from his body having no power to support the pains, he yet kept his reasoning upright and unbending.
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8 Then one of the harsh spearbearers leaped upon his belly as he was falling, to force him upright.
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9 But he endured the pains, and despised the cruelty, and persevered through the indignities;
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10 and like a noble athlete, the old man, when struck, vanquished his torturers.
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11 His countenance sweating, and he panting for breath, he was admired by the very torturers for his courage.
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12 Wherefore, partly in pity for his old age,
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13 partly from the sympathy of acquaintance, and partly in admiration of his endurance, some of the attendants of the king said,
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14 Why do you unreasonably destroy yourself, O Eleazar, with these miseries?
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15 We will bring you some meat cooked by yourself, and do you save yourself by pretending that you have eaten swine’s flesh.
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16 And Eleazar, as though the advice more painfully tortured him, cried out,
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17 Let not us who are children of Abraham be so evil advised as by giving way to make use of an unbecoming pretense;
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18 for it were irrational, if having lived up to old age in all truth, and having scrupulously guarded our character for it, we should now turn back,
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19 and ourselves should become a pattern of impiety to the young, as being an example of pollution eating.
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20 It would be disgraceful if we should live on some short time, and that scorned by all men for cowardice,
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21 and be condemned by the tyrant for unmanliness, by not contending to the death for our divine law.
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22 Wherefore do you, O children of Abraham, die nobly for your religion.
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23 Ye spearbearers of the tyrant, why do ye linger?
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24 Beholding him so high-minded against misery, and not changing at their pity, they led him to the fire:
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25 then with their wickedly contrived instruments they burned him on the fire, and poured stinking fluids down into his nostrils.
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26 And he being at length burned down to the bones, and about to expire, raised his eyes toward God, and said,
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27 Thou knowest, O God, that when I might have been saved, I am slain for the sake of the law by tortures of fire.
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28 Be merciful to thy people, and be satisfied with the punishment of me on their account.
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29 Let my blood be a purification for them, and take my life in recompense for theirs.
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30 Thus speaking, the holy man departed, noble in his torments, and even to the agonies of death resisted in his reasoning for the sake of the law.
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31 Confessedly, therefore, religious reasoning is master of the passions.
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32 For had the passions been superior to reasoning, I would have given them the witness of this mastery.
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33 But now, since reasoning conquered the passions, we befittingly award it the authority of first place.
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34 And it is but fair that we should allow, that the power belongs to reasoning, since it masters external miseries.
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35 Ridiculous would it be were it not so; and I prove that reasoning has not only mastered pains, but that it is also superior to the pleasures, and withstands them.
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