4 Maccabees 11
1 And when he had died, disfigured in
his torments, the fifth leaped forward, and said,
2 I intend not, O tyrant, to get
excused from the torment which is in behalf of virtue.
3 But I have come of my own accord,
that by the death of me, you may owe heavenly vengeance a punishment for more
crimes. 4 O thou hater of virtue and
of men, what have we done that thou thus revellest in our blood?
5 Does it seem evil to thee that we
worship the Founder of all things, and live according to his surpassing law?
6 But this is worthy of honours, not
of torments; 6a hadst thou been
capable of the higher feelings of men, and possessed the hope of salvation
from God. 6b Behold, now, being alien
from God, thou makest war against those who are religious toward God.
9 As he said this, the spearbearers
bound him, and drew him to the catapelt:
10 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.
11 With his breath thus confined, and
his body strangled, he said, 12 A
great favour thou bestowest upon us, O tyrant, by enabling us to manifest our
adherence to the law by means of nobler sufferings.
13 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,
14 I am indeed younger than my
brothers, but in understanding I am as old;
15 for having been born and reared
unto the same end, we are bound to die also in behalf of the same cause.
16 So that if thou think proper to
torment us for not eating the unclean;—torment!
17 As he said this, they brought him
to the wheel. 18 Extended upon which,
with limbs racked and dislocated, he was gradually roasted from beneath.
19 And having heated sharp spits,
they approached them to his back; and having transfixed his sides, they burned
away his entrails.
20 And he, while tormented, said, O
period good and holy, in which, for the sake of religion, we brothers have
been called to the contest of pain, and have not been conquered.
21 For religious understanding, O
tyrant, is unconquered. 22 Armed with
upright virtue, I also shall depart with my brethren.
23 I, too, bearing with me a great
avenger, O deviser of tortures, and enemy of the truly pious.
24 We six youths have destroyed thy
tyranny. 25 For is not your inability
to overrule our reasoning, and to compel us to eat the unclean, thy
destruction? 26 Your fire is cold to
us, your catapelts are painless, and your violence harmless.
27 For the guards not of a tyrant but
of a divine law are our defenders: through this we keep our reasoning
unconquered.