4 Maccabees 15
1 O reasoning of the sons, lord over
the passions, and religion more desirable to a mother than progeny!
2 The mother, when two things were set
before her, religion and the safety of her seven sons for a time, on the
conditional promise of a tyrant,
3 rather elected the religion which
according to God preserves to eternal life.
4 O in what way can I describe
ethically the affections of parents toward their children, the resemblance of
soul and of form engrafted into the small type of a child in a wonderful
manner, especially through the greater sympathy of mothers with the feelings
of those born of them! 5 for by how
much mothers are by nature weak in disposition and prolific in offspring, by
so much the fonder they are of children.
6 And of all mothers the mother of the
seven was the fondest of children, who in seven childbirths had deeply
engendered love toward them; 7 and
through her many pains undergone in connection with each one, was compelled to
feel sympathy with them; 8 yet,
through fear of God, she neglected the temporary salvation of her children.
9 Not but that, on account of the
excellent disposition of her sons, and their obedience to the law, her
maternal affection toward them was increased.
10 For they were both just and
temperate, and manly, and high-minded, and fond of their brethren, and so fond
of their mother that even unto death they obeyed her by observing the law.
11 And yet, though there were so many
circumstances connected with love of children to draw on a mother to sympathy,
in the case of none of them were the various tortures able to pervert her
principle. 12 But she inclined each
one separately and all together to death for religion.
13 O holy nature and parental
feeling, and reward of bringing up children, and unconquerable maternal
affection!
14 At the racking and roasting of
each one of them, the observant mother was prevented by religion from
changing. 15 She beheld her
children's flesh dissolving around the fire; and their extremities quivering
on the ground, and the flesh of their heads dropped forwards down to their
beards, like masks.
16 O thou mother, who wast tried at
this time with bitterer pangs than those of parturition!
17 O thou only woman who hast brought
forth perfect holiness! 18 Thy
first-born, expiring, turned thee not; nor the second, looking miserable in
his torments; nor the third, breathing out his soul.
19 Nor when thou didst behold the
eyes of each of them looking sternly upon their tortures, and their nostrils
foreboding death, didst thou weep!
20 When thou didst see children's
flesh heaped upon children's flesh that had been torn off, hands upon hands
cut off, heads decapitated upon heads, dead falling upon the dead, and a choir
of children turned through torture into a burying-ground, thou lamentedst not.
21 Not so do siren melodies, or songs
of swans, attract the hearers to listening, O voices of children calling upon
your mother in the midst of torments!
22 With what and what manner of
torments was the mother herself tortured, as her sons were undergoing the
wheel and the fires!
23 But religious reasoning, having
strengthened her courage in the midst of sufferings, enabled her to forego,
for the time, parental love.
24 Although beholding the destruction
of seven children, the noble mother, after one embrace, stripped off [her
feelings] through faith in God.
25 For just as in a council-room,
beholding in her own soul vehement counsellors, nature and parentage and love
of her children, and the racking of her children,
26 she holding two votes, one for the
death, the other for the preservation of her children,
27 did not lean to that which would
have saved her children for the safety of a brief space.
28 But this daughter of Abraham
remembered his holy fortitude.
29 O mother of a nation, avenger of
the law, and defender of religion, and prime bearer in the battle of the
affections! 30 O thou nobler in
endurance than males, and more manly than men in patience!
31 For as the ark of Noah, bearing
the world in the world-filling flood, bore up against the waves,
32 so thou, the guardian of the law,
when surrounded on every side by the flood of passions, and straitened by
violent storms which were the torments of thy children, didst bear up nobly
against the storms against religion.