The Fourth Book of the Maccabees
6. fejezet
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When Eleazar had in this manner answered the exhortations of the tyrant, the spearbearers came up, and rudely dragged Eleazar to the instruments of torture.
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First, they stripped the old man, adorned as he was with the beauty of piety.
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Then tying back his arms and hands, they disdainfully flogged him.
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A herald opposite cried out, “Obey the commands of the king!”
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But the high-minded and truly noble Eleazar, as one tortured in a dream, ignored it.
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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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Falling on the ground from his body having no power to endure the pains, he still kept his reasoning upright and unbending.
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Then one of the harsh spearbearers rushed at him and began to kick him in the side to force him to get up again after he fell.
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But he endured the pains, despised the cruelty, and persevered through the indignities.
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Like a noble athlete, the old man, when struck, vanquished his torturers.
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His face sweating, and he panting for breath, he was admired even by the torturers for his courage.
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Therefore, partly in pity for his old age,
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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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“Why do you unreasonably destroy yourself, O Eleazar, with these miseries?
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We will bring you some meat cooked by yourself, and you can save yourself by pretending that you have eaten swine’s flesh.”
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Eleazar, as though the advice more painfully tortured him, cried out,
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“Let us who are children of Abraham not be so evil advised as by giving way to make use of an unbecoming pretense.
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For it would be irrational, if having lived up to old age in all truth, and having scrupulously guarded our character for it, we would now turn back
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and ourselves become a pattern of impiety to the young, as being an example of eating pollution.
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It would be disgraceful if we would live on some short time, and that scorned by all men for cowardice,
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and be condemned by the tyrant for cowardice by not contending to the death for our divine law.
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Therefore you, O children of Abraham, die nobly for your religion.
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You spearbearers of the tyrant, why do you linger?”
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Beholding him so high-minded against misery, and not changing at their pity, they led him to the fire.
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Then with their wickedly contrived instruments they burned him on the fire, and poured stinking fluids down into his nostrils.
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He being at length burned down to the bones, and about to expire, raised his eyes Godward, and said,
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“You know, 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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Be merciful to your people, and be satisfied with the punishment of me on their account.
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Let my blood be a purification for them, and take my life in exchange for theirs.”
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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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Confessedly, therefore, religious reasoning is master of the emotions.
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For had the emotions been superior to reasoning, I would have given them the witness of this mastery.
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But now, since reasoning conquered the emotions, we befittingly award it the authority of first place.
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It is only fair that we should allow that the power belongs to reasoning, since it masters external miseries.
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It would be ridiculous if it weren’t so. 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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