root out desire, but reasoning will enable you to avoid being enslaved to it. 3 One may not be able to root out anger from the soul, but it is possible to withstand anger. 4 Any one of you may not be able to eradicate malice, but reasoning has force to work with you to prevent you yielding to malice. 5 For reasoning is not an eradicator, but an antagonist of the emotions.
6 This may be more clearly comprehended from the thirst of King David. 7 For after David had been attacking the Philistines the whole day, he with the soldiers of his nation killed many of them; 8 then when evening came, sweating and very weary, he came to the royal tent, around which the entire army of our ancestors was encamped. 9 Now all the rest of them were at supper; 10 but the king, being very much thirsty, although he had numerous springs, could not by their means quench his thirst; 11 but a certain irrational longing for the water in the enemy’s camp grew stronger and fiercer upon him, undid and consumed him. 12 Therefore his bodyguards being troubled at this longing of the king, two valiant young soldiers, respecting the desire of the king, fully armed themselves, and taking a pitcher, got over the ramparts of the enemies. 13 Unperceived by the guardians of the gate, they went throughout the whole camp of the enemy in quest. 14 Having boldly discovered the fountain, they filled out of it the drink for the king. 15 But he, though parched with thirst, reasoned that a drink regarded of equal value to blood would be terribly dangerous to his soul. 16 Therefore, setting up reasoning in opposition to his desire, he poured out the drink to God. 17 For the temperate mind has power to conquer the pressure of the emotions, to quench the fires of excitement, 18 and to wrestle down the pains of the body, however excessive, and through the excellency of reasoning, to spurn all the assaults of the emotions. 19 But the occasion now invites us to give an illustration of temperate reasoning from history. 20 For at a time when our fathers were in possession of undisturbed peace through obedience to the law and were prosperous, so that Seleucus Nicanor, the king of Asia, both assigned them money for divine service, and accepted their form of government, 21 then certain people, bringing in new things contrary to the public harmony, in various ways fell into calamities.
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1 For a certain man named Simon, who was in opposition to an honourable and good man who once held the high priesthood for life, named Onias. After slandering Onias in every way, Simon couldn’t injure him with the people, so he went away as an exile, with the intention of betraying his country. 2 When coming to Apollonius, the military governor of Syria, Phoenicia, and Cilicia, he said, 3 “Having good will to the king’s affairs, I have come to inform you that tens of thousands in private wealth is laid up in the treasuries of Jerusalem which do not belong to the temple, but belong to King Seleucus.” 4 Apollonius, acquainting himself with the particulars of this, praised Simon for his care of the king’s interests, and going up to Seleucus informed him of the treasure. 5 Getting authority about it, and quickly advancing into our country with the accursed Simon and a very heavy force, 6 he said that he came with the commands of the king that he should take the private money of the treasury. 7 The nation, indignant at this proclamation, and replying to the effect that it was extremely unfair that those who had committed deposits to the sacred treasury should be deprived of them, resisted as well as they could. 8 But Appolonius went away with threats into the temple. 9 The priests, with the women and children, asked God to throw his shield over the holy, despised place, 10 and Appolonius was going up with his armed force to seize the treasure, when angels from heaven appeared riding on horseback, all radiant in armour, filling them with much fear and trembling. 11 Apollonius fell half dead on the court which is open to all nations, and extended his hands to heaven, and implored the Hebrews, with tears, to pray for him, and take away the wrath of the heavenly army. 12 For he said that he had sinned, so as to be consequently worthy of death, and that if he were saved, he would proclaim to all people the blessedness of the holy place. 13 Onias the high priest, induced by these words, although for other reasons anxious that King Seleucus wouldn’t suppose that Apollonius was slain by human device and not by Divine punishment, prayed for him; 14 and he being thus unexpectedly saved, departed to report to the king what had happened to him. 15 But on the death of Seleucus the king, his son Antiochus Epiphanes succeeded to the kingdom—a terrible man of arrogant pride.
16 He, having deposed Onias from the high priesthood, appointed his brother Jason to be high priest, 17 who had made a covenant, if he would give him this authority, to pay yearly three thousand and six hundred and sixty talents. 18 He committed to him the high priesthood and rulership over the nation. 19 He both changed the manner of living of the people, and perverted their civil customs into all lawlessness. 20 So that he not only erected a gymnasium on the very citadel of our country, but neglected the guardianship of the temple. 21 Because of that, Divine vengeance was grieved and instigated Antiochus himself against them. 22 For being at war with Ptolemy in Egypt, he heard that on a report of his death being spread abroad, the inhabitants of Jerusalem had exceedingly rejoiced, and he quickly marched against them. 23 Having subdued them, he established a decree that if any of them lived according to the ancestral laws, he should die. 24 When he could by no means destroy by his decrees the obedience to the law of the nation, but saw all his threats and punishments without effect, 25 for even women, because they continued to circumcise their children, were flung down a precipice along with them, knowing beforehand of the punishment. 26 When, therefore, his decrees were disregarded by the people, he himself compelled by means of tortures every one of this race, by tasting forbidden meats, to renounce the Jewish religion.
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1 The tyrant Antiochus, therefore, sitting in public state with his assessors upon a certain lofty place, with his armed troops standing in a circle around him, 2 commanded his spearbearers to seize every one of the Hebrews, and to compel them to taste swine’s flesh and things offered to idols. 3 Should any of them be unwilling to eat the accursed food, they were to be tortured on the wheel and so killed. 4 When many had been seized, a foremost man of the assembly, a Hebrew, by name Eleazar, a priest by family, by profession a lawyer, and advanced in years, and for this reason known to many of the king’s followers, was brought near to him.
5 Antiochus, seeing him, said, 6 “I would counsel you, old man, before your tortures begin, to taste the swine’s flesh, and save your life; for I feel respect for your age and hoary head, which since you have had so long, you appear to me to be no philosopher in retaining the superstition of the Jews. 7 For therefore, since nature has conferred upon you the most excellent flesh of this animal, do you loathe it? 8 It seems senseless not to enjoy what is pleasant, yet not disgraceful; and from notions of sinfulness, to reject the gifts of nature. 9 You will be acting, I think, still more senselessly, if you follow vain conceits about the truth. 10 You will, moreover, be despising me to your own punishment. 11 Won’t you awake from your trifling philosophy, give up the folly of your notions, and regaining understanding worthy of your age, search into the truth of an expedient course? 12 Won’t you respect my kindly admonition and have pity on your own years? 13 For bear in mind that if there is any power which watches over this religion of yours, it will pardon you for all transgressions of the law which you commit through compulsion.”
14 While the tyrant incited him in this manner to the unlawful eating of meat, Eleazar begged permission to speak. 15 Having received permission to speak, he began to address the people as follows: 16 “We, O Antiochus, who are persuaded that we live under a divine law, consider no compulsion to be so forcible as obedience to that law. 17 Therefore we consider that we ought not to transgress the law in any way. 18 Indeed, were our law (as you suppose) not truly divine, and if we wrongly think it divine, we would have no right even in that case to destroy our sense of religion. 19 Don’t think that eating unclean meat is a trifling offence. 20 For transgression of the law, whether in small or great matters, is of equal importance; 21 for in either case the law is equally slighted. 22 But you deride our philosophy, as though we lived in it irrationally. 23 Yet it instructs us in self-control, so that we are superior to all pleasures and lusts; and it trains us in