hastened on to death through tortures. 6 For just as hands and feet are moved sympathetically with the directions of the soul, so those holy youths agreed to death for religion’s sake, as through the immortal soul of religion. 7 O holy seven of harmonious kindred! For as the seven days of creation, about religion, 8 so the youths, circling around the number seven, annulled the fear of torments. 9 We now shudder at the recital of the affliction of those young men; but they not only saw, and not only heard the immediate execution of the threat, but undergoing it, persevered; and that through the pains of fire. 10 What could be more painful? For the power of fire, being sharp and quick, speedily dissolved their bodies. 11 Don’t think it wonderful that reasoning ruled over those men in their torments, when even a woman’s mind despised more manifold pains. 12 For the mother of those seven youths endured the rackings of each of her children.
13 Consider how comprehensive is the love of offspring, which draws every one to sympathy of affection, 14 where irrational animals possess a similar sympathy and love for their offspring with men. 15 The tame birds frequenting the roofs of our houses defend their fledglings. 16 Others build their nests, and hatch their young, on the tops of mountains and in the precipices of valleys, and the holes and tops of trees, and keep away the intruder. 17 If not able to do this, they fly circling round them in agony of affection, calling out in their own note, and save their offspring in whatever manner they are able. 18 But why should we point attention to the sympathy towards children shown by irrational animals? 19 Even bees, at the season of honey-making, attack all who approach, and pierce with their sting, as with a sword, those who draw near their hive, and repel them even to death. 20 But sympathy with her children didn’t turn away the mother of the young men, who had a spirit kindred with that of Abraham.
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1 O reasoning of the sons, lord over the emotions, and religion more desirable to a mother than children! 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 In what way can I describe ethically the affections of parents towards their children, the resemblance of soul and of form impressed 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 Of all mothers, the mother of the seven was the fondest of children, who in seven childbirths had deeply engendered love towards them. 7 Through her many pains undergone in connection with each one, she was compelled to feel sympathy with them; 8 yet, through fear of God, she neglected the temporary salvation of her children. 9 Not only so, but on account of the excellent disposition to the law, her maternal affection towards them was increased. 10 For they were both just and temperate, and courageous, high-minded, fond of their kindred, and so fond of their mother that even to death they obeyed her by observing the law.
11 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 saw her children’s flesh dissolving around the fire, and their extremities quivering on the ground, and the flesh of their heads dropped forward down to their beards, like masks.
16 O you mother, who was tried at this time with bitterer pangs than those at birth! 17 O you only woman who have produced perfect holiness! 18 Your firstborn, expiring, didn’t turn you, nor the second, looking miserable in his torments, nor the third, breathing out his soul. 19 You didn’t weep when you saw each of their eyes looking sternly at their tortures, and their nostrils foreboding death! 20 When you saw children’s flesh heaped upon children’s flesh that had been torn off, heads decapitated upon heads, dead falling upon the dead, and a choir of children turned through torture into a burying ground, you didn’t lament. 21 Not so do siren melodies or songs of swans attract the hearers to listening, O voices of children calling on 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 seeing 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, seeing 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 didn’t 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 holy mother of a nation, avenger of the law, defender of religion, and prime bearer in the battle of the affections! 30 O you nobler in endurance than males, and more courageous than men in perseverance! 31 For like Noah’s ship, bearing the world in the world-filling flood, bore up against the waves, 32 so you, the guardian of the law, when surrounded on every side by the flood of emotions, and assaulted by violent storms which were the torments of your children, bore up nobly against the storms against religion.
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1 If, then, even a woman, and that an aged one, and the mother of seven children, endured to see her children’s torments even to death, it must be admitted that religious reasoning is master even of the emotions. 2 I have proved, then, that not only men have obtained the mastery of their emotions, but also that a woman despised the greatest torments. 3 The lions around Daniel were not so fierce, nor the furnace of Misael burning with most vehement fires as that natural love of children burnt within her, when she saw her seven sons tortured. 4 But with the reasoning of religion the mother quenched emotions so great and powerful. 5 For we must consider also this: that, had the woman been faint hearted, as being their mother, she would have lamented over them, and perhaps might have spoken thus: 6 “Ah! I am wretched and many times miserable, who having born seven sons, have become the mother of none. 7 O seven useless childbirths, and seven profitless periods of labour, and fruitless givings of suck, and miserable nursings at the breast. 8 Vainly, for your sakes, O sons, have I endured many pangs, and the more difficult anxieties of rearing. 9 Alas, of my children, some of you unmarried, and some who have married to no profit, I will not see your children, nor have the joy of being a grandmother. 10 Ah, that I who had many and fair children, should be a lone widow full of sorrows! 11 Nor, should I die, will I have a son to bury me.” But with such a lament as this, the holy and God-fearing mother wept for none of them. 12 Nor did she divert any of them from death, nor grieve for them as for the dead. 13 But as one possessed with an adamant mind, and as one bringing forth again her full number of sons to immortality, she rather urged them to death on behalf of religion. 14 O woman, soldier of God for religion, you, aged and a female, have conquered through endurance even a tyrant; and even though weak, have been found more powerful in deeds and words. 15 For when you were seized along with your children, you stood looking at Eleazar in torture, and said to your sons in the Hebrew tongue, 16 “O sons, the contest is noble, to which you being called as a witness for the nation, strive zealously for the laws of your country. 17 For it would be disgraceful if this old man endured pains for the sake of righteousness, and that you who are younger would be afraid of the tortures. 18 Remember that through God, you obtained existence and have enjoyed it. 19 Therefore, you ought to bear every affliction because of God. 20 For him also our father Abraham was zealous to sacrifice Isaac our progenitor, and didn’t shudder at the sight of his own paternal hand descending down with the sword upon him. 21 The righteous Daniel was cast to the lions; and Ananias, Azarias, and Misael were hurled into a fiery furnace, yet they