4 Maccabees 16–18: Those Who Die for God, Live to God": The Mother's Words, and the End of the Book

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. I have proved, then, that not only men have obtained the mastery of their emotions, but also that a woman despised the greatest torments. The lions around Daniel were not so fierce, nor the furnace of Misael burning with most vehement fires as that natural love of children burned within her, when she saw her seven sons tortured. But with the reasoning of religion the mother quenched emotions so great and powerful. 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: “Ah! I am wretched and many times miserable, who having born seven sons, have become the mother of none. O seven useless childbirths, and seven profitless periods of labor, and fruitless givings of suck, and miserable nursings at the breast. Vainly, for your sakes, O sons, have I endured many pangs, and the more difficult anxieties of rearing. 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. Ah, that I who had many and fair children, should be a lone widow full of sorrows! 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. Nor did she divert any of them from death, nor grieve for them as for the dead. 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. 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. 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, “O sons, the contest is noble to which you are being called as a witness for the nation. Strive zealously for the laws of your country. 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. Remember that through God, you obtained existence and have enjoyed it. Therefore, you ought to bear every affliction because of God. 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. The righteous Daniel was cast to the lions; and Ananias, Azarias, and Misael were hurled into a fiery furnace, yet they endured through God. You, then, having the same faith toward God, don’t be troubled. For it is unreasonable that they who know religion wouldn’t stand up against troubles. With these arguments, the mother of seven, exhorting each of her sons, encouraged and persuaded them not to transgress God’s commandment. They saw this, too, that those who die for God, live to God, like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the patriarchs.

Some of the spearbearers said that when she herself was about to be seized for the purpose of being put to death, she threw herself on the pile, rather than let them touch her body. O you mother, who together with seven children destroyed the violence of the tyrant, and rendered void his wicked intentions, and exhibited the nobleness of faith! For you, like a house bravely built on the pillar of your children, bore the shock of tortures without swaying. Cheer up, therefore, O holy-minded mother! Hold the firm hope of your steadfastness with God. Not so gracious does the moon appear with the stars in heaven, as you are established as honorable before God, and fixed in the sky with your sons whom you illuminated with religion to the stars. For your bearing of children was after the manner of a child of Abraham.

If it were lawful for us to paint as on a tablet the religion of your story, the spectators wouldn’t shudder at seeing the mother of seven children enduring for the sake of religion various tortures even to death. It would have been a worthwhile thing to have inscribed on the tomb itself these words as a memorial to those of the nation, “Here an aged priest, an aged woman, and seven sons, are buried through the violence of a tyrant, who wished to destroy the society of the Hebrews. These also avenged their nation, looking to God, and enduring torments to death.” For it was truly a divine contest which was carried through by them. For at that time virtue presided over the contest, approving the victory through endurance, namely, immortality, eternal life. Eleazar was the first to contend. The mother of the seven children entered the contest, and the kindred contended. The tyrant was the antagonist; and the world and living men were the spectators. Reverence for God conquered, and crowned her own athletes. Who didn’t admire those champions of true legislation? Who were not amazed? The tyrant himself, and all their council, admired their endurance, through which, they also now stand beside the divine throne and live a blessed life. For Moses says, “All the saints are under your hands.” These, therefore, having been sanctified through God, have been honored not only with this honor, but that also by the fact that because of them, the enemy didn’t overcome our nation. That tyrant was punished and their country purified. For they became the ransom to the sin of the nation. The Divine Providence saved Israel, which was afflicted before, by the blood of those pious ones and the death that appeased wrath. For the tyrant Antiochus, looking to their courageous virtue and to their endurance in torture, proclaimed that endurance as an example to his soldiers. They proved to be to him noble and brave for land battles and for sieges; and he conquered and stormed the towns of all his enemies.

O Israelite children, descendants of the seed of Abraham, obey this law and in every way be religious, knowing that religious reasoning is lord of the emotions, and those not only inward but outward.

Therefore those people who gave up their bodies to pains for the sake of religion were not only admired by men, but were deemed worthy of a divine portion. The nation through them obtained peace, and having renewed the observance of the law in their country, drove the enemy out of the land. The tyrant Antiochus was both punished on earth, and is punished now that he is dead; for when he was quite unable to compel the Israelites to adopt foreign customs, and to desert the manner of life of their fathers, then, departing from Jerusalem, he made war against the Persians. The righteous mother of the seven children spoke also as follows to her offspring: “I was a pure virgin, and didn’t go beyond my father’s house, but I took care of the rib from which woman was made. No destroyer of the desert or ravisher of the plain injured me, nor did the destructive, deceitful snake make plunder of my chaste virginity. I remained with my husband during the time of my maturity. When these, my children, arrived at maturity, their father died. He was blessed! For having sought out a life of fertility in children, he was not grieved with a period of loss of children. He used to teach you, when yet with you, the law and the prophets. He used to read to you about the slaying of Abel by Cain, the offering up of Isaac, and the imprisonment of Joseph. He used to tell you of the zealous Phinehas, and informed you of Ananias, Azarias, and Misael in the fire. He used to glorify Daniel, who was in the den of lions, and pronounce him blessed. He used to remind you of the scripture of Esaias, which says, “Even if you pass through the fire, it won’t burn you.” He chanted to you David, the hymn writer, who says, “Many are the afflictions of the just.” He declared the proverbs of Solomon, who says, “He is a tree of life to all those who do His will.” He used to confirm what Ezekiel said: “Will these dry bones live?” For he didn’t forget the song which Moses taught, proclaiming, “I will kill, and I will make alive.” This is our life and the length of our days.

O that bitter, and yet not bitter, day when the bitter tyrant of the Greeks, quenching fire with fire in his cruel caldrons, brought with boiling rage the seven sons of the daughter of Abraham to the rack, and to all his torments! He pierced the balls of their eyes, and cut out their tongues, and put them to death with varied tortures. Therefore divine retribution pursued and will pursue the pestilent wretch. But the children of Abraham, with their victorious mother, are assembled together to the choir of their father, having received pure and immortal souls from God. To him be glory forever and ever. Amen.