The In-Dept Study of the Bible
Maccabees 07
1 The reasoning of our father Eleazar,
like a first-rate pilot, steering the vessel of
piety in the sea of emotions,
2 and flouted by the threats of the tyrant,
and overwhelmed with the breakers of
torture,
3 in no way shifted the rudder of piety
until it sailed into the harbor of victory
over death.
4 No besieged city has ever held out
against many and various war machines
as that holy man did when his pious
soul was tried with the fiery trial
of tortures and rackings and moved his
besiegers through the religious reasoning
that shielded him.
5 For father Eleazar, projecting his disposition,
broke the raging waves of the
emotions as with a jutting cliff.
6 O priest worthy of the priesthood!
You didn’t pollute your sacred teeth, nor
make your appetite, which had always
embraced the clean and lawful, a partaker of
profanity.
7 O harmonizer with the law, and sage
devoted to a divine life!
8 Of such a character ought those to be
who perform the duties of the law at the
risk of their own blood, and defend it
with generous sweat by sufferings even to
death.
9 You, father, have gloriously established
our right government by your endurance;
and making of much account our past
service, prevented its destruction, and by
your deeds, have made credible the words
of philosophy.
10 O aged man of more power than tortures,
elder more vigorous than fire, greatest
king over the emotions, Eleazar!
11 For as father Aaron, armed with a
censer, hastening through the consuming
fire, vanquished the flame-bearing angel,
12 so, Eleazar, the descendant of Aaron,
wasted away by the fire, didn’t give up his
reasoning.
13 What is most wonderful is that though
he was an old man, though the labors of
his body werenow spent, his muscles were
relaxed, and his sinews worn out,
he recovered youth.
14 By the spirit of reasoning, and the
reasoning of Isaac, he rendered powerless
the many-headed rack.
15 O blessed old age, and reverend hoar
head, and life obedient to the law, which
the faithful seal of death perfected.
16 If, then, an old man, through religion,
despised tortures even to death,
then certainly religious reasoning
is ruler of the emotions.
17 But perhaps some might say, “It is
not all who conquer emotions, as not all
possess wise reasoning.”
18 But those who have meditated upon
religion with their whole heart, these
alone can master the emotions ofthe flesh:
19 they who believe that to God they
don’t die; for, as our forefathers, Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, they live to God.
20 This circumstance, then, is by no
means an objection, that some who have
weak reasoning are governed by their
emotions,
21 since what person, walking religiously
by the whole rule of philosophy, and
believing in God,
22 and knowing that it is a blessed thing
to endure all kinds of hardships for virtue,
would not, for the sake of religion, master
his emotion?
23 For only the wise and brave man is
lord over his emotions.
24 This is why even boys, trained with the
philosophy of religious reasoning, have
conquered still more bitter tortures;
25 for when the tyrant was manifestly
vanquished in his first attempt, in being
unable to force the old man to eat the
unclean thing,