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Martyrdom of Eleazar

6When Eleazar in this manner had made eloquent response to the exhortations of the tyrant, the guards who were standing by dragged him violently to the instruments of torture. ²First they stripped the old man, though he remained adorned with the gracefulness of his piety. ³After they had tied his arms on each side they flogged him, ⁴while a herald who faced him cried out, ‘Obey the king’s commands!’ ⁵But the courageous and noble man, like a true Eleazar, was unmoved, as though being tortured in a dream; ⁶yet while the old man’s eyes were raised to heaven, his flesh was being torn by scourges, his blood flowing, and his sides were being cut to pieces. ⁷Although he fell to the ground because his body could not endure the agonies, he kept his reason upright and unswerving. ⁸One of the cruel guards rushed at him and began to kick him in the side to make him get up again after he fell. ⁹But he bore the pains and scorned the punishment and endured the tortures. ¹⁰Like a noble athlete the old man, while being beaten, was victorious over his torturers; ¹¹in fact, with his face bathed in sweat, and gasping heavily for breath, he amazed even his torturers by his courageous spirit.

12 At that point, partly out of pity for his old age, ¹³partly out of sympathy from their acquaintance with him, partly out of admiration for his endurance, some of the king’s retinue came to him and said, ¹⁴‘Eleazar, why are you so irrationally destroying yourself through these evil things? ¹⁵We will set before you some cooked meat; save yourself by pretending to eat pork.’

16 But Eleazar, as though more bitterly tormented by this counsel, cried out: ¹⁷‘Never may we, the children of Abraham,^* think so basely that out of cowardice we feign a role unbecoming to us! ¹⁸For it would be irrational if, having lived in accordance with truth up to old age and having maintained in accordance with law the reputation of such a life, we should now change our course ¹⁹and ourselves become a pattern of impiety to the young by setting them an example in the eating of defiling food. ²⁰It would be shameful if we should survive for a little while and during that time be a laughings-tock to all for our cowardice, ²¹and be despised by the tyrant as unmanly by not contending even to death for our divine law. ²²Therefore, O children of Abraham, die nobly for your religion! ²³And you, guards of the tyrant, why do you delay?’

24 When they saw that he was so courageous in the face of the afflictions, and that he had not been changed by their compassion, the guards brought him to the fire. ²⁵There they burned him with maliciously contrived instruments, threw him down, and poured stinking liquids into his nostrils. ²⁶When he was now burned to his very bones and about to expire, he lifted up his eyes to God and said, ²⁷‘You know, O God, that though I might have saved myself, I am dying in burning torments for the sake of the law. ²⁸Be merciful to your people, and let our punishment suffice for them. ²⁹Make my blood their purification, and take my life in exchange for theirs.’ ³⁰After he said this, the holy man died nobly in his tortures; even in the tortures of death he resisted, by virtue of reason, for the sake of the law.

31 Admittedly, then, devout reason is sovereign over the emotions. ³²For if the emotions had prevailed over reason, we would have testified to their domination. ³³But now that reason has conquered the emotions, we properly attribute to it the power to govern. ³⁴It is right for us to acknowledge the dominance of reason when it masters even external agonies. It would be ridiculous to deny it.^{* 35}I have proved not only that reason has mastered agonies, but also that it masters pleasures and in no respect yields to them.