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[1]When Eleazar had in this manner answered the exhortations of the tyrant, the spearbearers came up, and rudely haled Eleazar to the instruments of torture.
[2]And first, they stripped the old man, adorned as he was with the comeliness of piety.
[3]Then tying back his arms and hands, they disdainfully used him with stripes;
[4]a herald opposite crying out, Obey the commands of the king.
[5]But Eleazar, the high-minded and truly noble, as one tortured in a dream, regarded it not all.
[6]But raising his eyes on high to heaven, the old man's flesh was stripped off by the scourges, and his blood streamed down, and his sides were pierced through.
[7]And falling upon the ground, from his body having no power to support the pains, he yet kept his reasoning upright and unbending.
[8]then one of the harsh spearbearers leaped upon his belly as he was falling, to force him upright.
[9]But he endured the pains, and despised the cruelty, and persevered through the indignities;
[10]and like a noble athlete, the old man, when struck, vanquished his torturers.
[11]His countenance sweating, and he panting for breath, he was admired by the very torturers for his courage.
[12]Wherefore, partly in pity for his old age,
[13]partly from the sympathy of acquaintance, and partly in admiration of his endurance, some of the attendants of the king said, Why do you unreasonably destroy yourself, O Eleazar, with these miseries?
[14][No verse]
[15]We will bring you some meat cooked by yourself, and do you save yourself by pretending that you have eaten swine's flesh.
[16]And Eleazar, as though the advice more painfully tortured him, cried out,
[17]Let not us who are children of Abraham be so evil advised as by giving way to make use of an unbecoming pretence;
[18]for it were irrational, if having lived up to old age in all truth, and having scrupulously guarded our character for it, we should now turn back,
[19]and ourselves should become a pattern of impiety to the young, as being an example of pollution eating.
[20]It would be disgraceful if we should live on some short time, and that scorned by all men for cowardice,
[21]and be condemned by the tyrant for unmanliness, by not contending to the death for our divine law.
[22]Wherefore do you, O children of Abraham, die nobly for your religion.
[23]Ye spearbearers of the tyrant, why do ye linger?
[24]Beholding him so high-minded against misery, and not changing at their pity, they led him to the fire:
[25]then with their wickedly-contrived instruments they burnt him on the fire, and poured stinking fluids down into his nostrils.
[26]And he being at length burnt down to the bones, and about to expire, raised his eyes Godward, and said,
[27]Thou knowest, O God, that when I might have been saved, I am slain for the sake of the law by tortures of fire.
[28]Be merciful to thy people, and be satisfied with the punishment of me on their account.
[29]Let my blood be a purification for them, and take my life in recompense for theirs.
[30]Thus speaking, the holy man departed, noble in his torments, and even to the agonies of death resisted in his reasoning for the sake of the law.
[31]Confessedly, therefore, religious reasoning is master of the passions.
[32]For had the passions been superior to reasoning, I would have given them the witness of this mastery.
[33]But now, since reasoning conquered the passions, we befittingly awared it the authority of first place.
[34]And it is but fair that we should allow, that the power belongs to reasoning, since it masters external miseries.
[35]Ridiculous would it be were it not so; and I prove that reasoning has not only mastered pains, but that it is also superior to the pleasures, and withstands them.
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