The Koine Bible

In this manner, after he had opposed the tyrant’s exhortations, the guards, having presented Eleazar, dragged him bitterly to the tortures.

And first they stripped the old man, adorned with the comeliness concerning piety

Then, having wrapped them around on both sides, they scourged with whips and battered them repeatedly

Be persuaded by the king’s commands, while a herald cries out from the other side.

But the high-minded and noble Eleazar, truly as if being tormented in a dream, in no way at all was turned aside

But, having lifted his eyes high toward heaven, the old man was flaying away his flesh with the scourges, and he was pouring down with blood, and his sides were being pierced through.

And falling to the ground, because he could not bear the pains, he kept the body upright and the mind unmoved

Indeed, one of the bitter spearmen, leaping into the cavities, was striking him in order that, falling, he might spring up again.

But he endured the pains and despised the necessity and persevered through the tortures

And just as a noble athlete, being struck, the old man was conquering those who were torturing him.

indeed his face was sweating and panting violently, and by the very tormenters he was admired for his courage

therefore, pitying the things of his old age

And some of the king’s men, being in sympathy with the custom, and some coming near in wonder at his endurance, were saying to him:

Why are you, Eleazar, destroying yourself irrationally by these evils?

We, however, will serve the cooked foods, but you, pretending to taste the pork, be saved.

And Eleazar, as if more bitterly tortured through the counsel, cried out aloud

May we, the children of Abraham, not think so wrongly as, having become fainthearted, to act out for ourselves an unseemly drama.

For it would be irrational if, having lived according to truth the life up to old age and lawfully guarding the glory upon it, we should now change.

and we ourselves might become to the young a pattern of impiety, so that we might become an example of defiled eating

But it is shameful if we shall survive a little time, and that time being laughed at by all for cowardice.

And let us be despised by the tyrant as cowardly, but let us not defend our divine law to the death

In response to these things, you, indeed, O descendants of Abraham, die nobly on behalf of piety.

But the bodyguards of the tyrant said, What are you waiting for?

When they saw him thus being high-minded toward the necessities and not at all changing toward their compassion, they led him up to the fire.

There with evil-devised instruments they burned him, threw him down, and poured foul-smelling juices into his nostrils.

But he, already burned down to the bones and about to faint, raised his eyes to God and said

You know, O God, that when it is present for me to be saved, I die by burning tortures because of the law

Be gracious to your nation, being satisfied with our punishment on their behalf

Make my blood their purification and take my life in exchange for their life.

And when he had said these things, the holy man nobly died in the tortures, and even to the tortures of death he resisted by reason because of the law.

Therefore the pious reason is confessedly lord of the passions.

For if the passions had prevailed over reason, to these we would have given the witness of mastery

But now, since reason has conquered the passions in him, we suitably assign to him the authority of rule.

And it is right for us to acknowledge that the power belongs to reason, especially since it also prevails over external pains, since also it is ridiculous

and not only do I show that reason has prevailed over pains, but also that it masters pleasures and yields to them in nothing