death

And he said in reply to the question, 'If he recognized that he had power over all even to inflict death upon them, if he gave way to wrath, and that it would be useless and pitiful if he, just because he was lord, deprived many of life.

For these all by their contempt of pains, yea, even unto death, proved that Reason rises superior to the passions.

For he said that he had sinned and was worthy even of death, and that if he were given his life he would laud to all men the blessedness of the Holy Place.

For when. be was carrying on war with Ptolemy in Egypt and heard that the people of Jerusalem had rejoiced exceedingly over a report of his death, he immediately marched back against them.

And when he had plundered the city he made a decree denouncing the penalty of death upon any who should be seen to live after the law of our fathers.

Accordingly, the tyrant Antiochus, accompanied by his councillors, sat in judgement on a certain high place with his troops drawn up around him in full armour, and he ordered his guards to drag there every single man of the Hebrews and compel them to eat swine's flesh and things offered to idols; but if any should refuse to defile themselves with the unclean things, they were to he tortured and put to death.

Neither shalt thou sully the pure mouth of mine old age and my lifelong constancy to the Law. Clean shall my fathers receive me, unafraid of thy torments even to the death.

Shame were it if we should live on a little longer, during that little being mocked of all men for cowardice, and while despised by the tyrant as unmanly should fail to defend the Divine Law unto the death.

And with these words the holy man nobly yielded up his spirit under the torture I and for the sake of the Law held out by his Reason even against the torments unto death.

FOR the Reason of our father Eleazar, like a fine steersman steering the ship of sanctity on the sea of the passions, though buffeted by the threats of the tyrant and swept by the swelling waves of the tortures, never shifted for one moment the helm of sanctity until he sailed into the haven of victory over death.

O confessor of the Law and philosopher of the Divine life! Such should those be whose office is to serve the Law and defend it with their own blood and honourable sweat in the face of sufferings to the death.

O blessed age, O reverend grey head, O life faithful to the Law and perfected by the seal of death!

Assuredly, then, if an old man despised the torments unto death for righteousness' sake it must be admitted that the Inspired Reason is able to guide the passions.

Share in the Hellenic life, and walk in a new way, and take some pleasure in your youth; for if you drive me to anger with your disobedience you will compel me to resort to terrible penalties and put every single one of you to death by torture.

Will you not consider with yourselves this thing, that if you disobey me there is nothing before you but death in torments?'

Even the Law itself does not willingly condemn us to death, we being in terror of the instruments of torture.

For we esteem thy mercy, giving. us our life in return for a breach of the Law, a thing harder to bear than death itself.

Thou wouldst terrify us with thy threats of death under torture, as if a little while ago thou hadst learned nothing from Eleazar.

But he steadfastly enduring this agony said, 'How sweet is every form of death for the sake of the righteousness of our fathers!'

And when he had bravely met his glorious death, the third son was brought forward and was earnestly entreated by many to taste and so to save himself.

And at the point of death he said, 'We, O most abominable tyrant, suffer thus for our upbringing and our virtue that are of God; but thou for thy impiety and thy cruelty shall endure torments without end.'

By the blessed death of my brethren, by the eternal doom of the tyrant, and by the glorious life of the righteous, I will not deny my noble brotherhood.

But when this man also was put to a death of agony with the tortures, the fifth sprang forward saying, 'I shrink not, O tyrant, from demanding the torture for virtue's sake.

In the armour of virtue I go to join my brothers in death, and to add in myself one strong avenger more to punish thee, O deviser of the tortures and enemy of the truly righteous.

AND when this one also died a blessed death, being cast into the cauldron, the seventh son, the youngest of them all, came forward.

And seeing him there already bound he had him brought near, and sought to persuade him, saying: 'Thou seest the end of the folly of thy brethren; for through their disobedience they have been racked to death. Thou, too, if thou dost not obey, wilt thyself also be miserably tortured and put to death before thy time; but if thou dost obey thou shalt be my friend, and thou shalt be advanced to high office in the business of the kingdom.'

And seeing him there already bound he had him brought near, and sought to persuade him, saying: 'Thou seest the end of the folly of thy brethren; for through their disobedience they have been racked to death. Thou, too, if thou dost not obey, wilt thyself also be miserably tortured and put to death before thy time; but if thou dost obey thou shalt be my friend, and thou shalt be advanced to high office in the business of the kingdom.'

And then standing on the brink of death he said, 'I am no renegade to the witness borne by my brethren.

If therefore the seven brethren despised the tortures even to the death, it is universally proved that the Inspired Reason is supreme lord over the passions.

But though nature, companionship, and their virtuous disposition increased the ardour of their brotherly love, nevertheless the surviving sons through their religion supported the sight of their brethren, who were on the rack, being tortured to death; nay more, they even encouraged them to face the agony, so as not only to despise their own tortures, but also to conquer their passion of brotherly affection for their brethren.

None of the seven youths turned coward, none shrunk in the face of death, but all hastened to the death by torture as if running the road to immortality.

None of the seven youths turned coward, none shrunk in the face of death, but all hastened to the death by torture as if running the road to immortality.

For as hands and feet move in harmony with the promptings of the soul, so those holy youths, as if prompted by the immortal soul of religion, went in harmony to death for its sake.

And what need have we of examples of the love of offspring among irrational animals, when even the bees, about the season of the making of the comb, fend off intruders, and stab with their sting, as with a sword, those who approach their brood, and do battle against them even to the death?

For they were just, and temperate, and brave and great-souled, and lovers of each other and of their mother in such manner that they obeyed her in the keeping of the Law even unto death.

Neither didst thou weep when thou beheldest the eyes of each amid the torments looking boldly on the same anguish, and sawest in their quivering nostrils the signs of approaching death.

For she beheld in her own mind, even as it had been cunning advocates in a council-chamber, nature, and parenthood, and mother-love, and her children on the rack, and it was as if she, the mother, having the choice between two votes in the case of her children, one for their death and one to save them alive, thereupon regarded not the saving of her seven sons for a little time, but, as a true daughter of Abraham, called to mind his God-fearing courage.

Thus then, if one both a woman and advanced in years, and the mother of seven sons, endured the sight of her children being tortured to death, the Inspired Reason must confessedly be supreme ruler over the passions.

But the holy and God-fearing mother wailed not with this lamentation over any one of them, neither besought she any to escape death, nor lamented over them as dying men; but, as though she had a soul of adamant and were bringing forth the number of her sons, for a second time, into immortal life, she besought rather and entreated of them that they should die for religion's sake.

SOME of the guards declared that when she also was about to be seized and put to death, she cast herself on the pyre in order that no man might touch her body.

And had it been lawful for us to paint, as might some artist, the tale of thy piety, would not the spectators have shuddered at the mother of seven sons suffering for righteousness' sake multitudinous tortures even unto death?

And these men, therefore, having sanctified themselves for God's sake, not only have received this honour, but also the honour that through them the enemy had no more power over our people, and the tyrant suffered punishment, and our country was purified, they having as it were become a ransom for our nation's sin; and through the blood of these righteous men and the propitiation of their death, the divine Providence delivered Israel that before was evil entreated.

And vengeance hath pursued the tyrant Antiochus upon earth, and in death he suffers punishment.

And souls that were near departing they have caught back from death:

Death hath been destroyed before my face: and Sheol hath been abolished by my word:

Thou art my God. Falsehood and death are not in thy mouth:

And they sought for my death and did not find it: for I was older than the memorial of them;

And brought me up out of the depths of Sheol: and from the mouth of death He drew me:

Whatever I did not know, it made clear to me, all the poisons of error, and the plagues of death which they think to be sweetness:

Death cast me up, and many along with me.

For we see that our death has not touched thee.

For what did it profit Adam that he lived nine hundred and thirty years and transgressed that which he was commanded? Therefore the multitude of time that he lived did not profit him, but brought death and cut off the years of those who were born from him. wherein did Moses suffer loss in that he lived only one hundred and twenty years, and, inasmuch he was subject to Him who formed him, brought the law to the seed of Jacob, and lighted a lamp for the nation of Israel?'

And He answered and said unto me: 'Wherefore at that time he appointed for them a covenant and said: "Behold I have placed before you life and death," And he called heaven and earth to witness against them.

But after his death they sinned and transgressed, Though they knew that they had the law reproving (them), And the light in which nothing could err, Also the spheres which testify, and Me.

And again hearken: though each one were prospered all that time-all the time from the day on which death was decreed against those who transgress-and in his end was destroyed, in vain would have been everything.

And reprove accordingly the angel of death, and let Your glory appear, and let the might of Your beauty be known, and let Sheol be sealed so that from this time forward it may not receive the dead, and let the treasuries of souls restore those which are enclosed in them.

Because when Adam sinned and death was decreed against those who should be born, then the multitude of those who should be born was numbered, and for that number a place was prepared where the living might dwell and the dead might be guarded.

And in the third part the fall of many by death.

And afterwards he will put him to death, and protect the rest of My people which shall be found in the place which I have chosen.

For where again shall we seek the law, Or who will distinguish for us between death and life?'

For though Adam first sinned And brought untimely death upon all, Yet of those who were born from him Each one of them has prepared for his own soul torment to come, And again each one of them has chosen for himself glories to come.

For [since] when he transgressed Untimely death came into being, Grief was named And anguish was prepared, And pain was created, And trouble consummated, And disease began to be established, And Sheol kept demanding that it should be renewed in blood, And the begetting of children was brought about, And the passion of parents produced, And the greatness of humanity was humiliated, And goodness languished.

'And the black third waters which you have seen, these are the mingling of all sins, which the nations afterwards wrought after the death of those righteous men, and the wickedness of the land of Egypt, wherein they did wickedly in the service wherewith they made their sons to serve.

For you shall surely depart from this earth, nevertheless not unto death, but you shall be preserved unto the consummation of the times.

And all the rapine of passion of this time is turning into involuntary death, And every passion of the lusts of this time is turning into a judgment of torment.

And after his death you cast them away from you: on this account there came upon you what had been predicted.

(Let) his old age (be spent) in childless loneliness until his removal (by death).

The arm of the Lord hath saved us from the sword that passed through, From famine and the death of sinners.

my soul had been well nigh poured out unto death, (I had been) nigh unto the gates of Sheol with the sinner,

To go away unto the fate of death

But man his heel; for death is neighbor near

Hades since Adam, having tasted death,

From death, and there was great desire of heart;

Who carry on the contest unto death.

Mercy redeems from death when judgment comes.

One's life in death is proven; if one did

And call death beautiful, and death shall flee

And call death beautiful, and death shall flee

Away from them. For neither death nor night

Nor autumn be [nor marriage, nor yet death,

A sword shall pass, and scattering and death

Of the sword and of famine and of death,

As leaders, who cannot escape from death?

And great and grievous hail; and death shall come

Putting to death and daring countless things;

Worn weary unto death; him foreign dust,

Applause for his sweet Songs, shall put to death

Of death to go and knowledge to receive

The third day he shall end the lot of death;

And they shall call death beautiful and death

And they shall call death beautiful and death

Shall flee away from them; for death no more

Of life and of death, and before them set

Hastened to death and to eternal fire.

Making an end of fate and sting of death,

Shall he lay hold on the event of death.

Until the end of baneful death and life.

And it shall be named from him, fate and death,

Putting to death and daring countless things;

Training his hands--excuse itself of death.