The Temple Profaned and the Law Forbidden
1Shortly afterward the king sent an elderly Athenian to force the Jews to abandon their ancestral laws and to stop living by the laws of God, 2and also to defile the temple in Jerusalem and name it the temple of Olympian Zeus, and to name the one on Gerizim the temple of Zeus, Protector of Strangers, as befitted the people who lived in that place. 3This intensifying of evil was harsh and altogether hard to bear. 4The temple was filled with debauchery and carousing by the Gentiles, who amused themselves with prostitutes and lay with women within the sacred courts, and who also brought improper things inside. 5The altar was heaped with abominable offerings that the laws prohibited. 6It was not possible to keep the Sabbath, to observe the festivals of their fathers, or even to confess oneself a Jew at all. 7On the monthly celebration of the king’s birthday they were taken by bitter force to eat the sacrificial entrails; and when the festival of Dionysus came round, they were compelled to walk in procession for Dionysus, crowned with ivy. 8At Ptolemy’s instigation a decree went out to the neighboring Greek cities that they should adopt the same conduct toward the Jews and make them eat the sacrificial entrails, 9and that they should slaughter those who would not choose to go over to Greek ways. Anyone could see, then, the misery that had come upon them. 10Two women, for instance, were brought to trial for having circumcised their children. They hung the babies from their mothers’ breasts, led the women publicly around the city, and hurled them headlong over the wall. 11Others had gathered together in caves nearby to keep the seventh day in secret. Informed on to Philip, they were burned alive all together, because their reverence for the glory of that most sacred day kept them from defending themselves.
Why the Lord Disciplines His People
12I urge those who come upon this book, then, not to lose heart because of these calamities, but to reckon that the punishments were not meant to destroy our race but to discipline it. 13For when those who act impiously are not left alone for long but meet their punishment at once, it is a sign of great kindness. 14With the other nations the Master waits patiently, holding back their punishment until they reach the full measure of their sins; but with us he has decided otherwise, 15so as not to take vengeance on us later, when our sins have come to their full end. 16So he never takes his mercy away from us; though he disciplines with misfortune, he does not forsake his own people. 17Let what we have said serve as a reminder; we must now come back, in a few words, to the story.
The Martyrdom of Eleazar
18Eleazar, one of the foremost scribes, a man now well on in years and of a most handsome bearing, was being forced to open his mouth and eat pork. 19But he, preferring an honorable death to a life of defilement, went of his own free will to the rack, 20spitting the meat out, in the way that those must come forward who have the fortitude to refuse what it is unlawful to taste, even for love of life. 21Those in charge of that unlawful feast of sacrificial entrails, because they had known the man for a long time, took him aside privately and urged him to bring meat of his own providing, such as he was allowed to eat, and to pretend that he was eating the sacrificial meat the king had ordered, 22so that by doing this he would escape death and be treated humanely because of his long friendship with them. 23But he made a noble resolve, worthy of his years and of the eminence of old age, of the gray hair he had earned and that crowned him with distinction, of the flawless conduct he had kept since childhood, and still more of the holy legislation that God established; and he answered accordingly, telling them to send him on to Hades at once. 24“Such pretense,” he went on, “is unworthy of our age. Many of the young would suppose that Eleazar, at ninety years old, had gone over to foreign ways, 25and they in turn, through my playacting, for the sake of a short and fleeting stretch of life, would be led astray because of me, while I would bring pollution and disgrace upon my old age. 26Even if for the moment I avoid the punishment that comes from men, I will not escape the hands of the Almighty, alive or dead. 27So by laying down my life bravely now, I will prove worthy of my old age, 28and I will leave the young a noble example of how to meet a good death, eagerly and nobly, for the revered and holy laws.” Having said this, he went straight to the rack. 29The men who were leading him turned the goodwill they had shown him a short while before into ill will, because they considered what he had said to be madness. 30When he was on the point of dying under the blows, he groaned and said, “To the Lord, who has holy knowledge, it is plain that, though I could have been set free from death, I am enduring cruel pains in my body from this scourging; but in my soul I suffer them gladly, because I fear him.” 31This, then, is how he departed this life, leaving his death as an example of nobility and a remembrance of virtue, not only to the young but to the great body of the nation.
