WEB ER 4 Maccabees Chapter 16
If, then, even a woman, and that an aged one, and the mother of seven children, endured to see her children’s torments even to death, it must be admitted that religious reasoning is master even of the emotions. I have proved, then, that not only men have obtained the mastery of their emotions, but also that a woman despised the greatest torments. The lions around Daniel were not so fierce, nor the furnace of Misael burning with most vehement fires as that natural love of children burned within her, when she saw her seven sons tortured. But with the reasoning of religion the mother quenched emotions so great and powerful. For we must consider also this: that, had the woman been faint hearted, as being their mother, she would have lamented over them, and perhaps might have spoken thus: Ah! I am wretched and many times miserable, who having born seven sons, have become the mother of none. O seven useless childbirths, and seven profitless periods of labor, and fruitless givings of suck, and miserable nursings at the breast. Vainly, for your sakes, O sons, have I endured many pangs, and the more difficult anxieties of rearing. Alas, of my children, some of you unmarried, and some who have married to no profit, I will not see your children, nor have the joy of being a grandmother. Ah, that I who had many and fair children, should be a lone widow full of sorrows! Nor, should I die, will I have a son to bury me.
But with such a lament as this, the holy and God-fearing mother wept for none of them. Nor did she divert any of them from death, nor grieve for them as for the dead. But as one possessed with an adamant mind, and as one bringing forth again her full number of sons to immortality, she rather urged them to death on behalf of religion. O woman, soldier of God for religion, you, aged and a female, have conquered through endurance even a tyrant; and even though weak, have been found more powerful in deeds and words. For when you were seized along with your children, you stood looking at Eleazar in torture, and said to your sons in the Hebrew tongue,
O sons, the contest is noble, to which you being called as a witness for the nation, strive zealously for the laws of your country. For it would be disgraceful if this old man endured pains for the sake of righteousness, and that you who are younger would be afraid of the tortures. Remember that through God, you obtained existence and have enjoyed it. Therefore, you ought to bear every affliction because of God. For him also our father Abraham was zealous to sacrifice Isaac our progenitor, and didn’t shudder at the sight of his own paternal hand descending down with the sword upon him. The righteous Daniel was cast to the lions; and Ananias, Azarias, and Misael were hurled into a fiery furnace, yet they endured through God. You, then, having the same faith toward God, don’t be troubled. For it is unreasonable that they who know religion wouldn’t stand up against troubles. With these arguments, the mother of seven, exhorting each of her sons, encouraged and persuaded them not to transgress God’s commandment. They saw this, too, that those who die for God, live to God, like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the patriarchs.