Brenton's Septuagint · Under the Greeks
4 Maccabees 15
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1O reasoning of the sons, over the passions, and religion more desirable to a mother than progeny! 2The mother, when two things were set before her, religion and the safety of her seven sons for a time, on the conditional promise of a tyrant, 3rather elected the religion which according to preserves to . 4O in what way can I describe ethically the affections of parents toward their children, the resemblance of and of form engrafted into the small type of a child in a wonderful manner, especially through the greater sympathy of mothers with the feelings of those born of them! 5for by how much mothers are by nature weak in disposition and prolific in , by so much the fonder they are of children. 6And of all mothers the mother of the seven was the fondest of children, who in seven childbirths had deeply engendered love toward them; 7and through her many pains undergone in connection with each one, was compelled to feel sympathy with them; 8yet, through fear of , she neglected the temporary of her children. 9Not but that, on account of the excellent disposition of her sons, and their to , her maternal affection toward them was increased. 10For they were both and temperate, and manly, and high-minded, and fond of their brethren, and so fond of their mother that even unto they her by observing . 11And yet, though there were so many circumstances connected with love of children to draw on a mother to sympathy, in the case of none of them were the various tortures able to pervert her principle. 12But she inclined each one separately and all together to for religion. 13O nature and parental feeling, and reward of bringing up children, and unconquerable maternal affection! 14At the racking and roasting of each one of them, the observant mother was prevented by religion from changing. 15She beheld her children's dissolving around the ; and their extremities quivering on the ground, and of their heads dropped forwards down to their beards, like masks. 16O thou mother, who wast tried at this time with bitterer pangs than those of parturition! 17O thou only woman who hast brought forth perfect ! 18Thy first-born, expiring, turned thee not; nor the second, looking miserable in his torments; nor the third, breathing out his . 19Nor when thou didst behold the eyes of each of them looking sternly upon their tortures, and their nostrils foreboding , didst thou weep! 20When thou didst see children's heaped upon children's that had been torn off, hands upon hands , heads decapitated upon heads, falling upon , and a choir of children turned through torture into a burying-ground, thou lamentedst not. 21Not so do siren melodies, or songs of swans, attract the hearers to listening, O voices of children calling upon your mother in the midst of torments! 22With what and what manner of torments was the mother herself tortured, as her sons were undergoing the wheel and the fires! 23But religious reasoning, having strengthened her courage in the midst of sufferings, enabled her to forego, for the time, parental love. 24Although beholding the of seven children, the noble mother, after one embrace, stripped off [her feelings] through in . 25For as in a council-room, beholding in her own vehement counsellors, nature and parentage and love of her children, and the racking of her children, 26she holding two votes, one for the , the other for the preservation of her children, 27did not lean to that which would have her children for the safety of a brief space. 28But this daughter of remembered his fortitude. 29O mother of a nation, of , and defender of religion, and prime bearer in the battle of the affections! 30O thou nobler in than males, and more manly than men in ! 31For as the ark of Noah, bearing the world in the world-filling flood, bore up against the waves, 32so thou, the guardian of , when surrounded on every side by the flood of passions, and straitened by storms which were the torments of thy children, didst bear up nobly against the storms against religion.
Sir Lancelot Brenton's 1851 English translation of the Greek Old Testament, public domain. Used here for books received in Orthodox canons that the other editions do not carry. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · Under the Greeks, 332 BC to 63 BC ›
Alexander's conquest and the kingdoms of his successors. Greek language and custom press in everywhere, and the crisis under Antiochus IV provokes the Maccabean revolt.
- The successors
- Alexander dies at thirty-two and his generals carve up the empire. Judea sits on the border between the Ptolemies in Egypt and the Seleucids in Syria, and is fought over by both for a century and a half, which is the ordinary condition of the corridor.
- Hellenism
- Not just conquest but a culture: the gymnasium, the theatre, Greek names, Greek dress, Greek as the language of anyone with ambitions. Some Jews embraced it, some resisted it, and the argument between them is the real subject of the Maccabean books. In Alexandria the Hebrew scriptures are translated into Greek, producing the Septuagint, which is the Bible most New Testament writers quote.
- The crisis
- Antiochus IV bans the practice of Judaism, plunders the temple, and sets up a pagan altar in it in 167 BC. The revolt under the Maccabees wins, the temple is rededicated in 164 BC, which is the origin of Hanukkah, and Judea has about eighty years of independence under the Hasmoneans before Rome arrives.
- Further afield
- Rome fights Carthage three times and ends up master of the Mediterranean. Euclid writes the Elements and Archimedes does his work at Syracuse. In China the Qin unify the country in 221 BC and the Han follow, opening what becomes the Silk Road.