Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
The seven Maccabee brothers, encouraged by their most worthy mother, most steadfastly overcome the torments of Antiochus and seize the laurel of martyrdom.
Vulgate Text: 2 Maccabees 7:1-42
1. It happened also that seven brothers together with their mother were arrested and compelled by the king to eat pork against the law, being tortured with whips and scourges of hide. 2. But one of them, who was the first, spoke thus: What do you seek, and what do you wish to learn from us? We are prepared to die rather than to transgress the ancestral laws of God. 3. Then the king, enraged, ordered the frying pans and bronze cauldrons to be heated; and when they had been immediately heated, 4. he ordered the tongue of him who had spoken first to be cut out; and having the skin of his head torn off, he ordered his hands and feet to be cut off at the extremities, while the rest of his brothers and his mother looked on. 5. And when he had been rendered completely useless in every way, he ordered fire to be applied and him to be roasted still breathing in the frying pan; and while he was being tortured in it for a long time, the rest together with their mother exhorted one another to die bravely, 6. saying: The Lord God will look upon the truth and will be consoled in us, just as Moses declared in the protestation of his canticle: And He will be consoled in His servants. 7. When the first had died in this manner, they brought the next one forward for mockery; and having torn off the skin of his head with his hair, they asked if he would eat, before he was punished throughout his whole body, limb by limb. 8. But he, answering in his native tongue, said: I will not do it. For which reason he also, in the next place, received the same torments as the first; 9. and being at his last breath, he said: You indeed, O most wicked one, destroy us in the present life; but the King of the world will raise us who die for His laws in the resurrection of eternal life. 10. After him the third was mocked, and when asked for his tongue he promptly put it out and courageously stretched out his hands; 11. and with confidence he said: From heaven I possess these, but for the sake of the laws of God I now despise them, since from Him I hope to receive them back; 12. so that the king and those who were with him marveled at the spirit of the young man, because he regarded the tortures as nothing. 13. And when this one had died in this way, they tormented the fourth in the same way with torture. 14. And when he was near death, he spoke thus: It is better for those put to death by men to hope in God, expecting to be raised up again by Him; for you there will be no resurrection to life. 15. And when they had brought up the fifth, they tormented him. But he, looking at the king, said: 16. Having power among men, though you are corruptible, you do what you wish; but do not think that our race has been forsaken by God. 17. But wait patiently, and you will see His great power, how He will torment you and your offspring. 18. After him they brought the sixth, and he, beginning to die, spoke thus: Do not err in vain; for we suffer these things because of ourselves, having sinned against our God, and things worthy of wonder have been done in us; 19. but do not think that you will go unpunished for having attempted to fight against God. 20. But the mother was admirable beyond measure and worthy of good remembrance, who, seeing her seven sons perishing in the space of a single day, bore it with good courage because of the hope she had in God; 21. she encouraged each of them in her native tongue with bravery, filled with wisdom; and giving a manly spirit to a woman's thoughts, 22. she said to them: I do not know how you appeared in my womb; for it was not I who gave you spirit and soul and life, nor was it I who arranged the members of each one; 23. but the Creator of the world, who formed the origin of man and devised the origin of all things, will in His mercy give you back both spirit and life, since you now despise yourselves for the sake of His laws. 24. But Antiochus, thinking he was being despised, and scorning the reproaching voice, since the youngest still remained, not only exhorted him with words but also affirmed with an oath that he would make him rich and happy, and having departed from his ancestral laws would hold him as a friend and provide him with what he needed. 25. But since the young man was in no way swayed by these things, the king called his mother and urged her to counsel the young man for his salvation. 26. And when he had exhorted her with many words, she promised that she would persuade her son. 27. And so, leaning toward him, mocking the cruel tyrant, she said in her native tongue: My son, have pity on me, who carried you nine months in my womb, and nursed you for three years, and nourished you, and brought you to this age. 28. I beg you, my child, to look upon heaven and earth and all that is in them, and to understand that God made them out of nothing, and the human race as well; 29. so it will be that you will not fear this executioner, but being made worthy of your brothers, accept death, so that in that mercy I may receive you back with your brothers. 30. While she was still saying these things, the young man said: Whom are you waiting for? I do not obey the command of the king, but the command of the law which was given to us through Moses. 31. But you, who have become the inventor of all malice against the Hebrews, will not escape the hand of God. 32. For we suffer these things for our own sins. 33. And if the Lord our God has been angry with us for a little while, for reproof and correction, yet He will again be reconciled to His servants. 34. But you, O wicked one, most vile of all men, do not vainly exalt yourself with vain hopes, being inflamed against His servants. 35. For you have not yet escaped the judgment of Almighty God, who sees all things. 36. For my brothers, having now endured brief suffering, have come under the covenant of eternal life; but you, by the judgment of God, will pay the just penalties of your pride. 37. But I, like my brothers, hand over my soul and my body for the ancestral laws, calling upon God to be speedily merciful to our nation, and that you may confess with torments and beatings that He alone is God. 38. But in me and in my brothers the wrath of the Almighty will cease, which has been justly brought upon our whole race. 39. Then the king, burning with anger, raged against this one more cruelly than against all the others, bearing it ill that he was mocked. 40. And so this one too died undefiled, trusting entirely in the Lord. 41. Last of all, after the sons, the mother also was consumed. 42. Therefore enough has been said concerning the sacrifices and the excessive cruelties.
THIS event occurred one year before the pontificate of Mattathias and Judas Maccabeus, and the wars with Antiochus Epiphanes, namely in the year 145 of the Greeks, which was the ninth year of Antiochus Epiphanes, the thirteenth of Ptolemy Philometor, 586 of the city of Rome, and 166 before the birth of Christ. So Salianus and others.
Verse 1: Seven Brothers and Their Mother Compelled to Eat Pork
1. IT HAPPENED THAT SEVEN BROTHERS TOGETHER WITH THEIR MOTHER WERE ARRESTED AND COMPELLED BY THE KING (Antiochus Epiphanes) TO EAT PORK CONTRARY TO THE LAW. -- In the ancient (for in the modern it does not survive) Greek edition of Josephus, the names of these seven brothers are given as follows. The first was called Maccabeus, the second Aber, the third Machir, the fourth Judas, the fifth Achas, the sixth Areth, the seventh Jacob, and the mother Maccabea, from whom all the sons were called Maccabees, says St. Thomas, although Serarius thinks they were so called after the first brother, whose name was Maccabeus; Scaliger however derives it from the strength and fortitude of spirit, just as for the same reason Judas was called Maccabeus. More truly she was called Salome, as I shall say at verse 20. They were all, says Josephus, of illustrious birth, most handsome in body, but more beautiful in spirit, most or all of them unmarried. They suffered at Antioch, for Antiochus Epiphanes had returned there; where later, under St. Peter, the first disciples of Christ were called Christians. Hence St. Augustine, sermon 109 On the Times, chapter 6: "The basilica of the holy Maccabees is also renowned in Antioch. In that very city, that is, which is called by the name of the persecuting king himself. For they endured the impious persecuting king Antiochus, and the memory of their martyrdom is celebrated in Antioch, so that at once the name of the persecutor and the memory of the Crowner may resound together. This basilica is held by Christians and was built by Christians."
Moreover, what age these seven brothers were is taught by St. Chrysostom, homily On the Maccabees: "Proposing the contest, Christ wishes us to consider not trained young athletes for the competitions, but very young adolescents and with them the old man Eleazar, and likewise an aged woman, the mother of the seven youths." And Prudentius, in the hymn On St. Romanus:
He narrated that noble and memorable Contest, which the seven born of one mother Waged as boys, yet were men in their deeds.
And below:
The tyrant had ordered the tongue to be cut out Of one of the youths.
And St. Ambrose, in the book On Jacob and the Happy Life, chapter 11: "It is permitted, he says, to mock the tyrant who, thinking he should cunningly begin with the old man, chose a master who would make his disciples stronger: whose tender age, as it were, he tried to entice to fault with rewards and frighten with terrors into fear. But they, not degenerate, answered their great leader: Why do you despise or deceive us as if we were children? But faith is gray-haired, and discipline is strong. Try, fight, subject our youthful bodies to whatever punishments you please -- you will not find childish hearts." And shortly after: "What old age has conquered, its rival, youth, will surpass."
TORTURED WITH WHIPS AND SCOURGES (Greek neurois, that is, with sinews of bulls) -- and flogged.
Verse 2: We Are Ready to Die Rather Than Transgress the Law
2. But one of them, who was the eldest (named Maccabeus, as I said), spoke thus: What do you seek and what do you wish to learn from us? (note here the boldness of Maccabeus, who addresses the king as though he were a child and student) WE ARE READY TO DIE RATHER THAN TO TRANSGRESS THE ANCESTRAL LAWS OF GOD. -- He was the eldest and firstborn; hence he alone answered for all: for his mouth and his sentiments were the mouth and sentiments of the rest, who, firm in faith, desired death and martyrdom for it. Josephus, in the book On the Maccabees, chapter 8, adds that Antiochus had exhorted these seven brothers with many words and arguments to eat pork, and had threatened them with every kind of torture if they did not obey him; and therefore he had shown them all the instruments of torture he had prepared to torment them -- namely racks, wheels, wooden horses, catapults, cauldrons, frying pans, iron fingers and hands, wedges, fires, etc. -- and had added: "Young men, be afraid, and the Deity whom you revere will pardon you if you transgress under compulsion." Immediately all with one mind and voice replied: "We are ready to die rather than violate our ancestral precepts. You frighten us by threatening death through torments -- as if you had not recently learned from Eleazar what that means. If aged Hebrews retained their piety even in torments, we young men will die all the more justly, having scorned the violence of your torments, which even our teacher overcame. Therefore try, O tyrant, whether you can kill our souls fighting for piety. Do not think you can harm us by torturing us; for by patiently bearing evils we shall obtain the rewards of virtue. But you, for our wicked slaughter, will be afflicted with eternal torment by divine vengeance."
Verse 3: The King Ordered Pans and Bronze Cauldrons
3. THE KING THEREFORE, ENRAGED, ORDERED PANS AND BRONZE CAULDRONS TO BE HEATED. -- The pans were full, says Theophilus of Alexandria, Epistle 3 for Easter, of boiling oil, and resounded with incredible terror for frying the bodies of the saints; and yet amid all these things, walking in paradise in their minds, they did not feel what they were suffering, but what they desired to see.
Moreover "the frying pan, says Antonius Gallonius, in the book On the Tortures of the Martyrs, page 221, was an oval or round dish, large and filled with oil, pitch, resin and sulfur, placed on the fire; and when it began to boil and seethe, Christians of both sexes were thrown into it, who had stood firm and brave in the confession of faith in Christ, so that like fish cast into boiling oil, they were roasted and fried." He adds that martyrs were sometimes fried in a large pan with their whole body, as happened to St. Euphemia; but sometimes not with the whole body, but limb by limb; for which reason these words are recorded there: "The ancient Proconsul ordered her, that is the holy virgin, to be sawed apart limb by limb, and the severed limbs to be roasted in the frying pan, etc."
The frying pan therefore was for frying; the cauldron for boiling the flesh of the martyrs. "For the cauldron, says Gallonius, was a very large vessel made of bronze, in which martyrs were boiled as a mark of disgrace; fashioned (as certain very ancient ones show, which are sometimes dug up from the ruins of this city) in the likeness of the pots we use for cooking food, without a rim, with two handles, which were partly square and partly round: square from the bottom to the middle, round from the middle to the top." Into these the martyrs were also thrown, pressed and folded by a press so that their heads were driven to their knees. A witness to this other method is Josephus, in the passage cited, in these words: "He is placed in the bronze cauldron by the hands of the executioners (this is the name of this penal punishment); the head of the saint is driven to his knees by the turning of the press, and with his body thus forced down, the fighter was most wretchedly confined in the said cauldron." So much for that.
Let the reader note here that Josephus by 'press' denoted a certain kind of pressing instrument: for 'press' signifies not only that beam by which, in a wine or oil press, the trodden grape or olive is pressed, but also, as Budaeus attests, a pressing instrument, which cloth-makers, paper-makers and book-printers chiefly use.
Verse 4: The Skin of the Head Torn Off
4. AND STRIPPING OFF THE SKIN OF HIS HEAD, HE ORDERED ALSO THE EXTREMITIES OF HIS HANDS AND FEET (the tips of hands and feet) TO BE CUT OFF. -- Josephus adds, chapter 9: "And so the guards, being ordered, brought forth the eldest into the midst, and tearing off his tunic, they bound his hands and arms on both sides with thongs. Then after they had beaten him with whips until exhaustion, since they accomplished nothing, they placed him on the wheel: stretched around which the young man, dislocated and with all his limbs broken, cursed him in this manner: Most wicked tyrant, enemy and cruel foe of heavenly justice, you do not torture me thus for any murder or impious deed, but for the defense of the divine law. And when the guards urged him to promise that he would eat, so as to be freed from the tortures, he said: Your wheel is not strong enough, O impure servants, to slay my reason. Cut my limbs, burn my flesh, and twist my joints; for through all torments I will prove to you that Hebrews alone are invincible for the sake of virtue. As he spoke these things, they applied fire under him, and stretched the wheel more and more, so that it was all covered with blood, and the pile of the pyre was extinguished by drops of blood, the machinery and the axles of the wheel overflowed with flesh. But that magnanimous youth, worthy of Abraham, although the framework of his bones was now laid bare, did not groan, but as if he were being transformed in the fire into immortality, he bore the torments bravely. Stand firm for me, brothers, he said, and do not abandon the pattern of my life, nor forswear the eagerness of your brother. Fight the sacred and noble warfare for the sake of piety: so that the just and ancestral providence of our God, being propitiated toward our nation, may impose punishments on the wicked tyrant. Having spoken these words, that sacred youth breathed his last."
Verse 5: They Exhorted One Another to Die Bravely
5. THE OTHERS TOGETHER WITH THEIR MOTHER EXHORTED ONE ANOTHER TO DIE BRAVELY, -- saying to each other, says Josephus, book On the Maccabees, chapter 13: "In a brotherly manner, brothers, let us die for the law; let us imitate those three youths in Assyria who scorned that vast furnace: let us not grow soft in showing piety. Be of good courage, brother, one would say. And another: Hold out nobly. Another again, reminding the rest of things past: Remember, he said, whence you come, and by what father's hand Isaac consented to be sacrificed for the sake of piety. Finally all looking at one another, joyful and exceedingly eager, spoke thus: Let us consecrate ourselves with all our heart to God, who gave us our souls, and let us spend our bodies in the custody of the law." And shortly after: "For thus Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will receive us when we are dead, and all our fathers will praise us. Then each of the brothers who remained, as he was torn away, would exhort the others thus: Do not disgrace us, brother, nor degenerate from our brothers who have already died."
Verse 6: The Lord Will Look Upon the Truth
6. GOD WILL LOOK UPON THE TRUTH, (that is, upon justice; as if to say: God will weigh and render what is just, namely that we are innocent and just, and are unjustly tortured by you, O tyrant, and therefore will crown us with the laurel of martyrdom: wherefore) HE WILL COMFORT US, -- that is, He will be our help and solace, He will pour and send His consolations upon us, so that we may nobly overcome you and your torments, just as Moses sang in the Canticle, Deuteronomy 32:36, and promised that God would do.
Verse 8: I Will Not Do It
8. BUT HE, ANSWERING IN HIS ANCESTRAL (that is, manly) VOICE, -- as if to say, he answered not as a boy with a thin voice, but strong and deep like a father and a man, concerning which see verse 21. HE SAID (the second, named Aber): I WILL NOT DO IT, -- I will not eat pork. This is my firm resolution, this my steadfast will. Hear Josephus adding many things and adorning the martyr with his eloquence, perhaps also adding some things of his own, as he is wont, and embellishing: "The guards brought forward the second in age, and laying upon him iron hands with sharp claws, they bound him to the catapult (which is a siege engine). Then having asked him, before they tortured him, whether he wished to escape, after they heard his noble response, beginning from the soles of his feet, they tore all his flesh with those iron hands up to his chin, and ripped the skin of his head with applied leopard claws. He
bearing the most grievous pain, spoke thus: Every kind of death is sweet for the sake of our ancestral religion. Do you not think, O most cruel of all tyrants, that you are now tortured more than I, when you see this cruel system of tyranny being overcome by our patience for the sake of piety? For I relieve my pain with the pleasures of virtue: you are tormented in the threats of impiety. Nor will you escape, most impure tyrant, the punishments of divine wrath." Following Josephus, St. Ambrose, in the book On Jacob and the Happy Life, book II, chapter 11, says: "The second came forward, and not degenerately fulfilled the duties of pious confession as his brother had. And when the membrane of his head was being torn off, he replied: You remove the membrane, but I have a spiritual helmet, which you cannot remove. And truly no one can remove this helmet: as the Apostle later taught in the Church of the Lord, that Christ is the head of man, and we are His members. Rightly did this boy, by divine inspiration, foresee this Apostolic teaching: The savage beasts tore off the skin of his head, and raged with the ferocity of leopards. But he, dying, said: How sweet it is to die for religion! How pleasant is every bitterness of death for the sake of piety! For the recompense of these labors endures. Your torments are heavier, O king; you yourself are vehemently tortured by your own punishments, because you see yourself defeated in your power."
Verse 10: The Third Put Out His Tongue
10. AFTER HIM THE THIRD WAS MOCKED, AND WHEN ASKED FOR HIS TONGUE HE QUICKLY PUT IT OUT, AND STEADFASTLY STRETCHED FORTH HIS HANDS, -- so that together with his tongue, which had scorned the king, they would be cut off and fried in the pan. St. Cyprian, On the Exhortation to Martyrdom, emphasizes "he stretched forth his hands," and says: "He steadfastly stretched forth his hands to be amputated, greatly blessed in this kind of punishment, to whom it fell to imitate the likeness of the Lord's Passion with hands stretched out for punishment."
Verse 11: I Hope to Receive Them Back from Him
11. AND WITH CONFIDENCE HE SAID: FROM HEAVEN I POSSESS THESE THINGS, BUT FOR THE SAKE OF GOD'S LAWS I NOW DESPISE THESE VERY THINGS, BECAUSE I HOPE TO RECEIVE THEM BACK FROM HIM. -- Josephus adds, chapter 10: "But he, crying out, said: Do you not know that I was born of the same father and mother as these who have died, and that we were raised in the same household? I will not forswear so noble a bond of brotherhood. Then they, greatly resenting the man's freedom, dislocated his hands and feet with tearing machines, and loosening his joints, they tore him apart limb by limb and broke his fingers and arms and legs and elbows. And since they could in no way destroy him, they tore off the skin stripped with the tips of his fingers. Then they immediately brought him to the wheel: stretched around it, as he was dislocated vertebra by vertebra, he could see his own flesh being torn apart, and drops of blood dripping from his vitals, and now about to die he said: We indeed, O most impure tyrant, suffer these things for the sake of God's discipline and virtue; but you, for your impiety and wicked slaughter, will bear immense torments." Following Josephus, St. Ambrose, On Jacob and the Happy Life, chapter 11, says that this third brother, while being tortured, said: "I will not do the will
of yours, nor will I succumb to your command. By the blessed passion of those brothers and their noble life, I will not deny our holy brotherhood. Apply whatever punishments you wish, press harder with them: by the harshness of the punishments you will accomplish this -- that you receive greater testimonies of our brotherhood. He therefore ordered his tongue to be cut out. And he, crying out, said: You are defeated, Antiochus, you who order the organ of speech to be cut off. You have confessed that you cannot answer reason, and you prove that the scourges of our tongue are greater than your blows. For we do not fear your blows, but you cannot endure the scourges of our voice. But these are the scourges of piety, your scourges are those of perfidy. But even when removed, it will scourge you more severely with its fallen murmur. Do you think, Antiochus, you will escape if you snatch away the voice? God hears even the silent, and hears them more. Behold I have opened my mouth, I have loosened my tongue -- cut out the tongue; but you will not cut out constancy, you will not take away virtue, you will not obliterate reason, you will not snatch away the testimony of truth, you will not snatch away the cry of the heart. If the tongue is cut out, the blood will cry out, and it will be said to you: The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me." And shortly after: "Wounds are more eloquent, even if wounds are covered, even if the scar is hidden, faith is not hidden; nor should you boast that by removing the tongue you have snatched away the confession of praise. For I have praised God enough with speech; now let us praise Him with our suffering."
Verse 13: They Tortured the Fourth
13. AND WHEN HE TOO HAD DIED, THEY TORTURED THE FOURTH. -- These later ones suffered more than the first. First, because the king's anger blazed more fiercely against them on account of the many sharp reproaches of the earlier brothers against the king. Second, because these were younger in age, and therefore weaker in strength and spirit. Third, because by suffering with their brothers so tortured, they endured through compassion the same things as they did. Fourth, because they saw that they would soon suffer the same things. And so by the severe torture of their brothers, and the long anticipation of their own torture, they were tormented no less by expectation than by the torture itself. Hence St. Leo, in his sermon on the birthday of the seven Maccabees: "The king's impiety, he says, contrived this -- that he might promise himself victory both over the first, whom he tortured without the example of endurance, and over the last, whom he tortured with another's punishment. The palms of the martyrs were multiplied; and while each one conquered in all, besides their own crowns, all won seven."
St. Ambrose adds, in the book On Jacob: "And when this one too was killed, he ordered the fourth to be bound to the wheel, so that by its spinning all his limbs would be dislocated," etc. Was it perhaps because 'to torment' also means 'to turn' for poets and orators? Or rather because the beginning of the tortures was to be stretched on the rack or on the wheel, for the beating with clubs and sinews? So Salianus.
Verse 14: Better to Hope in God for Resurrection
14. AND WHEN HE WAS NOW AT THE POINT OF DEATH, HE SPOKE THUS: IT IS BETTER (more profitable) FOR THOSE WHO ARE PUT TO DEATH BY MEN TO CHERISH THE HOPE (of resurrection to life and eternal glory: for these seven brothers had this hope alive in them; and therefore animated by it they resisted the king and his torments, indeed they defied them: moreover, they call 'hope' the thing hoped for, namely eternal life and glory, by metonymy) TO AWAIT
FROM GOD, TO BE RAISED UP AGAIN BY HIM; FOR YOU THERE WILL BE NO RESURRECTION TO LIFE, -- but to Gehenna and immortal death. Josephus adds, chapter 10, that he said: "You do not have fire hot enough against me to make me grow soft;" and when Antiochus ordered his tongue to be cut out, he added: "Even if you remove the instrument of speech, God hears even the silent; for you are cutting out the tongue that sang divine praises." St. Ambrose, paraphrasing and illustrating Josephus the paraphraser, in the book On Jacob, chapter 11: "And when this one too was killed, he says, he ordered the fourth to be bound to the wheel, so that by its spinning all his limbs would be dislocated. But he, being tortured savagely, said: You dissolve the members of my body, but you add grace to my suffering, nor do you snatch away the comfort of death. For there is the voice of thunder in the wheel, because in the good and blameless course of this life a heavenly oracle resounds, just as it resounded in John and James, the sons of thunder. And so what I have read I now recognize more clearly, that a wheel runs within a wheel and is not hindered. For a smooth life without any stumbling rolls along in any suffering, and within this one also the wheel runs."
Verse 15: They Tortured the Fifth
15. AND WHEN THEY HAD BROUGHT THE FIFTH, THEY TORTURED HIM -- by tormenting him, as they had the previous ones. Josephus adds, chapter 11: "The guards bound him and dragged him to the catapult, and having tied him at the knees to the catapult with iron shackles fastened to his knees, they bent his loins around a circular wedge, so that bent entirely around the wheel, like a scorpion, he was dislocated. In this way, when both his breath was being crushed and his body compressed, he said: You indeed, unwillingly, O tyrant, confer upon us splendid benefits, since you bring it about that we exercise our endurance for the law through all the more noble pains." St. Ambrose, in the passage cited, says of this one: "When the fifth was presented, after the previous one had been slain, he ordered fires to be brought near him, placed under him, and set ablaze. Blood flowed from his wounds, and the blood poured out from his gouged sores extinguished the very globes of flame. But he was heard speaking amid the crackling of the flames, saying: I give You thanks, O Lord, that You have granted us to say: We shall pass through fire. And as Your Prophet says elsewhere: You have tested us with fire, as silver is tested with fire. I shall stand before You purified like gold by fire: and if there was any fault, the fire has burned it away. And so he too, transformed from corruption to incorruption, breathed his last." Moreover, Gorionides says the fifth said: "Do not think in your heart that God has forsaken me, because out of His love for me He has led me to this glory. But you are impious, blasphemous and rabid, and therefore pursuing you with hatred, He stirs you to do all these things to us, as if He Himself were prepared to take vengeance on you and your seed, and will kindle His fury against you and your whole house."
Verse 18: The Sixth Brother Spoke
18. AFTER HIM THEY BROUGHT THE SIXTH, AND HE, BEGINNING TO DIE, SPOKE THUS: DO NOT ERR IN VAIN; FOR WE SUFFER THESE THINGS ON OUR OWN ACCOUNT, HAVING SINNED AGAINST OUR GOD.
Note: The martyrdom of these seven Maccabees was severe and therefore illustrious; and for this reason the Church celebrates their feast above other saints of the Old Testament on the first day of August, especially in Rome, where their sacred relics rest in the church of St. Peter in Chains, as St. Augustine attests, sermon 109, chapter 6, and they are frequented with great concourse and devotion of the people. The reasons are many: first, because they were the first to openly and publicly contend for the true faith and worship of God; second, because they did this in the Old Testament, when faith was obscure, and the knowledge both of God and of Christ, and of the future life and resurrection, was dim; third, because they suffered at a tender and youthful age, when life is supremely pleasant and death supremely bitter; fourth, because they had as persecutor and torturer Antiochus Epiphanes, a most savage and cruel tyrant; fifth, because they most bravely resisted him, indeed each one sharply rebuked him and called him most wicked; sixth, because they underwent every kind of torment -- whips and bull sinews (verse 1), cutting off of the tongue as well as of hands and feet, also the flaying of the head and perhaps the whole body (verse 4), cauldrons and frying pans in which they were burned and roasted with fire, pitch, and sulfur (verse 3). Learn from these Jews, O Christian, what you ought to do in any temptation, persecution, or affliction, which is far less severe, and how nobly you ought to overcome it: "For you have not yet resisted unto blood" (Hebrews 12). Who has stretched and beaten you on the rack? Who has boiled you in a cauldron? Who has fried you in a pan? -- as happened to these seven brothers, who nevertheless endured all with a brave and eager spirit, so that you may do the same in your moderate trials with the hope of blessed eternity. "For that which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation, works for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory" (2 Corinthians 4).
Moreover the incentives for nobly enduring and overcoming all these things were for the Maccabees: first, faith and hope in Christ who was soon to come, from whose foreseen merits God gave them abundant grace, fortitude and constancy; second, the hope of a better life and of blessed resurrection -- namely that the limbs which they exposed to torments would be restored to them by God in the resurrection, and that splendid and glorious; third, that the suffering would be brief and short, but the reward in heaven immense and eternal. For this animated all martyrs even in the most bitter torments; hence St. Sebastian strengthened Saints Mark and Marcellian, who were wavering because of their parents' lamentation, with this dilemma: The tortures to be inflicted on you will either be severe or light. If severe, they will quickly bring death and send you to heaven. If light, they will be easy to bear. Therefore bear either kind bravely, because brief pain will give birth to eternal joy for you. For what torments is momentary; what delights is eternal. Fourth, that their mother courageously exhorted each one and sharply spurred them to persist in their ancestral religion; fifth, the true example of patience given by the old man Eleazar, described in the preceding chapter, in the dire torments of the rack.
Verse 20: The Mother Was Admirable Beyond Measure
20. But beyond measure the mother was admirable, -- who in the Greek Calendar is called Salome; by Josephus, Salomona; by Gorionides and Genebrardus, Anna, that is, grace; by St. Thomas, Maccabea, because she was the mother of the Maccabees. Again by Josephus, chapter 15, Abrau; because, he says, "she remembered the pious endurance of Abraham;" and just as Abraham offered his Isaac, so she offered her seven sons to God.
Josephus celebrates her with wonderful praises. "The moon, he says, does not stand so beautifully in the sky with the stars as you do, who illuminated seven stars, that is seven sons, to piety; you stand glorious before God, and are fixed in heaven together with them." Hence in chapter 15, admiring her strength, he exclaims: "O mother of the nation, avenger of the law, champion of piety, and victress of the contest waged through your own womb! O woman more noble in continence than men, and stronger in patience than heroes. For just as Noah's ark, bearing the world in that universal flood of the whole earth, steadfastly endured the waves: so you too, that guardian of the law, when you were overwhelmed on every side by a flood of emotions and battered by the violent winds, as it were, of torments, nobly endured the contest undertaken for the sake of piety."
Hence St. Cyprian, in the book On the Exhortation to Martyrdom: "So great, he says, was the martyrdom she offered to God by the virtue of her eyes, as her sons offered by the torments and suffering of their limbs." And St. Chrysostom, homily 4 On the Words of Isaiah: "The mother, he says, of the martyrs herself endured martyrdom seven times; for while they were being tortured, she received the blow." St. Ambrose, book I of On Duties, chapter 41: "She watched, he says, joyful at her children's funerals -- as many deaths, so many trophies -- and was more delighted by the voices of the dying than by the songs of singers: seeing in her sons the most beautiful harp of her womb (as it were strung with seven strings) and a harmony of piety sweeter than any measure of the lyre."
St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 22, admired this virtue beyond belief: "O manly spirit, he says, in a woman's body! O sacrifice, greater and more excellent than the sacrifice of Abraham! For he offered one with an eager spirit, but she consecrated an entire people of sons to God."
Verse 21: She Exhorted Each of Them in Her Ancestral Tongue
21. She exhorted each of them (while they were called forth one by one in order of age by Antiochus to examination and torments, the mother exhorted each to constancy) in her ancestral voice, (that is, in Hebrew, says Josephus. Better, Salianus interprets 'ancestral voice' as noble and manly, such as is customarily the voice of a father; as if to say: She exhorted not with a maternal and feminine voice, but with a paternal and manly one: hence the word 'patrius' is derived not from 'patria' (fatherland) but from 'pater' (father), and means the same as 'fatherly': for this is what the Greek patroios signifies, as if to say she spoke manfully, like a father, not effeminately like a mother. For which reason, explaining, the text adds:) bravely (Greek: nobly) filled with wisdom, and joining a masculine spirit (and voice) to her womanly thoughts.
Hear Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 22, graphically depicting the emotions and gestures of this heroine: "The valiant mother, and truly the parent of those endowed with such virtue; that illustrious and magnanimous nursling of the law, I say, was affected first by joy, then simultaneously by fear, and was placed at the boundary between two emotions: for just as she took delight from their fortitude and from what she saw; so again, when she considered within herself the uncertain outcome of the fight and the incredible magnitude of the torments, she was anguished with fear. And therefore she hovered around them -- not unlike a little bird when a serpent or some other treacherous beast seizes her chicks -- she shrieked, she begged, she fought alongside them, and there was nothing she did not say and do to make them more ready and eager for victory. She snatched up drops of blood, caught fragments of limbs, venerated the relics, gathered one, extended another, prepared yet another, and cheered them all on: Bravo, my sons, bravo my valiant soldiers, bravo you who are almost disembodied in your bodies, bravo champions of the law
and of my gray old age, and the defense and bulwark of the city which nourished you and raised you to this greatness of virtue. A little more and we have conquered; the executioners are growing weary: this alone I fear. A little more, and I shall be blessed among women, and you blessed among young men. But perhaps longing for your mother distresses you? I will by no means forsake you. This I promise you -- I do not so much hate my own children."
Verse 24: Antiochus Exhorted the Youngest
24. BUT ANTIOCHUS -- the king was tormented by such constancy of the martyrs, that he could not overcome them, but was defeated by each one; and therefore ashamed and indignant at being despised by boys, he attacked the seventh most fiercely, so that by conquering him he might seem to have conquered the rest; but he was defeated by this one more than by the others, since this one taunted the king more sharply than the rest. The king, despairing and driven to fury, raged against him more than against the others: therefore this youngest brother surpassed his older brothers both in torments and in heroic courage and endurance.
AND WOULD FURNISH HIM WITH NECESSITIES. -- From the Greek it can be translated that he would entrust his affairs to him, that is, that he would hold him as an intimate and trusted friend, to whom he would entrust and commit the affairs and government of his kingdom, and whom he would appoint as governor over his provinces.
Verse 25: The King Called the Mother
25. THE KING CALLED THE MOTHER, -- so that the mother might persuade her son to obey the king.
Verse 27: Have Pity on Me, My Son
27. SO BENDING TOWARD HIM (the youngest son), MOCKING THE CRUEL TYRANT (note the spirit more than masculine in a woman), she said in her ancestral voice (speaking in the Hebrew language, not Greek, which Antiochus spoke, so that she might more secretly and intimately pierce and strike the innermost heart of her son. So Josephus; or rather 'ancestral,' that is, 'manly voice.' Thus in verse 8, the second brother said in his ancestral, that is manly voice: 'I will not do it.' See what was said at verse 21; as if to say: She spoke with a strong and noble voice, not as a woman and mother, but as a father and man:) MY SON, HAVE PITY ON ME, -- lest you alone by shameful apostasy sadden and torment me your mother, but rather gladden me, who am anxious about you alone, by your constancy: for it will greatly afflict me if you, degenerating from your brothers, consent to the tyrant and lose your soul, and bring eternal disgrace upon me and your brothers.
Hear St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 22, On the Maccabees: "I have become the most sacred of all mothers, I have left nothing for the world; I have given everything to God -- my treasure, my hopes, the nurses of my old age. How magnificently I have been honored! How excellently my old age has been cared for and treated! I have the rewards of your upbringing, O sons, since I have seen you all fighting for the cause of virtue, I have beheld you all victorious: my dearest sons, you are by no means dead and extinguished; but you have been offered to God, not torn apart but knit together and joined, no wild beast has snatched you away, no wave has overwhelmed you, no robber has slain you, no enemy has crushed you, no force of war has carried you off, nor indeed any human misfortune."
AND I NURSED YOU FOR THREE YEARS. -- Many mothers did this for three years, and Francis Valesius proves and praises this on medical grounds in Sacred Philosophy, chapter 83. If any infant sucks its mother's milk beyond three years, it is called by the common joke a 'Manotreptus' (mama's boy), says St. Augustine on Psalm 30.
Verse 28: Look at Heaven and Earth
28. I BEG YOU, MY CHILD, TO LOOK AT HEAVEN AND EARTH AND ALL THAT IS IN THEM, AND UNDERSTAND THAT GOD MADE THEM OUT OF NOTHING, -- and therefore consider that you too were created by God out of nothing, and that you should fear, love, worship and obey Him alone as Creator; and do not fear the tyrant, whom God likewise created and to whom He set limits for his raging, so that he cannot inflict upon you more or greater torments than God has permitted -- God, who knows how much you can comfortably bear, and what abundant grace and strength He will give you to endure them, so that He may reward you as victor on earth and triumphant in heaven, and restore to you in the resurrection the body torn apart by the tyrant, whole and glorious.
Hear St. Ambrose, book II On Jacob, chapters 11 and 12, illustrating these words paraphrastically: "Have pity on me, who bore you in my womb for the course of so many months; do not in one moment confound my old age, do not tarnish the trophies of so many of your brothers, do not abandon their sacred company, do not desert their fellowship. These triumphs still await you. Look to heaven, whence you drew your breath, to the Father of all: look to the earth, which formerly provided you with nourishment; look to your brothers, who seek a companion: look to your mother, who gave you milk. Repay the reward of holy blood; do not be torn from your brothers, do not be torn from your mother. The riches that Antiochus promises are temporal, the honors are temporal: the crown which is bestowed by almighty God is perpetual. The Lord gave you to me as the lights of seven days; I have already closed the sixth day, and all their works have been very good. You owe it to me, my son, that in you, the seventh, I may rest from those six in whom I labored, as if now on holiday from the works of the world."
With similar strength and ardor, St. Symphorosa, suspended by her hair, urged her sons to imitate her and to emulate her martyrdom, as Usuardus, Bede and others attest. "Come now, she said, O not so much my pledges as my very heart! Look to the rock from which you were hewn. You had Getulius, a martyr of Christ, for your father: you have Symphorosa for your mother, hastening and exulting toward martyrdom. Why do you hesitate to follow your parents, O good sons, and to consider what will be inflicted upon you for Christ not as torments but as caresses? I, a weak woman, endure these tortures: endure them also, you steadfast men. Nourished with my milk, refresh me with your blood. I extended my breasts to you -- give back your wounds. Repay this favor of maternal service. No dearer proof of your love for me exists. I shall live, if I know that you die for Christ. Most blessed will your life be, if it is crowned with a most blessed death for Christ."
With equal fortitude, the mother of St. Meliton, who was the youngest of the Forty Martyrs (whose feast the Church celebrates on March 9), when the executioner wished to spare him while he was still breathing, pushed him toward martyrdom.
30. WHILE SHE WAS STILL SAYING THESE THINGS, THE YOUNG MAN SAID: WHOM ARE YOU WAITING FOR, -- that is, what do you expect me to be? That I should obey Antiochus? By no means: for I will obey God and my mother who suggests divine counsel, and you will find me like my brothers, as you have found thus far. Thus 'wait for' in verse 17 is taken in the sense of 'expect.' Moreover, Gorionides says the seventh said: "Why do you delay me and not allow me to go together with my holy brothers? You will not persuade me to embrace your vanities. I will not depart from the Lord and His holy and immaculate law, which through the work of Moses His servant He gave to Israel His people and to the sons of His servants. And you, O most wicked Belial, inventor of evils, Antiochus you injurious man, hater of truth -- which you blaspheme and slander -- where will you go, and where will you flee from the face of our Lord, whose is the earth and the fullness of the world and those who dwell therein? He will yet give us life and exalt us and magnify us above all, even above every nation."
Verse 36: My Brothers Under the Covenant of Eternal Life
36. FOR MY BROTHERS, HAVING NOW ENDURED A BRIEF PAIN (bravely borne) HAVE COME UNDER THE COVENANT OF ETERNAL LIFE, -- that is, they enjoy eternal life in Limbo, awaiting the blessed vision of God in heaven after the death of Christ, which life was promised to them by God through the testament, that is, the covenant and pact which He entered into with the Hebrews and inscribed through Moses in Exodus 24 and throughout Deuteronomy.
Hear St. Ambrose: "And so the young man, rushing forward, said: Whom are you waiting for? And shouting many things, since he could by no means be torn from the company of his brothers, whose deaths were far more blessed than royal commands; while he assailed the king with reproaches, and was himself tortured with bitter kinds of torments, he completed the gift of this life." Moreover, Josephus, chapter 15, narrates these events differently; for he says: "Release me, he said (for this seventh son was bound with chains like a criminal), so that I may speak to the king and all his friends. They, overjoyed beyond measure at this boy's promise, immediately released him. And he, having run to a nearby frying pan, said: O impious one, and most wicked of all villains, you tyrant -- you were not ashamed, when you had received from God both other good things and a kingdom, to kill His servants and torture the worshippers of piety, for which the Divine Law reserves for you a denser and eternal fire, and torments never to be interrupted through any succession of ages. You were not ashamed, you beastly man, to cut out the tongues of men of the same race as yourself, born of the same elements, and to torture them thus harassed. Indeed they, falling bravely, have fulfilled their piety toward God: but you, wretch, will weep, who have slain the innocent champions of virtue. And so I, about to die, will not run away from the virtue of my brothers." Having said this, he threw himself into the frying pans and gave up his life."
But this does not agree with what Holy Scripture adds, saying:
38. BUT IN ME AND IN MY BROTHERS THE WRATH OF THE ALMIGHTY SHALL CEASE -- as in a victim for the sins
of all Israel. This came to pass the following year, as we shall hear in chapter 8; this was therefore the swan song of the pure and innocent Jacob, by which he, like an ancient prophet dying, merited and foretold salvation for Israel.
Verse 39: The King Raged More Cruelly
39. THEN THE KING, BURNING WITH ANGER, RAGED AGAINST HIM MORE CRUELLY THAN AGAINST ALL THE OTHERS, BEARING IT ILL THAT HE WAS MOCKED -- both by the mother and by the son.
Verse 40: He Died Pure, Trusting in the Lord
40. And so this one too died pure (from eating pork, from apostasy, from violation of the law) trusting in the Lord in all things, -- that from Him he would receive back his members, torn apart out of love, glorious in the blessed resurrection.
Moreover, the martyrdoms of these seven Maccabees were so many miracles, among which, as it was more atrocious, so also more noble and illustrious was that of the seventh and the least of all. For a boy could not by the continuous powers of nature have borne and overcome so many and such terrible torments, much less have shown such eagerness and boldness with which he taunted the tyrant. This therefore was the work of God's grace through the foreseen merits of Christ, of whom these seven martyrs were types: and therefore they were beaten with blows, stretched on stakes, and fried with fire, just as Christ was scourged, stretched on the cross, and roasted and fried with the fire both of pain and of love for us.
Thus after Christ, boys and girls -- such as St. Agnes, St. Vitus, St. Celsus, St. Pancratius -- surpassed grown men as martyrs both in the severity and variety of their torments and in the strength and eagerness of their spirit: namely:
Greater virtue reigned in a small body.
And divine "power is made perfect in" human "weakness." For in the small, the great Christ conquers and triumphs, and therefore He Himself "chose the weak things of the world to confound the strong," so that "he who glories" may glory not in himself, but "in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 1).
Verse 41: The Mother Was Consumed
41. AND LAST OF ALL, AFTER HER SONS, THE MOTHER WAS CONSUMED. -- Greek eteleutese, that is, she died. But by what manner of death? First, some think she died of overwhelming joy at seeing all her sons triumph so gloriously over the tyrant. So Marius Victorinus in his poem On the Maccabees:
While the boy, he says, was doing these things, joy dissolved the mother. And now, already loosened by her sufferings, with voice denied, Sighing, and collapsing amid the hands of her own, She fell lifeless, and her loosened limbs found rest; Thus the mother too was received into the company of the Saints.
Thus some Roman mothers died of joy when they suddenly saw their sons whom they had heard had fallen in the battle against Hannibal, as Livy attests, book 22, and Valerius, book 9, chapter 12.
Second, Gorionides says that she asked God for death and obtained it. "This strong woman, he says, standing over their bodies, spread her palms to heaven and said: O God most high, God of the ages, let me depart, I beseech, with my sons, I Your handmaid, to the place which You have prepared for them. And when she had said this, she gave up her soul, and her spirit departed, and she herself fell upon her sons and died with them.
and thus the most faithful sons were at last joined by their most blessed mother." Third, it is more probable that she was fried in the pan like her sons, for this is what 'consumed' signifies: and this was demanded both by her magnanimity and her bold mockery of the tyrant, and by the tyrant's own indignation and fury against her. Josephus adds that she threw herself into the fire prepared for her, just as St. Apollonia did by God's inspiration.
Hear Josephus from his Greek text: "At last when all her sons had been consumed, the admirable parent of such great athletes, suddenly bending her knees amid the bloody butchery of punishments, begged God for the dissolution of her body. For she had not prolonged so long a time from desire for life, but only for the sake of her sons. The most pious mother therefore achieved seven triumphs. Antiochus gnashes his jaws, orders the noble mother to be afflicted, she is dragged away tyrannically, stripped of her tender limbs, her hands are bound aloft, she is more savagely mocked with whips, she mourns over her wounded breasts, and placed upon the flame-vomiting frying pan, she willingly accompanies her scorched sons into their punishments."
Rightly St. Ambrose, book II On Jacob, chapter 11: "Who, he says, would deny that she was blessed, who, as if fortified by seven walls, felt no assault of death among the bodies of her sons? Who, I say, would doubt the blessedness of her who, surrounded by seven towers, raised her head to the seat of paradise; who, encircled by seven sons, brought the most sacred choir to God, melodious not only with voices but also with sufferings, to sing the Lord's praises at the heavenly altars? How good the offspring of faith, how safe this harbor of piety, how splendid the lamp of the Church, shining with sevenfold light, and with the eighth, her womb, supplying oil to all the lights!"
Hence St. Augustine says of her in sermon 109, On Various Topics, chapter 6: "Let women learn from such patience and unspeakable virtue of that mother, who knew how to preserve her sons. She knew how to possess them because she was not afraid to lose them. Each of them suffered by feeling in himself, but she suffered by living through all of them. Having become the mother of seven martyrs, seven times a martyr herself, not separated from her sons by watching, and united to her sons by dying." And in chapter 7, he says she said to her son: "There Christ will keep you for me, whence Antiochus cannot take you."
Again St. Ambrose, book II On Jacob, chapter 12: "The moon, he says, does not shine so brightly among the stars as the mother among her sons: and when she led them forth to be illuminated for martyrdom, she was radiant, and when she embraced the victors, lying in the midst of her sons. O mother truly stronger than diamond, sweeter than honey, more fragrant than a flower! O indissoluble bond of piety! O charity truly strong as death, whose zeal of devotion and faith is like the grave! No floods of such great sufferings could exclude your charity, no rivers of such great bitternesses could overwhelm it. Just as the ark in that flood of the world was carried harmlessly through the breadths of the whole earth, so you, immovable in piety, withstood the waves of such grievous sufferings, and although you could have chosen the safety of your sons, you would not."
Entirely similar to this mother of the seven Maccabees was St. Felicity, mother of seven sons and just as many martyrs, who bore the same children for heaven whom she had begotten for earth. For when under the Emperor Antoninus, the Governor Publius said to her: "Have pity on your sons, good young men, flourishing in the flower of their first youth," Felicity replied: "Your mercy is impiety, and your exhortation is cruelty." And turning to her sons she said: "Look, sons, at heaven, and gaze upward: there Christ awaits you with His saints. Fight for your souls, and show yourselves faithful in the love of Christ." Nor did she only speak, but she also acted; for she too underwent the glorious contest of martyrdom; hence St. Augustine, sermon 410 On Various Topics, says of her: "More fruitful in virtues than in offspring; seeing her combatants in whom she herself was fighting, and in all who conquered, she herself was conquering." And St. Gregory, homily 3 on the Gospel: "I would not call this woman merely a martyr, he says, but more than a martyr, who, having sent seven pledges ahead to the kingdom, having died so many times before herself, came first to the punishments but arrived eighth. The mother, both anguished and undaunted, beheld the death of her sons; she gave the joy of hope and endured the pain of nature. She feared for the living, she rejoiced for the dying. She wished to leave none behind her, lest if she had any survivor, she could not have a companion."
Similar to her was St. Symphorosa, who was both a teacher of faith and a leader to martyrdom for her seven sons; whose sevenfold -- indeed eightfold -- triumph the Church recalls annually on July 18.
This therefore was the glorious triumph of the martyrdom of the seven Maccabees under their mother's leadership, which the Fathers everywhere celebrate with wonderful praises: St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 22, which is entirely about the Maccabees; St. Ambrose, in the passages cited; St. Augustine, on the first Epistle of St. John, tract 8, and sermon 109 On Various Topics; St. Cyprian, book IV, epistle 6; St. Chrysostom, homily On the Birthday of the Seven Maccabees; Prudentius, in the hymn On the Martyr Romanus; Gaudentius of Brescia, treatise On the Maccabees; St. Leo, sermon on the Birthday of the Seven Maccabees; St. Ephrem, sermon On Death; Victorinus Afer, in his poem On the Maccabees; St. Prosper, part II of Predictions, chapter 40; St. Bernard, epistle 98; Theophilus of Alexandria, epistle 3 for Easter, whom hear:
"Why should I mention the remarkable victories of the Maccabees, who, lest they eat unlawful meats and touch common food, offered their bodies to torture, and are proclaimed throughout the world in the churches of Christ with praises, stronger than their punishments, more ardent than the fires by which they were burned? All the devices of cruelty were defeated in them, and whatever the anger of the persecutor had invented, the fortitude of those who suffered overcame it. Amid their punishments, they remembered their ancestral law more than their pains. Their entrails were torn, their limbs dissolved with putrefaction and corruption, and yet their resolution remained immovable: their spirit was free, and they despised present evils in hope of future goods. The torturers grew weary, but faith did not grow weary: bones were broken, and by the turning wheel every joint of sinews and limbs was dissolved, and immense fires breathing death arose: the frying pans were full of boiling oil, and resounded with incredible terror for frying the bodies of the saints; and yet amid all these things, walking in paradise in their minds, they did not feel what they were suffering, but what they desired to see. For the mind, fortified by the fear of God, surpasses flames, scorns the various pains of torments; and once it has given itself over to virtue, whatever adversity arises, it tramples and despises. Such was Paul when he wrote: In all these things we overcome through Him who loved us."
Hear again St. Ambrose, book II On Jacob and the Happy Life, chapter 12: "Such is this battle, that he who was killed more cruelly conquered more gloriously. And so no one was afraid, no one trembled, none of so many brothers was slower to go to death, but all ran to death through bitter punishments as though on the road to immortality. And the mother, in harmony with them, seeing the ranks of her sons, as a devoted soul offered her bodily members in her children, and seemed to herself to be undergoing the torments through her own limbs." And book 11, epistle 7: "Not unworthy was the contest of the children of Abraham and the Maccabees, of whom some sang over the flames, others when they were being burned did not ask to be spared, but attacked so that the persecutor might be more inflamed."
Moreover St. Cyprian, On the Exhortation to Martyrdom, to Fortunatus, amplifies the fortitude of the Maccabees from the fact that they so nobly taunted Antiochus the tyrant. "What relief, he says, was that for the martyr, what great comfort! Amid his torments, not to think of his own sufferings, but to proclaim the punishments of his torturer." About this mother he adds: "Admirable too was the mother, who, neither broken by the weakness of her sex nor moved by repeated bereavement, watched her dying children willingly, and counted not those punishments of her dear ones as pains but as glories, offering to God so great a martyrdom by the virtue of her eyes as her sons had offered by the torments and suffering of their limbs."
Tropologically, St. Chrysostom, in his homily on the Maccabees, teaches that we ought to imitate the Maccabees in their strength, so that when any temptation assails us, we may say with them resolutely: "I will not do it," I will not violate the law, I will not offend my God: "As great a patience, he says, as they showed in bodily dangers, so great a continence let us demonstrate in irrational passions: that is, against anger and avarice, or the desire for vainglory, admonished by divine fear, fighting against our senses and destroying the counsels of the devil within us. For if we conquer the fires of desires, just as they conquered the fire of tyranny, we will be able to be considered like them and their mother, established in equal glory."
Finally, each of these Maccabean martyrs, threatening and foretelling the imminent judgment and punishment of God upon Antiochus, were true prophets. For Antiochus three years later, afflicted with grievous and shameful diseases, perished, as we shall hear in chapter 9;
his son Eupator reigned barely two years before being killed by his cousin Demetrius, who as a son of Seleucus seized the kingdom that was rightly owed to him; and thus the entire family of Antiochus was wiped out.
Moreover, these Maccabees were inscribed in the catalogue of Saints in the Roman Martyrology under the first day of August, where we read: "At Antioch, the martyrdom of the seven holy Maccabean brothers with their mother, who suffered under King Antiochus Epiphanes; their relics were transferred to Rome and deposited in the Church of St. Peter in Chains." It is therefore surprising that some, as Serarius reports, contend that they were transferred to Cologne, where a church of these Maccabees also exists, which when I was living there I often saw and visited -- unless someone says that part of them is in Rome and part in Cologne; for this distribution of relics of many saints has occurred.