It overrules love for children so that one punishes them for misdeeds.

While the priests together with women and children were imploring God in the temple to shield the holy place that was being treated so contemptuously,

“Never may we, the children of Abraham, think so basely that out of cowardice we feign a role unbecoming to us!

Therefore, O children of Abraham, die nobly for the sake of piety!

through all these tortures I will convince you that children of the Hebrews alone are invincible when virtue is at stake.”

for the mother of the seven young men bore up under the rackings of each one of her children.

Observe how complex is a mother’s love for her children, which draws everything toward a sympathy felt in her inmost parts.

And why is it necessary to demonstrate sympathy for children by the example of unreasoning animals,

But sympathy for her children did not sway the mother of the young men; she was of the same mind as Abraham.

O reason of the children, tyrant over the passions! O piety, more desirable to the mother than her children!

In what manner might I express the passions of parents who love their children? We impress upon the character of a small child a wondrous likeness both of mind and of form. Especially is this true of mothers, who because of their birth pangs have a deeper sympathy toward their offspring than do the fathers.

For to the extent that mothers are of tender spirit and bear more children, so much the more attached are they to their children.

The mother of the seven boys, more than any other mother, loved her children. In seven pregnancies she had implanted in herself tender love toward them,

yet because of the fear of God she disdained the temporary safety of her children.

Nevertheless, though so many factors influenced the mother to suffer with them out of love for her children, in the case of none of them were the various tortures strong enough to pervert her reason.

She watched the flesh of her children being consumed by fire, their toes and fingers scattered on the ground, and the flesh of the head to the chin exposed like masks.

When you saw the flesh of children burned upon the flesh of other children, severed hands upon hands, scalped heads upon heads, and corpses fallen on other corpses, and when you saw the place filled with many spectators because of the children’s torments, you did not shed tears.

Neither the melodies of sirens nor the songs of swans attract the attention of their hearers as did the voices of the children in torture calling to their mother.

Although she witnessed the destruction of seven children and the ingenious and various rackings, this noble mother disregarded all these because of faith in God.

For as in the council chamber of her own soul she saw mighty advocates—nature, family, parental love, and the instruments of torture awaiting her children—

this mother held two ballots, one bearing death and the other deliverance for her children.

If, then, a woman advanced in years and mother of seven sons endured seeing her children tortured to death, it must be admitted that pious reason is sovereign over the passions.

“O how wretched am I and thrice-wretched over and over! After bearing seven children, I am now the mother of none!

Alas for my children, some unmarried, others married and without offspring. I shall not see your children or have the happiness of being called grandmother.

Alas, I who had so many and beautiful children am a widow and alone, with many sorrows.