but at the same time he enthroned the mind among the senses as a sacred governor over them all.

At a time when our ancestors were enjoying profound peace because of their observance of the law and were prospering, so that even Seleucus Nicanor, king of Asia, had both appropriated money to them for the temple service and recognized their way of life—

just at that time certain persons attempted a revolution against the public harmony and caused many and various disasters.

for I respect your age and your gray hairs. Although you have had them for so long a time, it does not seem to me that you are a philosopher when you observe the religion of the Jews.

It would be shameful if we should survive for a little while and during that time be a laughingstock to all for our cowardice

You are trying to terrify us by threatening us with death by torture, as though a short time ago you learned nothing from Eleazar.

You, too, if you do not obey, will be miserably tortured and die before your time,

Because of this, justice has laid up for you a more intense and eternal fire and tortures, and these throughout all time will never let you go.

There the brothers spent the same length of time and were shaped during the same period of time, and growing from the same blood and through the same life, they were brought to the light of day.

When they were born after an equal time of gestation, they drank milk from the same fountains. From such embraces brotherly loving souls are nourished,

since even bees at the time for making honeycombs defend themselves against intruders and, as though with an iron dart, sting those who approach their hive and defend it even to the death?

Two courses were open to this mother, that of piety and that of preserving her seven sons for a time, as the tyrant had promised.

But pious reason, giving her heart a man’s courage in the very midst of her passions, strengthened her to disregard, for the time, her parental love.

She did not approve the deliverance that would preserve the seven sons for a short time,

In the time of my maturity I remained with my husband, and when these sons had grown up their father died. A fortunate man was he, who lived out his life with good children and did not have the grief of bereavement.