Глава VII

Martyrdom of 7 brothers with their mother (2 Mac. 7:1–42). 2 Mac.7:1-2 It also happened that seven brothers and their mother were captured and forced by the king to eat illegal pork, being tormented with whips and sinews. One of them, having accepted the answer, said: what do you want to ask or what do you want to learn from us? We are ready to die rather than break the laws of our fathers. “Having accepted the answer, he said:...” Here, therefore, it seems that the king, by scourging the martyrs, seemed to ask them a question: how great is their determination to stand up for the laws of their fathers? 2Mac.7:3-6 Then the king, becoming embittered, ordered the frying pans and cauldrons to be kindled. When they were kindled, he immediately ordered the one who accepted the answer to cut off his tongue and, having torn off the skin from it, cut off the members of the body in view of the other brothers and mother. Deprived of all his limbs, but still breathing, he ordered to be taken to the fire and burned in a frying pan; when strong evaporation spread from the frying pan, they and their mother exhorted each other to bravely endure death, saying: The Lord God sees and will truly have mercy on us, as Moses declared in his song before the people: “and He will have mercy on His servants.” “And he will have compassion on his servants...” - Deut. XXXII: 36 (cf. Ps.: “and he will pray for his servants”). Over those deprived of temporary life, this mercy of God must be expressed in the fact that God, who kills and gives life, strikes and heals (Deut. XXXII: 39), will also revive these innocent sufferers for a new and endless life. This faith was affirmed especially in Dan XII: 1–2, 13; Isa XXVI: 19; Eze XXXVII:1–6. 2Mac.7:7 When the first died, they brought out the second to mock him and, having torn off the skin and hair from his head, they asked if he would eat before they tormented his body piece by piece? “They asked if he would eat...”, i.e., pork meat, which is prohibited by law (cf. v. 1). 2Mac 7:8-14 And he, answering in his own language, said: No. Therefore, he too accepted the torment in the same way as the first. When he was at his last breath, he said: you, tormentor, are depriving us of real life, but the King of the world will resurrect us, who died for his laws, for eternal life. After that, the third was subjected to reproach and, when asked to give, he immediately stuck out his tongue, fearlessly stretching out his hands, and courageously said: I received them from heaven and for His laws I do not regret them, and from Him I hope to receive them again. The king himself and those who were with him were amazed at the courage of the boy, how he imputed suffering to nothing. When this one also died, the fourth was tormented and tormented in the same way. Being close to death, he said this: for someone who is dying from people, it is desirable to place hope in God that He will revive again; for you there will be no resurrection to life. “There will be no resurrection to life for you.” Apparently, here, therefore, the resurrection is limited only to the righteous, while sinners and pagans are excluded. This explains the fact that dying martyrs threaten the tormentor only with punishments in temporary life (Articles 17, 19, 31, 34, etc.). – The implementation of these threats on Antiochus is shown in Chapter IX, on his children – 1 Mac VII: 4. 2Mac 7:15–18 Then they brought in and began to torture the fifth. He, looking at the king, said: having power over people, you, yourself subject to decay, do what you want; but do not think that our race has been abandoned by God. Wait and you will see His great power, how He will punish you and your seed. After this they brought the sixth, who, preparing for death, said: Do not be mistaken in vain, for we endure this for ourselves, having sinned before our God, and that is why something worthy of surprise happened. “We endure this for ourselves...” - We, that is, not me and my brothers, but we - the Jews, as a people. – “For oneself” – is more closely defined through the following – “having sinned before our God...”, Greek: αμαρτάνοντες είς τόν εαυτών θεόν, glor.: “sinning against our God...” Present participle – αμαρτάνοντες - sinning - here designates human sinfulness in general, as something constant in him, continuously continuing. 2 Mac.7:19 But do not think that you will remain unpunished, you who have dared to oppose God. 2Mac 7:20-27 Most worthy of wonder and glorious memory is the mother who, seeing her seven sons killed in one day, bore it complacently in hope of the Lord. Filled with valiant feelings and strengthening feminine reasoning with a masculine spirit, she encouraged each of them in the native language and said to them: I do not know how you appeared in my womb; I did not give you breath and life; It was not me who formed the composition of each. So, the Creator of the world, Who formed the nature of man and arranged the origin of all, will again give you breath and life with mercy, since you now do not spare yourselves for His laws. Antiochus, thinking that he was despised, and taking this speech as a reproach to himself, convinced the youngest, who still remained, not only with words, but also with oaths that he would enrich and make him happy if he deviated from the laws of his fathers, that he would have him as a friend and entrust him with honorary positions. But since the young man did not listen at all, the king, calling his mother, convinced her to advise her son to save himself. After much persuasion from him, she agreed to persuade her son. Leaning towards him and laughing at the cruel tormentor, she said this in her native language: son! have mercy on me, who carried you in the womb for nine months, fed you with milk for three years, fed you and raised you and educated you. “For three years I fed you with milk...” - such prolonged feeding of infants, apparently, was not uncommon among both the most ancient and modern women of the East (cf. Gen. XXI: 8 and Exod. II: 9 etc.). 2 Mac 7:28 I beseech you, my child, look at heaven and earth, and seeing everything that is in them, know that God created everything out of nothing, and that the human race came into being in the same way. “Out of nothing...”, έξ ούκ όντων. Some manuscripts also have here ουκ εξ όντων, which further emphasizes the idea of creation from nothing (creatio ex nihilo), in contrast to the doctrine of the creation of the world from primeval (ready-made) matter - άμορφος ύλη (Philonovsky - τά μή όντα ). 2Mac 7:29 Do not be afraid of this murderer, but be worthy of your brothers and accept death, so that by the mercy of God I may again win you and your brothers. “By the grace (of God)…”, έν τω ελέει…, glorified: “in mercy…”, i.e. “in the days of God’s mercy,” when the Lord showed us His mercy - an allusion to the Messianic time and the resurrection of the dead (Dan XII: 2, 13). 2Mac 7:30-39 While she was still speaking, the young man said, “What do you expect?” I do not listen to the command of the king, but obey the command of the law given to our fathers through Moses. But you, the inventor of all evils for the Jews, will not escape the hands of God. We suffer for our sins. If for our admonition and punishment the living Lord was angry with us for a short time, then He will again have mercy on His servants; But you, wicked and most criminal of all people, do not rise up in vain, puffed up with false hopes that you will raise your hand against His servants, for you have not yet escaped the judgment of the almighty and all-seeing God. Our brothers, having now endured a brief torment, according to the covenant of God, received eternal life, and you, according to the judgment of God, will suffer righteous punishment for your arrogance. I, like my brothers, betray both soul and body for the laws of our fathers, calling on God so that He would soon have mercy on the people, so that you would confess with torment and punishment that He alone is God, and so that the wrath of the Almighty, which righteously befell our entire race, would end on me and on my brothers. Then the angry king treated him even more cruelly than with the others, indignant at the ridicule. “Indignant at the ridicule ...”, κρώς φέρων τώ μυκτηρίσμω ..., glory. more precisely: “the highlander endures ridicule...” The whole thought should better be conveyed like this: “the king acted with him even harsher than with the others, bringing the bitterest ridicule...” For the king, the martyr’s wish especially that he, the king, confessed the almighty God, the actual fulfillment of which is shown in IX: 12-17, especially seemed like such “ridicule.” 2Mac 7:40–42 So this one also ended his life pure, trusting entirely in the Lord. After her sons, her mother also died. Enough has been said about idol sacrifices and extraordinary torments.