ADMONITION ON ORATION XV
1. Gregory, in this oration, while recounting the noble words, deeds, and victories of the elder Eleazar, of the seven Maccabean brothers, and of their courageous mother, adorns their triumph with all the colors of Christian and religious eloquence. The orator begins, as it were, abruptly (n. 1): *Τί δὲ οἱ Μακκαβαῖοι;* "But what of the Maccabees?" By this question it is signified, as the scholiast Basil rightly observes, that it was asked and doubted by some "whether the Maccabees ought to be numbered among the martyrs, and whether they should be honored with the same honor as they, or not." The Theologian subtly proposes and solves this question with this way of beginning. For before he touches upon the praises of the Maccabees, having weighed various reasons on both sides in passing and clearly, he asserts that the Maccabees are therefore to be praised, "not precisely because they existed as such before the cross, but because they directed the pattern of their life to the standard of the cross." He admits, however, that they are not honored by many; but he judges them worthy to be honored by all.
II. In what year and in what place this was delivered, we cannot say with certainty. Nothing occurs in this oration, nor in the interpreters, by which we might have a settled opinion on this matter. We can only conjecture this much: that this is one of those [orations] whose "arguments" Basil sometimes "supplied" to Gregory. Therefore, we will not think it incorrect that this was perhaps, and more likely, delivered before the Caesareans in the year 373. Nicetas, however, writes that it was spoken in Constantinople; but his opinion is supported by no documents; therefore, he could surely bring this forward only by conjecture; hence it is to be reckoned as nothing.
ORATIO XV
In praise of the Maccabees.
I. But what of the Maccabees? For we celebrate this present festival in their name; who, although they are not honored by many because they did not struggle after Christ, are nevertheless worthy to be honored by all, because they showed a brave spirit for their ancestral laws and institutions. For those who underwent martyrdom before the passions of Christ, what indeed would they have done if they had suffered persecution after Christ, and had his death, undertaken for our sake, set before them to imitate? For if those who, without such an example, flourished with such praise for virtue, would they not have shown themselves much stronger if the danger had befallen them with the example [before them]? And at the same time, this is a mystical and secret discourse, at least to me and to all who are endowed with the love of God, and very probable: namely, B that no one of those who were perfected before the presence of Christ attained this [perfection] apart from faith in Christ. For the Word C was revealed indeed later in his own times, but was known even before to those who were pure in mind, as is clear from many of those who were honored before him. D
ORATION XV. — IN PRAISE OF THE MACCABEES.
B II. Therefore, the Machabees are not to be despised because they existed before the cross; but they are to be praised because they arranged the account of their lives according to the norm of the cross, and they are worthy of the honor of our words—not that anything might be added to their glory (for what can a speech bring to those whose glory rests upon their own actions and deeds?), but that those who praise them may attain glory, and those who hear them may emulate their virtue, being stirred up toward the pursuit of the same things by such a commemoration as if by certain goads. Indeed, who these men were, and whence they came, and from what kind of initial discipline and instruction they emerged into such a magnitude of virtue and glory—so that they are celebrated by these annual festivals and solemn processions, and a glory greater than what is seen by the eyes is stored up in the souls of all—the book which philosophizes about the mind being lord of the passions, and master of the inclination toward both virtue, I say, and vice, will clearly reveal to those who are studious and diligent. For it made use of not a few other testimonies, and indeed of the struggles of these men; but for me it will suffice to say this much.
C III. Here is Eleazar, the first-fruits of those who suffered before Christ, just as Stephen was of those after Christ; a man who was a priest and an elder, gray in hair and gray in wisdom; who previously was offering sacrifices and prayers for the people, but who now, as the most perfect sacrifice, was offering himself to God, an expiation for the whole people, a favorable prelude to the struggle, an exhortation both speaking and silent. He offered also his seven sons, the fruits of his own training, a living sacrifice, holy, well-pleasing to God, brighter and purer than any legal sacrifice. For it is most fair and most just to ascribe the virtues of children and disciples to the father and the teacher. There, brave and magnanimous are the children, the noble offspring of a noble mother, D and—
A valiant champions of the truth, higher than the times of Antiochus, true disciples of the Law of Moses, and strict guardians of the ancestral customs. They are the number of those commended among the Hebrews, honored by the mystery of the seventh-day rest, breathing as one, looking to one goal, knowing but one path of life—namely, death suffered for the sake of God. They were brothers no less in soul than in body, vying with one another for the sake of their end (O the wonder of it!), snatching up the torments as if they were treasures, and risking themselves for the sake of the Law—their schoolmaster. They were not fearing the torments being brought upon them so much as they were seeking after those that remained. They feared only one thing: that the tyrant might grow weary of his torturing and stop, and thus some of them might depart without their crowns, being unwillingly separated from their brothers and carrying away an evil victory; for they had been brought to such a state that their danger was that they might not be tortured.
B IV. There was a brave and strenuous mother, a lover of both her children and of God, and so affected that her maternal heart was stirred in a way contrary to the custom of nature. She did not grieve for her children who were being subjected to punishment; rather, she was of a solicitous and anxious mind, fearing that the punishment might not be brought upon them. She did not yearn more for those who had departed than she prayed that those who remained might be joined to them; indeed, she had more care for the latter than for those who had already passed from this life. For the struggle of the former was still doubtful and uncertain, while the departure of the latter from this life was secure. And those she had already commended to God, but for the others she labored that God might receive them. C O manly spirit in a female body! O glorious and admirable gift! O sacrifice, greater and more excellent than the sacrifice of Abraham (I fear to say this, lest it be considered too daring)! For he readily offered one, although he was his only-begotten, and divinely promised, and indeed he to whom the promise itself referred—and what is greater, that he was the first-fruits and root not only of his own race, but of all such offerings. But this woman consecrated to God a whole people of sons, having surpassed both mothers and priests alike, with victims so ready for the slaughter, like rational burnt-offerings, like sacrificial animals hastening to their end. She showed them her breasts, recalled their upbringing, extended her aged hands, and D...
presented her old age as a A kind of formal petition; not seeking to save their lives, but urging them to face the torture, considering the delay of death, rather than death itself, to be dangerous. Nothing could bend, soften, or weaken that strength and constancy of spirit: not the instruments designed for dislocating limbs which were brought into the midst, not the wheels that were set out, not the most exquisite varieties of torture, not the edges of iron claws, not the swords that were being sharpened, not the boiling B cauldrons, not the fire that was being stoked, not the threats of the tyrant, not the populace, not the urging guard, not the sight of their kin, not the dismembered limbs, not the mangled flesh, not the flowing rivers of blood, not the youthful age that was being consumed, not the present evils, not the impending bitterness. Moreover, the very delay of the danger, which is usually considered most burdensome to others in such circumstances, appeared most light to her. For she was suffused with an incredible pleasure at this spectacle. The delay, indeed, in some way prolonged the torments, not just the mere variety of the tortures that were applied—all of which she and they scorned more resolutely than any other person would have borne even one of them more lightly—but also the manifold speeches of the tyrant, sometimes using insults, sometimes threatening, at other times offering enticements: for what did he not set in motion to achieve what he hoped for?
V.
But truly, there was such wisdom and greatness of soul in the responses of the children to the tyrant, that all the C glorious deeds of others, if gathered into one place, would necessarily appear very small and minute compared to their constancy and fortitude; and, in turn, the praise for such fortitude and constancy would be small if compared to their most wise speeches. To such an extent was this praise uniquely theirs, that they both endured the tortures and exercised such wisdom in their responses to the persecutor’s threats and the terrors of punishment that were cast before them—to none of which either the brave sons or the yet braver mother succumbed. Nay rather, placing herself above all things, and mixing the passion of her spirit with her love, she offered herself to her children in the place of a beautiful funeral tribute, following those who had D gone before. And how was this? By voluntarily embarking upon the dangers. And with what kind of funeral oratory? For the speeches of the children to the tyrant were indeed beautiful, and of all beautiful things, the most beautiful—for how could they not be? Through them they arrayed themselves for battle, and by them they struck down the tyrant. But even more beautiful were...the mother’s words, with which she first exhorted them to martyrdom, and then graced their funeral. What, then, were the words of the children? It is good to recount these for you, so that you may have a pattern, just as for the struggle, so too for the speeches of martyrs in such times. Some used one kind of speech, others another, as each was armed by the tyrant’s words, by the sequence of dangers, or by the eagerness of the soul. But to summarize them: they were of this sort: “To us, Antiochus, and to all who are present, there is one King, God, from whom we were created and to whom we shall return. One Lawgiver is Moses, whom we will not betray, nor shall we insult him; not through the dangers which that man endured for the sake of virtue, and the many miracles he performed, not even if another Antiochus, more cruel than you, threatens us. One guard is the observance of the divine commandment, and that the Law, by which we are fenced about, not be broken. One glory is for the sake of such things to despise all glory. One wealth is the things hoped for; and nothing is fearful, except to fear anything before God. With these reasonings B we have been drawn up in battle, and thus we have been armed; with such youths as these, Antiochus, you have your argument. Pleasant indeed is this world, and the fatherland, and friends, and kinsmen, and those of our own age, and this temple, whose name is great and renowned, and the ancestral feasts, and the mysteries, and all things by which we seem to excel others. But do not think that these are more pleasant than God and the dangers undertaken for the sake of the good; do not think this. For we have another world, much higher and more lasting than the things that are seen; a fatherland is the Jerusalem above, which no Antiochus will besiege, nor will he hope to capture, the strong and impregnable one. Kinship is that inspiration, and those begotten according to virtue. Friends are the prophets and patriarchs, from whom we have the pattern of piety. Those of our own age are they who to-day share in the dangers with us, and are our contemporaries in bearing suffering with a constant mind. As for the temple, the heaven is far more magnificent; and for festivity, there is the chorus of angels; and finally, one mystery, great and truly C the greatest, and hidden to the many, is God himself, to whom the mysteries of this life are also referred.
VI. “Wherefore cease promising us small things of no value. For we will not endure to be affected by base and shameful honors, nor shall we gain from things that bring damage; not thus D shall we trade away our lives. Cease also from threats, or we shall counter-threaten.”
A revealing your own weakness, and besides this, our own instruments of torture; for we too possess a fire with which we torment our persecutors. Do you think that your struggle is with nations and cities, or with the most unmanly of kings, of whom some may emerge victorious, while others perhaps might be defeated? For there is no danger of such great consequence for them. You are arrayed against the law of God, against tablets engraved by God, against ancestral rites honored by both reason and time; you are arrayed against seven brothers bound together by a single soul, who shall mark you with seven trophies—men whom it is no great thing to defeat, but to be defeated by whom is indeed most shameful. We are of the lineage and are disciples of those whom a pillar of fire and cloud guided, B for whom the sea parted, and a river stood still, and the sun was held back, and bread rained down, and the stretching out of hands put tens of thousands to flight 65 through prayer; men whom wild beasts obeyed, and the fire did not touch, and before whom kings departed 66, marveling at their nobility. Let us mention also one of those known to you: we are the disciples of Eleazar, whose courage 20 you have known. The father contended first, the sons shall contend hereafter; the priest has departed, the victims shall follow. You threaten much, but we are prepared for even more. What, O haughty 21 one, will you do to us with these threats? What shall we suffer? Nothing is stronger than those who are prepared to suffer all things. O executioners 22, why do you delay? Why do you hesitate? Why do you await that "gracious" command? Where are the swords? Where are the chains? I demand speed. Let the fire be fanned higher, let the wild beasts be rendered more fierce, let the tortures be more exquisite 24; let all be royal and more luxurious. I am the firstborn, consecrate me first; I am the last, let the order be changed; let someone of those in the middle be among the first, that we may be honored with an equal share. Do you spare us? Do you, perhaps, expect 25 something to the contrary? Again and many times we will say the same word: We will not eat of forbidden things, we will not yield 26. Sooner shall you yourself reverence our things, than we shall yield 27 to yours. The sum of the matter: devise more novel torments, or know that the present ones are held in contempt.
A
VII. Such was their speech to the tyrant. But what they said to one another for the sake of mutual encouragement, and what spectacles they presented—how glorious, how sacred, and to those who love God how much pleasanter than any other sight or sound! For my own part, as I recall them, I am filled with pleasure, and I am in spirit an athlete with them in their struggle, and I take pride in this narrative. They embraced one another, they kissed, with hearts no less joyful than if they had already come to the end of their contests. "Let us go to the perils, brothers," they cried; "let us go, let us hasten, as long as the tyrant is still heated against us, lest he perhaps soften and we be deprived of our salvation. A feast is spread: let us not be absent. It is a beautiful thing indeed for brothers to dwell together, to feast together, and to stand shield to shield; but it is more beautiful to face danger together for the sake of virtue. If it had been possible, we would have fought with our bodies for the customs and institutions of our fathers; for this kind of death also is not lacking in praise. B But since the nature of the time does not allow that, let us at least offer our bodies themselves. For why? Even if we do not die at this time, shall we not die entirely? Shall we not pay the tribute owed to our birth? Let us turn necessity into an honor; let us devise a way to escape from dissolution; let us make what is common our own; let us buy life with death. Let no one among us be a lover of this life, nor cowardly or timid. Let us act so that when the tyrant comes upon us, he may despair of all the rest. He may impose an order upon the perils, but we shall impose an end to the persecution; and let us not compete among ourselves out of the fervor of our eagerness. For the first will be the way for the others, and the last, the seal of the contest. But let this be fixed and certain for us, that we all without exception attain the crown, and that the persecutor does not take any part from among us, and, swelling with wickedness, glory over one as if he had broken the constancy of all. Let us endeavor that, just as in birth, C so also in death we may be brothers — D
A as if they were sharpening each other’s teeth like boars B, they persevered in the order of their age and in the equality of their zeal. This was a pleasure and a wonder to their countrymen; but to the persecutors, who had campaigned against the entire nation, it was a source of fear and astonishment A that seven brothers, fighting with one mind for piety, had so easily defeated them that they no longer had any bright hopes regarding the others.
The noble mother, too, the parent truly worthy of such and so many children, that great and magnanimous offspring of the Law, was for a time filled with a mixture of joy and fear, hovering between two states. She was filled with joy because of their courage and what she beheld, but with fear because of the future and the excess of the torments. As a bird hovers around its nestlings when a snake or some other malicious creature creeps toward them, she fluttered about, chirped, and pleaded, fighting alongside them; what did she not say, and what did she not do for those who were being anointed for victory? She caught the drops of blood, she received the torn pieces of their limbs, she venerated their remains; one she gathered up, another she urged forward, another she prepared. She cried out to them all: “Well done, my children; well done, my champions; well done, you who are almost incorporeal within your bodies; well done, guardians of the Law, of my gray hairs, and of the city that nurtured you and advanced you to this height of virtue. A little longer, and we have won. The torturers are weary—this is the only thing I fear. A little longer, and I shall be blessed among mothers, and you blessed among youths. But do you long for your mother? I will not abandon you, this I promise you: I am not so much a hater of my children.”
D IX. After she saw that they had been perfected, and felt secure in the completion of their struggle, she lifted her head very radiantly, just like an Olympic victor, with a lofty spirit, and stretching out her hands, she said in a great and clear voice: “I thank you, holy Father, and you, teaching Law, and you, Eleazar, our father and the champion of your children in the contest, because you have received the fruit of my labor pains, and because I have become more holy than all mothers. I have left nothing for the world; I have given everything to God.”
A my treasure, the nursing hopes of my old age. How magnificently have I been honored! How excellently has my old age been adorned and cared for! I have the rewards of your upbringing, O my sons! I have seen you all struggling for the sake of virtue, I have beheld you all as victors. I gaze upon your executioners as if they were my benefactors; and nothing is more natural B than that I should offer thanks to the tyrant for this, that he observed this order of punishments, that he kept me for the last to face the perils, in order that, after I had first watched my own offspring and had struggled in the person of each of my sons, I might at last depart from here with perfect security and with perfect sacrifices. I will not tear my hair, I will not rend my garment, I will not lacerate my flesh with my nails, I will not raise a lament, I will not summon those who join in grieving, I will not shut myself up in darkness, C so that the very air might mourn with me; I shall wait for no comforters, I will set out no funeral bread. For these things are fitting for cowardly mothers, mothers of base spirit, who are mothers of the flesh alone, and whose sons perish without anything worth commemorating. But for me, dearest sons, you have not died or been extinguished, but have been offered to God: you have not failed, but have migrated elsewhere; you have not been torn apart, but have been joined and compacted together. No wild beast has snatched you, no wave has overwhelmed you, no robber has slaughtered you, no disease has wasted you, no force of war, nor finally has anything else of human affairs, whether small or great, taken you away. I would have been in the greatest grief if any of these things had happened to you. Then indeed, by weeping—just as now by restraining my tears—I would have given a sign of maternal love. But these things are still small. Truly, therefore, I would have bewailed your fate, if you had been badly kept, if you had been broken by torments, if the persecutors had overcome any one of you, just as they themselves have been overcome. But as things are, what has happened to you is of such a kind that it ought to stir up praises, joy, glory, choral dances, and every sort of delight and hilarity in those who have been left behind. For I myself am being poured out as a libation after you. We shall be placed alongside Phinehas, we shall be celebrated with Anna; D except that he had but one, while you are many who have been endowed with zeal, and are slayers of fornicators—not of bodies, but having pierced with the sword the fornication of souls. And she indeed had one, given by God, just born and only that one; but I have consecrated to God seven men, and them willing. Let Jeremiah also complete for me the funeral eulogy, not mourning, but celebrating a holy end. You have shone brighter than snow, you have been curdled purer than milk, your gathering is more precious than sapphire stone, dedicated to God both as born and as given. What more? Add me, O tyrant, to my sons, if there is any favor even from enemies, so that the contest may be more solemn for you. Would that I had also passed through all the torments, after I had produced my offspring in the theater and in the procession, and had sweated in the struggle of each of my children.
A I cherish the torments for my children's sake, or if not that, then let dust receive dust, and let one tomb contain us. Do not begrudge the equal in virtue the death that is equal. Farewell, mothers; farewell, children. Thus do you rear those who have come forth from you; thus be reared. We have given you a fair example; struggle.
X. Succession of the Martyrs and the Mother’s Victory
B Having spoken these words, she joined herself to her children. In what way? As if she were running to a bridal chamber (for she had been condemned to the pyre), not even waiting for those who were leading her, so that no profane hands might touch a body that was holy and noble. Thus did Eleazar enjoy the priesthood, having been initiated in heavenly things and having initiated others; and not having sanctified Israel with external sprinklings, but with his own blood, he made his death his final mystery. Thus did the children of the youth, not having enslaved themselves to pleasures but having mastered their passions, purify their body and translate themselves to a life without passion. Thus did the mother enjoy her many children; thus she was adorned while they lived, and she rested with them when they departed; those whom she had brought forth for the world, she presented to God, having numbered her own birth pangs by their struggles, and having identified the succession of her offspring through their deaths. For from the first child to the last, the struggle continued; and as if in the surging of waves, one after another displayed his virtue and was more eager to suffer, being whetted by the perils of the one who had preceded him; so much so that the tyrant came to love the fact that she had not been the mother of even more—for he would have departed even more disgraced and defeated. And then for the first time he knew that he could not achieve everything by force and arms, when he attacked defenseless boys, who were armed with piety alone, and were more ready to suffer any torments than he was to inflict them.
XI. Comparison of this Sacrifice with that of Jephthah
D This is safer than the sacrifice of Jephthah, and...
more magnificent. A For it did not make the sacrifice a matter of necessity, as it did there, through the fervor of a promised vow or the ambition for a desperate victory; but the sacrifice proceeded from a free will, and indeed of such a kind that it relied only on the rewards which are placed in hope. This is in no way inferior to the contests of Daniel, who was thrown to the lions as food and overcame the beasts by the extension of his hands. This in no way yields to the wrestling of the youths who were captive in Assyria, whom an angel cooled in the midst of the flames, for they did not destroy the ancestral law nor admit forbidden and unholy food. This, finally, deserves no less praise and glory than those victims who were afterwards slain for Christ. For they, as we said at the beginning of our discourse, followed the blood of Christ; and they had God as the leader of such struggles, who had brought forth such and so paradoxical an offering on our behalf; but to these others, the examples of virtue were neither many nor of such a kind. Yet all of Judea B admired their fortitude and constancy, and exulted and were raised in spirit, just as if it had itself attained the crown. For this struggle was the greatest of all the struggles in which the city had ever been involved, so that on that day, either the authority of the law would be overturned, or it would attain glory and splendor; and the whole Hebrew nation was brought to such a point that the entire state of their affairs was contained within the danger of this struggle, and, as the saying goes, stood on the razor’s edge. Antiochus himself also, his threats having been converted into admiration, was filled with wonder. For even enemies know how to admire the virtue of brave men when, with anger subsided, the matter itself is weighed in and of itself. Wherefore he departed with his business unfinished, C praising his father Seleucus, who had bestowed the greatest honors upon this nation and had adorned the temple with magnificent gifts, but being very angry with Simon, who had induced him to undertake this expedition, as one who had been the author of his own cruelty and of the disgrace he had received. XII. Let us follow the example of these people, then, both priests, and mothers, and children. The priests, indeed, in honor of Eleazar, the spiritual father, who not only by word but also by deed showed and taught what was best; the mothers, D in honor of the noble mother, yielding true proof of love toward their children, and presenting your offspring to Christ, so that through such a sacrifice holiness may be compared to marriage; and the children, finally, revering the holy children, and spending their youth not in base and foul passions, but in struggles against the passions, and bravely playing the man against the daily Antiochus.
with the struggle against wicked affections, and strenuously contending with our daily Antiochus, who wages war upon all our members and pursues them in various ways. For I desire to have athletes at every time and in every manner, of every sex and age, whether battling in open war or being assailed by secret snares; and to be helped by both ancient and recent histories, and like bees, to collect the most useful things for the skillful confection and sweetness of a single honeycomb, so that both by the Old and New Testament God may be glorified in us, who is glorified in the Son and the Holy Spirit, and who knows those who are His, and is known by His own, and confessing Himself confesses those who confess Him, and glorifies those who glorify Him, in Christ Himself, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.