If a Catholic eats meat on Friday, he acts as if he were not a Catholic, and refuses obedience to the Church of God. Do you always observe the days of abstinence?
Chapter LXXXIV.
THE MARTYRDOM OF THE SEVEN MACHABEES.
[2 Mach. 7 ]
ANTIOCHUS [1] commanded that a certain widow, with her seven sons [2], should be brought into his presence, and should be forced to eat of the forbidden flesh. They all told him that, as their law did not allow them the use of such meat, they could not obey his command. He immediately had them scourged with whips.
The eldest of the brothers told the king that they were ready to die rather than transgress the law of their God. Then the king, enraged at the young man’s boldness, ordered his tongue to be plucked out, the skin of his head to be torn off, his hands and feet to be cut off, and finally that he should be burnt alive before his mother and brothers. While he was suffering[3] these cruel torments, his mother and his brothers exhorted him to die courageously.
The first brother being dead, they seized the second, and, having tom the skin from off his head, they asked him if he would eat rather than undergo the rest of the torments. But he, refusing not less firmly and courageously than his elder brother, was tortured in the same way till he expired. When he was about to die he exclaimed: “Thou, O most wicked man, destroyest us out of this present life, but the King of the
- ↑ Antioehus. See preceding chapter.
- ↑ Seven sons. These brothers are called the seven Machabees, because their heroic sufferings are related in the second Book of Machabees. It is generally believed that the seven brothers and their mother were martyred in the year 166 B.C. at Antioch, the city where the king resided, situated not far from the sea, to the north east of the island of Cyprus.
- ↑ Suffering. According to 2 Mach. 7, 5. his martyrdom lasted a long time. Picture to yourself the horrors of this prolonged torture. The king hoped that the cruel torments of the eldest brother would frighten the younger ones into submission; but instead of this, they encouraged each other to follow his example.
