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The Apostolic Age · c. AD 40–100
Fourth Maccabees
Anonymous
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What it is
A philosophical address arguing that devout reason rules the passions, proved at unbearable length from the torture of Eleazar and the seven brothers and their mother, who die one by one rather than eat what the law forbids.
Why it lasted
The book that gave Christian martyrdom its vocabulary — the athlete's contest, the crown, the death that purifies a nation. Read Perpetua or the Maccabean feast in the Byzantine calendar and this is underneath both.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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