Page:Selections. Translated by H. St. J. Thackeray (1919).djvu/130

 make light of death, hide His face for shame! Is life so dear to you, Josephus, that you will endure to see the light in slavery? How soon have you forgotten yourself! How many have you persuaded to die for liberty! False, then, was that reputation for bravery, false that renown for sagacity, if you look for security from those against whom you have fought so bitterly or deign to accept the gift of your life at their hands, even were it sure. Nay, if the fortune of the Romans has cast over you some strange forgetfulness of yourself, the care of our country's honour devolves on us. We will lend you a right hand and sword. If you die of your own free will, you shall die as general of the Jews; if involuntarily, as a traitor." With these words they pointed their swords at him and threatened to kill him if he surrendered to the Romans.

Josephus, fearing an assault, and holding that it would be a betrayal of God's commands, should he die before delivering his message, began to reason with them philosophically upon the emergency.

There follows a rhetorical speech, which one can hardly believe that Josephus's companions would have tolerated, on the iniquity of suicide. One sentence will suffice.

"Know you not that they who depart this life in the order of nature and repay the loan which they received from God, when the Giver is pleased to recover it, enjoy eternal renown; that their houses and families are secure; that their souls remain unspotted and attentive to prayer, being allotted the most holy place in heaven, from whence, in the revolution of the ages, they again find a new habitation in saintly bodies; while the souls of those who have laid mad hands upon themselves are