James lived his life to the full, and when the end came, he bore himself with such grace and fortitude that even his accuser and informer, who attended his trial and execution, was so touched that he rushed away from the scene of James’s death to join himself to the disciples of Jesus.
Close in 1 of 10 textsLeans toward Diogenes Laertius
Close in meaning, found by a language model. A match does not mean the teachings are the same.
While he was saying this, they heaped up fuel, and setting fire to it, strained him on the wheel still more. The wheel was defiled all over with blood. The hot ashes were quenched by the droppings of gore, and pieces of flesh were scattered about the axles of the machine. Although the framework of his bones was now destroyed, the high-minded and Abrahamic youth didn’t groan. But, as though transformed by fire into immortality, he nobly endured the rackings, saying, “Imitate me, O kindred. Never desert your station, nor renounce my brotherhood in courage. Fight the holy and honorable fight of religion, by which means our just and paternal Providence, becoming merciful to the nation, will punish the pestilent tyrant.” Saying this, the revered youth abruptly closed his life.
When they changed the good will they bore toward him a little before into ill will because these words of his were, as they thought, sheer madness, and when he was at the point to die with the blows, he groaned aloud and said, “To the Lord, who has the holy knowledge, it is manifest that, while I might have been delivered from death, I endure severe pains in my body by being scourged; but in soul I gladly suffer these things because of my fear of him.”
When all admired his courageous soul, the spearmen brought forward him who was second oldest, and having put on iron gauntlets with sharp hooks, bound him to the rack. When, on enquiring whether he would eat before he was tortured, they heard his noble sentiment. After they with the iron gauntlets had violently dragged all the flesh from the neck to the chin, the panther-like animals tore off the very skin of his head, but he, bearing with firmness this misery, said, “How sweet is every form of death for the religion of our fathers!” Then he said to the tyrant, “Don’t you think, most cruel of all tyrants, that you are now tortured more than I, finding your arrogant conception of tyranny conquered by our perseverance in behalf of our religion? For I lighten my suffering by the pleasures which are connected with virtue. But you are tortured with threatenings for impiety. You won’t escape, most corrupt tyrant, the vengeance of Divine wrath.”