ccused to have circumcised their children:
whom, when they had openly led about through the city, with the infants
hanging at their breasts, they threw down headlong from the walls.

6:11. And others that had met together in caves that were near, and were
keeping the sabbath day privately, being discovered by Philip, were
burnt with fire, because they made a conscience to help themselves with
their hands, by reason of the religious observance of the day.

Philip... The governor of Jerusalem.

6:12. Now I beseech those that shall read this book, that they be not
shocked at these calamities, but that they consider the things that
happened, not as being for the destruction, but for the correction of
our nation.

6:13. For it is a token of great goodness, when sinners are not suffered
to go on in their ways for a long time, but are presently punished.

6:14. For, not as with other nations, (whom the Lord patiently
expecteth, that when the day of judgment shall come, he may punish them
in the fulness of their sins:)

6:15. Doth he also deal with us, so as to suffer our sins to come to
their height, and then take vengeance on us.

6:16. And therefore he never withdraweth his mercy from us: but though
he chastise his people with adversity he forsaketh them not.

6:17. But let this suffice in a few words for a warning to the readers.
And now we must come to the narration.

6:18. Eleazar one of the chief of the scribes, a man advanced in years,
and of a comely countenance, was pressed to open his mouth to eat
swine's flesh.

6:19. But he, choosing rather a most glorious death than a hateful life,
went forward voluntarily to the torment.

6:20. And considering in what manner he was to come to it, patiently
bearing, he determined not to do any unlawful things for the love of
life.

6:21. But they that stood by, being moved with wicked pity, for the old
friendship they had with the man, taking him aside, desired that flesh
might be brought which it was lawful for him to eat, that he might make
as if he had eaten, as the king had commanded, of the flesh of the
sacrifice:

Wicked pity... Their pity was wicked, inasmuch as it suggested that
wicked proposal of saving his life by dissimulation.

6:22. That by so doing he might be delivered from death; and for the
sake of their old friendship with the man, they did him this courtesy.

6:23. But he began to consider the dignity of his age, and his ancient
years, and the