4 Maccabees 16:3

¹If, then, even a woman, and that an aged one, and the mother of seven children, endured to see her children’s torments even unto death, confessedly religious reasoning is master even of the passions.

²I have proved, then, that not only men have obtained the mastery of their passions, but also that a woman despised the greatest torments.

— 4 Maccabees 16:3 —

⁴But with the reasoning of religion the mother quenched passions so great and powerful.

⁵For we must consider also this: that, had the woman been faint-hearted, as being their mother, she would have lamented over them; and perhaps might have spoken thus: