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[150]
Now after the time of their preparatory trial is over, they are
parted into four classes; and so far are the juniors inferior to the seniors,
that if the seniors should be touched by the juniors, they must wash themselves,
as if they had intermixed themselves with the company of a foreigner. They
are long-lived also, insomuch that many of them live above a hundred years,
by means of the simplicity of their diet; nay, as I think, by means of
the regular course of life they observe also. They contemn the miseries
of life, and are above pain, by the generosity of their mind. And as for
death, if it will be for their glory, they esteem it better than living
always; and indeed our war with the Romans gave abundant evidence what
great souls they had in their trials, wherein, although they were tortured
and distorted, burnt and torn to pieces, and went through all kinds of
instruments of torment, that they might be forced either to blaspheme their
legislator, or to eat what was forbidden them, yet could they not be made
to do either of them, no, nor once to flatter their tormentors, or to shed
a tear; but they smiled in their very pains, and laughed those to scorn
who inflicted the torments upon them, and resigned up their souls with
great alacrity, as expecting to receive them again.
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