Yerushalmi Shevi‘it

[A vote was taken and it was stated:] Regarding the entire Torah, whence do we know that if a non-Jew orders a Jew to transgress any of the commandments written in the Torah except for idolatry, sexual sin, and murder, [the Jew] should transgress rather than be killed? From what is written [in scripture]: [You shall therefore keep my statutes and my ordinances, which if a man does,] he shall live by them (Leviticus 18:5).

This rule applies only if one is alone, but in public, one must not transgress [and must die] even in the case of the lightest law, as Lulianus and his brother Pappas did, who were given to drink water in a colored glass [which caused the wine to look like libation wine prohibited to Jews because of its connection to idol worship] and refused. [ . . . ]

R. Abba b. Zemina stitched some clothes for a non-Jew in Rome. The non-Jew offered him nevelah [forbidden meat] and said, “Eat.” He said, “I will not eat.” The non-Jew said, “Eat, or I will kill you.” He replied, “If you wish to kill me, kill me, but I will not eat nevelah.” The non-Jew said, “Know that if you had eaten, I would have killed you, for one must be either completely a Jew or completely a non-Jew.”

R. Mana said: If R. Abba b. Zemina had listened to the rabbis, he would have eaten.

Translated by Christine Hayes.