4 Maccabees 1

1Since I am about to demonstrate a most philosophical argument—whether devout reason is master of the passions—I would rightly advise you to give eager attention to philosophy.

2For the discourse is indeed necessary for understanding, and it contains praise of the greatest virtue—I mean prudence.

3if, then, reason is evidently able to prevail over the passions that hinder self-control, both gluttony and desire,

4but it also is shown to rule over the passions that hinder righteousness, such as malice, and over the passions that hinder courage—anger, pain, and fear.

5How then, perhaps some might say, if reason rules over the passions, does it not also master forgetfulness and ignorance? In attempting to say this, they are being ridiculous.

6For reason does not rule over one's own passions, but over those things opposed to justice and courage and self-control and prudence; and over these, not so as to destroy them, but so as not to yield to them.

7So then, from many angles and in many ways I could show you that devout reason is master of the passions.

8But I could prove this far more from the courage of Eleazar, the seven brothers, and their mother, who died for the sake of virtue.

9For all these, having disregarded the pain even unto death, demonstrated that reason rules over the passions.

10Therefore, it is incumbent on me to praise the men who, at this time, died with their mother for the sake of nobility and goodness; and, as for honors, to pronounce them blessed.

11For those men became even more admirable, not only to all people for their courage and endurance, but also to those who tortured them; they became the cause of the overthrow of the tyranny against the nation, having conquered the tyrant by endurance, so that through them the fatherland was purified.

12But even about this it will now be possible to speak at once, beginning with the subject, as I am accustomed to do, and thus I will turn to the discourse about them, giving glory to the all-wise God.

13So then, let us examine whether reason is master over the passions.

14But let us determine what reason is, and what passion is, and how many kinds of passions there are, and whether reason rules over all these.

15Therefore, reason is a mind that, with right living, gives preference to the word of wisdom.

16Wisdom, then, is knowledge of divine and human matters, and of their causes.

17This, then, is the instruction of the law, by which we learn divine matters reverently and human matters profitably.

18And the forms of wisdom are prudence and justice and courage and self-control.

19But prudence is the most sovereign of all, and from it reason indeed gains mastery over the passions.

20The two most comprehensive kinds of passions are pleasure and pain; and each of these is by nature also connected with the soul.

21There are also ancient sequences of passions concerning pleasure and pain.

22Desire comes before pleasure, and after pleasure, joy.

23Before pain there is fear, and after pain, grief.

24Anger is a passion shared by pleasure and pain, if one reflects on the occasion when it came upon him.

25And within pleasure there is also a malicious disposition, being the most versatile of all the passions.

26Against the soul are arrogance and love of money and love of honor and contentiousness and envy;

27and, in relation to the body, omnivorousness and gluttony and eating alone.

28Therefore, just as pleasure and pain are two growths of the body and the soul, many passions are offshoots of these;

29Each of these the all-working reason, thoroughly purifying and pruning and entwining and raising up and transforming in every way, tames the raw materials of character and passions.

30For reason is the guide of the virtues and the master of the passions. Therefore, I will first demonstrate through the restraining works of self-control that reason is self-governing over the passions.

31Self-control, then, is mastery over desires.

32Among desires, some are of the soul and others of the body; and over both of these, reason is evidently master.

33For why is it that, when we are moved toward the forbidden foods, we turn away from the pleasures that come from them? Is it not because reason is able to prevail over desires? I think so.

34Therefore, though we desire creatures from the water, birds, and four-footed animals—all kinds of food forbidden to us by the law—we abstain because of the mastery of reason.

35For the passions of desires are held in check, being turned back by the self-controlled mind; and all the body's impulses are governed by reason.