Devotion to God and the Rule of Reason

1 Since I am about to present a deeply philosophical argument, whether religious reasoning is absolute master of the emotions, I would rightly advise you to pay close attention to philosophy. 2 For the subject is essential to everyone as a path to knowledge, and it also includes the praise of the greatest virtue, I mean good judgment. 3 If, then, reasoning is seen to master the emotions that hinder self-control, such as gluttony and desire, 4 it is also clearly shown to rule over the emotions that hinder justice, such as malice, and over those that hinder courage, such as anger, fear, and pain. 5 Perhaps some may ask, “How is it, then, that reasoning, if it rules the emotions, isn’t also master of forgetfulness and ignorance?” They attempt a ridiculous argument. 6 For reasoning does not rule over its own emotions, but over those that are contrary to justice, courage, and self-control;⁠a and it rules over these not to destroy them, but so as not to give in to them. 7 I could show you from many different sources that reasoning is sole master of the emotions, 8 but I can prove it far more strongly from the bravery of those who died for virtue: Eleazar, the seven brothers, and their mother. 9 For all of them, by treating pain with contempt even to the point of death, demonstrated that reasoning has command over the emotions. 10 For their virtues, then, I may praise those men who died with their mother at this time for the sake of what is noble and good, and for the honors they received I may call them blessed. 11 For they won admiration for their courage and endurance not only from people everywhere, but even from those who tortured them, and they became the cause of the downfall of the tyranny over their nation. They defeated the tyrant by their endurance, so that through them their homeland was purified. 12 I will soon be able to speak about this as well, but first, as is my custom, I will begin with the thesis and then turn to their story, giving glory to the all-wise God.

Reason, Wisdom, and the Emotions

13 The question, then, is whether reasoning is absolute master of the emotions. 14 Let’s determine, then, what reasoning is and what emotion is, how many forms of emotion there are, and whether reasoning rules over all of these. 15 Reasoning, then, is the mind that, by thinking rightly, prefers the life of wisdom. 16 Wisdom is the knowledge of divine and human matters, and of their causes. 17 This wisdom is the education given by the law, through which we learn divine matters reverently and human matters to our benefit. 18 The forms of wisdom are good judgment, justice, courage, and self-control. 19 The most important of all is good judgment, through which reasoning rules over the emotions. 20 The two most comprehensive kinds of emotion are pleasure and pain, and each of these by nature concerns both the body and the soul. 21 Many emotions follow from pleasure and pain. 22 Before pleasure comes desire, and after pleasure, joy. 23 Before pain comes fear, and after pain, sorrow. 24 Anger is an emotion common to pleasure and pain, if anyone pays attention when it strikes. 25 In pleasure there is also a malicious disposition, which is the most varied of all the emotions. 26 In the soul it takes the form of boastfulness, love of money, love of glory, contentiousness, and envy. 27 In the body it takes the form of indiscriminate eating, gluttony, and eating alone. 28 Just as pleasure and pain are two plants growing from the body and the soul, so these plants have many offshoots. 29 Reasoning, the master gardener, weeds and prunes each of these, ties them up, waters them, and irrigates them in every way, taming the overgrowth of habits and emotions. 30 For reasoning is the leader of the virtues, but it is the sole ruler of the emotions. Observe, then, first from the actions that hinder self-control, that reasoning is absolute master of the emotions.

The Torah Trains Self-Control

31 Self-control, then, is mastery over the desires. 32 Some desires belong to the soul and others to the body, and reasoning is seen to rule over both. 33 Otherwise, how is it that when we are drawn toward forbidden foods, we turn away from the pleasure they would bring? Isn’t it because reasoning is able to master the appetites? I believe so. 34 This is why, when we crave seafood, birds, four-footed animals, and all kinds of food forbidden to us by the law, we abstain through the mastery of reasoning. 35 For the emotions of our appetites are held back by the self-controlled mind and checked, and all the impulses of the body are reined in by reasoning.