The Koine Bible

About to demonstrate a most philosophical discourse, whether the devout reason is master of the passions, I would advise you rightly to pay eager attention to philosophy

For the word is necessary for everyone for knowledge, and otherwise it contains praise of the greatest virtue, I mean indeed of prudence.

if then reason appears to prevail over the passions that hinder self-control, both gluttony and desire

but he is also shown to master the passions that hinder righteousness, such as malice, and the passions that hinder courage, namely anger and fear and pain

How then might perhaps some say, if reason rules the passions, it does not lord it over forgetfulness and ignorance, attempting to say a ridiculous thing?

For reason does not rule over his own passions but over those opposed to righteousness and courage and self-control, and not so as to destroy them, but so as not to yield to them

So then from many places and from elsewhere I could show you that reason is master of the passions

But I would prove this much more from the valor of those who died for virtue, Eleazar and the seven brothers and their mother of these.

For all these, having disregarded the pains even unto death, showed that reason prevails over the passions.

So then, of the virtues it is mine to praise the men who died in this time for the sake of nobility with their mother, but of the honors I would bless them.

For being admired not only by all men for their bravery and endurance, but also by those who had inflicted torture, they became the cause of the overthrow of the tyranny against the nation, having conquered the tyrant by endurance, so that through them the homeland was purified.

But even about this now it will be permitted to say straightaway, having begun from the subject, what I have been accustomed to do, and thus I will turn to the account concerning them, giving glory to the all-wise God

We seek therefore whether reason is master over the passions.

we distinguish what reason is at all and what passion is and how many kinds of passions there are and whether reason has mastery over all these things

Reason, then, is mind preferring the life of wisdom with right reason.

Wisdom therefore is knowledge of divine and human matters and of the causes of these things

This then, indeed, is the discipline of the law, through which we learn the divine things reverently and the human things profitably.

But the forms of wisdom are prudence and righteousness and courage and self-control

But of all things, prudence is supreme, from which indeed reason prevails over the passions

Now, the natures of the passions are two, the most comprehensive: pleasure and pain; and of these each is by nature concerned both with the body and with the soul.

And there are many sequences of passions also concerning pleasure and pain.

Before pleasure there is desire, and after pleasure, joy.

But before the pain there is fear, and after the pain, grief.

But anger is a common suffering of pleasure and pain, if one should consider that it has befallen him.

And in pleasure there is also the ill-natured disposition, being the most manifold of all the passions.

And the boastfulness of the soul, and love of money, and love of glory, and contentiousness, and envy

But in respect to the body, gluttony and greediness and eating alone

Therefore, just as there are two plants of the body and the soul, of pleasure and of pain, there are many offshoots of these plants.

which every single one the all-working calculation, cleansing around and paring off and twisting around and seaming over and in every way pouring upon, tames the materials of characters and passions

For reason is ruler of the virtues, but autocratic over the passions. So examine first through the works that hinder self-control that reason is master of the passions.

Therefore, self-control is mastery over the desires.

And of the desires, some are of the soul, and others are bodily, and reason seems to prevail over both of these.

For from where, being moved, do we turn away from the forbidden foods, the pleasures from them, if not because reason is able to prevail over the appetites, I indeed think?

Therefore, longing for fish and birds and quadrupeds and every kind of food forbidden to us according to the law, we abstain because of the mastery of reason

For the passions of desires are endured, being checked by the temperate mind, and all the movements of the body are bridled by reason