4 Maccabees, Chapter 2

¹And what wonder? if the lusts of the soul, after participation with what is beautiful, are frustrated, ²on this ground, therefore, the temperate Joseph is praised in that by reasoning, he subdued, on reflection, the indulgence of sense. ³For, although young, and ripe for sexual intercourse, he abrogated by reasoning the stimulus of his passions. ⁴And it is not merely the stimulus of sensual indulgence, but that of every desire, that reasoning is able to master. ⁵For instance, the law says, Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor anything that belongs to thy neighbour. ⁶Now, then, since it is the law which has forbidden us to desire, I shall much the more easily persuade you, that reasoning is able to govern our lusts, just as it does the affections which are impediments to justice. ⁷Since in what way is a solitary eater, and a glutton, and a drunkard reclaimed, unless it be clear that reasoning is lord of the passions? ⁸A man, therefore, who regulates his course by the law, even if he be a lover of money, straightway puts force upon his own disposition; lending to the needy without interest, and cancelling the debt of the incoming sabbath.

⁹And should a man be parsimonious, he is ruled by the law acting through reasoning; so that he does not glean his harvest crops, nor vintage: and in reference to other points we may perceive that it is reasoning that conquers his passions. ¹⁰For the law conquers even affection toward parents, not surrendering virtue on their account. ¹¹And it prevails over marriage love, condemning it when transgressing law. ¹²And it lords it over the love of parents toward their children, for they punish them for vice; and it domineers over the intimacy of friends, reproving them when wicked. ¹³And think it not a strange assertion that reasoning can in behalf of the law conquer even enmity. ¹⁴It alloweth not to cut down the cultivated herbage of an enemy, but preserveth it from the destroyers, and collecteth their fallen ruins. ¹⁵And reasoning appears to be master of the more violent passions, as love of empire and empty boasting, and arrogance, and loud boasting, and slander. ¹⁶For the temperate understanding repels all these malignant passions, as it does wrath: for it masters even this.

¹⁷Thus Moses, when angered against Dathan and Abiram, did nothing to them in wrath, but regulated his anger by reasoning. ¹⁸For the temperate mind is able, as I said, to be superior to the passions, and to transfer some, and destroy others. ¹⁹For why, else, does our most wise father Jacob blame Simeon and Levi for having irrationally slain the whole race of the Shechemites, saying, Cursed be their anger. ²⁰For if reasoning did not possess the power of subduing angry affections, he would not have spoken thus. ²¹For at the time when God created man, He implanted within him his passions and moral nature. ²²And at that time He enthroned above all the holy leader mind, through the medium of the senses. ²³And He gave a law to this mind , by living according to which it will maintain a temperate, and just, and good, and manly reign. ²⁴How, then, a man may say, if reasoning be master of the passions, has it no control over forgetfulness and ignorance?