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4 MACCABEES

The Author’s Definition of His Task

1The subject that I am about to discuss is most philosophical, that is, whether devout reason is sovereign over the emotions. So it is right for me to advise you to pay earnest attention to philosophy. ²For the subject is essential to everyone who is seeking knowledge, and in addition it includes the praise of the highest virtue—I mean, of course, rational judgement. ³If, then, it is evident that reason rules over those emotions that hinder self-control, namely gluttony and lust, ⁴it is also clear that it masters the emotions that hinder one from justice, such as malice, and those that stand in the way of courage, namely anger, fear, and pain. ⁵Some might perhaps ask, ‘If reason rules the emotions, why is it not sovereign over forgetfulness and ignorance?’ Their attempt at argument is ridiculous!^{* 6}For reason does not rule its own emotions, but those that are opposed to justice, courage, and self-control;^* and it is not for the purpose of destroying them, but so that one may not give way to them.

7 I could prove to you from many and various examples that reason^* is dominant over the emotions, ⁸but I can demonstrate it best from the noble bravery of those who died for the sake of virtue, Eleazar and the seven brothers and their mother. ⁹All of these, by despising sufferings that bring death, demonstrated that reason controls the emotions. ¹⁰On this anniversary^* it is fitting for me to praise for their virtues those who, with their mother, died for the sake of nobility and goodness, but I would also call them blessed for the honour in which they are held. ¹¹All people, even their torturers, marvelled at their courage and endurance, and they became the cause of the downfall of tyranny over their nation. By their endurance they conquered the tyrant, and thus their native land was purified through them. ¹²I shall shortly have an opportunity to speak of this; but, as my custom is, I shall begin by stating my main principle, and then I shall turn to their story, giving glory to the all-wise God.

The Supremacy of Reason

13 Our inquiry, accordingly, is whether reason is sovereign over the emotions. ¹⁴We shall decide just what reason is and what emotion is, how many kinds of emotions there are, and whether reason rules over all of these. ¹⁵Now reason is the mind that with sound logic prefers the life of wisdom. ¹⁶Wisdom, next, is the knowledge of divine and human matters and the causes of these. ¹⁷This, in turn, is education in the law, by which we learn divine matters reverently and human affairs to our advantage. ¹⁸Now the kinds of wisdom are rational judgement, justice, courage, and self-control. ¹⁹Rational judgement is supreme over all of these, since by means of it reason rules over the emotions. ²⁰The two most comprehensive types^* of the emotions are pleasure and pain; and each of these is by nature concerned with both body and soul. ²¹The emotions of both pleasure and pain have many consequences. ²²Thus desire precedes pleasure and delight follows it. ²³Fear precedes pain and sorrow comes after. ²⁴Anger, as a person will see by reflecting on this experience, is an emotion embracing pleasure and pain. ²⁵In pleasure there exists even a malevolent tendency, which is the most complex of all the emotions. ²⁶In the soul it is boastfulness, covetousness, thirst for honour, rivalry, and malice; ²⁷in the body, indiscriminate eating, gluttony, and solitary gormandizing.

28 Just as pleasure and pain are two plants growing from the body and the soul, so there are many offshoots of these plants,^{* 29}each of which the master cultivator, reason, weeds and prunes and ties up and waters and thoroughly irrigates, and so tames the jungle of habits and emotions. ³⁰For reason is the guide of the virtues, but over the emotions it is sovereign.

Observe now, first of all, that rational judgement is sovereign over the emotions by virtue of the restraining power of self-control. ³¹Self-control, then, is dominance over the desires. ³²Some desires are mental, others are physical, and reason obviously rules over both. ³³Otherwise how is it that when we are attracted to forbidden foods we abstain from the pleasure to be had from them? Is it not because reason is able to rule over appetites? I for one think so. ³⁴Therefore when we crave seafood and fowl and animals and all sorts of foods that are forbidden to us by the law, we abstain because of domination by reason. ³⁵For the emotions of the appetites are restrained, checked by the temperate mind, and all the impulses of the body are bridled by reason.