4 Maccabees 1  New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

(d) The following book appears in an appendix to the Greek Bible.

The Author’s Definition of His Task

1 The subject that I am about to discuss is most philosophical, that is, whether pious reason is sovereign over the passions. So it is right for me to advise you to pay earnest attention to philosophy.^{(A) 2} For 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 judgment. ³ If, then, it is evident that reason rules over those passions that hinder self-control, namely, gluttony and lust,^{(B) 4} it is also clear that it masters the passions that hinder one from justice, such as malice, and those that stand in the way of courage, namely, anger, fear, and pain. ⁵ Some might perhaps ask, “If reason rules the passions, why is it not sovereign over forgetfulness and ignorance?” Their attempt at argument is ridiculous!^{(C) 6} For reason does not rule its own passions but those that are opposed to justice, courage, and self-control,^[a] 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^[b] is absolute ruler over the passions,^{(D) 8} but 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.^{(E) 9} All of these, by despising sufferings that bring death, demonstrated that reason controls the passions. ¹⁰ On the anniversary of these events it is fitting for me to praise for their virtues those who, with their mother, died for the sake of nobility and goodness, and I would also call them blessed for the honor in which they are held. ¹¹ All people, even their torturers, marveled 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.^{(F) 12} I 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 passions. ¹⁴ We shall decide just what reason is and what passion is, how many kinds of passions there are, and whether reason rules over all these. ¹⁵ Now reason is the mind that with sound logic prefers the life of wisdom. ¹⁶ Wisdom, next, is the knowledge of divine and human matters and the causes of these.^{(G) 17} This, in turn, is education in the law, by which we learn divine matters reverently and human affairs to our advantage.^{(H) 18} Now the kinds of wisdom are rational judgment, justice, courage, and self-control. ¹⁹ Rational judgment is supreme over all of these, since by means of it reason rules over the passions. ²⁰ The two most comprehensive types of the passions are pleasure and pain, and each of these is by nature concerned with both body and soul. ²¹ There are many sequences of passions with both pleasure and pain. ²² Thus desire precedes pleasure, and delight follows it. ²³ Fear precedes pain, and sorrow comes after. ²⁴ Anger, as a person will see by reflecting on this experience, is a passion embracing pleasure and pain.^{(I) 25} In pleasure there exists even a malevolent tendency, which is the most complex of all the passions. ²⁶ In the soul it is boastfulness, love of money, thirst for honor, rivalry, and malice; ²⁷ in the body, indiscriminate eating, gluttony, and eating alone.

²⁸ Just as pleasure and pain are two plants growing from the body and the soul, so there are many offshoots of these plants,^{[c] 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 passions.^{(J) 30} For reason is the guide of the virtues, but over the passions it is sovereign.

Observe now, first of all, that rational judgment is sovereign over the passions by virtue of the restraining power of self-control.^{(K) 31} Self-control, then, is dominance over the desires. ³² Some desires belong to the soul, others to the body, and reason obviously rules over both. ³³ Otherwise, 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. ³⁴ Therefore 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. ³⁵ For the passions of the appetites are restrained, checked by the temperate mind, and all the impulses of the body are bridled by reason.^(L)