For the Law ranks above affection for parents, so that a man may not for their sakes surrender his virtue, and it overrides love for a wife, so that ifshe transgresses a man should rebuke her, and it governs love for children, sothat if they are naughty a man should punish them, so that a man should reprove his friends if they do evil.

And do not think it is a paradoxical thing when Reason through the Law is able to overcome even hatred, so that a man refrains from cutting down the enemy's orchards, and protects the property of the enemy from the spoilers, and gathers up their goods that have been scattered.

After the rule of Reason is likewise proved to extend through the more aggressive passions or vices, ambition, vanity, ostentation, pride, and backbiting.

For the temperate mind repels all debased passions, even as it does anger, for it conquers even this.

Yes, Moses when he was angered against dathan and Abiram did not give free course to his wrath, but governed his anger by his Reason.

For the temperate mind is able, as I said, to win the victory over the passions, modifying some, while crushing others absolutely.

Why else did our wise father Jacob blame the houses of Simeon and Levi for their unreasonsing slaughter of the tribe of the Shechemites, saying, 'Accursed be their anger!

For had not Reason posessed the power to restrain their anger he would not have spoken thus.

For in the day when God created man, he implanted in him his passions and inclinations, and also, at the very same time, set the mind on a throne amidst the senses to be his sacred guide in all things; and to the mind he gave the Law, by which if a man order himself, he shall reign over a kingom that is temperate, and just, and virtuous, and brave.


More coming