102:2.2

As I am going to demonstrate a most philosophical proposition, namely, that religious reasoning is absolute master of the emotions. I would willingly advise you to give the utmost heed to philosophy. For reason is necessary to everyone as a step to science. In addition, it embraces the praise of self-control, the highest virtue. If, then, reasoning appears to hold the mastery over the emotions which stand in the way of temperance, such as gluttony and lust, it surely also and manifestly rules over the affections which are contrary to justice, such as malice, and of those which are hindrances to courage, such as wrath, pain, and fear. Perhaps some may ask, “How is it, then, that reasoning, if it rules the emotions, isn’t also master of forgetfulness and ignorance?” They attempt a ridiculous argument. For reasoning does not rule over its own emotions, but over those that are contrary to justice, courage, temperance, and self-control; and yet over these, so as to withstand, without destroying them.

He being at length burned down to the bones, and about to expire, raised his eyes Godward, and said, “You know, O God, that when I might have been saved, I am slain for the sake of the law by tortures of fire. Be merciful to your people, and be satisfied with the punishment of me on their account. Let my blood be a purification for them, and take my life in exchange for theirs.” Thus speaking, the holy man departed, noble in his torments, and even to the agonies of death resisted in his reasoning for the sake of the law. Confessedly, therefore, religious reasoning is master of the emotions. For had the emotions been superior to reasoning, I would have given them the witness of this mastery. But now, since reasoning conquered the emotions, we befittingly award it the authority of first place. It is only fair that we should allow that the power belongs to reasoning, since it masters external miseries. It would be ridiculous if it weren’t so. I prove that reasoning has not only mastered pains, but that it is also superior to the pleasures, and withstands them.

The reasoning of our father Eleazar, like a first-rate pilot, steering the vessel of piety in the sea of emotions, and flouted by the threats of the tyrant, and overwhelmed with the breakers of torture, in no way shifted the rudder of piety until it sailed into the harbor of victory over death. No besieged city has ever held out against many and various war machines as that holy man did when his pious soul was tried with the fiery trial of tortures and rackings and moved his besiegers through the religious reasoning that shielded him. For father Eleazar, projecting his disposition, broke the raging waves of the emotions as with a jutting cliff. O priest worthy of the priesthood! You didn’t pollute your sacred teeth, nor make your appetite, which had always embraced the clean and lawful, a partaker of profanity. O harmonizer with the law, and sage devoted to a divine life! Of such a character ought those to be who perform the duties of the law at the risk of their own blood, and defend it with generous sweat by sufferings even to death. You, father, have gloriously established our right government by your endurance; and making of much account our past service, prevented its destruction, and by your deeds, have made credible the words of philosophy. O aged man of more power than tortures, elder more vigorous than fire, greatest king over the emotions, Eleazar! For as father Aaron, armed with a censer, hastening through the consuming fire, vanquished the flame-bearing angel, so, Eleazar, the descendant of Aaron, wasted away by the fire, didn’t give up his reasoning. What is most wonderful is that though he was an old man, though the labors of his body were now spent, his muscles were relaxed, and his sinews worn out, he recovered youth. By the spirit of reasoning, and the reasoning of Isaac, he rendered powerless the many-headed rack. O blessed old age, and reverend hoar head, and life obedient to the law, which the faithful seal of death perfected. If, then, an old man, through religion, despised tortures even to death, then certainly religious reasoning is ruler of the emotions. But perhaps some might say, “It is not all who conquer emotions, as not all possess wise reasoning.” But those who have meditated upon religion with their whole heart, these alone can master the emotions of the flesh: they who believe that to God they don’t die; for, as our forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they live to God. This circumstance, then, is by no means an objection, that some who have weak reasoning are governed by their emotions, since what person, walking religiously by the whole rule of philosophy, and believing in God, and knowing that it is a blessed thing to endure all kinds of hardships for virtue, would not, for the sake of religion, master his emotion? For only the wise and brave man is lord over his emotions. This is why even boys, trained with the philosophy of religious reasoning, have conquered still more bitter tortures; for when the tyrant was manifestly vanquished in his first attempt, in being unable to force the old man to eat the unclean thing,