11
And it prevails over marriage love, condemning it when transgressing law.
12
And 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.
13
And think it not a strange assertion that reasoning can in behalf of the law conquer even enmity.
14
It alloweth not to cut down the cultivated herbage of an enemy, but preserveth it from the destroyers, and collecteth their fallen ruins.
15
And reason appears to be master of the more violent passions, as love of empire and empty boasting, and slander.
16
For the temperate understanding repels all these malignant passions, as it does wrath: for it masters even this.
17
Thus Moses, when angered against Dathan and Abiram, did nothing to them in wrath, but regulated his anger by reasoning.
18
For the temperate mind is able, as I said, to be superior to the passions, and to transfer some, and destroy others.
19
For 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.
20
For if reasoning did not possess the power of subduing angry affections, he would not have spoken thus.
21
For at the time when God created man, He implanted within him his passions and moral nature.