15
O blessed old age, and reverend hoar head, and life obedient to the law, which the faithful seal of death perfected.
16
If, then, an old man, through religion, despised tortures even unto death, confessedly religious reasoning is ruler of the passions.
17
But perhaps some might say, It is not all who conquer passions, as all do not possess wise reasoning.
18
But they who have meditated upon religion with their whole heart, these alone can master the passions of the flesh;
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they who believe that to God they die not; for, as our forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, they live to God.
20
This circumstance, then, is by no means an objection, that some who have weak reasoning, are governed by their passions:
21
since what person, walking religiously by the whole rule of philosophy, and believing in God,
22
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 passion?
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For the wise and brave man only is lord over his passions.
24
Whence it is, that even boys, imbued with the philosophy of religious reasoning, have conquered still more bitter tortures:
25
for when the tyrant was manifestly vanquished in his first attempt, in being unable to force the old man to eat the unclean thing,-