1. And what wonder? if the lusts of the soul, after participation with what is beautiful, are frustrated,
2. on this ground, therefore, the temperate Joseph is praised in that by reasoning, he subdued, on reflection, the indulgence of sense.
3. For, although young, and ripe for sexual intercourse, he abrogated by reasoning the stimulus of his passions.
4. And it is not merely the stimulus of sensual indulgence, but that of every desire, that reasoning is able to master.
5. For instance, the law says, You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor anything that belongs to your neighbor.
6. Now, then, since it is the law which has forbidden us to desire, I shall much the more easily persuade you, that reasoning is able to govern our lusts, just as it does the affections which are impediments to justice.
7. Since in what way is a solitary eater, and a glutton, and a drunkard reclaimed, unless it be clear that reasoning is lord of the passions?
8. A man, therefore, who regulates his course by the law, even if he be a lover of money, straightway puts force upon his own disposition; lending to the needy without interest, and cancelling the debt of the incoming Sabbath.
9. And should a man be parsimonious, he is ruled by the law acting through reasoning; so that he does not glean his harvest crops, nor vintage: and in reference to other points we may perceive that it is reasoning that conquers his passions.
10. For the law conquers even affection toward parents, not surrendering virtue on their account.
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.