The Virtue of Temperance and the Example of Barbarians

Even more so as a superior. 'Divide to me, he says, the time of the year; give the six months for enjoyment to the one being governed and the remaining to the governor.' The request is just, and no judge is so fond of wisdom, being a heterodox judge, as not to vote in favor of those things being said. But I will even do an excess; I do not hold to equality. I descend with the weakness of the body. I leave ten months to the body and a little more. Let the fortieth be granted to me, unpolluted, so that I might be slightly freed from the filth, the mud, having been cooled by self-control. These things, O Christians, are both just and irrefutable, even if God judges and even if man judges. And you also, O judge, vote in my favor, for the time has arrived when the soul is disputing against the body. Therefore, take away from me, O Christian, the sensuality as if it were childish. You are a man; do not think the things of infants. If he does not receive that of honey, he wails; if you do not crave meat or wine, he falls away, tears himself apart, and knocks down everyone for more, while lamenting. I redden at the descent of the gluttons, so that they might mourn the fasting; they are constantly gaping, they are slightly overcome, they pass away again, they sleep by necessity. In insensibility they strive to pass the days, they are weary of the sun toward the setting as it grows late. They approach the days as longer than the habit. Moreover, they wash their aching stomachs and the tensions of the spirits and the heaviness of the head and the dizziness of the state. Even if these things are of surfeit, they are not the characteristics of fasting. They come to the solemn table joylessly, they grumble about the vegetables, they revile the legumes as if they were an addition added to creation; for the lovers of pleasure become also blowhards against the appearances of self-control. 14.10.5 They draw water without breath as if they had received a tasteless medicine from physicians to drink. And many also act wise regarding wine, persuading their pleasure with illicit concoctions. And others immediately attend to the need for vegetables and become various sophists of enjoyment. But this is very habitual and senseless. 14.10.6 For self-control is a struggle of the self-governing and of the free mind, m—

The text ends abruptly with a fragment: 'μ' (m—).

For a slave-like craft, seeking what is set before it, does not work it as it should, but fashions it in a slavish way. You demand a reward for those things according to which you live by the law of virtue. But a reward is promised to honest workers, not to evildoers.

Do not corrupt the fast, so that you do not suffer the things of the charcoal-burners. For if those, mixing water with wine, are punished, how will you, by introducing your sophisticated pleasures into the strictness of the fast, pass through unpunished? Do not imitate formed weaknesses; do not deceive yourself regarding the forty days as if it were a disease-maker, for on the contrary, it is a maker of health. Do not make pretexts for sins while working with men driven by lust.

Because of bad habit, self-control is considered an enemy to you; it is not, however, naturally offensive. All barbarians are a proof of this word, those who neither plant vines nor drink wine, but instead take for themselves by habit an uncultivated drink, water, and they are known to be brave and excellent in wars and they hold sway over the many, as is fitting, those who are drunk while they are sober.

But bodies to them are light and vigorous, and such people are quick to mount a horse, and are skillful and bold and accurate toward archery. And they are capable of finding safety amidst the tumult and finding a course in destitute places. Therefore, do not accuse water as being an emollient, and do not say that those using it are weak; for experience will expose your slander.

What do I say about wine? The Scythian nomads, those who dwell by the Bosporus and those who are stationed by the Rhine river, are indeed homeless and unstanding. But they live from skins and hides and from the hanging veils, making for themselves a covering.

But they do not know a plow, nor do they turn the soil; therefore they also do not bring bread. For how could those who have not learned agriculture regarding grain and the subsequent seeds be expected to? Nevertheless, living without bread and wine, they are brave and worthy of fighting war against all nations, and they hold sway over and excel the many; and neither bread nor wine being absent from them harmed them, but the ancestral habit became nature to men.

Why then did the word mention these things? In order that...