7 For therefore, since nature has conferred upon you the most excellent flesh of this animal, do you loathe it? (WEB) 8 It seems senseless not to enjoy what is pleasant, yet not disgraceful; and from notions of sinfulness, to reject the gifts of nature. (WEB) 9 You will be acting, I think, still more senselessly, if you follow vain conceits about the truth. (WEB)
4 Maccabees 5:7–9
Semantically similar passages
Epistle to Diognetus 4:1–3
1 But again their scruples concerning meats, and their superstition relating to the sabbath and the vanity of their circumcision and the dissimulation of their fasting and new moons, I do [not] suppose you need to learn from me, are ridiculous and unworthy of a… (DIO)
4 Maccabees 1:32–34
32 But of the lusts, some belong to the soul and others to the body. Reasoning appears to rule over both. (WEB) 33 Otherwise, how is it that when urged on to forbidden meats, we reject the gratification which would come from them? Isn’t it because reasoning is able to com… (WEB)
4 Maccabees 8:21–23
21 Divine Justice will pardon us if we fear the king through necessity. (WEB) 22 Why withdraw ourselves from a most sweet life, and deprive ourselves of this pleasant world? (WEB) 23 Let’s not oppose necessity, nor seek vain-glory by our own torture. (WEB)
4 Maccabees 6:34–35
34 It is only fair that we should allow that the power belongs to reasoning, since it masters external miseries. (WEB) 35 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 withst… (WEB)
4 Maccabees 5:21–23
21 for in either case the law is equally slighted. (WEB) 22 But you deride our philosophy, as though we lived in it irrationally. (WEB) 23 Yet it instructs us in self-control, so that we are superior to all pleasures and lusts; and it trains us in courage, so that we cheerfully und… (WEB)
4 Maccabees 2:1–2
1 Is it any wonder? If the lusts of the soul, after participation with what is beautiful, are frustrated, (WEB) 2 on this ground, therefore, the temperate Joseph is praised in that by reasoning, he subdued, on reflection, the indulgence of the senses. (WEB)
Job 15:12–14
12 Why has your heart carried you away, and why do your eyes flash, 13 as you turn your spirit against God and pour such words from your mouth? 14 What is man, that he should be pure, or one born of woman, that he should be righteous?
Job 35:2–4
2 “Do you think this is just? You say, ‘I am more righteous than God.’ 3 For you ask, ‘What does it profit me, and what benefit do I gain apart from sin?’ 4 I will reply to you and to your friends as well.
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