Temperance
Temperance
()
The aim of the present article is to determine the meaning of in the NT. Our word temperance is in popular speech limited to moderation in the use of intoxicants or total abstinence therefrom. This limitation of the word indicates the seriousness of the drink question in modern times; but temperance in the NT is not so restricted, so that the discussion of temperance in the modern sense can be touched on here only in so far as it is included in the more general question of .
1. Temperance synthetically viewed as one of a catalogue of moral virtues or graces.-In the four cardinal virtues of Greek ethics and also the seven of scholastic and modern times temperance has a place, and its meaning is determined not only analytically but also synthetically, i.e. its relation in the moral life to other virtues is exhibited. Is there any synthetic treatment of it in the NT?
In Gal 5:19-23 it occurs at the end of a group of graces, and some have found in its position here a proof that it forms, as it were, the key-stone of the moral structure-the culminating point of a climax (A. B. D. Alexander, Ethics of St. Paul, Glasgow, 1910, p. 184 ff.); but this is not the case. St. Paul may be opposing it to drunkennesses and revellings in the corresponding list of vices, in which case the word would approach in meaning our own temperance; but in all likelihood its position in the list is in no way regulative of its meaning, and so we are compelled to take it in its ordinary sense of self-control in food, drink, and especially in sexual indulgence. These ethical lists in St. Paul are not constructed logically. The lack of uniformity in them is a sufficient proof of this. Thus in Act 24:25 temperance is associated with righteousness (not in the specific Pauline sense), and both are enforced in the light of the judgment to come. The reason for the association of the two is simply that Felix was notoriously deficient in both these points (Tac. Ann. xii. 54; Suet. Claud. 28). Here temperance primarily, perhaps exclusively, means continence-the of Xenophon (Ag. v. 4)-a restricted meaning which the verb has in 1Co 7:9. Indeed the word tended towards this limited sense in later literature as our own word temperance is restricted to the matter of drink. The reason is obvious. Immorality was even a graver sin for the Church than gluttony or drunkenness.
In Mat 23:25 our Lord condemns the scribes and Pharisees for and , and if with Grotius (see Commentaries) we could explain the latter of sensual indulgence we would have exact opposites of righteousness and temperance as here used by St. Paul (cf. Jos. Ant. VIII. vii. 5 for this meaning of ). The context, however, is more in favour of taking as meaning overindulgence in eating and drinking.
In Tit 1:8 we have righteousness (among other virtues) joined with temperance as virtues necessary for a bishop or presbyter ( ). Here temperate ought naturally to be taken in its ordinary meaning as control of bodily desires. It is not so comprehensive as , a term which implies rational balance as well as moral self-control. The one () is a genus of which the other () is a species. It is impossible, therefore, to arrange the terms of these Pauline catalogues genetically. The arrangement is often a matter of rhythm, not of moral nexus (see 2Co 6:3 ff.), and therefore it is pedantic to see any immanent ethical connexion between the members of these lists.
To Tit 2:12 we owe the tripartite division of duties into duties to oneself (), duties to others (), and duties to God ()-sobrie erga nos, juste erga proximum, pie erga Deum (Bernard, quoted by Alford, in loc.). Our virtue of temperance would fall under the first of these as a species under a genus, but it is questionable if this division was in the writers mind. can with as little propriety be referred merely to ones self as merely to others, and by is also denoted the whole sphere of the Christian life (A. Wiesinger, Eng. translation , Edinburgh, 1851, in loc.). Lucian has the same virtues together and calls them the pure world of the soul (see Alford, in loc.). The fact that in the Pastoral Epistles we have so many lists of virtues-similar yet never identical-is a proof that the Apostle did not write with a fixed system of ethics in the background of his mind.
In 2Pe 1:5-8 there appears on the other hand an inner psychological connexion between the various virtues mentioned. These are not thrown together at haphazard; there is a distinct moral progress, an advance like the Stoic from a lower to a higher stage. Faith furnishes moral energy (), it knowledge, and it in turn , till we are led up to love. Here undoubtedly its place in the list throws light on its meaning. It springs out of faith, which supplies the moral energy for and the practical acquaintance with the conduct that ought to be pursued and avoided. It is the mastery of self over its own internal hostile forces, just as , endurance, is mastery of the self in face of outward enemies. Temperance and endurance are indeed closely akin. When the struggle is against ones own lusts, the necessary virtue is temperance; when it is against hostile forces from without, then endurance-a military word-is the virtue required. The placing of knowledge and energy before it in the list shows that temperance needs both strength and insight as elements. The Christian Church, however, has never looked on this list in 2 Peter as an infallible norm. In Hermas is made directly the daughter of faith-virtue and knowledge are omitted-and opposed to (Vis. III. viii. 7, Sim. IX. xv. 2). The fact is that the general literature of the period is full of such lists, and this one in 2 Pet. can be paralleled in parts from inscriptions (see Deissmann, Licht vom Osten, Tbingen, 1908, p. 239, Eng. translation , Light from the Ancient East, London, 1911, p. 322). We have a literary parallel in the Tabula of Cebes (xx. 3), and E. von Dobschtz quotes from Iamblichus, de vita Pythag., the vices that spring out of -lawless marriages and corruptions and drunkennesses, and unnatural pleasures and certain violent lusts. For a discussion of the origin of these catalogues of vices () and virtues () the reader is referred to his excursus in Christian Life in the Primitive Church, p. 406 ff.
Before leaving this division of the subject the question which is raised by C. Bigg (International Critical Commentary , St. Peter and St. Jude, Edinburgh, 1901, in loc.) has to be faced. He considers that St. Peter regards temperance and the other virtues (except faith) as acquired by native moral effort working on the Divinely given deposit of faith, whereas St. Paul overlooks the human effort. Virtue was to St. Paul the result of Divine grace, not of ethical endeavour, to use Aristotles distinction (Eth. Nic. i. 9), whereas to St. Peter the flame was from God, but the oil to feed the flame came from mans own zeal and fidelity (Bigg, p. 257, quoting Bengel on 2Pe 1:4). The fact is, however, that St. Paul never forgets moral effort. Whether virtue is obtained or or (Arist. Eth. X. ix. 6; cf. , , [Diog. Laert. v. 18]) was not consciously before his mind or before the mind of the writer of 2 Peter, but in his writings he acknowledges each mode. He writes in one place of the Gentiles doing good by nature (Rom 2:14). He compares the Christian life with the athletic and the military. Moral growth is expressed by him as the gradual acquisition of virtues, as the Roman soldier puts on his armour piece by piece. The question as to the distinction between the work of God and the work of man in the Christian soul is not regarded in the NT in this antagonistic fashion. Both are recognized and emphasized without any feeling of opposition. To read into the NT our later synergistic difficulties is an anachronism.
The notion of a double morality came into Christianity very early. It is possibly found in the Didache, vi. 2, and in Hermas (see C. E. Luthardt, History of Christian Ethics, translation W. Hastie, Edinburgh, 1889, p. 126), but not in the NT. The NT ethics is of a piece, having a definite origin and a single aim. What is distinctive of the NT is not the precise determination of the sphere of different virtues or their place in a fixed catalogue-that is after all a scholastic problem-but rather the emphasis on their origin in the action of the Spirit of God in the soul (they are the fruit of the Spirit) and consequently on their inwardness and pervasiveness, thoughts and desires, aims and intentions, as well as actions being seriously taken into consideration. The influence on temperance of the doctrine of the Resurrection, e.g., is so profound that this virtue like all the rest is totally transformed, and, though often we may describe it as Plato or Aristotle would, we feel that we are in a new world, where virtues have new meanings and new values. We are in a realm where Divine grace and the hope of Christs appearing are distinctly operative (Tit 2:12 f.). We cannot therefore fix the meaning of these virtues by reference to these lists; they must be explained in the light of the whole Christian life. The aim of such lists is practical, and in practice now one virtue and now another has to be emphasized, one virtue may now be the cause and now the effect of another. Christianity deals with the personality as a whole, not in parts.
2. viewed analytically-its sphere and contents described.- had a long ethical history behind it in St. Pauls time. The non-ethical meaning does not concern us here.* [Note: The non-ethical meaning occurs in 2Ma 10:15; 2Ma 10:17 : , being masters of important strongholds; , they made themselves masters of the positions.] Aristotle (Eudem. Eth. vii.) gives us the prevalent notions concerning it in his own day and tries to fix its intension and extension by criticizing these notions. According to him, the word was sometimes used vaguely in a wide sense so as to include control of all passions, emotions, and actions. He points out, however, that as a rule in these cases the word was not used simpliciter, but with the sphere indicated by the presence of a defining substantive, e.g. temperate as regards fame, etc. The ambiguity as to the range of the word, however, is due to the fact that this was not always done. Ordinary speech is notoriously inexact. For this reason we cannot be sure how much the Apostle means to cover by it in Tit 1:8. The Greek commentators took it in the wide sense-control of the tongue, the hand, and the eyes, the not being dragged down by any passion; but it is safer to regard it as referring mainly to self-control in the matters of eating and drinking and lust. In the OT, however, the verb is used simpliciter in the wide sense. Joseph, in order to control his emotion before his brethren, went into his chamber and wept there; then he came out and had control over himself ( , Gen 43:31). It is to be noted that here the term is used for control over generous impulses, which might have (by premature disclosure) spoiled their own good intentions. We see here what St. Peter may have had in his mind by making knowledge an element in self-control. He himself had lacked true self-control in the excess of noble impulses ungoverned by knowledge, as when he drew the sword for his Masters sake. St. Paul also has this in mind when he tells the Philippians that their love should increase in knowledge (Php 1:9) and every perception. Beneficence and charity may be spoiled by lack of insight, by being beforehand with their gifts. What he desires and asks of them in the matter of charity is not more sacrifice, in which regard the Macedonian Churches had already distinguished themselves (2Co 8:1 ff; 2Co 11:2, 1Th 4:9), nor that simplicity in giving which he so often commends (Rom 12:8, 2Co 9:13, Jam 1:5, Mat 6:3), but rather the opposite-a clear insight into and a careful consideration of the circumstances and conditions under which their charity may be exercised consistently with uprightness and good order (T. Zahn, Introd. to the NT, Eng. translation , Edinburgh, 1909, i. 527). Thus we see that there may be intemperance in generosity, in charity, and in the very highest qualities of the soul. Very different from the temperance of Joseph is the false temperance of Saul. He offered sacrifice in Samuels absence and thus exonerates himself: I overcame myself, and offered the holocaust ( ), 1Sa 13:12 (Septuagint 1 Kings). What appeared to Saul temperance was really lack of faith and lack of patience, and often we see men whose aims are good intemperate in their methods and in their haste. From these examples it is clear that the word temperance may be used in the very widest sense.
The privative adjective is used thus widely also in Pro 27:20 a, but here the universe of discourse is distinctly mentioned ( , unrestrained in speech; cf. 4Ma 5:34 for a conjunction of the same ideas of training and self-control- , , , ). St. Paul has the same ideas in Tit 2:12, but to him the source of true is not the Law but the grace of God; yet in both cases the influence of training is recognized, and training here includes both the Aristotelian and (Diog. Laert. v. 18). It is striking how large a vocabulary St. Paul has for sins of speech (cf. St. James also), and in the only place where he uses , side by side with it occurs (2Ti 3:3). Perhaps the reason for this emphasis on such sins is that these have always been a peculiar failing of the East.
As a strict terminus ethicus, however, , as Aristotle points out, was restricted to control over the sensual desires-the desires for food, drink, and sexual indulgence. Similar to this is the usage in Sir 18:30-33; Sir 19:1-3, a passage which is headed . There gluttonous luxury (), wine, and women ( ) are condemned. Wine and women will make men of understanding to fall away: and he that cleaveth to harlots will be the more reckless (Sir 19:2). The passage may well be contrasted with 2Pe 1:5-9. In the one passage we have the advance in virtue of the man who makes provision () for the development of faith; in the other, the descent in vice of him who makes provision () for his lusts. Even inside this domain of sensual desires the word differs from , with which in popular speech it was often identified, for the latter indicates not only that a man has control of his passions, but that he has an easy mastery over them. extends also to the highest faculties of man, which when accurately used does not. In the the passions are entirely harmonized with one another and unitedly under the persuasive hegemony of the reason, the more violent passions being thus excluded. On the other hand, the is subject to strong desires, which he can control only with difficulty and effort. This use of agrees well with the manner in which St. Paul describes those Corinthians whose lusts were as a hidden fire or the heathen who burned towards one another in lust.
is thus lower in the moral scale than but higher than (a term not found in the NT). The has definitely adopted pleasure as his good and pursues it without qualms of conscience. The knows what is right, but either his passions are too strong for him or he sophisticates his reason into thinking that in any particular action the doing of it is good for him. He may be compared to a State which passes good legislation but does not carry it out. The would carry it out by force if necessary. His morality at times may be a police and military morality, whereas the may be compared to a State in which the citizens obey good laws instinctively and lovingly without the necessity of force, where right is followed easily because it is right. Aristotle also draws moral distinctions inside this virtue itself, saying that the incontinence of anger is not so bad as that of premeditated lust. The one is a momentary impulse, the other is crafty, full of stratagems in order to gratify the goddess of the Cyprian isle, artisan of many a wile. There is no doubt that this is true. St. Paul when he lost his temper before the high priest was not so culpable as David in the case of Bathsheba, though both were guilty of a breach of . We have a conspicuous example of temperance in Joseph in Potiphars house, where everything conspired against him to test his self-control. The Greek moralist recognizes also those who are incontinent by heredity, by temperament, and by habit. In the discussion of this virtue the Greek thinker came face to face with the problem which confronted St. Paul also (Romans 7)-the problem of moral inability (). How can any one with a right conception of duty be incontinent? This is the standing moral difficulty of Greek ethics, and indeed of all ethics. In the letter of Aristeas a similar question is asked: Why do not the majority of men take possession of virtue? and it is answered thus- (H. B. Swete, Introduction to the OT in Greek, London, 1900, p. 567). Socrates and Plato tried to solve the problem as one of knowledge; hence their insistence on a right education, because to them Vice is Ignorance. Aristotle sees deeper: He maintains that the Socratic view is contrary to experience, but on the whole his solution of the moral problem is intellectual (Eudem. Eth. vii. 111). But how lame this is when it is contrasted with St. Pauls view! The exceeding sinfulness of sin, the rebellion of the will against law, even Divine law, the bitter cry, O wretched man that I am! all reveal how deep Christian insight goes in its diagnosis of the moral condition of man; but this only in order to show the radicalness of the needed cure, the greatness of the moral regenerating power issuing from the Redeemer, and the glory of the deliverance effected for man and in man by Him. Greek thinkers were always prone to solve moral difficulties by placing emphasis on the sway of reason in the soul, but what if the reason itself be as disturbed and distorted as the other faculties? What if prior to education there are needed regeneration and repentance-a change affecting a man at the very centre of his personality? The Old World knew nothing of Conversion; instead of an Ecce Homo, they had only some Choice of Hercules. What to Plato was but a hallucination, and to Socrates a chimera, is now clear and certain to your Zinzendorfs, your Wesleys, and the poorest of their Pietists and Methodists (Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, bk. ii. ch. x.). This is after all the great crux in regard to temperance-not a minute analysis of the virtue itself, not a punctilious set of prohibitions and allowances, but its creation in the regeneration of the total character; and this can never be effected satisfactorily by crushing the emotions even to purify the intellect. The mind itself must be moved with a nobler passion, and it is because Christ does this that He is the Saviour of men. To those who indulged in wine wherein is profligacy the command is to be filled with the Spirit-one exalted emotional state is contrasted with another of a different quality.
To the regenerated man there remains the further question, viz. how his new life can be fostered and developed in a corrupt society and in a soul weak and imperfect. Certain things and states are dangerous, and temperance is thus essential. St. Paul is acutely conscious, for instance, of the danger of sexual lust. What does mean in this respect? Does it in its perfection imply celibacy and virginity? This was the view that ultimately gained ground in the Roman Catholic Church, where the clergy cannot marry; and some would so read St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 7, but without justification. St. Paul knew that in a city like Corinth it was almost imperative that men should marry, because otherwise they could not be continent. But if one can be continent without marriage, then his energies are more at the disposal of Christian service. It is clear that St. Paul is not here preaching celibacy per se as a duty. Continence is above celibacy or above marriage. His theme is the necessity of . But he mentions himself rather than say to show that continence is not a Utopian dream. Pierius, the Alexandrian commentator in the third century (Jerome, Ep. 49, Ad Pamm.), is not the last to maintain that the Apostle in this verse preaches celibacy (T. C. Edwards, 1 Corinthians2, London, 1885, p. 162). To the Apostle marriage with continence is infinitely better than celibacy with concupiscence. Yet we find this view of as celibacy gaining ground in the Church itself till it assumed the form of organized asceticism. The Encratites enjoined abstinence from marriage altogether. Tatian (Eus. Historia Ecclesiastica (Eusebius, etc.) iv. 29) says it is corruption and fornication, . This attitude is distinctly called a doctrine of demons by St. Paul (1Ti 4:1-2), and was condemned by the Church on the ground of its dualistic basis, but the Church itself enjoined Encratite ethics on the clergy-without the Encratite foundation-while allowing the laity to be temperate in marrying. The influences which brought this about were the real moral reactions against gross impurity and the consequent contempt of the marriage state-a contempt utterly alien to the practice and the ideal of Judaism. St. Peter speaks of the chaste conversation of wives, and St. Paul applies to the married bishop the qualification temperate (Tit 1:8).
The temperance of the NT is thus a demand on all-the celibate for the Kingdom of Heavens sake is higher morally not because of his celibacy but because of his increased energy in the interests of the Kingdom. It is impossible to conceive St. Paul writing letters and treatises on virginity in the manner of the Fathers. He maintains that he himself and all Christians have the liberty to lead about a wife as St. Peter did (1Co 9:5). Although we can see how the rigorous view of developed, and can in a sense justify it, yet this should not blind us to the fundamental difference between it and the NT view (see von Dobschtz, op. cit., p. 259 ff., for an excellent description of this development).
Similarly in regard to wine, animal food, and possessions. When abstinence from these is enjoined on dualistic grounds, then such abstinence is wrong. St. Paul exhorts Timothy to drink wine for his stomachs sake, and, even if we do not agree with those who hold that he was here combating total abstinence, yet it is a proof that such abstinence may be practised on false grounds. In our own times this question of abstinence from intoxicating drinks is the temperance problem, and those who maintain that this abstinence is imperative do so on physiological grounds, on the ground of the tremendous havoc caused by drink, and they can defend it on St. Pauls view that for the sake of the weak brother the strong should avoid the creation of stumbling-blocks (see article Abstinence).
3. The full Christian ideal of .-The locus classicus for NT temperance is 1 Corinthians 9. Here the Apostle is dealing with the question of Christian liberty, and he unhesitatingly defends liberty in view of meats and drinks, in view of marriage, and also the liberty of the Christian pastor from manual labour because the Church ought to support him. But temperance comes in in the forgoing of these, if need be, for the sake of effectiveness in Christian work. The freeman of Christ is living in a world full of dangers. He has to face customs innocent in themselves but inextricably bound up with sinful temptations; he has to gain men, steeped in traditions and prejudices, to Christ; he has to think of brethren less advanced than himself, and he has to remember his own sinful tendencies. He is thus like an athlete with a race to run or a pugilist with an antagonist to knock out. The athlete or the pugilist had to undergo a rigorous training beforehand. For ten months before the actual contest, he was under oath to follow a prescribed diet () and a strenuous training (). He had to abstain venere et vino (see Horace, Ars Poetica, 412 ff., Epict. Enchir. 3. 5, and Wetstein, in loc.). St. Paul applies all this to the Christian, and can illustrate it by his own conduct. The best commentary is 2Co 6:3 ff. It is possible to misunderstand all this impassioned rhetoric of the Apostle and to justify by it not only fasts and restrictions but also positive flagellation and even self-mutilation, but fortunately in Colossians the Apostle himself has made this impossible. The (Col 2:23) is not in the Apostles mind. It is not the material of the body he fights, but the body as the organ of sin, and his disciplining is abundantly furnished by what he has to endure in the pursuit of the great end, viz. gaining others to Christ and self-progress in likeness to Him. His thorn in the flesh he prays against. He would never manufacture means of pain. Lecky is right in condemning useless self-sacrifice and unnecessary suffering, and St. Paul would never approve of Newmans patient (cf. Map of Life, ed. London, 1901, pp. 56, 57). Men can be temperate on very low grounds.
The bunter can despise pleasure, and bear cold, hunger, and latigue, as if they were no evils. Cf. Hor. Car. I. i. 25.
Manet sub Jove frigido
Venator, tenerae conjugis immemor,
Seu visa est catulis cerva fidelibus,
Seu rupit teretes Marsus aper plagas
(Thomas Reid, Works2, ed. Edinburgh, 1849, p. 579).
But it is not Christian temperance unless the aim is Christian, and St. Paul here has more in view-infinitely more-than mere physical self-control. To him the body itself is part of the personality to be redeemed and to rise with Christ a spiritual body. Christian temperance includes the guiding, directing, controlling, of all faculties and actions, the forgoing of privileges, the risking of reputation for others in order that they may be won to Christ. When a man can so stand against sensual dangers, against pedantic criticism, against self-ease and self-praise, against the accidents of fortune and the rage of enemies, and meet them all as a disciplined army meets the foe, and all this (2Co 6:6), in absolute purity of motive and temper, mind and body, then he is temperate in this wide, all-embracing sense.
Literature.-See article Sobriety, Soberness; Plato, Republic, translation B. Jowett3, Oxford, 1888, Index, s.v. Temperance; Aristotle, Eudem. Ethics, bk. vii.; E. von Dobschtz, Christian Life in the Primitive Church, Eng. translation , London, 1904, esp. ch. xvi., and Notes 5 (Vegetarianism among the Ancients) and 6 (On the Terminology of Morality). Consult numerous treatises on cardinal virtues: H. Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, 1874, s.v. Temperance; T. H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, Oxford, 1833, bk. iii. ch. v.; E. Norman Gardiner, Greek Athletic Sports and Festivals, London, 1910. For Encratites see Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica (Eusebius, etc.) , McGifferts note, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Oxford, 1890, p. 208; A. G. Mortimer, The Chief Virtues of Man, London, 1904, p. 79ff.; D. T. Young, The Enthusiasm of God, do., 1905, p. 217 ff.; J. Iverach, The Other Side of Greatness, do., 1906, p. 103 ff.; J. Clark Murray, A Handbook of Christian Ethics, Edinburgh, 1908, ch. iv. All text-books on Ethics deal with the virtue of temperance: cf. J. S. Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics4, London, 1900, bk. iii. ch. iv.; J. Dewey and J. H. Tufts, Ethics, do., 1909, Index, s.v. Temperance; J. Rickaby, Moral Philosophy, do., 1888. Consult also Gr. Lexicons, s.v. ; and NT Commentaries in loc. Suicer, i. 998, gives a full account of the later usage.
Donald Mackenzie.
Fuente: Dictionary of the Apostolic Church
TEMPERANCE
That virtue which a man is said to possess who moderates and restrains his sensual appetites. It is often, however, used in a much more general sense, as synonymous with moderation, and is then applied indiscriminately to all the passions. “Temperance, ” says Addison, “has those particular advantages above all other means of health, that it may be practised by all ranks and conditions at any season or in any place. It is a kind of regimen into which every man may put himself without interruption to business, expense of money, or loss of time. Physic, for the most part, is nothing else but the substitute of exercise, or temperance.” In order to obtain and practice this virtue, we should consider it:
1. As a divine command, Php 4:5. Luk 21:34. Pro 23:1-3.
2. As conductive to health.
3. As advantageous to the powers of the mind.
4. As a defense against injustice, lust, imprudence, detraction, poverty, &c.
And, lastly, the example of Christ should be a most powerful stimulus to it.
See INTEMPERANCE, SOBRIETY.
Fuente: Theological Dictionary
Temperance
(Latin temperare, to mingle in due proportions; to qualify).
Temperance is here considered as one of the four cardinal virtues. It may be defined as the righteous habit which makes a man govern his natural appetite for pleasures of the senses in accordance with the norm prescribed by reason. In one sense temperance may be regarded as a characteristic of all the moral virtues; the moderation it enjoins is central to each of them. It is also according to St. Thomas (II-II:141:2) a special virtue. Thus, it is the virtue which bridles concupiscence or which controls the yearning for pleasures and delights which most powerfully attract the human heart. These fall mainly into three classes: some are associated with the preservation of the human individual; others with the perpetuation of the race, and others still with the well-being and comfort of human life. Under this aspect temperance has for subordinate virtues, abstinence, chastity, and modesty. Abstinence prescribes the restraint to be employed in the partaking of foodand drink. Obviously the measure of this self-restraing is not constant and invariable. It is different for different persons as well as for different ends in view. The diet of an anchorite would not do for a farm labourer. Abstinence is opposed to the vices of gluttony and drunkenness. The disorder of these is that food and drink are made use of in such wise as to damage instead of benefit the bodily health. Hence gluttony and drunkenness are said to be intrinsically wrong. That does not mean, however, that they are always grievous sins. Gluttony is seldom such; drunkenness is so when it is complete, that is when it destroys the use of reason for the time being. Chastity as a part of temperance regulates the sensual satisfactions connected with the propagation of the human species. The contrary vice is lust. As these pleasures appeal with the special vehemence to human nature, it is the function of chastity to impose the norm of reason. Thus it will decide that they are altogether to be refrained from in obedience to a higher vocation or at any rate only availed of with reference to the purposes of marriage. Chastity is not fanaticism; much less is it insensibility. It is the carrying out of the mandate of temperance in a particular department where such a steadying power is acutely needed.
The virtue of modesty, as ranged under temperance, has as its task the holding in reasonable leash of the less violent human passions. It brings into service humility to set in order a man’s interior. By transfusing his estimates with truth, and increasing his self-knowledge it guards him against the radical malice of pride. It is averse to pusillanimity, the product of low views and a mean-spirited will. In the government of the exterior of a man modesty aims to make it conform to the demands of decency and decorousness (honestas). In this way his whole outward tenor of conduct and method of life fall under its sway. Such things as his attire, manner of speech, habitual bearing, style of living, have to be made to square with its injunctions. To be sure the cannot always be settled by hard and fast rules. Convention will oftenhave a good deal to say in the case, but in turn will have its propriety determined by modesty. Other virtues are enumerated by St. Thomas as subordinate to temperance inasmuch as they imply moderation in the management of some passion. It ought to be noted, however, that in its primary and generally understood sense temperance is concerned with what is difficult for a man, not in so far as he is a rational being precisely, but rather in so far as he is an animal. The hardest duties for flesh and blood are self-restraint in the use of food and drink and of the venereal pleasures that go with the propagation of the race. That is why abstinence and chastity may be reckoned the chief and ordinary phases of this virtue. All that has been said receives additional force of we suppose that the self-control commanded by temperance is measured not only by the rule of reason but by the revealed law of God as well. It is called a cardinal virtue because the modration required for every righteous habit has in the practice of temperance a specially trying arena. The satisfactions upon which it imposes a check are at once supremely natural and necessary in the present order of human existence. It is not, however, the greatest of moral virtues. That rank is held by prudence; then come justice, fortitude, and finally temperance.
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JOSEPH F. DELANY Transcribed by Shannon Linzer
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIVCopyright © 1912 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, July 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Temperance
TEMPERANCE.In the Sermon on the Mount Christ dwells on the restraint under which not only our actions and our words must be held, but also our thoughts. He sees in the angry thought the germ of murder, in the impure thought the germ of adultery, and so He goes to the root of the matter. It is of no use to try to cleanse the stream at a certain point in its course, if the fountain from which it flows is impure; if the stream is to be kept pure the fountain must be kept pure; and if the words and actions are to be under control, the thoughts of the heart must be under control. It is from within, out of the heart, that all kinds of irregularities proceed, therefore keep thy heart with all diligence, or, as in the marginal note, above all that thou guardest, for out of it are the issues of life (Pro 4:23).
In the parable of the Prodigal Son we see the depth of degradation into which a man is brought when he breaks away from his God. In the case of the prodigal, the initial step was taken when the undisciplined thought was harboured in the heart. His mind fretted and rebelled against the restraints of his fathers house, he wished to go out into the world and to see life, he wanted to be free from all control. The next step was the undisciplined word, Give me the portion of thy substance that falleth to me. And the final step was the undisciplined act, He took his journey into a far country, and there he wasted his substance with riotous living. Here the thought first ran riot, and the rest followed.
Christianity, therefore, is a religion not merely for a part of our being, but for the whole man; it touches him in every relationship of life and in every aspect of that relationship. It teaches him to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world (Tit 2:12). While righteousness represents his attitude towards his fellow-men and godliness his attitude towards God, soberness represents his attitude towards himself. Soberness () is a right balance in all things; it is the bringing of the lower part of the nature into subjection to the higher, the flesh into subjection to the spirit; it means the spirit of man, guided by the Holy Spirit of God, governing the soul or intellect; then the soul or intellect, thus sanctified, governing the flesh; and the whole man, body, soul, and spirit, kept under control, held in hand, just as a spirited horse is held in hand by an experienced rider; moving on, not torn asunder by conflicting interests, but advancing steadily in one direction upwards and heavenwards.
A temperate man is one who rules himself, who lets every act that he performs have its own proper place, who gives everything its own due proportion, who does not eat too much, drink too much, sleep too much, talk too much, or do anything in excess. We live in days when there is an inordinate craving for amusement: amusements have their place, and, within limits, are not only necessary but good for us; but when they absorb so large a portion of our life that its more serious duties have to give place to them, then they become extremely hurtful. They should be regarded as sidings off the main line of our life, opportunities for recruiting our tired and weary energies, so that we may return to our work with renewed vigour; and when thus used they are very helpful. A temperate man will exercise self-control with regard to these as well as in all other matters.
But while temperance is an all-round virtue, the term has come to be used very largely with reference to self-control in a particular direction, viz. in the matter of strong drink. When we speak of the Temperance cause or Temperance work, we generally mean the efforts that are being made to suppress intemperance in the use of alcohol. Our Temperance Societies are directed towards this object, and so the word temperance has come to be used almost exclusively in this connexion; and it cannot be denied that there is some justification for it, because the effects of the abuse of strong drink are so patent and so terrible that they attract attention in a way that few other sins do. Temperance is not necessarily total abstinence; it is the use, as distinct from the abuse, of strong drink. Total abstinence may be necessary; for the inveterate drunkard it is necessary; for him the only remedy, under God, is to abstain altogether from that which he cannot use in strict moderation (cf. Jesus words in Mat 5:29-30). Again it may be necessary for others besides drunkards, viz., for those who are to rescue the victims of strong drink, for we all know that example is far more powerful than precept; we are far more likely to be able to help those who have fallen into this abyss by saying to them, Do as we do, than by saying, Do as we tell you.
But while total abstinence may be necessary for some, especially for those of us who are working in the slums of our large towns, it is not enjoined upon all; the strictly moderate use of alcohol cannot be said to be a sin; and to speak of it as though it were a sin, as has sometimes been done, is only to weaken the cause that we have at heart; it is the abuse of it that is a sin, and therefore, while abstinence is not enjoined upon all, temperance is enjoined upon every Christian man and woman.
Our Lord tells us what is the end and aim of our fallen but redeemed and regenerate humanity, Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Mat 5:48). This is the goal set before us; and to reach this goal our attitude must be that of the spiritual athlete, straining every nerve and exerting every muscle, keeping under the body and bringing it into subjection, running the race set before us, looking unto Jesus (Heb 12:2), looking unto Him as our example, looking unto Him for strength, pressing onward from stage to stage, from strength to strength, from one degree of perfection unto another, unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ (Eph 4:13).
And here our Lord stands before us as our Ideal. The Jesus of the Gospels presents to us a life which is the very embodiment of temperance, a life of perfect self-restraint, of complete self-mastery; a life free from excess on the one hand and defect on the other, well-balanced, well-proportioned, without flaw, without spot, perfect in all its parts; a life which had for its object the glory of God, from the time when He came into the world, saying, Lo, I come to do thy will, O my God (Heb 10:7), to the time when, having finished all, He exclaimed with the voice of a conqueror, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do (Joh 17:4). To copy this perfect Ideal and to reach this goal we, by a life lived in union with Him and by the power of the Holy Ghost, must strive to be temperate in all things. See, further, art. Self-Control.
Rowland Ellis.
Fuente: A Dictionary Of Christ And The Gospels
Temperance
TEMPERANCE.1. In the RV [Note: Revised Version.] temperance is the tr. [Note: translate or translation.] of the Gr. word enkrateia, the root-meaning of which is power over oneself, self-mastery. It is a comprehensive virtue, and on this account self-control, the tr. [Note: translate or translation.] of RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] , is to be preferred (Act 24:25, Gal 5:23, 2Pe 1:5). The corresponding adjective is found only in Tit 1:8, and the verb only in 1Co 7:9; 1Co 9:25. The negative form of the adjective is translated without self-control (2Ti 3:3), and of the noun excess (Mat 23:25), and incontinency (1Co 7:5). The RV [Note: Revised Version.] tr. [Note: translate or translation.] another Gr. word (nphalios) temperate in 1Ti 3:2; 1Ti 3:11, Tit 2:2; its root-meaning points to the avoidance of intemperance in the form of drunkenness, but in actual usage it condemns all forms of self-indulgence. This extension of its significance must be remembered in expounding the passages in which the corresponding verb is found, for the RV [Note: Revised Version.] always tr. [Note: translate or translation.] it (nphein) to be sober (1Th 5:6; 1Th 5:8, 2Ti 4:5, 1Pe 1:18; 1Pe 4:7; 1Pe 5:8).
2. From the philosophical point of view, self-control is mastery over the passions; it is the virtue which holds the appetites in check; the rational will has power to regulate conduct without being unduly swayed by sensuous appetites. From the NT point of view the grace of self-control is the result of the Holy Spirits indwelling; it is the Spirit-controlled personality alone that is strengthened with power (Eph 3:18; cf. Eph 5:18) to control rebellious desires and to resist the allurements of tempting pleasures.
3. The NT passages in which reference is made to this virtue form an instructive study. To Felix, with an adulteress by his side, St. Paul discoursed of self-control, directing his stern condemnation against the vice of unchastity (cf. 1Co 7:5; 1Co 7:9). But to every form of excess (Mat 23:25) it is directly opposed. In 1Ti 3:3 not given over to wine (paroinos, AV [Note: Authorized Version.] brawler, cf. RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] ) balances temperate (1Ti 3:2, cf. 1Ti 3:8), and from this chapter it is plain that the Apostle regards violent quarrelling (1Ti 3:3), false and reckless speech (1Ti 3:8), self-conceit (1Ti 3:6), greed of filthy lucre (1Ti 3:8), as well as fondness for much wine (1Ti 3:8), as manifold forms of Intemperance by whose means men fall into reproach and the snare of the devil (1Ti 3:7).
4. Self-control, in its widest sense, as including mastery over all tempers, appetites, and passions, has a prominent place in two NT lists of the Christian graces. In 2Pe 1:6, faith is regarded as the germ of every virtue; it lays hold of the divine power which makes possible the life of godliness (2Pe 1:3). The evolution of faith in manliness, knowledge, self-control is the reward of its diligent culture (2Pe 1:8). This self-control, as Principal Iverach says, grows out of knowledge, it is using Christian knowledge for the guidance of life (The Other Side of Greatness, p. 110). In Gal 5:23, self-control closes the list of the graces which are all the fruit of the Spirit, just as drunkenness and revellings close the list of the works of the flesh (Gal 5:21). The flesh and the Spirit!these, indeed, are contrary the one to the other (Gal 5:17). The flesh triumphs when the Spirit is quenched; but the Spirits victory is gained, not by suppressing, but by controlling, the flesh. Those who are led by the Spirit (Gal 5:18), who live by the Spirit and by the Spirit also walk (Gal 5:25) attain, in its perfection, the grace of complete self-control.
J. G. Tasker.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Temperance
General references
Est 1:7-8; Pro 23:1-3; Pro 25:16; Dan 1:8; Dan 1:12-16; Rom 13:14; 1Co 9:25; 1Co 9:27; Phi 4:5; 1Th 5:6-8; 1Ti 3:2-3; Tit 1:7-8; 1Ti 3:8; Tit 2:2-3; Tit 2:12; 2Pe 1:5-6 Abstinence, Total; Drunkenness; Wine