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Temperance (2)

Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament

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(ἐγκράτεια)

The aim of the present article is to determine the meaning of ἐγκράτεια 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 ἐγκράτεια.

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 Galatians 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 Acts 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 περὶ τῶν ἀφροδισίων ἐγκράτεια of Xenophon (Ag. v. 4)-a restricted meaning which the verb has in 1 Corinthians 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 Matthew 23:25 our Lord condemns the scribes and Pharisees for ἁρπαγή and ἀκρασία, 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 ἀκρασία). The context, however, is more in favour of taking ἀκρασία as meaning overindulgence in eating and drinking.

In Titus 1:8 we have righteousness (among other virtues) joined with temperance as virtues necessary for a bishop or presbyter (δίκαιονἐγκρατῆ). Here ‘temperate’ ought naturally to be taken in its ordinary meaning as control of bodily desires. It is not so comprehensive as σώφρων, a term which implies rational balance as well as moral self-control. The one (σώφρων) is a genus of which the other (ἐγκρατής) 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 2 Corinthians 6:3 ff.), and therefore it is pedantic to see any immanent ethical connexion between the members of these lists.

To Titus 2:12 we owe the tripartite division of duties into duties to oneself (σωφρόνως), duties to others (δικαίως), and duties to God (εὐσεβῶς)-‘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 writer’s mind. ‘Σωφρόνως can with as little propriety be referred merely to one’s self as δικαίως merely to others, and by εὐσεβῶς 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 2 Peter 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 προκοπή from a lower to a higher stage. Faith furnishes moral energy (ἀρετή), it knowledge, and it in turn ἐγκράτεια, 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 ὑπομονή, ‘endurance,’ is mastery of the self in face of outward enemies. Temperance and endurance are indeed closely akin. When the struggle is against one’s 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 ἐγκράτεια is made directly the daughter of faith-virtue and knowledge are omitted-and opposed to ἀκρασία (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, Tübingen, 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 Dobschütz quotes from Iamblichus, de vita Pythag., the vices that spring out of ἀκρασία-‘lawless marriages and corruptions and drunkennesses, and unnatural pleasures and certain violent lusts.’ For a discussion of the origin of these catalogues of vices (καταβάσεις) and virtues (ἀναβάσεις) 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 Aristotle’s distinction (Eth. Nic. i. 9), whereas to St. Peter the ‘flame’ was from God, but the oil to feed the flame came from man’s own zeal and fidelity (Bigg, p. 257, quoting Bengel on 2 Peter 1:4). The fact is, however, that St. Paul never forgets moral effort. Whether virtue is obtained φύσει or ἔθει or διδαχῇ (Arist. Eth. X. ix. 6; cf. φύσεως, μαθήσεως, ἀσκήσεως [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 (Romans 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 Christ’s appearing are distinctly operative (Titus 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. Ἐγκράτεια viewed analytically-its sphere and contents described.-Ἐγκράτεια had a long ethical history behind it in St. Paul’s time. The non-ethical meaning does not concern us here.* [Note: The non-ethical meaning occurs in 2 Maccabees 10:15; 2 Maccabees 10:17 : οἱ Ἰδουμαῖοι ἐγκρατεῖς ἐπικαίρων ὀχυρωμάτων ὄντες, ‘being masters of important strongholds’; ἐγκρατεῖς ἐγένοντο τῶν τόπων, ‘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 Titus 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 (ἐξελθὼν ἐνεκρατεύσατο, Genesis 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 Master’s sake. St. Paul also has this in mind when he tells the Philippians that their love should increase in knowledge (Philippians 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 (2 Corinthians 8:1 ff; 2 Corinthians 11:2, 1 Thessalonians 4:9), nor that simplicity in giving which he so often commends (Romans 12:8, 2 Corinthians 9:13, James 1:5, Matthew 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 Samuel’s absence and thus exonerates himself: ‘I overcame myself, and offered the holocaust’ (ἐνεκρατευσάμην καὶ ἀνήνεγκα τὴν ὁλοκαύτωσιν), 1 Samuel 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 Proverbs 27:20 a, but here the universe of discourse is distinctly mentioned (οἱ ἀπαίδευτοι ἀκρατεῖς γλώσσῃ, ‘unrestrained in speech’; cf. 4 Maccabees 5:34 for a conjunction of the same ideas of training and self-control-οὐ ψεύσομαί σε, παιδευτὰ νόμε, οὐδὲ φεύζομαί σε, φίλη ἐγκράτεια). St. Paul has the same ideas in Titus 2:12, but to him the source of true παιδεία 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 μάθησις and ἄσκησις (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 ἀκρατεῖς, side by side with it occurs διάβολοι (2 Timothy 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, ἐγκράτεια, 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 Sirach 18:30-33; Sirach 19:1-3, a passage which is headed Εγκράτεια ψυχῆς. There gluttonous luxury (τρυφή), wine, and women (οἶνος καὶ γυναῖκες) are condemned. ‘Wine and women will make men of understanding to fall away: and he that cleaveth to harlots will be the more reckless’ (Sirach 19:2). The passage may well be contrasted with 2 Peter 1:5-9. In the one passage we have the advance in virtue of the man who makes provision (ἐπιχορηγήσατε) for the development of faith; in the other, the descent in vice of him who makes provision (χορηγήσεις) for his lusts. Even inside this domain of sensual desires the word differs from σωφροσύνη, 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. Σωφροσύνη extends also to the highest faculties of man, which ἐγκράτεια when accurately used does not. In the σώφρων 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 ἐγκρατής is subject to strong desires, which he can control only with difficulty and effort. This use of ἐγκράτεια 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.

Ἐγκράτεια is thus lower in the moral scale than σωφροσύνη but higher than ἀκολασία (a term not found in the NT). The ἀκόλαστος has definitely adopted pleasure as his good and pursues it without qualms of conscience. The ἀκρατής 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 ἐγκρατής would carry it out by force if necessary. His morality at times may be a police and military morality, whereas the σώφρων 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 ἐγκράτεια. We have a conspicuous example of temperance in Joseph in Potiphar’s 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 (ἀκρασία). ‘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-ὁτι φυσικῶς ἄπαντες ἀκρατεῖς καὶ ἐπὶ τὰς ἡδονὰς τρεπόμενοι γεγόνασιν (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. Paul’s 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 ἐγκράτεια 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 ἐγκράτεια. ‘But he mentions himself rather than say ἐν ἐγκρατείᾳ 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 ἐγκράτεια 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,’ φθορὰ καὶ πορνεία. This attitude is distinctly called a doctrine of demons by St. Paul (1 Timothy 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’ (Titus 1:8).

The temperance of the NT is thus a demand on all-the celibate for the Kingdom of Heaven’s 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 (1 Corinthians 9:5). Although we can see how the rigorous view of ἐγκράτεια 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 Dobschütz, 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 stomach’s 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. Paul’s 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 ἐγκράτεια.-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 (ἀναγκοφαγία) and a strenuous training (ἄσκησις). 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 2 Corinthians 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 ἀφειδία τοῦ σώματος (Colossians 2:23) is not in the Apostle’s 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 Newman’s 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 ἐν ἁγνότητι (2 Corinthians 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 Dobschütz, 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.) , McGiffert’s 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. ἐγκράτεια; and NT Commentaries in loc. Suicer, i. 998, gives a full account of the later usage.

Donald Mackenzie.

Bibliography Information
Hastings, James. Entry for 'Temperance (2)'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/​dictionaries/​eng/​hdn/​t/temperance-2.html. 1906-1918.
 
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