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Abstinence is wonderful - this is the beginning and foundation of all other virtues, because the body, like a young frisky horse, tames and accustoms it to discipline, gradually pacifying, reducing playfulness with poverty, curbing and making modest those passions that luxury leads to stubbornness and unbridledness, so that they kick with their feet, are torn from the hands, and put the reins holder in great difficulties - reason, and he is barely able to restrain and direct their impetuous impulses wherever he pleases. About this, it seems, Ecclesiastes is teaching a lesson to all people when, talking with the body, which previously, with a moderate lifestyle, was meek and submissive, he says: “Come now, that I may tempt you with joy” (Ecclesiastes 2:1) - and, having learned that the experience was unsuccessful, with difficulty already mastering those movements of the flesh that he had previously mastered comfortably, he turns his speech to the one who fattens our animal part of the fun: “What are you doing?” (Eccl. 2:2). Contrary to custom, to which I would not like, you attract the will, delighting the heart, oppressed by you and, as it were, somewhat delighted, you carry it along rapids, along the edges of abysses and abysses, partly refusing and partly agreeing reason, without coercion, you force it to choose shameful deeds, not against its own will, you abuse it arbitrarily, and it endures yours not without pleasure arbitrariness. For such are those who enter into a struggle with the pleasing, rebelling against the pleasant, so as not to surrender to it as captive. That is what they yield to and rebel against; that is what they agree to, which they apparently argue against; that is what they are carried away by and what they resist; That’s what they run to, which they don’t want; They rush to this with enthusiasm, which they recognize as hostile; sometimes, although they are held tightly, they run away, and sometimes, although this is unpleasant for them, they themselves surrender; in another case they go under compulsion, and in another they run willingly; they agree as if not of their own free will and with the intention of conceding victory over themselves, arbitrarily suffer defeat and, as if not knowing it, rejoice in this. And this is probably what Paul is talking about: “For I delight in the law of God according to the inner man: I see another law in my heart, warring against the law of my mind and taking me captive through the law of sin which is in my heart” (Rom. 7:22-23); and again: “It is not what I will that I do, but what I hate, I will do” (Rom. 7:15). In saying this, the Apostle does not admit that the law of sin is innate, and does not teach that the dominion of carnal wisdom is authorized. For in this case, all people should be slaves of sin and not have any opportunity to throw off its yoke; We know that now whoever wants is not only free from this wisdom, but even enslaves the body, dominates the passions and by his very deed proves the autocracy of the will in choosing freedom or slavery. While food fattens the body, carnal wisdom rebels and dominates, legitimizing to those under its control what it pleases. But as soon as it is humbled by mortifications and the stiff-necked body slavishly submits and is convinced to submit to the best laws, then it no longer drags the mind into destruction, but is rather led by it to saving obedience. And in this everyone is a witness to himself, knowing what the satiety of the belly forces one to think about and what meager satiation advises one to think about. One excites to exorbitant desires, and the other reduces even moderate desires and, if when they roar brutally, tames and brings into submission; and in a loud voice that can be heard everywhere, he cries out what God said to Job: “Behold, the beasts you have eat grass like oxen” (Job 40:10), meaning that they exchanged their brutal cruelty for the bestial and subordinate state and were tamed for a while, although they still seem to be breathing, and in others they were completely put to death, killed by abstinence. So Jael killed Sisera with the jaw, killing hostile wisdom, because the jaw no longer provides abundant food for passion, but with moderation gives her as much as is necessary to maintain life, so that it seems to exist in possibility, but not to exist in reality. So Samson struck the Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey; otherwise, perhaps, he would not have been able to do this if he had not taken possession of this jaw that provides services to the larynx and womb, capturing it with the activity of his hand and, as it were, squeezing it in a handful, that is, enclosing it within tight limits so that it would not be scattered by the seductiveness and insatiability of lusts; because nature has made the jaw a servant and assistant of the womb, which crushes food with gnawing teeth, like pickaxes, grinds it with root teeth, like real millstones, and with the larynx, like a water pipe, it sends ready food into this unfilled sea - the womb, and thereby proclaims what Solomon said: “All the sweat goes to the sea, and the sea cannot be filled" (Eccl. 1:7). Both the belly and the sea are one and the same; both of them gape insatiably to swallow the inflowing streams, and they destroy what enters them, one by digestion, and the other by salting, and again they hunger for other food, they never close their mouths, they do not satisfy their greed with incessant and continuous influence. Therefore abstinence is excellent; it suppresses the excessively arrogant inflammatory passions, as much as necessary, humbles and calms their excitement, calms the storm of gusty winds in the midst of a luxurious life, curbing, taming and bringing the agitated into tranquility with the calmness of a meager life. And although, in the absence of a source of pleasure, it is more convenient to somehow take possession of the belly little by little (for what is not there does not irritate as much as what is there and by its appearance arouses desire in the hungry); however, abstinence in the presence of an excess of everything that serves for a luxurious life, when it abundantly flows and accumulates from everywhere, deserves praise as high wisdom, unless this gives reason to parasites to suspect, in the presence of excess, of stinginess and to denigrate this laudable deed by condemning the baseness of their heartfelt disposition. It is equally difficult: to cross the water-filled sea and the turbulent deep abyss like dry land with wet feet and lead a strictly correct life, content with the merest content, and on the one hand not flooded with a single desire, while on the other all conveniences and pleasures flock to it. That is why Solomon, praising the determination of a self-controlled soul, says: “Your cheeks are adorned like turtle doves” (Song 1:9); because the jaw 1, as an instrument of nutrition, is decorated with abstinence, denouncing vile gluttony and the preparation of exquisite foods. In Greek, both the lanita and the jaw are meant by one word: ή σιαγών. You might be interested in: