Through the Church Fathers: Septe...
Through the Church Fathers: September 21
Through the Church Fathers by C. Michael Patton
S2 · E261
Sep 21, 2026
11:04
Episode notes

Today’s Readings Podcast Description

Temperance is the virtue that keeps the strongest bodily desires under the rule of reason. In this question from Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica, he shows why the pleasures of food, drink, and sexual union need a special virtue to moderate them. Temperance is a cardinal virtue because these desires most powerfully resist the good of the soul. It does not destroy desire, but holds it within the measure that reason determines, so that the soul remains free for higher goods.

Readings: Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 2–2, Question 141 (Temperance)

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Keywords
Apostolic Fathers
Thomas Aquinas
Summa Theologica
Scholasticism
Through the Church Fathers in a Year
Augustine
C Michael Patton
Theology
Church History
Athanasius