[Sermones "Dormi secure" de tempore]

is temperance in foods and drinks, to rule the body well, and not to exceed too much in riches. Psalm: If riches abound, do not set your heart upon them. For there are six superfluities in which temperance is necessary, namely the honors of dignity, the abundance of riches, the delights of foods and drink, the ornaments of clothing, the health of the body, and the strength of the limbs. Of this we read a figure in Ezekiel, where the Lord said to the elders: Take your weapons and run through the whole city of Jerusalem and kill everyone from the greatest to the least whom you will find. Then came a certain man clothed in a linen garment, and said: You will not strike until I mark the sign of the Tau on the foreheads of the men groaning, whom you ought not to harm or strike. And after he marked, six men arrived, and struck everyone except those in whom they found the sign of the Tau, whom they did not harm. Thus, morally, the sign of the Tau is the sign of the holy cross, and signifies the virtue of temperance. But the armed men are these six aforementioned, namely riches, honors, abundance of foods, gluttony of drink, and ornament of clothing, etc., which harm many in the holy Church. But the Lord says: clothed in a white garment, that is, human nature: Do not kill those in whose foreheads you will find this virtue of temperance. The virtue of temperance tames the body, just as we see that no bird or animal is so untamed that it cannot be domesticated through temperance, as is clear in the hawk, in the sparrow-hawk, and so of others, which are naturally untamed, but they fly in men and are captured, and they fly back, and this temperance does, because a little is given to them of food. Thus it is in the human body. For no animal is so untamed as a man when he is young, healthy, beautiful, and rich, who cannot have temperance so that he might know himself, and the body be subjected to the soul, except when a man withdraws food from his body, and treads upon the honors of the world, and receives humility, and takes wine moderately, and uses clothing moderately, and when the body is subjected to the soul. Thus indeed the prince of temperance rules in the kingdom of the conscience, and thus the second point is clear. The third virtue, which is the third king in the kingdom of the conscience, is the fortitude of the mind. Of which virtue Tullius says: The immobility of the mind is against the adversities of this world, as were the saints, of whom the Apostle Paul says: They were made strong in war. And likewise the same says Tobias: Be strong in spirit in adversities, lest you be too much disturbed in them. The virtue of fortitude is likened to the lion, the eagle, and the morning star. Whence we read in a certain history that a certain beautiful maiden was sitting in the sun, and there fell before her an apple having a golden splendor or color, namely white and red, and she conceived from it, and going to the gods asking how she ought to call her offspring, the first said: Lion; the second said: Call him Eagle; the third said: Call him Star. Because the lion is strong, and conquers all animals, etc. And thus she called her son Lion. Morally: This beautiful girl is the soul