Divinity Atlas
Eleven Bodies Read Temperance as a Wall, Not a Measure
Temperance, in the esoteric scheme this atlas uses, is the classical Cardinal Virtue of self-restraint and moderation, sharing with the vice it heals, Gluttony, the attribution of Jupiter and the archangel Sachiel. Eleven bodies in this atlas hold a variant account of it, not moderation but complete abstinence, chosen here over four tied candidates that repeat the same deuterocanonical books overlap this atlas's Anglicanism essay already covers.
One Root, Read as a Wall
The atlas's own record traces seven of the eleven to one root. Methodism came to read temperance as total abstinence from alcohol rather than as moderate use, and carried that reading into the temperance societies that shaped nineteenth century public life on both sides of the Atlantic. Six bodies descended from it hold the identical reading in the atlas's own words: the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church each carry the Methodist Discipline's reading of temperance as abstinence; the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church holds the same Methodist reading; the United Methodist Church and the Global Methodist Church each inherit the Wesleyan reading of temperance as abstinence rather than moderation; and the Wesleyan Church holds temperance as abstinence, a position it has kept from the holiness movement of the nineteenth century. The Free Methodist Church was founded in part on a stricter reading of Wesleyan discipline still, abstinence among its founding marks.
Three Bodies That Went Further Still
Three more bodies took the same reading and extended it. The Church of the Nazarene requires abstinence from alcohol of its members outright, reading temperance as a complete rather than a moderate restraint. The Latter-day Saints extend it furthest into law: the Word of Wisdom makes abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, tea and coffee a condition of temple recommendation, so temperance in that tradition is a defined prohibition rather than a habit. And Seventh-day Adventism extends it sideways instead of further: its own teaching carries temperance from alcohol into a whole regimen of eating, drinking and resting, so the virtue names a way of life rather than a moderation of appetite. Eleven bodies, and not one of them reads the classical virtue this atlas defines it by, moderation, as its own account of what temperance means.