 It is therefore a moot point whether Valla successfully integrated Epicurean hedonism with Christian morality. He seems to argue that the Epicurean position is valid only for the period before the coming of Christ. In our unredeemed state, we are rightly regarded as pleasure-seeking animals, governed by self-interest and utilitarian motives. After Christ’s coming, however, we have a different picture: repudiating Epicurean pleasure, we should choose the harsh and difficult life of Christian honestas (virtue) as a step towards heavenly beatitude. Yet, the two views of human beings are not so readily combined. On the one hand, there is the positive evaluation of pleasure as the fundamental principle in human psychology—which is confirmed and underscored by the terminological equation of voluptas (pleasure), beatitudo (beatitude), fruitio (fruition), delectatio (delectation), and amor (love). On the other hand, Valla states apodictically that there are two pleasures: an earthly one, which is the mother of vice, and a heavenly one, which is the mother of virtue; that we should abstain from the former if we want to enjoy the latter; and that the natural, pre-Christian life is “empty and worthy of punishment” if not put in the wider perspective of human destiny. In other words, we are commanded to live the arduous and difficult life of Christian honestas, ruled by restraint, self-denial, and propriety (temperance), and, at the same time, to live a hedonist life, which consists of the joyful, free, and natural gratification of the senses.