On Continence 17–28

Now, then, let us return to the point for which we said these things. We need continence, and we know it to be a divine gift, so that our heart may not be inclined to evil words, to make excuses in sins. And in restraining what sin do we not need continence, so that it may not be committed, since continence also restrains this, that if a sin has been committed it should not be defended by wicked pride? We need continence universally, then, to turn aside from evil. But to do good seems to belong to another virtue, that is, to righteousness. The holy psalm reminds us of this, where we read: "Turn aside from evil and do good." And for what end we should do these things he added at once, saying: "Seek peace and pursue it." For there will be perfect peace for us when, our nature cleaving inseparably to its Creator, nothing in us will fight against us. This too, as it seems to me, is what the Savior himself wished to be understood where he says: "Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning." What is it to gird the loins? To restrain lusts, which belongs to continence. And to have lamps burning is to shine and glow with good works, which belongs to righteousness. Nor did he pass over here for what end we should do these things, adding and saying: "And you be like men waiting for their lord, when he returns from the wedding." For when he comes, he will reward us who have held ourselves back from what desire [urges] and have done what love commanded, so that in his perfect and everlasting peace we may reign without any strife of evil and with the highest delight in good.

All of us, then, who believe in the living and true God, whose supremely good and unchangeable nature neither does any evil nor suffers any evil, from whom is every good, even that which can be diminished, and who in his own good, which he himself is, cannot be diminished at all: when we hear the apostle saying, "Walk by the Spirit and do not accomplish the lusts of the flesh; for the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, so that you do not do what you wish," far be it from us to believe what the madness of the Manichaeans believes, that two natures are shown here, fighting each other from opposing principles, one of evil and the other of good. Both of these are wholly good: the spirit is good and the flesh is good. And man, who consists of both, one ruling and the other serving, is certainly good, but a changeable good; which nevertheless could not have been made except by the unchangeable good, from whom every created good is, whether small or great; but however small, made by the great; and however great, in no way to be compared with the greatness of its maker. Yet in this good nature of man, well founded and established by the good, there is now war, because health is not yet here. Let the sickness be healed, and there is peace. But this sickness was deserved by guilt; nature did not have it. That guilt, indeed, God's grace has already forgiven the faithful through the washing of regeneration; but under the hands of the same physician nature still struggles with its sickness. In such a fight, health will be the whole victory: not temporary health, but eternal, where not only will this sickness end, but none will arise thereafter. That is why the righteous man addresses his soul and says: "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits, who is gracious to all your iniquities, who heals all your sicknesses." He is gracious to iniquities when he forgives sins; he heals sicknesses when he checks depraved desires. He is gracious to iniquities by giving pardon; he heals sicknesses by giving continence. The former was done in baptism for those who confessed; the latter is done in the contest for those who strive, in which our disease is to be overcome by us with his help. Even now the former is done when we are heard saying, "Forgive us our debts"; the latter when we are heard saying, "Lead us not into temptation." For each one is tempted, as the apostle James says, when drawn away and enticed by his own concupiscence. Against this fault healing help is asked from him who can heal all sicknesses of this kind, not by separating from us a nature foreign to us, but by restoring our own nature in us. Hence the apostle just mentioned did not say, "Each one is tempted by concupiscence," but added "his own," so that whoever hears this may understand how he ought to cry out: "I said, Lord, have mercy on me; heal my soul, for I have sinned against you." For it would not have needed healing unless it had corrupted itself by sinning, so that its own flesh lusted against it, that is, so that it fought against itself in that part of it in which it has been weakened in the flesh.

For the flesh lusts for nothing except through the soul; but the flesh is said to lust against the spirit when the soul resists the spirit with carnal concupiscence. All this is we ourselves. And the flesh itself, which dies when the soul departs, is our weak part; it is not dismissed to be fled from, but laid aside to be received back, and once received back it will never be left again. "It is sown a natural body; it will rise a spiritual body." Then the flesh will lust for nothing against the spirit, when it too will be called spiritual, since it will be subject to the spirit, to be given life for ever, not only without any resistance but also without any need of bodily food. These two, then, which now are opposed to each other in us, since we are in both, let us pray and act that they may agree. For we ought not to think either of them an enemy, but rather the fault by which the flesh lusts against the spirit; when this is healed it will itself be no more, and both substances will be safe, and in neither will there be any fight. Let us hear the apostle: "I know," he says, "that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh." He says this surely because the fault of the flesh, in a thing that is good, is not good; when it ceases to be, there will be flesh, but no longer corrupted or faulty. Yet the same teacher shows that the flesh belongs to our nature by first saying, "I know that there does not dwell in me," and then, to explain it, adding, "that is, in my flesh, good." So he says that his flesh is himself. It is not, then, our enemy; and when its faults are resisted, it is loved, because it is being cured. "For no one ever hated his own flesh," as the same apostle says. And in another place he says: "So then I myself with my mind serve the law of God, but with my flesh the law of sin." Let those who have ears hear: "So then I myself": I with the mind, I with the flesh; but "with my mind I serve the law of God, but with my flesh the law of sin." How with the flesh the law of sin? By consenting to carnal concupiscence? Far from it; but by having there the movements of desires which he did not want to have and yet had. But by not consenting to them he served the law of God with his mind and held back his members from becoming weapons of sin.

There are, then, evil desires in us, and by not consenting to them we do not live evilly; there are in us concupiscences of sins, and by not obeying them we do not accomplish evil, but by having them we do not yet accomplish good. The apostle shows both: that good is not accomplished here, where evil is so desired, and that evil is not accomplished here, when such concupiscence is not obeyed. The former he shows where he says, "To will is present with me, but to accomplish the good is not"; the latter where he says, "Walk by the Spirit and do not accomplish the lusts of the flesh." For there he does not say that to do good is not present with him, but to accomplish it; nor does he say here, "Do not have the lusts of the flesh," but "do not accomplish them." So evil concupiscences arise in us when what is not lawful is pleasing; but they are not accomplished when, the mind serving the law of God, lusts are restrained. And good is done when what pleases evilly is not done, good delight prevailing; but the accomplishment of good is not fulfilled as long as, the flesh serving the law of sin, lust entices and, though restrained, is still stirred. For there would be no need for it to be restrained if it were not stirred. There will at some time be the accomplishment of good as well, when there is the consumption of evil: the one will be supreme, the other nothing. If we think this is to be hoped for in this mortality, we are deceived. For it will be then, when there will be no death; and it will be there, where there will be eternal life. For in that age and in that kingdom there will be the supreme good and no evil, when and where there will be the highest love of wisdom and no labor of continence. The flesh, then, is not evil, if it is free of evil, that is, of the fault by which man was corrupted, not made evil but himself doing evil. For made good in both parts, that is, soul and body, by the good God, he himself did the evil by which he became evil. And though already released from the guilt of that evil through pardon, so that he may not think lightly of what he did, he still fights with his fault through continence. But far be it that any faults should be in those who reign in the peace that is to come, since even in this war not only sins but also the very concupiscences are daily lessened in those who make progress, the concupiscences that are fought by not consenting and by consenting to which one sins.

That the flesh lusts against the spirit, that good does not dwell in our flesh, that the law in our members fights against the law of the mind: this is not a mixture of two natures made from opposing principles, but a division of one nature against itself, made because of the desert of sin. We were not so in Adam, before our nature, having listened to and followed its deceiver, despised and offended its author; this is not the first life of man as created, but the later punishment of man as condemned. Those freed from that condemnation by grace through Jesus Christ fight as free men with their punishment, not yet with full salvation, but having already received the pledge of salvation; but those not freed are both guilty of sins and entangled in punishments. After this life, punishment for guilt will remain for ever for the guilty; for the free neither guilt nor punishment will remain for ever; but the good substances, spirit and flesh, will remain for ever, which the good and unchangeable God created good, though changeable. And they will remain changed for the better, never again to be changed for the worse, every evil being utterly consumed, both what man did unjustly and what he suffered justly. When these two kinds of evil have wholly perished, one of the preceding iniquity, the other of the consequent unhappiness, there will be in man an upright will without any depravity. There it will be clear and plain to all, what is now believed by many of the faithful and understood by few, that evil is not a substance, but that, like a wound in a body, so in a substance that has corrupted itself, it began to exist when the plague began and ceases to exist there when health is made complete. When every evil, then, which arose from us, has been destroyed in us, and our good too has been increased and perfected up to the summit of most blessed incorruption and immortality, what will each of our substances be like? For even now, in this corruption and mortality, while the corruptible body still weighs down the soul, and, as the apostle says, "the body is dead because of sin," yet the same apostle bears such witness to our flesh, that is, to our weak and earthly part, as to say what I mentioned a little earlier, "For no one ever hates his own flesh," and at once to add, "but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church."

By what, then, I will not say error, but outright madness, do the Manichaeans ascribe our flesh to some fabulous race of darkness, which they claim has always had its own evil nature without any beginning, when the truthful teacher urges husbands to love their wives by the example of their own flesh, the same husbands whom he urges to this very thing by the example of Christ and the church too? Indeed, the whole passage of the apostle's letter, which bears very much on the matter, should be recalled. "Husbands," he says, "love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing of water in the word, that he might present to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she might be holy and without blemish. So," he says, "husbands too ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself." Then he added what we have already mentioned: "For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church." What does the madness of most unclean impiety say to this? What do you say to this, Manichaeans? You try to bring in upon us, even from the apostle's letters, two natures without beginning, one of good and the other of evil, and you will not listen to the apostle's letters that would correct you from this sacrilegious perversity. As you read, "The flesh lusts against the spirit," and, "Good does not dwell in my flesh," so read, "No one ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church." As you read, "I see another law in my members fighting against the law of my mind," so read, "Just as Christ loved the church, so husbands too ought to love their wives as their own bodies." Do not be crafty with the former testimonies of holy Scripture and deaf to the latter, and you will be corrected in both. For if you accept the latter as is fitting, you will try to understand the former as is true.

The apostle has set before us three pairs: Christ and the church, husband and wife, spirit and flesh. In these the first care for the second, the second serve the first; all are good, so that in them, by the beauty of order, some are excellently set over and some fittingly set under. How husband and wife ought to be with each other they receive both as a precept and as an example. The precept is: "Let wives be subject to their husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife," and, "Husbands, love your wives." And the example is given to wives from the church, to husbands from Christ. "As the church," he says, "is subject to Christ, so also wives to their husbands in everything." Likewise, when he had given husbands the precept to love their wives, he added the example: "just as Christ loved the church." But he exhorted husbands also from a lower thing, that is, from their own body, not only from a higher, that is, from their Lord. For he not only said, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church," which is from the higher, but also said, "Husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies," which is from the lower; because both the higher and the lower are all good. Yet the wife did not receive an example from the body or flesh, that she should be subject to her husband as the flesh to the spirit; but either the apostle wished to be understood by consequence what he left unsaid, or perhaps, because the flesh lusts against the spirit in the mortality and sickness of this life, he did not wish to use it as an example of subjection for the wife. But he did wish to use it for husbands, because even if the spirit lusts against the flesh, in this very act it cares for the flesh, unlike the flesh, which in lusting against the spirit cares neither for the spirit nor for itself by such resistance. Yet the good spirit would not care for it, whether by nourishing and cherishing its nature through providence or by resisting its faults through continence, unless both substances, even by the beauty of this order of theirs, pointed to God as the maker of both. What is it, then, that you, in true madness, both boast that you are Christians and fight against the Christian Scriptures with eyes shut, or rather put out, with such perversity, asserting that Christ appeared to mortals in false flesh, and that the church belongs to Christ in the soul but to the devil in the body, and that the male and female sexes are works of the devil, not of God, and that the flesh, as an evil substance, clings to the spirit, a good substance?

If what we have mentioned from the apostle's letters seems to you too little of an answer, hear still other things, if you have ears. What does the utterly mad Manichaeus say about the flesh of Christ? That it was not true but false. What does the blessed apostle say to this? "Remember that Christ Jesus rose from the dead, of the seed of David, according to my gospel." And Jesus Christ himself says: "Handle and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have." How is there truth in their teaching, which proclaims that there was falsehood in the flesh of Christ? How was there no evil in Christ, in whom there was so great a lie? Because, of course, to these excessively clean men true flesh is an evil, and false flesh in place of true is not an evil; the true flesh of one born of the seed of David is an evil, and the false tongue of one saying, "Handle and see, for a spirit does not have bones and flesh, as you see that I have," is not an evil! What does the deceiver of men in his deadly error say about the church? That in respect of souls it belongs to Christ, in respect of bodies to the devil. What does the teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth say to this? "Do you not know," he says, "that your bodies are members of Christ?" What does the son of perdition say about the male and female sex? That neither sex is from God, but from the devil. What does the vessel of election say to this? "As the woman is from the man," he says, "so also the man is through the woman; but all things are from God." What does the unclean spirit say about the flesh through Manichaeus? That it is an evil substance, and not God's creation but the enemy's. What does the Holy Spirit say to this through Paul? "For just as the body is one," he says, "and has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ." And a little later: "God has set the members," he says, "each one of them in the body, as he willed." And again a little later: "God has tempered the body," he says, "giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, so that there might be no divisions in the body, but that the members might have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is glorified, all the members rejoice with it." How is the flesh evil, when souls themselves are admonished to imitate the peace of its members? How is it the enemy's creation, when the very souls that rule bodies take an example from the members of the body, so as not to have divisions of enmity among themselves, that they too may love to have by grace what God has granted the body by nature? Rightly, when writing to the Romans, he says: "I beseech you, brothers, by the mercy of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God." Not without reason do we contend that darkness is not light and light is not darkness, if we are to present a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, from the bodies of the race of darkness!

"But," they say, "how is the flesh compared by some likeness to the church? Does the church lust against Christ, when the same apostle has said, 'The church is subject to Christ'?" Plainly the church is subject to Christ, because the spirit lusts against the flesh precisely so that the church may be subject to Christ in every part; but the flesh lusts against the spirit because the church has not yet received the peace that has been promised as perfect. And so the church is subject to Christ by the pledge of salvation, and the flesh lusts against the spirit by the weakness of sickness. For those to whom he said these things were not other than members of the church: "Walk by the Spirit and do not accomplish the desires of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, so that you do not do what you wish." This was certainly said to the church, and if it were not subject to Christ, the spirit would not lust against the flesh in it through continence. Therefore they could refrain from accomplishing the lusts of the flesh, but, the flesh lusting against the spirit, they could not do what they wished, that is, not even have the lusts of the flesh. Then again, why should we not confess that in spiritual men the church is subject to Christ, but in carnal men still lusts against Christ? Or did they not lust against Christ to whom it was said, "Is Christ divided?" and, "I could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to carnal men, as to little ones in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able. But not even now are you able; for you are still carnal. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not carnal?" Against whom do jealousy and strife lust, if not against Christ? For Christ heals these lusts of the flesh in his own, but loves them in none. Hence the holy church, as long as it has such members too, is not yet without spot and wrinkle. To these are added those sins for which the daily cry of the whole church is, "Forgive us our debts." And lest we should think the spiritual strangers to these, it was not just any of the carnal, nor just any of the spiritual, but he who reclined on the Lord's breast and whom he loved above the rest who says: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." And in every sin, more in a greater and less in a lesser, there is lusting against righteousness. And it is written of Christ: "who was made for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption." In every sin, therefore, there is without doubt lusting against Christ; but he who heals all our sicknesses, when he has brought the church to the promised healing of its sickness, then in none of its members, however least, will there be any spot or wrinkle; then the flesh will in no way lust against the spirit, and so there will be no reason why the spirit too should lust against the flesh; then all this fight will come to an end, then there will be the highest concord of both substances, then there will be no one carnal there, to such a degree that even the flesh itself will be spiritual. What, then, each one who lives according to Christ now does with his own flesh, when he both lusts against its evil concupiscence, since he restrains what is to be healed and holds in check what is not yet healed, and yet nourishes and cherishes its good nature, since no one ever hates his own flesh: this Christ also does with the church, so far as it is right to compare lesser things with greater. For he both checks it with rebukes, so that it does not burst apart puffed up by impunity, and raises it with consolations, so that it does not sink weighed down by weakness. Hence that saying of the apostle: "For if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged; but when we are judged, we are rebuked by the Lord, so that we may not be condemned with this world"; and that in the psalm: "According to the multitude of my sorrows in my heart, your consolations have gladdened my soul." Then, therefore, is the perfect health of our flesh, without any resistance, to be hoped for, when there will be for the church of Christ a sure security without any fear.

Let this suffice as argument against the Manichaeans, who are falsely continent, on behalf of true continence, so that the fruitful and glorious labor of continence, when it restrains and curbs our weak part, that is, the body, from immoderate or unlawful pleasures, may not be believed to be persecuting it as an enemy rather than chastising it for its health. For the body is indeed different in nature from the soul, but it is not foreign to the nature of man. For the mind does not consist of body; yet man consists of mind and body: and certainly whom God frees, he frees the whole man. Hence the Savior himself also took up the whole man, deigning to free in us the whole of what he made. Those who think contrary to this truth, what does it profit them to restrain lusts, if indeed they restrain any? What in them can be made clean through continence, when their continence itself is unclean? Nor should it even be called continence. For to think what they think is the poison of the devil; but continence is the gift of God. Now not everyone who suffers something, or endures any pains whatever with great endurance, has that virtue which is likewise a gift of God and is called patience (for many endure many tortures so as not to betray, in their crimes, either their accomplices or themselves; many for the sake of satisfying most burning lusts and of obtaining or not giving up those things to which they are bound by the chain of perverse love; many for the sake of various harmful errors by which they are strongly held; far be it from us to say that all these have true patience); so not everyone who restrains something, or even restrains wonderfully the very lusts of flesh or mind, is to be said to have this continence whose usefulness and beauty we are discussing. For some, strange as it may seem to say, are continent through incontinence, as if a woman should hold back from her husband because she has sworn this to an adulterer; some through injustice, as if a spouse should not render to the spouse the debt of sexual union because he or she can now overcome such an appetite of the body. Likewise some are continent deceived by a false faith, hoping for vain things and pursuing vain things; among these are all heretics and whoever are deceived by some error under the name of religion. Their continence would be true if their faith were also true; but since that is not even to be called faith, because it is false, without doubt this too is unworthy of the name of continence. For are we going to say that continence, which we most truly call a gift of God, is sin? Far from our hearts be such detestable madness. But the blessed apostle says: "Everything that is not from faith is sin." That, therefore, which has no faith is not to be called continence either.

There are also those who, openly serving malignant demons, hold back from the pleasures of the body in order to satisfy through them wicked pleasures whose drive and heat they do not restrain. Hence, to mention one thing and pass over the rest because of the length of the discourse, some even do not touch their own wives, while, as though pure, they contrive by magic arts to reach the wives of others. O wonderful continence, or rather singular wickedness and uncleanness! For if it were true continence, it ought to have restrained the concupiscence of the flesh from adultery rather than from marriage for the sake of committing adultery. For married continence usually relaxes this concupiscence of the flesh and puts a check on it with its reins only so far that even in marriage itself there is no flowing into immoderate license, but a measure is kept, either the one owed to the weakness of the spouse, to whom the apostle grants this not by way of command but by way of indulgence, or the one suited to the procreation of children, which was once the only reason for the union of the flesh for the holy fathers and mothers as well. And continence, doing this, that is, moderating and in a way limiting the concupiscence of the flesh in spouses, and ordering its restless and disordered movement within certain bounds, makes good use of the evil in man, whom it makes and wishes to make perfect in good, just as God uses even evil men for the sake of those whom he makes perfect in goodness.

Far be it, then, from us to say that the continence of which Scripture says, "And this itself was a part of wisdom, to know whose gift this was," is possessed also by those who by being continent either serve errors or overcome some lesser desires in order to satisfy others by whose greatness they are overcome. But that which is true continence, coming from above, wishes not to suppress some evils by other evils, but to heal all evils by goods. To sum up its action briefly: the office of continence watches over restraining and healing all the delights of concupiscence whatever that are opposed to the delight of wisdom. Hence those without doubt measure it too narrowly who define it as restraining only the lusts of the body; better, surely, are those who do not add "of the body," but say generally that the governing of lust or desire belongs to continence. This desire is counted a fault, and it is not only of the body but also of the mind. For if bodily desire lies in acts of sexual immorality and drunkenness, are enmities, strifes, jealousies, and finally animosities exercised in the pleasures of the body, and not rather in the movements and disturbances of the mind? Yet the apostle called all these works of the flesh, whether they belonged properly to the mind or to the flesh, calling man himself, of course, by the name of flesh. For they are works of man which are not said to be God's, since the man who does them lives according to himself, not according to God, in so far as he does them. But there are other works of man which are rather to be called God's. "For it is God," says the apostle, "who works in you both to will and to work for his good will." Hence also that saying: "For all who are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God."