The Institutes 5.41–6.23

One more saving command of the blessed Macarius shall be brought forward by us, so that the saying of so great a man may close this book on fasts and continence. He said that a monk ought to give his attention to fasting as though he were going to live in the body for a hundred years, but to curb the movements of the mind, forget injuries, reject dejection, and despise pains and losses as though he were going to die every day. For in the first there is useful and prudent discernment, making the monk always go forward with even strictness and not allowing him, on the pretext of bodily weakness, to roll down from the heights to the most deadly precipices; and in the second there is a saving magnanimity, which can not only despise what seems prosperous in the present world, but also not be broken by adversity and sadness, and despise them as small and of no account, keeping the gaze of its mind always fixed there, where it believes it is to be summoned every day and every moment.

Our second contest, according to the tradition of the fathers, is against the spirit of sexual immorality: a contest longer and more lasting than the others, and won completely by very few; a savage war which, since it begins to attack the human race from the first time of puberty, is not extinguished unless the other vices are overcome first. For it is a double attack, rising to battle armed with a twofold vice. And therefore it must likewise be resisted with a double battle line; for just as it gains strength compounded of disease of both flesh and soul, so it cannot be conquered unless both fight together. For bodily fasting alone is not enough to acquire or possess the purity of perfect chastity, unless it is preceded by contrition of spirit and persevering prayer against this most unclean spirit; then continual meditation on the Scriptures, to which spiritual knowledge is joined; labour too and manual work, which check and recall the unstable wanderings of the heart; and above all, unless true humility has been laid as a foundation, without which no triumph over any vice at all can ever be gained.

For the correction of this vice comes chiefly from the perfection of the heart, from which, as the Lord's voice indicates, the poison of this disease also comes forth: "Out of the heart," he says, "come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness," and the rest. That, then, must first be cleansed from which the fountain of life and death is known to flow, as Solomon says: "Keep your heart with all watchfulness, for from it are the issues of life." For the flesh serves its will and command. And therefore the frugality of fasts must be pursued with the greatest zeal, lest the flesh, refreshed by abundance of food, should oppose the saving precepts of the soul and in its insolence throw down its ruler, the spirit. But if we place the whole matter only in chastising the body, while the soul does not likewise fast from the other vices and is not occupied with divine meditation and spiritual pursuits, we shall by no means be able to climb to that most sublime height of true integrity, while that which is principal in us attacks the purity of our body. We must therefore first cleanse, according to the Lord's saying, the inside of the cup and the dish, so that the outside may also become clean.

Moreover, the other vices are usually cleansed also by contact with people and daily practice, and are in a way cured by the very offence of falling. For example, the sickness of anger, dejection, and impatience is healed by meditation of the heart and watchful care, and also by the company of the brothers and constant provocation; and while, when stirred up, they are more often revealed and more frequently rebuked, they come more quickly to health. But this disease needs, together with affliction of the body and contrition of heart, solitude and withdrawal as well, so that it may lay aside the deadly fever of its heats and reach a complete state of health. Just as it is often useful for those suffering from a certain illness that harmful foods should not even be offered to their eyes, lest the sight of them produce a deadly desire in them, so quiet and solitude help very greatly to drive out this disease in particular, so that the sick mind, not being disturbed by various images, may reach a purer gaze of contemplation and more easily tear out by the roots the deadly tinder of desire.

Yet let no one think from this that we deny that continent men are found even among those living in a community of brothers; we admit that this can very easily happen. For it is one thing to be continent, that is, enkratēs, and another to be chaste, and, so to speak, to pass over into a disposition of integrity and incorruption, which is called hagnos. This virtue is attributed above all to those alone who remain virgins either in flesh or in mind, as both Johns in the New Testament, and in the Old Elijah, Jeremiah, and Daniel are known to have been. In their rank those too will not undeservedly be counted who, after experience of corruption, have reached a like state of purity through long labour and diligence, by integrity of mind and body, and who feel the goads of the flesh not so much as an attack of shameful desire as only a movement of nature. We say that this state can be attained only with the greatest difficulty among crowds of men. Whether it is also impossible, let each one not wait to learn from our opinion, but search it out by the examination of his own conscience. But we do not doubt that there are many continent men who, whether from fear of hell or from desire for the kingdom of heaven, extinguish and suppress the attack of the flesh, which they experience either rarely or daily. The elders declare that these can be not wholly overwhelmed by the incitements of the vices, but they define that they cannot always remain secure and unwounded. For everyone who is engaged in a struggle, although he often conquers and overcomes his adversary, must himself sometimes be shaken.

Therefore, if it is our heart's desire to contend lawfully in the spiritual contest with the apostle, let us hasten with all the attention of our mind to overcome this most unclean spirit, not trusting in our own strength (for human effort cannot accomplish this), but in the Lord's help. For the soul must be attacked by this vice until it recognizes that it is waging a war beyond its strength, and that it cannot obtain the victory by its own labour or effort unless it is supported by the Lord's help and protection.

And indeed, although in all progress of the virtues and in the overcoming of all vices the grace and the victory are the Lord's, in this one especially it is most clearly declared, both by the judgment of the fathers and by the experience of this purification itself to those who have deserved to possess it, that it is a particular benefit of God and a special gift. For in a way it is to go out of the flesh while remaining in the body, and it is beyond nature not to feel the goads of the flesh while surrounded by frail flesh. And therefore it is impossible for a man to fly up, so to speak, on his own wings to so lofty and heavenly a reward unless the grace of the Lord has drawn him out of the mud of the earth by the gift of chastity. For by no virtue are fleshly men made so equal to the spiritual angels in imitation of their way of life as by the merit and grace of chastity; through it, while still living on earth, they have, according to the apostle, their citizenship in heaven, possessing already here in frail flesh what is promised that the saints will have in the future when the corruption of the flesh has been laid aside.

Hear what the apostle says: "Everyone who contends in the games abstains from all things." Let us ask from what "all things" he means, so that instruction for the spiritual contest may be gained by comparison with the bodily one. Those who seek to contend lawfully in this visible contest do not have the freedom to use all the foods that the lust of desire suggests, but only those which the discipline of those contests prescribes. And they must abstain not only from forbidden foods, drunkenness, and all excess, but also from all sloth, idleness, and laziness, so that their strength may grow by daily exercise and constant practice. And so they become strangers to all anxiety and sadness and worldly business, and also to the affection and act of marriage, so that they know nothing but the exercise of their discipline and are not entangled at all in any worldly care, hoping only from the one who presides over the contest for the means of their daily food, and to win the glory of the crown and the fitting rewards with the praise of victory. And they keep themselves so pure from all pollution of intercourse that, when they are preparing for the contests of the games, lest by chance, deceived in sleep by some nocturnal illusion, they should lessen the strength gained over a long time, they cover the region of the loins with plates of lead, so that the hardness of the metal applied to the genital members may be able to check unclean fluids. For they understand that they would certainly be beaten, and could no longer fulfil the contest set before them with their strength taken away, if a deceitful image of harmful pleasure should corrupt the firmness of chastity they have secured.

So if we have understood the discipline of the worldly contest, by whose example the blessed apostle wished to teach us, showing how much observance, how much diligence, how much watchfulness there is in it, what will it befit us to do? With what purity shall we have to guard the chastity of our body and soul, we who must daily eat the most holy flesh of the Lamb, which even the precepts of the old law do not allow anyone unclean to touch? For in Leviticus it is commanded thus: "Everyone who is clean shall eat the flesh. And any soul that eats of the flesh of the sacrifice of salvation which is the Lord's, while there is uncleanness in it, shall perish before the Lord." How great, then, is the gift of integrity, without which both those who were under the Old Testament could not take part in the figurative sacrifices, and those who wish to gain the corruptible crown of this world cannot be crowned!

So the hidden places of our heart must first be cleansed with all watchfulness. For what they seek to attain in purity of body, we must possess even in the secret places of the conscience, where the Lord sits as judge and president of the games, continually watching the fight of our race and contest; so that what we shudder to commit openly we may not allow to grow even inwardly by a careless thought, and so that we may not be defiled even by secret connivance in things at which we would be ashamed before human knowledge. For although this may escape the notice of men, it cannot be hidden from the knowledge of the holy angels and of almighty God himself, from whom no secrets escape.

This will be a clear sign and full proof of this purity: if no alluring image comes to us when we are at rest and relaxed in sleep, or at least, if one does intrude, it cannot stir any movements of desire. For although such a stirring is by no means counted as the full guilt of sin, yet it is not yet a sign of a perfect mind, nor a proof that the vice has been purged to purity, when an illusion works through deceptive images of this kind.

For the quality of the thoughts which is guarded too carelessly amid the distractions of the day is tested in the quiet of the night. And therefore, when some such illusion has occurred, it should not be believed to be the fault of sleep, but of negligence in the time before, and the manifestation of a disease lurking within, which the hour of the night did not first bring forth, but, hidden in the inmost fibres of the soul, brought out to the surface of the skin through the refreshment of sleep, revealing the hidden fevers of heat which we contracted by feeding on harmful thoughts during the whole day. So too bodily illnesses are usually not gathered at the time when they appear to break out, but have been acquired by negligence in the previous time, when someone, eating unwisely of unsuitable foods, contracted harmful and deadly humours.

And therefore God, the creator and maker of the human race, knowing above all the nature of his handiwork and its correction, applied the care of medicine there where he knew the causes of the disease chiefly flowed from: "Whoever," he says, "has looked at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart." In noting wanton eyes he does not so much blame them as that inner sense which uses their service wrongly for seeing. For it is the heart, sick and wounded by the dart of lust, that sees in order to desire, twisting by its own fault the benefit of sight rightly granted it by the Creator to the service of evil works, and bringing out on the occasion of seeing the disease of desire hidden within itself. For this reason the saving command is given to that part by whose fault the worst sickness proceeds on the occasion of sight. For it is not said, "Keep your eyes with all watchfulness," which certainly ought to have been guarded above all if the feeling of desire came from them (for the eyes provide nothing more than the simple service of sight to the soul); but it says, "Keep your heart with all watchfulness," applying the medicine above all to that which can misuse the service of the eyes everywhere.

This, then, will be the first safeguard of this purification: when the memory of the female sex has crept into our mind through a subtle suggestion of the devil's cunning — first brought in by the memory of a mother, sisters, or relatives, or even of holy women — we should hasten to drive it out of our inner recesses as quickly as possible, lest, if we linger on it too long, the instigator of evils, having once obtained the occasion of the sex, should afterwards subtly bring the mind down and hurl it towards those persons through whom he can insert harmful thoughts. Therefore we ought always to remember that command, "Keep your heart with all watchfulness," and, according to God's first command, carefully watch the harmful head of the serpent, that is, the beginnings of evil thoughts, by which the devil tries to creep into our soul; and not allow the rest of his body, that is, consent to pleasure, to enter our heart through negligence; for if it is let in, it will certainly kill the captive mind with its poisonous bite. We must also destroy the sinners of our land as they emerge, that is, the fleshly senses, in the morning of their rising, and, while they are still little, dash the children of Babylon against the rock; for unless they are killed while they are very tender, when grown up through our connivance they will rise up stronger to our destruction, or at least will be overcome only with great groaning and labour. For while the strong man — that is, our spirit — guards his house armed, fortifying the recesses of his heart with the fear of God, all his goods will be in peace, that is, the fruits of his labours and the virtues acquired over a long time. But if a stronger one comes and overcomes him — that is, the devil through consent to thoughts — he will seize his arms in which he trusted, that is, the memory of the Scriptures or the fear of God, and divide his spoils, scattering the merits of the virtues through the contrary vices.

And to pass over everything inserted in the holy Scriptures in praise of this virtue — for my purpose is not to compose a praise of chastity, but to explain, according to the traditions of the fathers, its nature, how it should be acquired and kept, and what its end is — I shall set down only one saying of the blessed apostle, from which it may be seen how, writing to the Thessalonians, he preferred it to all virtues, commending it with such nobility of words.

"This," he says, "is the will of God, your sanctification." And lest he should leave it doubtful or obscure to us what he meant by "sanctification" — whether justice, or love, or humility, or patience (for sanctification is believed to be acquired in all these virtues) — he adds and clearly indicates what he properly meant by sanctification: "This is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each one of you know how to possess his vessel in honour and sanctification, not in the passion of desire, like the Gentiles who do not know God." See with what praises he honours it, calling it the honour of the vessel, that is, of our body, and sanctification. On the contrary, therefore, one who lives in the passion of desire remains in dishonour and uncleanness and lives estranged from sanctification. A third time too, a little later, he adds, declaring it again to be holiness: "For God has not called us to dishonour but to holiness. Therefore he who rejects this rejects not man but God, who has also given his Holy Spirit in us." He joined inviolable authority to his precept, saying, "He who rejects this" — that is, what I have said before about holiness — "rejects not man," that is, me who command these things, "but God," who speaks in me, and who has also appointed our heart as a dwelling for his Holy Spirit. You see with what praises and how great commendations, in simple and pure words, he has extolled it: first, by attributing sanctification properly to this virtue; next, by asserting that through it the vessel of our body is freed from uncleanness; third, that, dishonour and shame being cast off, it will remain in honour and sanctification; and finally — which is the sum of the perfect reward and blessedness — he has shown that through it the Holy Spirit will be the dweller in our breast.

And although my discourse is hastening to the end of the book, I shall set down, beyond what I promised, another testimony of the same apostle like this one. For writing to the Hebrews he says: "Pursue peace with all, and holiness, without which no one will see God." Here too he has clearly declared that without holiness — which he usually calls integrity of mind or purity of body — God cannot be seen at all. For here too he likewise adds, explaining the same sense: "lest anyone be sexually immoral or profane like Esau."

So the more sublime and heavenly the reward of chastity, the heavier the snares of the adversaries by which it is attacked. And therefore we must apply more earnestly not only continence of body but also contrition of heart with constant groans of prayer, so that the furnace of our flesh, which the Babylonian king does not cease to kindle with the incitements of fleshly suggestions, may be extinguished as the dew of the Holy Spirit comes down into our hearts.

For just as the elders say that chastity cannot be attained unless the foundations of humility have first been laid in the heart, so they define that one cannot even reach the fountain of true knowledge as long as the root of this vice sits in the recesses of our soul. And they say that it is possible for integrity to be found without the grace of knowledge, but impossible for spiritual knowledge to be possessed without the chastity of integrity; for the gifts are various, and not both graces of the Holy Spirit are given to all, but to each the one of which he has shown himself worthy and fit by his own zeal and diligence. Finally, although the virtue of integrity is believed to have been perfect in all the holy apostles, yet the gift of knowledge abounded more richly in Paul, because he prepared himself to be fit for it by skilful zeal and diligence.

A strict saying of Saint Basil, bishop of Caesarea, is reported: "I do not know a woman, and I am not a virgin." So far did he understand that incorruption of the flesh consists not so much in abstaining from women as in integrity of heart, which truly keeps the holiness of the body incorrupt for ever, either by the fear of God or by love of chastity.

So this is the end and perfect proof of integrity: if no tickling of pleasure creeps in while we are at rest, and if, through the necessity of nature, the accumulated unclean fluids are discharged without our being aware of it. Just as it is beyond nature to cut these off entirely and remove them for ever, so to reduce them to an unavoidable and very rare necessity of nature is a mark of the highest virtue; this necessity usually troubles a monk after an interval of two months. Yet let this be said according to our experience, not according to the judgment of the elders, by whom even this interval of time we have mentioned was judged quite short; for if we wished to set it out as we received it from them, we might perhaps be believed by those who, through their negligence or more remiss zeal, have less experience of this purity, to have described things incredible or impossible.

We shall be able to keep this state for ever, and never exceed the natural measure and time mentioned above, if we reflect that God is the observer and witness, by day and by night alike, not only of our secret actions but also of all our thoughts, and believe that we shall give account to him for everything that goes on in our heart, just as for our deeds and works.

So far, then, we must hasten, and so long must we fight against the movements of the soul and the incitements of the flesh, until this condition of the flesh fulfils the necessity of nature without arousing pleasure, discharging the accumulated excess without any itching or harm and without stirring up a fight against chastity. But as long as the mind, while still asleep, is deluded by the sight of images, let it know that it has not yet been refined to the complete perfection of chastity.

So, in order that these illusions may not be able to creep in on us even while we sleep, an even and moderate fast must always be kept. For whoever exceeds the measure of strictness must also exceed the measure of relaxation. Held by this unevenness, he will certainly be drawn away from this most level state of tranquillity, now weakened by excessive emptiness, now distended by too generous food. For with a change in our eating the quality of our purity must also change. Next, constant humility and patience of heart must be practised continually, and careful watchfulness during the day against anger and the other passions. For where the poison of rage has settled, the fire of lust must also penetrate. Above all, a watchful care at night is necessary. For just as purity and watchfulness during the day prepare chastity at night, so the night vigils lay down a most solid state and strength for the heart and for the observance of the day.