Miscellanies 3.5.42

And how is it possible for one overcome by the pleasures of the body to be made like the Lord or to have knowledge of God? For desire begins every pleasure; and desire is a kind of pain and anxiety longing for something through lack. So those who have chosen this way seem to me to suffer nothing other than what the saying describes, “to suffer disgrace in their vessels,” choosing for themselves an evil drawn on themselves now and hereafter. If, then, all things were permitted and there were no fear of failing to attain our hope through evil deeds, perhaps they would have some excuse for living badly and pitiably. But since a blessed life has been shown to us through commandments, which all must hold to, neither disregarding any of the things said nor neglecting what is fitting, even if it is very small, following wherever the Word leads; and since, if we should fail of it, we must fall into an immortal evil, while if we follow the divine Scripture, by which believers walk, we are made like the Lord as far as possible: we must not live indifferently, but must purify ourselves as far as possible from pleasures and desires and care for the soul, which must continue devoted to the divine alone. For the mind, being pure and freed from all vice, is somehow able to receive the power of God, the divine image being raised up in it. “And everyone who has this hope in the Lord purifies himself,” it says, “as he is pure.”