Our second struggle is against the
demon of unchastity and the desire of the flesh, a desire which begins to trouble
man from the time of his youth. This harsh struggle has to be fought in both
soul and body, and not simply in the soul, as is the case with other faults.
We therefore have to fight it on two fronts.
Bodily fasting alone is not enough
to bring about perfect self-restraint and true purity; it must be accompanied
by contrition of heart, intense prayer to God, frequent meditation on the Scriptures,
toil and manual labour. These are able to check the restless impulses of the
soul and to recall it from its shameful fantasies. Humility of soul helps
more than everything else, however, and without it no one can overcome unchastity
or any other sin. In the first place, then, we must take the utmost care to
guard the heart from base thoughts, for, according to the Lord, out of the
heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, unchastity and so on (Matt.
15:19).
We are told to fast not only to
mortify our body, but also to keep our intellect watchful, so that it will
not be obscured because of the amount of food we have eaten and thus be unable
to guard its thoughts. We must not therefore expend all our effort in bodily
fasting; we must also give attention to our thoughts and to spiritual meditation,
since otherwise we will not be able to advance to the heights of true purity
and chastity. As our Lord has said, we should cleanse first the inside of the
cup and plate, so that their outside may also be clean (Matt. 23:26).
If we are really eager, as the Apostle
puts it, to struggle lawfully and to be crowned (2 Tim: 2:5) for overcoming
the impure spirit of unchastity, we should not trust in our own strength and
ascetic practice, but in the help of our Master, God. No one ceases to be attacked
by this demon until he truly believes that he will be healed and reach the heights
of purity not through his own effort and labour, but through the aid and protection
of God. For such a victory is beyond man's natural powers. Indeed, he who has
trampled down the pleasures and provocations of the flesh is in a certain sense
outside the body. Thus, no one can soar to this high and heavenly prize of holiness
on his own wings and learn to imitate the angels, unless the grace of God leads
him upwards from this earthly mire. No virtue makes flesh-bound man so like
a spiritual angel as does self-restraint, for it enables those still living
on earth to become, as the Apostle says, citizens of heaven (cf. Phil. 3:20).
A sign that we have acquired this virtue perfectly is that our soul ignores
those images which the defiled fantasy produces during sleep; for even if
the production of such images is not a sin, nevertheless it is a sign that the
soul is ill and has not been freed from passion. We should therefore regard
the defiled fantasies that arise in us during sleep as the proof of previous
indolence and weakness still existing in us, since the emission which takes
place while we are relaxed in sleep reveals the sickness that lies hidden in
our souls. Because of this the Doctor of our souls has also placed the remedy
in the hidden regions of the soul, recognizing that the cause of our sickness
lies there when He says: Whoever looks at a woman with lust has already committed
adultery with her in his heart (Matt. 5:28). He seeks to correct not so much
our inquisitive and unchaste eyes as the soul which has its seat within and
makes bad use of the eyes which God gave it for good purposes. That is why the
Book of Proverbs in its wisdom does not say: Guard your eyes with all diligence
but Guard your heart with all diligence (Prov. 4:23), imposing the remedy
of diligence in the first instance upon that which makes use of the eyes for
whatever purpose it desires.
The way to keep guard over our heart
is immediately to expel from the mind every demon-inspired recollection of
women even of mother or sister or any other devout woman—lest by dwelling
on it for too long the mind is thrown headlong by the deceiver into debased
and pernicious thoughts. The commandment given by God to the first man, Adam,
told him to keep watch over the head of the serpent (cf. Gen. 3:15. LXX), that
is, over the first inklings of the pernicious thoughts by means of which the
serpent tries to creep into our souls. If we do not admit the serpents head,
which is the
provocation of the thought, we will not admit the rest of its
body—that is, the assent to the sensual pleasure which the thought suggests—and
so debase the mind towards the illicit act itself.
As it is written, we should early
in the morning destroy all the wicked of the earth (Ps. 101:8), distinguishing
in the light of divine knowledge our sinful thoughts and then eradicating them
completely from the earth—our hearts—in accordance with the teaching of the
Lord. While the children of Babylon—by which I mean our wicked thoughts—are
still young, we should dash them to the ground and crush them against the rock,
which is Christ (cf. Ps. 137:9; I Cor. 10:4). If these thoughts grow stronger
because we assent to them, we will not be able to overcome them without much
pain and labour.
It is good to remember the sayings
of the Fathers as well as the passages from Holy Scripture cited above. For
example, St Basil, Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, said: I have not known
a woman and yet I am not a virgin. He recognized that the gift of virginity
is achieved not so much by abstaining from intercourse with woman as by holiness
and purity of soul, which in its turn is achieved through fear of God. The
Fathers also say that we cannot fully acquire the virtue of purity unless we
have first acquired real humility of heart. And we will not be granted true
spiritual knowledge so long as the passion of unchastity lies hidden in the
depths of our souls.
To bring this section of our treatise
to a close, let us recall one of the Apostles sayings which further illustrates
his teaching on how to acquire self-restraint. He says: Pursue peace with all
men and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord (Heb. 12:14). It
is clear that he is talking about self-restraint from what follows: Lest there
be any unchaste or profane person, such as Esau (Heb. 12:16). The more heavenly
and angelic the degree of holiness, the heavier are the enemies attacks to
which it is subjected. We should therefore try to achieve not only bodily control,
but also contrition of heart with frequent prayers of repentance, so that with
the dew of the Holy Spirit we may extinguish the furnace of our flesh, kindled
daily by the king of Babylon with the bellows of desire (cf. Dan. 3:19). In
addition, a great weapon has been given us in the form of sacred vigils; for
just as the watch we keep over our thoughts by day brings us holiness at night,
so vigil at night brings purity to the soul by day.
From The Philokalia, Volume
1, pp. 75-77. This is excerpted from the treatise On the Eight Vices, written
by St. John Cassian
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