Conference 12

Chapter 1

When the meal was over—which seemed to us, hungry as we were for the food of teaching, more a burden than a pleasure—the elder saw at once that we were waiting for the debt of the promised discourse, and said: “The eager attentiveness of your mind toward learning is welcome to me, and so is the discipline of the question you have set; for you have kept a truly reasonable order in your inquiry. It must be that those immense rewards of perfect and unbroken chastity follow upon the fullness of so lofty a charity, and that the joy is equal where the palms are so evenly matched. For the two are bound together in so close a fellowship that neither can be possessed without the other. This, then, is what your proposal took in: that by a like discussion we should unfold whether that fire of desire, whose burning this flesh feels as though planted within it, can be wholly extinguished. On this let us first inquire more carefully what the blessed Apostle held: ‘Put to death your members that are upon the earth.’ Col. 3:5 Before we examine the rest, then, let us track down which these members are that he commanded to be put to death. For the blessed Apostle does not drive us by a harsh command to the cutting off of hands or feet or genitals; rather he longs for the body of sin—which is certainly made up of members—to be destroyed as quickly as possible by a zeal for perfect holiness. Of this body he says elsewhere, ‘that the body of sin may be destroyed;’ Rom. 6:6 and what its destruction is he sets out next: ‘so that we may no longer be slaves to sin.’ Rom. 6:6 From this body he even begs, with a groan, to be set free, saying: ‘Wretched man that I am, who will free me from the body of this death?’ Rom. 7:24”

Chapter 2

This body of sin, then, is shown to be built up out of many members belonging to the vices; and to its make-up belongs whatever is sinned by deed, or word, or thought—members that are most rightly said to be upon the earth. For those who make use of their service cannot truthfully profess, “our citizenship is in heaven.” Phil. 3:20 So, describing the members of this body in this passage, the Apostle says: “Put to death your members that are upon the earth: fornication, uncleanness, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is the service of idols.” Col. 3:5 In the first place, then, he judged that fornication should be brought forward, which is carried out by the joining of bodies. As the second member he named uncleanness, which sometimes creeps in—without any touch of a woman, whether men are asleep or awake—through the carelessness of an unguarded mind; and so it is marked and forbidden in the Law, which not only kept every unclean person from sharing in the holy flesh, but also ordered that such be separated from the assembly of the camp, lest by their contact they defile holy things, saying: “Any soul that eats of the flesh of the saving sacrifice (which is the Lord’s), and in whom there is uncleanness, shall perish before the Lord; and whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean.” Lev. 7:20, 21 In Deuteronomy too it says: “If there is among you a man who has been defiled by a dream in the night, he shall go outside the camp, and shall not return before he has washed with water toward evening; and after sunset he shall come back into the camp.” Deut. 23:10, 11 Next he sets down lust as the third member of sin, which, taking root in the hidden recesses of the soul, can kindle something even without any suffering of the body. For there is no doubt that lust (libido) is so named from what pleases (libet). After this, descending from the greater sins to the lesser, he brought in the fourth member, evil desire, which can be referred not only to the passion of unchastity just mentioned but generally to all harmful cravings—the sickness that belongs to corrupt pleasure alone. Of this the Lord says in the Gospel: “Whoever looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Matt. 5:28 For it is a far greater thing to hold in the desire of a slippery mind at the very moment when the occasion of an enticing sight is set before it. By all this it is most plainly proved that, for the perfection of purity, the chastity of bodily continence alone cannot suffice, unless the integrity of the mind is added to it as well. After all these, as the last member of that body, he says “and greed,” Col. 3:5 showing beyond doubt that the mind must be held back not only from the appetite for other people’s goods, but that one’s own must also be despised with a great heart. For we read that the multitude of believers did this very thing in the Acts of the Apostles, of whom it is said: “Now the heart of the multitude of believers was one, and their soul one; nor did any of them say that anything he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common. For as many as were owners of fields or of houses sold them and brought the price of what they sold and laid it before the feet of the apostles; and it was distributed to each according as anyone had need.” Acts 4:32-35 And so that this perfection might not seem to belong to a few, he testified that greed is the service of idols. And not without reason: for whoever does not share in the needs of the poor, and puts the precepts of Christ behind the money he keeps with faithless tenacity, incurs the crime of idolatry, preferring, that is, the love of worldly matter to the charity of God.

Chapter 3

If, then, we have seen so many for Christ’s sake cast away their possessions in such a way that we can prove that not only the ownership of money but even the desire for it was cut out of their hearts forever, it follows that we should believe the burning of fornication can be extinguished in the same way. For the Apostle would not have joined an impossible thing to a possible one; rather, knowing both to be possible, he decreed that both alike were to be put to death. And the blessed Apostle trusts so far that fornication, or uncleanness, can be uprooted from our members that he declares they ought not merely to be put to death but not even named among us: “Let fornication, and all uncleanness or greed, not so much as be named among you—nor shameful conduct, nor foolish talk, nor buffoonery, which is not to the point.” Eph. 5:3, 4 He also teaches that these are equally ruinous and drive us out by an equal exclusion from the kingdom of God, saying: “Know this, that every fornicator, or unclean person, or greedy man—which is the service of idols—has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.” Eph. 5:5 And again: “Do not be deceived: neither fornicators, nor those who serve idols, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor men who lie with males, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor the rapacious shall possess the kingdom of God.” 1 Cor. 6:9, 10 There should therefore be no doubt that the contagion of fornication and uncleanness can be abolished from our members, since he commanded it to be cut away in no other manner than greed, foolish talk, buffoonery, drunkenness, and thefts—things whose amputation is easy.

Chapter 4

Still, we ought to be certain that, even if we take on every severity of continence—hunger, that is, and thirst, and vigils, and unremitting labor, and ceaseless zeal for reading—we still cannot attain the perpetual purity of chastity as the wage earned by these labors, unless, while we sweat over them without pause, we are taught by the schooling of experience that its incorruption is granted by the bounty of divine grace. For this reason let each one recognize that he must persevere tirelessly in these exercises for this alone: that, having obtained the Lord’s mercy through their affliction, he may deserve to be freed by the divine gift from the assault of the flesh and the dominion of the overpowering vices—not that he should trust to obtain through them the inviolate bodily chastity he desires. But let him be set aflame with as great a longing and love for acquiring chastity as the man who most greedily hungers after money, or who is stretched taut by the highest ambition for honors, or who is swept away by an unbearable love for a beautiful woman, longs with the most impatient ardor to have his desire fulfilled. And so it will come about that, while we are kindled with insatiable longing for unbroken integrity, desirable food is despised, necessary drink is dreaded, and even the sleep that nature owes us is refused; or at least the most fraudulent deceiver of purity, the rival and enemy of chastity, is caught by a mind alert and on its guard. And so each one, becoming each day the morning inspector of his own integrity, may rejoice over the purity granted him, and may perceive that he has obtained it not by his own zeal or watchfulness but by the Lord’s protection; and may understand that its perseverance will cling to his body only so long as the Lord in his mercy has granted it. For whoever holds this faith steadfastly will never, presuming proudly on his own strength, trust in his own virtue; nor, seduced by long respites from the obscene discharge, will he be loosened into a most flattering security, knowing that he will at once be stained by the splash of a most impure discharge if the divine protection has withdrawn from him even a little. And so, for its continuance, he must keep watch with tireless prayers, in all contrition and humility of heart.

Chapter 5

Do you wish to grasp, about the truth of what we are saying, a clear proof by which you may both confirm what has been said and be taught that this bodily struggle—which is reckoned hostile and harmful to us—has in fact been usefully implanted in our members? Consider, I beg you, those who are eunuchs in body: what is the chief cause that renders them sluggish and lukewarm in seeking the virtues? Is it not that they believe they run no risk of having their chastity corrupted? Yet let no one suppose I have put this forward to affirm that not one of them can be found at all who burns with a perfect renunciation; rather, that they in some way conquer their own nature, if any of them happen to strive with the utmost intensity of soul toward the prize of perfection set before them—an ardor and longing which, once it has kindled a man, compels him to endure hunger, thirst, vigils, nakedness, and every bodily labor, not only patiently but even gladly. For “a man toils for himself in his pains, and does violence to his own ruin.” Prov. 16:26 And again: “To a hungry soul even bitter things seem sweet.” Prov. 27:7 For the desires for present things cannot otherwise be either pressed down or torn away, unless in place of the harmful affections we long to have cut off, other, wholesome ones are brought in. For the mind’s vitality can in no way subsist without the stirring of some desire or fear, joy or grief, unless these very things have been changed over to the good side. And so, if we long to drive carnal desires out of our hearts, let us at once plant spiritual longings in their place, so that our mind, always bound up with these, may have something to dwell on continually and may reject the enticements of present and passing joys. And when our mind, schooled by daily exercises, has advanced into this state, then, with experience teaching it, it will conceive the feeling of that little verse which we all sing in the customary measured chant, but whose power only a few—those who have known it—perceive: “I set the Lord always before my sight, for he is at my right hand, that I may not be moved.” Ps. 15:8 For he alone effectively attains the force and meaning of this song who, having reached that purity of body and soul of which we speak, understands that he is preserved by the Lord at every moment lest he slide back into the same things, and that his right hands—that is, his holy works—are continually fortified by him. For the Lord stands by his holy ones not on the left (since a holy man has nothing on his left) but always on the right; and by sinners and the ungodly he is not seen, because they do not have those right hands beside which the Lord is accustomed to stand, nor can they say with the Prophet: “My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for he will pluck my feet out of the snare.” Ps. 24:15 This no one will be able to profess truthfully except the one who, judging all that is in this world to be either harmful, or superfluous, or at any rate lower than the highest virtues, has fixed his whole gaze, his whole zeal, his whole care upon the cultivation of his heart and the purity of chastity; and so the mind, filed by these exercises and polished by its progress, will come to the perfect purity of body and soul.

Chapter 6

For as far as a man advances in gentleness and patience of heart, so far will he advance in purity of body; and the further he drives off the passion of anger, the more tenaciously will he hold chastity. For no one will turn aside the heat of his body who has not first restrained the movements of his soul. This the beatitude praised by our Savior’s own mouth most plainly declares: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the earth.” Matt. 5:5 We shall therefore possess our earth in no other way—that is, the earth of this rebellious body will be subjected to our rule in no other way—than if our mind has first been grounded in the gentleness of patience; nor will anyone be able to check the wars of lust rising up against his flesh unless he is first armed with the weapons of meekness: “For the meek shall possess the earth, and shall dwell upon it for ever and ever.” Ps. 36:11, 29 How we may obtain this earth, the same Prophet teaches further on in that same psalm: “Wait for the Lord and keep his way, and he will exalt you to take the earth for your inheritance.” Ps. 36:34 It is clear, then, that no one can climb to the firm possession of that earth except only those who, keeping the Lord’s hard ways and his precepts by the unshaken gentleness of patience, have been lifted out of the mire of the carnal passions, the same Lord drawing them out. The meek, therefore, shall possess the earth—and not only possess it, but also “be delighted in the multitude of peace,” Ps. 36:11 which no one whose flesh still has the wars of desire stirred up in it will steadily enjoy. For he must be harried by the harshest battles of the demons; and, wounded by the fiery darts of lust, he must be toppled from the possession of his earth, until the Lord “takes away wars to the ends of his earth, shatters the bow, and breaks the weapons, and burns the shields with fire”—Ps. 45:10 with that fire, namely, which the Lord came to send upon the earth Luke 12:49 —and breaks even the bows and weapons with which the spiritual powers of wickedness, fighting against him day and night, used to pierce his heart with the fiery darts of the passions. And so, when the Lord, shattering the wars, has freed him from all the heats of the incitements, he will come to that state of purity in which—having laid aside the shame with which, while it was under attack, he shuddered at himself, that is, at his own flesh—he begins to be delighted in it as in a most pure tabernacle. “For evils will not come near him, and the scourge will not draw near to his tabernacle;” Ps. 90:10 reaching, that is, by the virtue of patience, that prophetic word, so that by the merit of meekness he not only inherits his earth but is also delighted in the multitude of peace. But where anxiety of conflict still remains, there cannot be a multitude of peace. For he does not say, “they shall be delighted in peace,” but “in the multitude of peace.” By this it is plainly shown that patience is the most effective medicine of the heart, according to that word of Solomon: “A man meek in heart is a physician,” Prov. 14:30 so that it roots out the kindling not only of anger, sadness, acedia, vainglory, and pride, but of lust and of all the vices alike. “For in long-suffering” (as Solomon says) “is the prosperity of kings.” Prov. 25:15 For the man who is always gentle and calm is neither set ablaze by the disturbance of anger, nor consumed by the anguish of acedia and sadness, nor stretched out by the emptiness of vainglory, nor lifted up by the swelling of pride. “Great peace have those who love the name of the Lord, and for them there is no stumbling-block.” Ps. 118:165 And so it is not without reason declared: “Better is the patient man than the strong; and he who holds in his anger, than he who takes a city.” Prov. 16:32 Until we deserve to obtain this peace firm and unbroken, we must necessarily be tried by many assaults. And that little verse must often be repeated by us with groaning and tears: “I have been made wretched and bowed down without end; all day long I went about in sadness, for my loins are filled with illusions, and there is no health in my flesh before the face of your anger; there is no peace for my bones before the face of my own foolishness.” Ps. 37:6-8 For we shall then fittingly and truly weep over these things when, after a long purity of our body—hoping now that we have altogether escaped the carnal defilements—we feel the goads of the flesh rise up against us again on account of the heart’s elation; or when, at the very least, impurity sprinkles us, to the deception of dreams, with the splash of our former filth. When, therefore, someone has begun to rejoice in a long-standing purity of heart and body, it must happen that, while he believes he can no longer be toppled from that sincerity, he in some way glories within himself and says: “I said in my abundance, I shall not be moved for ever.” Ps. 29:7 But when, usefully left to himself by the Lord, he has felt that state of purity in which he trusted disturbed, and has seen himself totter in that spiritual success, let him run at once back to the author of that integrity, and, acknowledging his own weakness, confess and say: “Lord, it was not by my will but by yours that you gave strength to my beauty; you turned your face away from me, and I was thrown into confusion.” Ps. 29:8 And that word of blessed Job too: “If I have washed myself as with waters of snow, and my hands have shone like the cleanest, yet you will dip me in filth, and my own garments will abhor me.” Job 9:30, 31 Yet the man who by his own fault dips himself in filth cannot say this to his Creator. Until, then, he arrives at the perfect state of purity, he must be schooled rather often by these inequalities, until, strengthened by the grace of God in the purity he longs for, he may deserve to say effectively: “Waiting, I waited for the Lord, and he looked upon me; he heard my prayer and brought me up out of the pit of misery and out of the mire of dregs, and set my feet upon a rock, and directed my steps.” Ps. 39:2, 3

Chapter 7

For there are many degrees of chastity by which one climbs to that inviolable purity; and although our strength is not sufficient either to see them clearly or to state them as they deserve, still, since the sequence of the account demands it, we shall try to bring them out somehow according to the modest measure of our experience—reserving the more perfect things for the perfect, and prejudging nothing against those who, possessing a purer chastity by a more fervent zeal, excel as much in the keenness of their insight as they do in the greatness of their industry. Accordingly I shall mark off the lofty summits of chastity by six degrees—though these stand far apart from one another in height—passing over certain intermediate stages, which are nonetheless many, whose subtlety so escapes the human senses that neither can the mind observe it nor the tongue express it, and by which the perfection of chastity itself grows little by little with daily progress. For just as earthly bodies take their increases imperceptibly day by day, and so, without knowing it, are brought to their full stature, so too the strength and maturity of chastity is acquired for the soul. The first degree of chastity, then, is that the monk, while awake, not be struck down by a carnal assault. The second, that his mind not linger over pleasurable thoughts. The third, that he not be moved even slightly to desire by the sight of a woman. The fourth, that while awake he not endure even a simple movement of the flesh. The fifth, that when the recollection of human generation is set before him, whether by the course of a discussion or by the necessity of a reading, no most subtle assent of pleasurable action graze his mind; rather, let him contemplate it with a calm and pure gaze of heart, as a simple work and a service necessarily assigned to the human race, and conceive nothing more from the recollection of it than if he were turning over in his mind the working of a brick-kiln or of any other trade. The sixth degree of chastity is that he not be deluded, even while sleeping, by the enticing phantoms of women. For although we do not believe this illusion is liable to sin, it is nonetheless a sign of desire still lurking in the marrow. This illusion, however, plainly comes about in different ways. For each one is tempted even while sleeping according to the habit he was accustomed to practice or to think about while awake. Those who know carnal intercourse are deceived in one way, those who have no experience of union with a woman in another. For the latter, just as they tend to be disturbed by simpler and purer dreams, so too they can be cleansed with easier care and less labor; but the former are deluded by filthier and more explicit phantoms, until, little by little, according to the measure of chastity toward which each one strives, the mind—even lulled in sleep—is turned to a hatred of the very thing it once felt as voluntary, and there is granted to it by the Lord, through the prophet, that which is promised to strong men as the highest wage of their labors: “and I will break the bow and the sword and war out of your land, and I will make you sleep without fear.” Hos. 2:18 And so at last one will come to that purity of blessed Serenus and of the few men like him—which I have set apart from the six degrees of chastity just named, because it can be not only possessed but even believed by only the rarest of men. And because what was specially conferred on him by the bounty of the divine gift cannot be set up as the form of a general precept—namely, that our mind should be so shaped by the purity of chastity itself that, even with the natural movement of the flesh put to death, it should not bring forth that obscene fluid at all. I ought not, indeed, to pass over in silence the opinion of certain men which they lay down about this defilement of the flesh: they say it does not come upon sleepers because the deception of dreams produces it, but rather because the overflow of that humor shapes certain enticements in the ailing heart. And so they say that at the time when that accumulation does not disturb, then, just as its flux subsides, so too does its illusion.

Chapter 8

But no one will be able to take up and test these things, and to determine by a sure examination whether they are possible or impossible, except the one who, by long experience and purity of heart, has arrived—with the word of the Lord guiding him—at the borderlands of flesh and spirit. Of this word the blessed Apostle says: “The word of God is living and effective and more piercing than any two-edged sword, reaching even to the division of soul and spirit, of the joints too and the marrow, and is the discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Heb. 4:12 And so, placed as it were within their borders, he will discern—like an inspector and judge weighing on a just balance—what has been necessarily and inevitably assigned to the human condition, and what has been brought in by vicious habit and the carelessness of youth; and about their effect and nature he will not rest in the false opinions of the crowd, but, weighing the measure of purity by the sure scales of his own experience and by a just assessment, he will by no means be deceived by the error of those who, befouled by discharges more frequent than nature compels through the fault of their own negligence, lay the blame on their natural condition. And since it is clear that such men rather do violence to nature and wring from it a pollution that it does not itself bring on, they refer their own intemperance to the necessity of the flesh—indeed, to the flesh’s Creator—shifting their own faults onto the disgrace of nature. Of them it is elegantly put in Proverbs: “The folly of a man corrupts his ways, yet he blames God in his heart.” Prov. 19:3 Finally, if anyone should wish to withhold belief from this assertion of ours, I ask that he not dispute with us on the basis of an opinion prejudged before he has taken up the practices of this discipline. And when he has kept them, in the moderation by which they are handed down, for a very few months, he will indeed be able to prove by a true judgment what we have said. Otherwise anyone disputes in vain about the goal of any art or discipline who has not first pursued, with the utmost zeal and effort, everything that pertains to its completion. Suppose, for example, I were to affirm that something like honey can be produced from wheat, or again that from wheat—as also from the seeds of radish and of flax—the liquid of the smoothest oil can be produced: if someone wholly ignorant of these things were present, would he not cry out that this is against the nature of things and mock me as the author of a most obvious lie? But if I were to bring before him countless witnesses who testify that they have seen, and tasted, and made these things; and if besides I were to lay out the method and order by which those substances are transformed either into the richness of oil or into the sweetness of honey; while he, persisting in the obstinacy of a most foolish conviction, denied that any sweetness or richness could be produced from those seeds—would not his irrational and stubborn contentiousness deserve to be marked, rather than the truth of my words ridiculed, when that truth is propped up by the weight of many faithful witnesses, by evident proofs, and—what is more than these—by the confirmation of experience? And so whoever, by the constant attention of his heart, has arrived at that state of purity in which—his mind now wholly released from the titillation of this passion—his flesh, through sleep, expels as it were the overflow of superfluous humor, most surely grasps the condition and measure of nature. And thus, when on waking he finds his flesh defiled after a long time, without his knowing or being aware of it, then at last he may blame it on natural necessity—arriving beyond doubt at that state in which he is found the same by night as by day, the same in bed as in prayer, the same alone as when hemmed in by crowds of men. In short, so that he may never see himself in secret such as he would blush to be seen by men, nor that inescapable eye detect in him anything he would wish hidden from human sight; and so, when he begins to be continually delighted by the sweetest light of chastity, he will be able to say with the Prophet: “And the night is my illumination in my delights, for the darkness shall not be darkened by you, and the night shall be lit up like the day; as its darkness, so also its light.” Ps. 138:11, 12 Finally, how he has obtained this very thing—since it seems to be above the condition of human nature—the same prophet adds, saying: “Because you have possessed my loins;” Ps. 138:13 that is: it was not by my industry or my strength that I earned this purity, but because you put to death the burning of lustful pleasure implanted in my loins.

Chapter 9

Germanus: We have in some part experienced that perpetual purity of the body can be possessed by the waking, through the grace of God; and we do not deny that the movement of the flesh can fail to occur in the waking, when the rigor and judgment of strict discipline resists it. But whether we can be free of this disturbance while sleeping too—that is what we wish to be taught. For we believe this to be impossible for two reasons, which, though we cannot state them without embarrassment, still, since the necessity of the treatment itself compels it, we ask that you receive with your indulgence, if perhaps they have been laid bare too immodestly. The first, then, is that, once the mind’s vigor has been loosened through the repose of sleep, the stealthy onset of that movement can in no way be guarded against. The second, that the collection of urine also—when, while we are at rest, it has filled the capacity of the bladder by the ceaseless inflow of the internal humor—rouses the slackened members; which happens by the same law to little children and to eunuchs as well. From which it comes about that, even if the pleasure of lust does not wound the mind’s assent, still the shamefulness of the members humbles it with confusion.

Chapter 10

Chaeremon: It is clear that you have not yet come to know the virtue of true chastity, since you believe it is retained by the waking only with the help of strict discipline. And that is why you think integrity cannot be preserved by sleepers, as though the mind’s rigor were relaxed. But chastity subsists not, as you suppose, by the guard of strict discipline, but by love of itself and by delight in its own purity. For it is called not chastity but continence where some adversity of pleasure still resists it. You see, then, that for those who through the grace of God have received the love of chastity into their marrow, the ceasing of strict discipline when they sleep does no harm—which is proved by the most certain reasoning even for the waking. For whatever is held down with labor grants the one who fights a temporary truce, yet does not bestow the perpetual rest of security after the labor; but whatever has been conquered by deep-rooted virtue, and set in order without any suspicion of disturbance, will confer on the victor the abiding firmness of peace. Therefore, as long as we feel ourselves struck by the movement of the flesh, let us know that we have not yet arrived at the heights of chastity, but are still set under the weakness of continence, worn out by battles in which the outcome must always be in doubt. As for your wishing to establish, by this proof, that the movement of the flesh is inevitable—because not even the eunuchs themselves can be free of it once the genitals are removed—it must be understood that what is lacking to them is not the heats of the flesh nor the impulse of lust, but only the power of generative seed. From which it is plain that not even they, if they wish to come to the chastity for which we strive, ought to be released from humility and contrition of heart or from the strictness of continence—although it is by no means to be doubted that chastity can be grasped by them with less labor and zeal.

Chapter 11

And so the perfection of chastity is distinguished from the toilsome beginnings of continence by a perpetual tranquility. For this is the consummation of true chastity: that, no longer fighting the movements of carnal desire but detesting them with utter horror, it keeps a continual and inviolable purity of itself, and can be nothing other than holiness. And this will come about when the flesh, now ceasing to lust against the spirit, has consented to its desires and its virtue, and the two have begun to be bound to one another in a most firm peace, and—according to the psalmist’s saying—“brothers have dwelt together in unity,” Ps. 132:1 possessing that blessedness promised by the Lord, of which he says: “If two of you agree upon earth about anything whatever they ask, it shall be done for them by my Father who is in heaven.” Matt. 18:19 Whoever, then, has passed beyond the degree of that spiritual Jacob—that is, the supplanter—will climb up, from that wrestling of continence and supplanting of the vices, with the sinew of his thigh benumbed, Gen. 32:25 to the merit of Israel, by a perpetual straightness of heart. This order the blessed David too marked out by the foretelling of the Holy Spirit, saying first: “God is known in Judaea,” Ps. 75:2 that is, in the soul which is still held under the confession of sins—for ‘Judaea’ is interpreted ‘confession’; but in Israel—that is, in the one who sees God, or (as some interpret) is ‘most upright of God’—he is not only known, but great is his name. Then, calling us to loftier things and wishing to show the very place in which the Lord takes delight, he says: “And his place has been made in peace,” Ps. 75:3 that is, not in the clash of the contest and the wrestling of the vices, but in the peace of chastity and in the perpetual tranquility of the heart. Whoever, then, has deserved to obtain this place of peace by the extinction of the carnal passions, advancing further from this degree and becoming in consequence a spiritual Sion—that is, a watchtower of God—will be his dwelling too. For the Lord abides not in the clash of continence, but on the continual watchtower of the virtues, where now he neither blunts nor presses down, but has broken forever the powers of the bows from which the fiery darts of the lusts were once aimed against us. You see, then, that just as the place of the Lord is not in the wrestling of continence but in the peace of chastity, so too his dwelling is on the watchtower and in the contemplation of the virtues. Hence, not without reason are the gates of Sion preferred to all the tents of Jacob: “For the Lord loves the gates of Sion above all the tents of Jacob.” Ps. 86:2 But as for your asserting that the movement of the flesh is inevitable—because urine, when it has filled the bladder by its constant trickle, rouses the members even at rest—although for the true followers of purity this movement (which this necessity alone sometimes stirs up, and that only through sleep) in no way prejudices the obtaining of purity, still it must be understood that, if they are so stirred, they are brought back to their proper rest at the command of chastity in such a way that they are quieted not merely with no titillation, but without even the least recollection of lust. And therefore, so that the law of the body may agree with the law of the mind, even in the drinking of water itself the excess must be so chastened that the daily collection of that humor, flowing first into the members that have been dried out, may render that movement of the body which you think inevitable not only very rare but also sluggish—a warm, lukewarm, and (so to speak) cold fire—and may rouse a dewy flame with no scorching heat: like that marvelous vision of Moses, so that the bush of our flesh, though ringed with a harmless fire, is not burned; Exod. 3:2 or like those three young men, from whom the flame of the Chaldean furnace was so beaten back by the dewing spirit that the smell of the fire breathed upon neither their hair nor the fringes of their garments; Dan. 3:27 so that we may begin to possess even now, in this body, that which is in a way promised to the saints through the prophet: “When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not blaze in you.” Is. 43:2

Chapter 12

For great indeed and wonderful are the things—known to none of men at all, except only to those who have experienced them—which the Lord bestows with unspeakable generosity on his faithful ones while they are still set in this little vessel of corruption. Surveying these with purity of mind, the Prophet, speaking both from his own person and from that of those who arrive at this state and disposition, cried out: “Wonderful are your works, Lord, and my soul shall know them exceedingly.” Ps. 138:14 Otherwise the prophet is understood to have said nothing new or great, if he is believed to have declared this with some other feeling of heart or about some other works of God. For there is no one among men who does not recognize, even from the greatness of creation itself, that the works of God are wonderful. But those which he dispenses among his saints by a daily working, and pours out abundantly with a special munificence, no one else knows except the soul that enjoys them—which, in the secret of its own conscience, is so singular a witness of his benefits that it can not only expound them by no speech, but cannot even grasp them by feeling and thought, once, departing from that fiery fervor, it has been rolled back down to these material and earthly gazings. For who would not marvel at the works of the Lord in himself, when he has seen the insatiable greed of the belly and the costly, ruinous excess of the gullet so pressed down in him that he scarcely takes even that scanty and cheapest food, and rarely and unwillingly? Who would not be astonished at the works of God, when he has felt that fire of lust—which before he believed natural and, as it were, inextinguishable—so cooled that he does not feel himself roused even by a simple movement of the body? How would anyone not tremble at the power of the Lord, when he has seen men once fierce and savage, who were provoked to the height of angry fury even by the most obliging services of their subordinates, pass over into such gentleness that they are now not only stirred by no injuries but even, when injuries are inflicted, rejoice with the greatest magnanimity? Who indeed would not marvel at the works of God, and proclaim with his whole heart, “For I have known that the Lord is great,” Ps. 134:5 when he has seen either himself or someone else become, from a most rapacious man, generous; from a prodigal, continent; from a proud man, humble; from a delicate and soft man, squalid and shaggy—and bearing even willingly the want and hardship of present things? These indeed are the wonderful works of God, which the soul of the Prophet and of those like him, stunned by the gaze of a wonderful contemplation, knows in a special way. These are the prodigies which he has set upon the earth; and considering them, the same prophet calls all peoples to their admiration, saying: “Come and see the works of God, the prodigies he has set upon the earth, taking away wars to the ends of the earth; he will shatter the bow and break the weapons, and burn the shields with fire.” Ps. 45:9, 10 For what greater prodigy can there be than that, in the briefest moment, apostles are made from most rapacious tax-collectors, and from savage persecutors the most patient preachers of the Gospel are produced—so that they spread, even by the shedding of their own blood, the very faith they had persecuted? These are the works of God which the Son testifies that he works daily together with the Father, saying: “My Father works until now, and I work.” John 5:17 Of these works of God the blessed David, singing in the spirit, says: “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who alone does great wonders.” Ps. 71:18 Of these the prophet Amos too says: “He who makes all things, and turns them, and changes them into the morning shadow of death.” Amos 5:8 This indeed is “the change of the right hand of the Most High.” Ps. 76:11 Concerning this saving operation of God the Prophet prays to the Lord, saying: “Confirm, God, this which you have worked in us.” Ps. 67:29 And—to pass over those secret and hidden dispensations of God which the mind of all the saints beholds being worked within itself at every single moment—there is that heavenly infusion of spiritual gladness by which the dejected soul is lifted up, in the eagerness of unhoped-for joy, to those unknown transports of the heart, and to consolations of joys as unspeakable as they are unheard-of, by which, sometimes torpid with the most sluggish stupor, we are roused, as if from the deepest sleep, to the most fervent prayer. This, I say, is the joy of which the blessed Apostle says: “What the eye has not seen, nor the ear heard, nor has it risen into the heart of man,” 1 Cor. 2:9 of that man, namely, who, dulled by earthly vices, is still ‘man’ and clings to human affections, and beholds nothing of these gifts of God. Finally, the same Apostle, speaking both of himself and of those like him who had now departed from the human way of life, added, saying: “But to us God has revealed it through his Spirit.” 1 Cor. 2:10

Chapter 13

In all these things, then, the more the mind advances to a subtler purity, the more loftily will it gaze upon God, and the more it will take within itself increases of wonder, rather than find the ability to speak or a discourse to narrate. For just as the inexperienced cannot perceive with the mind the force of this gladness, so the experienced will not be able to unfold it in speech—as though someone wished to describe in words the sweetness of honey to one who had never tasted anything sweet: assuredly the latter will not take in by his ears the pleasantness of that flavor which he has never perceived with his mouth, nor will the former be able to indicate in words the sweetness he has come to know by the pleasure of taste; but, allured only by his own acquaintance with the sweetness, he must silently marvel within himself alone at the delight of the flavor he has experienced. So, then, whoever has deserved to come to that state of the virtues which we have described, surveying with silent mind all the things the Lord works in his own by a special grace, and set aflame by the astonished consideration of them all, will cry out with the deepest feeling of his heart: “Wonderful are your works, God, and my soul shall know them exceedingly.” Ps. 138:14 This, then, is the wonderful work of God: that a fleshly man, set in the flesh, should have rejected the fleshly affections, and, amid so great a variety of things and of assaults, should hold one state of soul and remain unmoved in every change of circumstance. Grounded in this virtue, a certain elder—when at Alexandria, surrounded by crowds of unbelievers, he was pressed not only with insults but even with the gravest injuries of those who jostled him, and one of the mockers said to him, ‘What miracle has your Christ, whom you worship, done?’—replied: ‘This: that I am neither moved nor offended by these injuries, or by greater ones, if you inflict them.’

Chapter 14

Germanus: Since our admiration for this chastity—not human, nor earthly, but plainly heavenly and angelic—has thrown us into such sudden astonishment that it strikes us more with the terror of despair than it provokes our minds to seek after it, we ask that you instruct us, by the teaching of a fullest discussion, about the quality of the observance and the measure of time in which it can be acquired or perfected—so that we may both believe it can be brought to completion and, set within a definite span of time, be encouraged to seek after it. For in a way we judge it incomprehensible for those set in this flesh, unless some order, and a way by which it can be reached, is opened to us by sure reasoning.

Chapter 15

Chaeremon: It is rash enough to define a fixed measure of time for the consummation of this chastity of which we speak—especially amid so great a diversity both of pleasures and of strengths—since such a measure cannot easily be discerned even in these material arts and visible disciplines; for, according to each one’s intensity of mind and quality of native talent, they must necessarily be grasped by one man more quickly and by another more slowly. Still, the method of the observance, and the measure of time within which its possibility may be recognized, we can define most consistently. Whoever, then, drawn away from all idle chatter, and put to death to all anger and anxiety and worldly care, is content with only two small biscuits for his daily meal, and, with the full satisfying of water withdrawn, limits the rest of sleep to the space of three—or, as others have laid down, four—hours; and yet believes that he will attain it not by the merit of these labors or of this continence but by the mercy of the Lord (for without this faith every effort of human labor is empty)—such a one will find that the perfection of it is not impossible for him within no more than six months. Yet it is already an evident sign of purity close at hand when a man begins to hope for it no longer from the industry of his own labor. For if each one has truly grasped the force of that little verse—“Unless the Lord builds the house, in vain do they labor who build it” Ps. 126:1—it follows that he neither exalts himself over the merits of his own purity, understanding that he has obtained it not by his own diligence but by the Lord’s mercy, nor is moved with harsh severity against others, knowing that human virtue is nothing if the divine virtue does not help it.

Chapter 16

So then, for each of us who sweats with all his strength against the spirit of fornication, the single victory is this: to hope for no remedy from the merit of his own effort. This faith, though it seems easy and plain to all, is nonetheless possessed by beginners as hardly as the perfection of chastity itself. For when even a small particle of purity has smiled on them, at once—with a certain elation subtly gliding into the secret places of their conscience—they flatter themselves, and, believing that they have obtained it by the zeal of their own diligence, must necessarily be stripped a little of that heavenly protection and be oppressed by the very passions which the divine power had extinguished, for as long as it takes them to learn, by the teaching of experience, that they cannot obtain the good of purity by their own strength and industry. And, to conclude briefly our discussion about the goal of fullest chastity, worked out in a long night’s labor—gathering into one all that has been set out copiously and here and there—this is the consummation of chastity: that no pleasure of lust graze the waking monk, that no illusion of dreams deceive him at rest; but that when, only in one asleep, a movement of the flesh has crept in through the carelessness of a drowsing mind, then, just as it was stirred without any titillation of pleasure, so too it should subside without any arousal of the body. This concerning the goal of chastity we have set out, as far as we could, not by words but under the teaching of experience. And though I suppose it may perhaps be judged impossible by the slothful and negligent, I am nonetheless certain that it will be acknowledged and approved alike by zealous and spiritual men. For there is as great a distance between one man and another as the things toward which their minds’ intention reaches are set apart from one another—that is, either heaven from hell, or Christ from Belial—according to the saying of the Lord and Savior: “If anyone serves me, let him follow me; and where I am, there my servant also will be.” John 12:26 And again: “Where your treasure is, there your heart also will be.” Matt. 6:21 Thus far the blessed Chaeremon discoursed on the perfection of chastity, and brought the admirable teaching of a most sublime purity to a close with such a discourse—persuading us, astonished and anxious as we were, that, since the greater part of the night had now slipped away, we should give our limbs to rest and not defraud them in the least of the natural food of sleep, lest the mind too, languishing through the torpor of its body, lose the vigor of its holy intention.