On Thoughts and Carnal Impulses

We must strive to be free from impure thoughts, especially when we are offering prayer to God. For there is no union between foul stench and sweet fragrance.

For this reason we must repel the first assault of sinful thoughts and impulses and scatter them from the soil of our heart. While the children of Babylon—that is, evil impulses and thoughts—are still infants, we must dash and shatter them against the rock,28 which is Christ;29 and we must especially crush the following three passions: gluttony, love of money, and vainglory, by which the devil attempted to tempt even our Lord Jesus Christ himself at the end of his struggles in the desert.

The devil, “like a lion,” lurking “in his lair” (Ps. 9:30), secretly sets snares for us of impure and ungodly thoughts. Therefore, the moment we perceive them, we must tear them apart through devout reflection and prayer.

Struggle and great vigilance are required so that during the singing of psalms our mind may be in accord with our heart and lips, and so that no foul odor may mingle with the incense of our prayer. For the Lord abhors a heart filled with impure thoughts. The Law says: “You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together”30 (Deut. 22:10)—that is, do not offer prayer while entertaining both a pure and an impure thought.

Let us imitate David, who says: In the morning I would destroy all the wicked of the land, to cut off all evildoers from the city of the Lord31 (Ps. 100:8). The Law forbade the unclean from entering the house of the Lord. That house is ourselves, and Jerusalem is within us. The wicked of the land are the serpentine thoughts lurking in our heart. Let us also cry out to the Lord with him: “Rescue my soul from their wickedness” (Ps. 34:17); “Scatter the nations that delight in war”32 (Ps. 67:31), so that we too may hear: “In your affliction you called upon me, and I delivered you” (Ps. 80:8).

Let us continually, day and night, cast ourselves with tears before the face of God’s goodness, that he may cleanse our hearts of every evil thought, so that we may worthily walk the path of our calling and with pure hands offer him the gifts of our service.

If we do not consent to the evil thoughts instilled by the devil, then we are doing good.

The unclean spirit has strong influence only over those who are enslaved to the passions; to those who have been purified of the passions it approaches only from the outside, or externally.

Can a person in the years of youth not burn and be disturbed by carnal thoughts? Yet one must pray to the Lord God that the spark of corrupt passions may be quenched at its very beginning. Then the flame of the passions will not grow strong within a person.