What we know for certain is that the desire for pleasure is corrupting and destructive of virtue. It is a root of addiction and almost every vice. St. Paul famously said that the “love of money is the root of all evil.” That is true primarily because money is the currency of pleasure. The fathers described our fallen state as a pendulum that moved between pleasure and pain (hedone and odyne). Pleasure, they observed, often begets pain which drives us to seek more pleasure. The wisdom of both the Stoics and the Christian fathers is that only a willingness to endure pain, at some level, is able to nurture virtue. We are not called to love suffering, but to flee suffering can be among the worst choices in life.

—Fr. Stephen Freeman, A Virtuous Man