SO GOOD QUOTES

On the Spirit of Fornication

CHAPTER 4. What is the difference between continence and chastity, and whether both are always found together

In fact, it is one thing to be continent, that is encratite, and another to be chaste. This latter means to advance to that state of integrity and incorruption that they call agnos, which only refers to those who remain virginal in both mind and body.

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We hold that this condition is very difficult to attain among crowds of men. But whether it is impossible, each one should personally judge on the basis of conscience. We do not expect everyone to agree with our opinion on this. Moreover, we don’t doubt that there are many continent persons who suffer infrequent or daily assaults of the flesh, but who manage to put them down and repress them either for fear of hell or desire for the kingdom of heaven. But our elders tell us that just as these men cannot be entirely overwhelmed by the assaults of vices, neither can they always be secure and unscathed. For it is inevitable that someone in the midst of the fray sometimes be thrown into confusion himself, even though he frequently conquer his adversary.

CHAPTER 5. That the assault of fornication are impossible to overcome by human effort alone.

IF we really desire to enter into this spiritual combat on the same terms as the Apostle (2 Tm 4:7), let us concentrate our every effort at dominating this unclean spirit by placing our confidence not in our own forces but on the help of God. Human effort will never be able to win through here. For the soul will be attacked by this vice as long as it does not recognize that it is in a war beyond its powers and that it cannot obtain victory by its own effort unless it is shored up by the help and protection of the Lord.

CHAPTER 6. The particular grace of God necessary for the attainment of chastity.

There is no virtue which renders the lives of carnal men more similar to that of the angelic spirits than the attainment and the gift of chastity.

CHAPTER 11. From which Vice Nocturnal Illusions Proceed

THE quality of the thoughts, which are guarded negligently during the day because of distractions, is tested during the night rest. When such a fantasy occurs, it ought not to be thought a fault of sleep, but rather due to some negligence of the preceding time. It is a manifestation of a hidden interior fault, and not really produced by the hour of the night. Though it has lain hidden in the depths of the soul, sleep brings it to the surface. Repose reveals the hidden fever of passion which we have been stoking all day with harmful thoughts. Likewise, bodily sicknesses are not thought to be caused at the time they emerge, but contracted previously when the person imprudent­ly ate harmful food and so took on harmful and lethal humors.

CHAPTER 13. What the First Custodian of Fleshly Purgation is.

THIS will be the first concern of the purgation: when the thought of the feminine sex first creeps up on our mind through the subtle suggestions of the crafty demon, beginning with the recollection of our mother, sisters, relatives or of certain pious women, we should hasten to drive it out of our inner being. If we were to linger over it, the tempter might take the occasion to make us gradually think of other women and so introduce evil thoughts.

CHAPTER 19. A Saying of the Holy Bishop Basil concerning the quality of his virginity.

THE following severe saying is reported of St. Basil, the Bishop of Caesarea: “I know not woman and yet I am not a virgin.” By this he means that bodily purity consists not so much in foreswearing women but in integrity of heart. For it maintains a perpetual incorrupt holiness of heart whether from the fear of God or from love of purity.

—St. John Cassian, Institutes