By which it is evidently shown that patience is thus the most efficacious medicine of the heart — according to that saying of Solomon: A gentle man is the physician of the heart — so that it uproots not only the tinder of anger, sadness, accidie, vainglory, and pride, but also that of lust and equally of all the vices. For in long-suffering, as Solomon says, is the prosperity of kings. For he who is ever mild and tranquil is neither kindled by the disturbance of wrath, nor consumed by the anguish of accidie and sadness, nor puffed up with the vanity of vainglory, nor lifted up by the swelling of pride. For much peace have they that love the name of the Lord, and to them there is no stumbling-block. And therefore it is not without reason pronounced: Better is the patient man than the strong, and he that rules his spirit than he that takes a city.
This peace, therefore, until we deserve to obtain it firm and perpetual, we must needs be tempted by many assaults, and frequently must this verse be repeated by us with groaning and tears: I am become miserable, and am bowed down utterly: I went about sorrowful all the day long. For my loins are filled with illusions, and: There is no health in my flesh because of the face of thy wrath: there is no peace for my bones because of the face of my foolishness.
For then shall we fittingly and in truth bewail these things, when after long purity of our body, now hoping that we have altogether escaped the carnal contagions, we feel the goads of the flesh rise up against us again on account of the elation of heart; or at least, through the deception of dreams, the impurity of the former defilement besprinkles us. For when someone has begun to rejoice in a long-continued purity of heart and body, it must needs be that, while he believes he can no longer be rolled down from that sincerity, he in a manner glories within himself and says: I said in my abundance, I shall not be moved for ever:
But when, usefully abandoned for a while by the Lord, he perceives that state of purity in which he trusted in himself to be thrown into disorder, and sees himself totter in that spiritual success, let him at once run back to the Author of that integrity, and, acknowledging his own infirmity, let him confess and say: O Lord, not by my own, but by thy will thou didst furnish strength to my beauty. Thou didst turn away thy face, and I was troubled. Also that word of blessed Job: If I be washed as it were with snow-water, and my hands shine as most clean, yet thou shalt dip me in filth, and my own garments shall abhor me. Which, however, he who dips himself in filth by his own fault cannot say to his Creator.
Until, therefore, he arrives at the perfect state of purity, it is necessary that he be more frequently schooled by these inequalities, until, confirmed by the grace of God in that purity which he seeks, he may deserve effectively to say: I waited patiently for the Lord, and he inclined unto me. And he heard my prayer, and brought me up out of the pit of misery and out of the miry clay. And he set my feet upon a rock, and directed my steps. For there are many degrees of chastity by which one ascends to that inviolable purity.
quoslicetnecperspicerenecenuntiareutdignumestuirtusnostrasufficiat, tamen, quiaseriesnarrationisexposcit, secundummediocritatemexperientiaenostraeutcumqueproferretemptabimus, reseruantesperfectioraperfectisnecpraeiudicanteshisquiferuentiorestudiopurioremcastimoniampossidentesquantomaiorisindustriaesunt, tantoetiamperspicaciaeuigorepraecellunt.
Although our ability suffices neither to perceive nor to declare these as is worthy, yet, because the course of the narration demands it, we shall attempt in some way to set them forth according to the mediocrity of our experience, reserving more perfect things for the perfect, and not prejudging those who, possessing a purer chastity with more fervent zeal, as they are of greater industry, so also excel in vigour of discernment.
Accordingly I will distinguish the lofty summits of chastity by six degrees, though separated one from another by much sublimity, in such a way that I pass over certain intermediate ones — which nevertheless are many — whose subtlety so eludes the human senses that neither can the mind inspect it nor the tongue avail to utter it, and by which the perfection of chastity itself gradually grows with daily advances. For after the likeness of earthly bodies, which imperceptibly take their increases day by day and thus, while they know it not, are brought forward to their perfect stature, the strength and maturity of chastity is acquired for the soul also.
The first degree of chastity, then, is that the monk when awake be not overthrown by carnal assault; the second, that his mind linger not among voluptuous thoughts; the third, that he be not moved even slightly to concupiscence by the sight of a woman; the fourth, that when awake he suffer not even a simple motion of the flesh; the fifth, that when the reasoning of a discussion or the necessity of reading has brought in the remembrance of human generation, the subtlest assent of a voluptuous act may not graze his mind, but that he contemplate it with a tranquil and pure gaze of the heart, as some simple work and ministry necessarily allotted to the human race, and conceive nothing more from its recollection than if he were mentally handling the working of bricks or of any other workshop.
The sixth degree of chastity is that he be not deluded, even while sleeping, by the enticing phantasms of women. For although we do not believe this delusion to be liable to sin, it is nevertheless a sign of concupiscence still lurking in the marrow. Yet this illusion, it is established, comes about in diverse ways. For according to that habit which one was accustomed to practise or to think while awake, even while sleeping each one is tempted. For those who have known carnal union are deceived in one way, and those who are inexperienced in intercourse with women in another. For as these latter are wont to be disquieted by simpler and purer dreams, so also they can be cleansed with easier diligence and less labour.
But those men are deluded by fouler and more vivid phantasms, until gradually, according to the measure of chastity toward which each one strives, the mind, even when lulled in sleep, is turned to a hatred of that very thing which formerly it felt as pleasurable; and there is granted to him by the Lord that which is promised through the prophet to valiant men as the highest reward of their labours: 'And I will break the bow, and the sword, and war out of your land: and I will make you to sleep securely.'
And so at last it comes to pass that he attains to that purity of blessed Serenus and of the few men like him — which I have therefore set apart from the aforesaid six degrees of chastity, because it can not only be possessed but even believed by only the very rarest of men, and because what was specially bestowed upon him by the bounty of divine grace cannot be set forth as the pattern of a general precept — namely, that our mind may be so far shaped by the purity of chastity itself that, the very natural motion of the flesh being deadened, it may not endure that foul discharge at all.
I ought not to keep silent about the opinion of certain persons which they lay down concerning this defilement of the flesh, who say that it does not befall sleepers because the deceit of dreams produces it, but rather because the overflow of that humour fashions certain enticements in the ailing heart. In short, they say that at that time when that accumulation does not trouble one, then, just as its flux ceases, so also the illusion is at rest. But no one will be able to accept or approve these things, or to determine by any sure test whether they be possible or impossible, unless through long experience and purity of heart, with the word of the Lord guiding him, he has arrived at the borders of flesh and spirit.
Concerning which the blessed Apostle says: 'The word of God is living and effectual, and more piercing than any two-edged sword; and reaching unto the division of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also and the marrow, and a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.'
And thus, placed as it were within the borders between those two, he will discern with just weighing, like an inspector and judge, what has been necessarily and inevitably assigned to the human condition, and what has been introduced by vicious habit and the carelessness of youth; and concerning their effect and nature he will not be led astray by the false opinions of the crowd, nor acquiesce in the prejudiced definitions of the inexperienced, but weighing the measure of purity with the sure balance of his own experience and with an innate examination, he will by no means be deceived by the error of those who — soiled by more frequent emissions than nature compels, through the fault of their own negligence — complain of it as though it were a natural condition; and although it is established that they rather do violence to nature and wring from it a pollution which it does not of itself bring on, they refer their intemperance to the necessity of the flesh, nay rather to its Creator, transferring their own faults to the discredit of nature.
Concerning whom it is elegantly expressed in the Proverbs: 'The folly of a man corrupts his ways: but he blames God in his heart.' Finally, if anyone should wish to withhold his belief from this assertion of ours, I beg that he not dispute with us with a preconceived opinion before he has taken up the practices of this discipline; and when, for some very few months, he has observed these things with the moderation in which it is handed down, he will assuredly be able to prove by true judgment the things we have said. Otherwise, anyone will strive in vain concerning the end of any art and discipline whatsoever, who has not first, with the utmost zeal and virtue, pursued all the things that pertain to its consummation.
For instance, if I were to affirm that a substance like honey can be produced from wheat, or again that from it, as also from the seeds of radish and flax, a most smooth liquid of oil can be produced — if someone utterly ignorant of these things were present, would he not, crying out that this is contrary to the nature of things, deride me as the author of a most manifest lie? And if to him I were to present countless witnesses who testify that they have both seen and tasted and made these things, and were moreover to expound the reason and manner 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 anything either of sweetness or of oil could be produced from those seeds:
would not his irrational and obstinate contentiousness be more to be noted than the truth of my discourse to be derided — a truth which is supported by the weight of many faithful witnesses, and by evident proofs, and, what is more than these, by the confirmation of experience?
And therefore whoever, by the continual attention of the heart, has come to that state of purity, so that now, with the mind wholly loosed from the titillation of this passion, his flesh during sleep expels as it were the overflow of superfluous humour — he will most certainly perceive the condition and measure of nature; and so, when on awaking he finds his flesh, after long intervals of time, defiled without his knowing or being aware of it, then at last let him complain of natural necessity, doubtless arriving at that state in which he is found such at night as by day, such in bed as at prayer, such alone as when surrounded by throngs of men; and finally such that he never in secret regards himself as he would blush to be seen by men, nor does that inescapable Eye detect in him anything of the sort which he would wish to be hidden from human sight.
And thus, when he begins to delight continually in the most sweet light of chastity, he will be able to say with the prophet: 'And night shall be my illumination in my delights. For darkness shall not be dark from thee, and night shall be as light as the day: the darkness thereof and the light thereof are alike.' Finally, this very thing — because it seems to be above the condition of human nature — the same prophet subjoins how he obtained it, saying: 'For thou hast possessed my reins'; that is, not by my own industry nor strength have I merited this purity, but because thou hast mortified the ardour of lustful pleasure implanted in my reins. GERMANUS:
We have indeed to some extent experienced that a perpetual purity of the body can, by the grace of God, be possessed by the waking, and we do not deny that the commotion of the flesh, when the strictness and judgment of self-discipline resists, can fail to happen to the waking. But whether even in sleep we can be free from this disturbance, we wish to be taught. For we do not believe this to be possible for two reasons, which, though we cannot state them without shame, yet, since the necessity of the remedy itself compels this, we beg that you receive them with your pardon, if perhaps some things be somewhat immodestly laid bare.
The first, then, is that, through the repose of sleep when the vigour of the mind is relaxed, the stealthy onset of that commotion can by no means be guarded against; the second, that even the collection of urine, when by an unceasing inflow of the inner humour it has filled the capacity of the bladder while we are at rest, arouses the drooping members — which happens by the same law nonetheless even to little children and to eunuchs. Whence it comes to pass that, even if the delight of lust does not wound the mind's assent, yet the shamefulness of the members humbles it with confusion. CHAEREMON:
It appears that you have not yet recognized the virtue of true chastity, since you believe that it is retained by the waking only by the help of self-discipline, and hence it is that you think that in sleep, when the firmness of the mind is as it were relaxed, integrity cannot be preserved. But chastity subsists not, as you suppose, by the protection of 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 have received the disposition of chastity to the very marrow through the grace of God, the cessation of self-discipline when they sleep does no harm — a discipline which is proved by most certain reasoning to be unreliable even for the waking.
For whatever is suppressed with toil grants to the fighter a temporary truce, yet does not bestow a perpetual repose of security after the toil; but whatever has been overcome by deep virtue, being settled without any suspicion of disturbance, will confer on the victor the lasting firmness of peace. Wherefore, so long as we feel ourselves assailed by the commotion of the flesh, let us know that we have not yet reached the heights of chastity, but are still, placed under the weakness of continence, wearied by battles in which the outcomes must always be doubtful.
But as to the fact that you wished to establish, by this proof, that the commotion of the flesh is inevitable — namely that not even eunuchs, with their genitals removed, can be without it — it must be known that it is not carnal heats nor the effect of lust that is lacking to them, but only the power of generative reproduction. Whence it is manifest that not even they, if they desire to attain to this chastity toward 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 disbelieved that chastity can be grasped by them with less toil and effort. Wherefore the perfection of chastity is distinguished from the toilsome rudiments of continence by perpetual tranquillity.
For this is the consummation of true chastity, which does not fight against the movements of carnal concupiscence but, detesting them with utter horror, keeps its own purity continual and inviolate; nor can it be anything other than holiness. And this will come to pass when the flesh, now ceasing to lust against the spirit, shall have consented to its desires and its virtue, and they shall begin to be joined to one another in a most firm peace, and, according to the sentence of the Psalmist, 'brethren shall dwell together in unity,' possessing that blessedness promised by the Lord, of which he says: 'If two of you shall consent upon earth concerning anything whatsoever they shall ask, it shall be done for them by my Father who is in heaven.'
Whoever, then, has transcended the degree of that intellectual Jacob — that is, of the supplanter — will, after the withering of his thigh's sinew in that struggle of continence and supplanting of vices, ascend by the perpetual direction of his heart to the merit of Israel. This order the blessed David likewise marked out by the prophecy of the Holy Spirit, saying first: 'God is known in Judaea' — 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 him who sees God, or, as some interpret, who is most upright toward God — he is not only known, but 'his name also is great.'
Then, provoking us to loftier things, and not unwilling to show even the very place in which the Lord delights, he says: 'And his place is made in peace' — that is, not in the conflict of the contest and the wrestling of vices, but in the peace of chastity and the perpetual tranquillity of the heart. Whoever, then, shall have deserved to obtain this place of peace by the extinction of carnal passions, advancing also from this degree and becoming spiritual Sion — that is, the watchtower of God — will consequently be made also his dwelling-place.
For the Lord dwells not in the conflict of continence, but on the perpetual watchtower of virtues, where he no longer beats back nor suppresses, but has forever shattered the powers of the bows from which, namely, the fiery darts of 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 also his dwelling is on the watchtower and in the contemplation of virtues. Whence not undeservedly are the gates of Sion preferred to all the tabernacles of Jacob: 'for the Lord loveth the gates of Sion above all the tabernacles of Jacob.'
But as to the fact that by this you assert the commotion of the flesh to be inevitable — that urine, when it has filled the bladder by continual dripping, arouses the members at rest — although this commotion, which sometimes this necessity alone and only in sleep arouses, in no way prejudices the true followers of purity from obtaining it: yet it must be known that, if the members be so aroused, they are recalled to their proper repose by the command of chastity, so that they are quieted not only with no itching, but not even with the least recollection of lust.
And therefore, in order that the law of the body also may agree with the law of the mind, even in the very drinking of water excess is to be chastised, so that that daily collection of humour, flowing more sluggishly into members that have been dried, may render that motion of the body which you deem inevitable not only most rare but also slow and lukewarm, and may kindle, so to speak, a cold fire and a flame bedewing without the burning heat of any scorching — after the likeness of that wondrous Mosaic vision, so that the bush of our flesh, though encompassed by a harmless fire, is not consumed; or like that of the three young men, from whom the flame of the Chaldean furnace was so dispersed by the bedewing Spirit that not even a hair of theirs nor the fringes of their garments did the smell of the fire touch — so that we may begin already in this body to possess, in a certain manner, that which is promised to the saints through the prophet:
'When thou shalt walk through the fire, thou shalt not be burnt, and the flame shall not kindle upon thee.' For great indeed and marvellous, and known to no men at all save only to those who have experienced them, are the things which the Lord bestows with unspeakable liberality upon his faithful ones while they are still set in this frail vessel of corruption. Which things the prophet, surveying with the purity of his mind, exclaimed, as much in his own person as in the person of those who arrive at this state and disposition: 'Wonderful are thy works, and my soul knoweth right well.' Otherwise, the prophet is understood to have said nothing new or great, if he be believed to have declared these things with a different disposition of heart, or concerning other works of God.
For there is no man who does not recognize that the works of God are wonderful, even from the greatness of creation itself; but those things which he dispenses in his saints by daily operation, and pours out abundantly with special munificence, no one recognizes save the soul that enjoys them — a soul which, in the secret of its own conscience, is thus the singular judge of his benefits, yet is able not only to expound them in no speech, but not even to grasp them by sense and thought, once it has, departing from that fiery fervour, been rolled down again to these material and earthly contemplations.
For who would not marvel at the works of the Lord in himself, when he has seen the insatiable voracity of the belly and the costly and pernicious luxury of gluttony so compressed within him that he scarcely, and rarely and unwillingly, takes even that scanty and cheapest food? Who would not be astounded at the works of God, who has perceived that fire of lust, which before he believed to be natural and as it were inextinguishable, so cooled that he does not feel himself incited even by a simple motion of the body?
How would he not tremble at the power of the Lord — whoever has seen men once dire and savage, who were provoked to the utmost fury of wrath even by the most gentle compliances of their subordinates, pass over to such great mildness that they are not only no longer stirred by any injuries, but even, when injuries have been inflicted, rejoice with the utmost magnanimity? Who plainly would not marvel at the works of God and proclaim with his whole heart: 'Because I have known that the Lord is great,' when he has beheld either himself or some other made from most rapacious liberal, from prodigal temperate, from proud humble, from delicate and soft squalid and shaggy, and enjoying even willingly the want and straitness of present things?
These assuredly are the wonderful works of God, which the soul of the prophet and of those like him, stupefied by the gaze of wondrous contemplation, especially recognizes. These are the prodigies which he has set upon the earth, which the same prophet, considering, summons all peoples to the admiration of, saying: 'Come and see the works of God, who hath set prodigies upon the earth: making wars to cease even to the ends of the earth. He shall break the bow, and shatter the weapons: and the shields he shall burn with fire.' For what greater prodigy can there be than that in a moment's briefest span apostles are made out of the most rapacious publicans, and out of savage persecutors the most patient preachers of the Gospel are rendered, so that they propagated by the very shedding of their own blood the faith which they had persecuted?
These are the works of God, which the Son together with the Father protests that he works daily, saying: 'My Father worketh until now, and I work.' Concerning these works of God the blessed David, singing in the spirit, says: 'Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who alone doth wonderful things.' Concerning these the prophet Amos also says: 'Who maketh all things and changeth them, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning.' This indeed is the change of the right hand of the Most High. Concerning this saving operation of God the prophet prays, saying: 'Confirm, O God, that which thou hast wrought in us.'
To pass over those secret and hidden dispensations of God, which the mind of all the saints beholds specially wrought within itself at every single moment — that heavenly infusion of spiritual gladness, by which the dejected soul is uplifted with the eagerness of inspired joy, those fiery ecstasies of the heart, and consolations of joys as ineffable as they are unheard-of, by which sometimes, when we are torpid with the most sluggish stupor, we are roused to most fervent prayer as though from the deepest sleep.
This, I say, is the joy concerning which the blessed Apostle says: 'That which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man' — of him, namely, who, blunted by earthly vices, is still a mere man and clings to human affections and beholds nothing of these gifts of God. Finally, the same Apostle, as much of himself as of those like him who had already departed from human conversation, subjoined, saying: 'But to us God hath revealed them by his Spirit.' In all these things, therefore, the more the mind advances to a more subtle purity, the more sublimely will it behold God, and it will receive within itself increases of admiration rather than find the faculty of speaking or the discourse of narration.
For just as the inexperienced will not be able to perceive with the mind the force of this gladness, so the experienced will not be able to unfold it in speech: as if someone should wish to describe in words the sweetness of honey to one who has never tasted anything sweet — assuredly neither will the latter grasp with his ears the pleasantness of that flavour which he has never perceived with his mouth, nor will the former be able to indicate in words the sweetness which he has known by the delight of taste, but, allured only by his own acquaintance with the sweetness, he must silently admire within himself alone the delightfulness of the flavour he has experienced.
So then, whoever has deserved to arrive at this state of virtues which we have described, surveying with silent mind all these things which the Lord works in his own by special grace, and inflamed by the astonished consideration of all these, will exclaim with the inmost affection of his heart: 'Wonderful are thy works, and my soul knoweth right well.' This, then, is the wonderful work of God: that a fleshly man, set in the flesh, should have spurned fleshly affections, and, amid so great a variety of circumstances and assaults, should hold one state of soul and endure unmoved in every change of things that befall.
Founded on which virtue, a certain old man, when near Alexandria, surrounded by throngs of unbelievers, was pressed not only with curses but even with the gravest injuries of those who assailed him; and when it was said to him by his mockers, 'What miracle has your Christ, whom you worship, done?' he replied: 'This — that by such injuries as these, and greater ones, if you should inflict them, I am not moved nor offended.' GERMANUS:
Since the admiration of this chastity — not human nor earthly, but plainly heavenly and angelic — has so suddenly confounded us with amazement that it strikes into us the terror of despair rather than provokes our minds to seek after it, we beg that you instruct us, by the teaching of a most complete discussion, concerning the quality of the observance and the measure of time in which it may be acquired or perfected, so that we may both believe it can be consummated and, being set within a fixed span of time, may be encouraged to seek after it hereafter. For we judge it to be in a manner incomprehensible for those set in this flesh, unless some order and way by which it may be attained be laid open to us by sure reasoning. CHAEREMON:
It is rash enough, concerning the consummation of this chastity of which we speak, to define a fixed measure of time — especially amid so great a diversity of wills and of powers — which cannot easily be determined even in these material arts and visible disciplines. For according to the intention of the mind and the quality of natural ability, they must needs be grasped by each one either more quickly or more slowly. Nevertheless, the method of observance and the measure of time within which its possibility may be recognized, we can most steadfastly prescribe beforehand.