Moralia in Job 994

6. That we may be God's inheritance, let sin not reign in us. Neither proud chastity nor unchaste humility profits anything. — As if he plainly said: If I defile my mind by thought, I can in no way be the inheritance of Him who is the Author of purity. For all other good things are nothing, if they are not approved by the testimony of chastity before the eyes of the hidden Judge. Indeed, all the virtues in the sight of the Creator raise one another up by mutual aid, so that, because one virtue without another is either nothing at all or very small, they are mutually sustained by their being joined together. For if humility should forsake chastity, or chastity abandon humility, before the Author of humility and purity, what avails either proud chastity or defiled humility?

Therefore the holy man, that he may be worthy to be possessed by his Author in his other good qualities, guarding the purity of his heart, may say: 'I made a covenant with my eyes, that I would not so much as think upon a virgin. For what portion should God have in me from above, and what inheritance should the Almighty have from on high?' (Job 31:1-2). As if he plainly confessed, saying: The Creator of the exalted ones refuses to hold me as His possession, if my mind wastes away before His sight in base desires. 7. An unclean thought does not defile when it merely knocks, but when it subjugates through delight. In corruptible flesh it is enough that sin should not reign. — But amid these things it should be known...

It should be known that one thing is what the soul suffers from the temptation of the flesh, and another is when it is bound by consent to its delights. For very often the mind is assailed by a wicked thought, yet resists; but very often, when it conceives something perverse, it also turns this over within itself with desire. And truly the unclean thought in no way defiles the mind when it knocks, but when it subjugates the mind to itself through delight. Hence the excellent preacher says: 'Let no temptation take hold of you, but such as is human' (1 Cor. 10:13). For a human temptation is that by which we are very often touched in thought even against our will, because the fact that unlawful things sometimes come to the mind — this indeed we have within ourselves from the weight of corruptible humanity.

But it is now a demonic and not a human temptation, when the soul binds itself by consent to that which the corruptibility of the flesh suggests. Hence again he says: 'Let not sin reign in your mortal body' (Rom. 6:12). Indeed, he forbade sin, not to be nonexistent in the mortal body, but to reign, because in corruptible flesh it cannot reign, yet it cannot be nonexistent. For this very thing — that one is tempted by sin — is itself sin, from which, as long as we live, we are by no means entirely and in every way free;

and because holy preaching could not fully expel this, it took from it the kingdom over the dwelling of our heart, so that unlawful appetite, even though it often secretly insinuates itself like a thief among our good thoughts, should at least, if it enters, not have dominion. Therefore the holy man, saying: 'I made a covenant with my eyes, that I would not so much as think upon a virgin,' in no way wishes it to be understood that fault never touched his soul in thought, but that he never let it prevail by consent. For he claims his own mind as an utterly intact possession of God against the plundering of the adversary, when he at once adds: 'For what portion should God have in me from above, and what inheritance should the Almighty have from on high?' As if he plainly said:

In my mortal flesh indeed I lie subject to the condition of corruption; but of what use am I to the Author whom I serve, if I do not defend for Him a mind kept whole from the consent of fault? There follows: