That this is so, the variety of the gospel beatitudes also clearly shows. For although they be called blessed whose is the kingdom of heaven, and blessed they who shall possess the land, and blessed they who shall receive consolation, and blessed they who shall be satisfied with fulness, yet we believe that there is much difference between the habitation of the kingdom of heaven and the possession of that land, whatsoever it be, and between the reception of consolation and the fulness and satisfaction of justice; and there is a great distance between those who shall obtain mercy and those who shall deserve to enjoy the most glorious vision of God. For one is the glory of the sun, and another the glory of the moon, and another the glory of the stars; for star differeth from star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead.
When, therefore, according to this manner, the divine Scripture praises those who fear God and says: Blessed are all they that fear the Lord, and promises them by this a full beatitude, yet again it says: Fear is not in charity, but perfect charity casteth out fear, for fear hath punishment; and he that feareth is not perfect in charity. And again, though it be glorious to serve God, and it be said: Serve the Lord in fear, and: It is a great thing for thee to be called my servant, and: Blessed is that servant whom, when his lord shall come, he shall find so doing—yet to the apostles it is said: Now I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth;
but I have called you friends, because all things whatsoever I have heard of my Father I have made known to you; and again: You are my friends, if you do the things that I command you. You see therefore that the grades of perfection are diverse, and that we are summoned by the Lord from lofty things to loftier ones, so that he who has shown himself blessed and perfect in the fear of God, walking, as it is written, from virtue to virtue and from perfection to another perfection—that is, ascending with alacrity of mind from fear to hope—may be invited anew to a more blessed state, which is charity; and he who has been a faithful and prudent servant may pass over to the fellowship of friendship and the adoption of sons. According to this sense, then, our own opinion is also to be understood:
not that we pronounce the contemplation of that perpetual punishment, or of the most blessed recompense which is promised to the saints, to be of no moment; but because, although they be useful and introduce their followers to the beginnings of blessedness, charity in turn—in which there is fuller confidence and now perpetual joy—taking them up from servile fear and hireling hope, will transfer them to the love of God and the adoption of sons, and will in a certain manner make them more perfect out of the perfect. For there are many mansions, says the Saviour, with my Father; and though all the stars seem to be in heaven, yet between the brightness of the sun and the moon and the morning star and the other stars there is much distance.
And therefore the blessed Apostle, preferring charity not only to fear and hope, but even to all the graces which are held to be great and wondrous, shows the way of charity to be exceedingly more excellent than all. For when he wished, after completing the whole catalogue of spiritual graces, to describe the members of its excellence, he thus prefaced: And I show unto you yet a more excellent way. If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and if I should have prophecy, and should know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith so that I could remove mountains, and if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
You see, then, that nothing more precious, nothing more perfect, nothing more sublime, and, so to speak, nothing more enduring than charity is to be found. For whether there be prophecies, they shall be made void; or tongues, they shall cease; or knowledge, it shall be destroyed. But charity shall never fall away; without which not only those most excellent kinds of graces, but even the glory of martyrdom itself, is made void.
Whosoever, therefore, shall have been grounded in the perfection of this charity, must needs ascend by a more excellent grade to that more sublime fear of charity, which is begotten not by the terror of punishments nor by the desire of rewards, but by the greatness of love—whereby a son reveres his most indulgent father, or a brother his brother, or a friend his friend, or a spouse the spouse, with an anxious affection; who dreads not his blows nor his reproaches, but even the slightest offence to love, and in all things—not only in deeds but even in words—is ever stretched taut with intent devotion, lest the fervour of that love toward him should in any degree grow lukewarm.
The magnificence of this fear one of the prophets elegantly expressed, saying: Riches of salvation are wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is his treasure. He could not more clearly express the dignity and merit of this fear than by saying that the riches of our salvation, which consist in the true wisdom and knowledge of God, cannot be preserved except by the fear of the Lord. To this fear, then, not sinners but the saints are invited by the prophetic words, the psalmist saying: Fear the Lord, all ye his saints, for there is no want to them that fear him. For he who fears the Lord with this fear, it is certain that nothing is wanting to his perfection. For concerning that penal fear the Apostle John clearly says:
He who fears is not perfect in love, for fear has torment. There is therefore a great distance between that fear which lacks nothing, which is the treasure of wisdom and knowledge, and that other, imperfect fear which is called the beginning of wisdom, and which, holding torment within itself, is driven out from the hearts of the perfect by the incoming fullness of love. For fear is not in love, but perfect love casts out fear. And in very truth, if the beginning of wisdom consists in fear, what will be its perfection except in the love of Christ, which, holding within itself the awe of perfect love, is called no longer the beginning, but the treasure of wisdom and knowledge? And for this reason there is a twofold degree of fear.
The first is that of beginners, that is, of those who are still under the yoke and terror of servitude, of whom it is said: And the servant shall fear his master; and in the Gospel: Now I call you no longer servants, for the servant knows not what his master does. And therefore, he says, the servant abides not in the house for ever, but the son abides for ever. For he instructs us that we should pass over from that penal dread to the fullest liberty of love and to the confidence of friends and sons of God. Finally the blessed Apostle, who had long since transcended that servile degree of fear by the power of the Lord's love, despising the lower things, professes that he had been enriched by the Lord with greater goods. For God, he says, has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of soberness.
Those also who burned with the perfect love of that heavenly Father, and whom the divine adoption had already made sons out of servants, he exhorts with this word: For you have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. Concerning this awe too, when the prophet was describing that sevenfold Spirit, which there is no doubt descended upon that Man of the Lord according to the dispensation of the Incarnation, and had said: And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: the spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the spirit of counsel and of might, the spirit of knowledge and of piety, he added at the last, as something especially chief, saying: And the spirit of the fear of the Lord shall fill him.
In which we must first observe more carefully that he did not say, 'And the spirit of the fear of the Lord shall rest upon him,' as he had said of those earlier gifts, but he says, the spirit of the fear of the Lord shall fill him. For so great is the magnitude of its abundance that, whomever it has once possessed by its power, it occupies not a part but his whole mind. And not without reason. For, cleaving to that love which never falls away, it not only fills, but also possesses him whom it has taken with a perpetual and inseparable constancy, diminished by no delights of temporal gladness or pleasures — which is wont sometimes to befall that fear which is cast out.
This, then, is the fear of perfection, with which that Man of the Lord — who had come not only to redeem the human race, but also to furnish the pattern of perfection and examples of the virtues — is related to have been filled. For that servile fear of punishments the true Son of God could not have, who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. GERMANUS: Since the discourse on the perfection of love has been unfolded, we wish also to inquire somewhat more freely concerning the end of chastity. For we do not doubt that that lofty summit of love, by which, as has been discussed up to this point, one ascends to the image and likeness of God, cannot subsist at all without the perfection of chastity:
But whether its perpetuity can be so obtained that no titillation of lust may ever assail the integrity of our heart, and whether we can so sojourn free from this carnal passion while dwelling in the flesh, that we may never be scorched by the heats of temptation's incentives — of this we wish to be instructed. CHAEREMON: It is indeed a matter of the highest blessedness and of singular merit thus either to learn or to teach continually this affection through which we cleave to the Lord, so that the meditation of it, according to the saying of the psalmist, may consume all the days and nights of our life, and may sustain our mind — insatiably hungering and thirsting after righteousness — by the perpetual rumination of this heavenly food.
But provision must also be made for the beast of our body, according to the most kindly foresight of our Saviour, lest it faint on the way: for the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. And so even now it must be cared for by the taking of at least a little food, so that after its refreshment the mind's attention too may be more diligently applied to those things you desire to have investigated. ON CHASTITY. THE CHAPTERS. The words of Abbot Chaeremon on chastity. On the body of sin and its members. On the mortification of fornication and uncleanness. That the effort of human labour does not suffice to obtain the purity of chastity. On the usefulness of the assault that is generated in us from the heats of temptation's incentives. That patience extinguishes the ardour of fornication.
On the differences and degrees of chastity. That those without experience cannot treat of the nature of chastity and its effect. A question: whether even while sleeping we can escape the motion of the body. The answer: that a movement of the flesh occurring through sleep does not injure chastity. That there is a great difference between continence and chastity. On the marvels which the Lord works peculiarly in his saints. That only those who experience it recognise the sweetness of chastity. A question on the quality of continence and the measure of time in which chastity may be perfected. The answer: within what time the possibility of chastity may be recognised. On the end and remedy of chastity.
When the meal was over — which to us who desired the food of doctrine seemed burdensome rather than pleasant — as soon as the old man perceived that we were awaiting the debt of the promised discourse, he said: The intent of your mind, eager to learn, is pleasing to me, and so too is the orderliness of the question you have set. For in truth a reasonable order of inquiry has been kept by us. For it is necessary that the fullness of so lofty a love be attended by those immense rewards of perfect and perpetual chastity, and that the joy be equal in so great a parity of palms. For they are bound together in such fellowship that one cannot be possessed without the other.
This, then, is what your proposition embraced: that we should likewise expound by argument whether that fire of concupiscence, whose ardour this flesh feels as though implanted in it, can be fully extinguished. Concerning this, let us first inquire more diligently what the blessed Apostle held. Mortify, he says, your members which are upon the earth. Before, therefore, we scrutinise the rest, let us investigate what these members are which he has commanded to be mortified. For the blessed Apostle does not by cruel precept compel us to the cutting off of hands or feet or genitals, but he desires that the body of sin — which surely consists of members — be as quickly as possible destroyed by the zeal of perfect holiness.
Concerning which body he says elsewhere, that the body of sin may be destroyed; and he consequently sets forth what its destruction is: that henceforth, he says, we should not serve sin. From which also he asks with a groan to be delivered, saying: Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? This body of sin, then, is proved to be built up of many members of the vices, and to its portion belongs whatever is sinned by deed or word or thought. Its members are most rightly said to be upon the earth. For those who use their ministry cannot truthfully profess: But our conversation is in heaven.
Describing, then, the members of this body in this place, the Apostle says: Mortify your members which are upon the earth: fornication, uncleanness, lust, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is the service of idols. In the first place he judged that fornication should be brought forward, which is accomplished by carnal intercourse. As the second member he named uncleanness, which sometimes creeps in without any touch of a woman, whether upon those sleeping or waking, through the carelessness of an unwary mind; and therefore it is marked and forbidden in the Law, which deprived every unclean person not only of participation in the sacred flesh, but also commanded that they be separated from the congregation of the camp, lest they defile the holy things by their contact, saying:
Whatsoever soul shall eat of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace-offerings, which is the Lord's, having his uncleanness upon him, shall perish before the Lord; and whatsoever the unclean person shall touch shall be unclean. In Deuteronomy also: If there be among you a man who is defiled by a dream in the night, he shall go forth outside the camp, and shall not return until toward evening he be washed with water; and after sunset he shall return into the camp. Then he sets down lust as the third member of sin, which, growing up in the recesses of the soul, can befall someone even without any passion of the body. For there is no doubt that lust (libido) is so called from that which is pleasing (libeat).
After these, descending from the greater sins to the lesser, he brought forward the fourth member, evil concupiscence, which can be referred not only to the aforesaid passion of unchastity, but generally also to all harmful desires, and which is a sickness only of a corrupted will. Concerning it the Lord says in the Gospel: Whosoever shall look upon a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. For it is a much greater thing to restrain the desire of a slippery mind even then, when the occasion of an enticing sight is offered to it. By which it is most manifestly proved that the chastity of bodily continence alone cannot suffice for the perfection of purity, unless the integrity of the mind be also added.
After all these things he added covetousness as the last member of that body, saying: and covetousness; showing beyond doubt that the mind must be restrained not only from the appetite for others' goods, but also that one's own possessions must be magnanimously despised. For this too the multitude of believers is read to have done in the Acts of the Apostles, of whom it is said: And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul; neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had all things common. For as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them at the apostles' feet; and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.
And lest that perfection should seem to pertain to only a few, he testified that covetousness is the service of idols. And not without reason. For whosoever does not share in the necessities of the needy, and preserves his money with faithless tenacity, sets aside the precepts of Christ and incurs the crime of idolatry, that is, preferring the love of worldly matter to the divine love. If, therefore, we see that many have thus for Christ's sake cast away their substance, so that we prove that not only the possession of monies but even the desire for them has been cut off from their hearts for ever, it follows that in the same way we may believe that even the ardour of fornication can be extinguished.
For the Apostle would not have joined an impossible thing with a possible one, but decreed that both, being wont to be possible, are to be mortified in like manner. And to such a degree does the blessed Apostle trust that fornication or uncleanness can be uprooted from our members, that he pronounces that they ought not only to be mortified, but not even to be named among us, saying: But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you; nor filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor scurrility, which are not befitting. And he teaches that these too are equally pernicious and drive us away with equal exclusion from the kingdom of God, saying:
But know this, that no fornicator, or unclean person, or covetous man, which is the service of idols, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. And again: Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall possess the kingdom of God. Therefore it ought not to be doubted that the contagion of fornication and uncleanness can be abolished from our members, since he has commanded them to be cut off in no other way than covetousness, foolish talking, scurrility, drunkenness, and thefts, the amputation of which is easy.
Yet it is fitting for us to be sure of this: that although we undergo every rigour of continence — namely hunger and thirst, vigils too, and unceasing labour, and the unremitting zeal of reading — we cannot nevertheless attain the perpetual purity of chastity by the merit of these labours, unless, sweating continually in them, we are taught by the mastery of experience that its incorruption is granted by the bounty of the divine grace. For this reason indeed let each one recognise that he ought only to persevere untiringly in these exercises, so that, having obtained the mercy of the Lord through their affliction, he may deserve to be freed by the divine gift from the assault of the flesh and the domination of the overmastering vices — not that he should trust to attain through them that inviolate chastity of the body which he desires.
But let him be inflamed with such longing and love for the acquisition of chastity, as any most greedy seeker after money, or one who is stretched out with the utmost ambition for honours, or one who is snatched away by an intolerable love of a beautiful woman, longs with most impatient ardour to have his desire fulfilled. And so it will come to pass that, while he is kindled with insatiable desire for the perpetuity of integrity, desirable food will be despised;
let necessary drink be shuddered at, let sleep itself, though owed to nature, be refused; or rather, let him be seized with an anxious and suspicious mind, as of a most fraudulent deceiver of purity and a rival and adversary of chastity; and so let each one, made a daily morning examiner of his own integrity, rejoice over the purification conferred upon him, and let him perceive that he has attained it not by his own effort or vigilance, but by the protection of the Lord; and let him understand that its perseverance will cleave to his body just so long as the Lord shall have bestowed it in his mercy.
For he who steadfastly holds this faith will by no means, thinking proudly, trust in his own virtue, nor, seduced by long truces from obscene fluxion, be relaxed into a most flattering security, knowing that he must at once be stained by the sprinkling of a most impure defilement, if the divine protection should depart from him even a little. And accordingly he must, for its perpetuity, watch with untiring prayers, with all contrition and humility of heart. But do you wish to grasp, concerning the truth of this thing which we speak, an evident argument, by which you may both approve what has been said and be taught that this bodily struggle, which is thought to be hostile and harmful to us, has been usefully implanted in our members?
Consider, I pray, those who are eunuchs in body: what is the chief cause that renders them slothful and lukewarm in seeking after the virtues? Is it not because they believe that they have no peril of their chastity being corrupted? Yet let no one suppose that I have thus proposed it as though I affirmed that not one of them can be found at all glowing with perfect renunciation; but rather because they in a manner conquer their own nature, if perchance any of them contend toward the proposed palm of perfection with the utmost strictness of soul, whose ardour and desire compels the man whom it has once kindled to endure hunger, thirst, vigils, nakedness, and all the labours of the body, not only patiently but even gladly.
For a man labours in his sufferings for himself, and does violence to his own destruction; and again: But to a hungry soul even bitter things seem sweet. For otherwise the desires of present things can neither be repressed nor torn away, unless in place of those harmful affections which we long to amputate, others, wholesome ones, are let in. For the vigour of the mind can by no means subsist without the affection of some desire or fear, joy or grief, unless these same things be changed into a good part.
And therefore, if we desire to drive carnal concupiscences out of our hearts, let us at once plant spiritual pleasures in their place, so that our mind, always bound to these, may have things in which to abide continually and may reject the enticements of present and temporal joys. And when our mind, trained by daily exercises, has advanced into this state, then it will perceive, by the teaching of experience, the affection of that verse which we all indeed chant with the customary melody of psalmody, but the power of which only a few and those who have experienced it perceive: I foresaw the Lord always in my sight: for he is at my right hand, that I be not moved.
For he alone will effectively attain the force and understanding of this song, who, arriving at that purity of body and soul of which we speak, understands that at every moment he is preserved by the Lord, lest he should again be rolled down from it, and that his right hand — that is, his holy works — is continually fortified by the same Lord. For the Lord stands by his saints not on the left, since a holy man has nothing on the left, but always at the right; whereas by sinners and the impious he is not seen, because they do not have those right hands beside which the Lord is wont to stand, nor can they say with the prophet: Mine eyes are ever toward the Lord: for he shall pluck my feet out of the snare.
This no one will be able truthfully to profess, except him who, judging all things that are in this world to be either harmful or superfluous or at least inferior to the highest virtues, has fixed his whole gaze, all his zeal, and all his care upon the cultivation of his heart and upon the purity of chastity. And so the mind, filed down by these exercises and polished by its progress, will arrive at the perfect holiness of body and soul. For as much as a man advances in gentleness and patience of heart, so much will he advance in purity of body; and the farther he drives away the passion of wrath, the more tenaciously will he hold chastity. For no one will turn aside the heat of the body except him who has first repressed the motions of the soul. This the beatitude praised by the mouth of our Saviour most openly declares:
Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the earth. We shall therefore not otherwise possess our earth — that is, the earth of this body, rebellious against our dominion, will not otherwise be subdued to our rule — unless our mind be first grounded in the gentleness of patience; nor will anyone be able to repress the wars of lust rising up against his flesh, unless he be first armed with the weapons of meekness: for the meek shall possess the earth, and shall dwell upon it for ever and ever. How we may obtain this earth, I say, the same prophet teaches in what follows in that same psalm: Wait on the Lord, and keep his way: and he shall exalt thee to inherit the earth.
It is established, therefore, that for the firm and secure possession of that earth no one can ascend except only those who, keeping through the immovable gentleness of patience the hard ways and precepts of the Lord, have by the same been exalted, drawn out from the mire of carnal passions. The meek, then, shall possess the earth; and they shall not only possess it, but shall also delight themselves in the abundance of peace — of which no one, in whose flesh the wars of concupiscence are still stirred up, will steadfastly enjoy the full measure.
For he must needs be harassed by the most cruel battles of the demons, and, wounded by the fiery darts of luxury, be rolled down from the possession of his earth, until the Lord shall take away wars unto the ends of his earth, shall break the bow and shatter the weapons, and burn the shields with fire — with that fire, namely, which the Lord came to send upon the earth — and shall shatter also the bow and the weapons with which the spiritual powers of wickedness, fighting against him day and night, pierced his heart with the fiery darts of the passions.
And so, when the Lord, breaking his wars, shall have freed him from all the heats of temptation's incentives, he will arrive at that state of purity in which, having laid aside the confusion by which he shuddered at his very self — that is, at his flesh — while it was being assailed, he begins to delight in it as in a most pure tabernacle (for no evils shall come near it, and no scourge shall draw near his tabernacle), arriving, that is, by the virtue of patience at that prophetic word, so that by the merit of meekness he not only inherits his own earth, but also delights himself in the abundance of peace. But where the solicitude of conflict still remains, there cannot be an abundance of peace. For he does not say, 'They shall delight themselves in peace,' but in the abundance of peace.