but because Satan, equipped with a thousand arts, sometimes mocks the incautious, transfiguring himself into an angel of light, and from such exercises of the body induces in them a false persuasion of holiness, and while inwardly they are steeped in spiritual vices, they are held both by themselves and by others to be pious. Such was the justice of the Pharisees, to which the publican's injustice was preferred by the judgment of Christ. So too are the foolish virgins, who deem it solid piety to keep the body untouched by man, while the mind is most corrupted by avarice, pride, envy, and detraction. There are also false widows, who while they live in delights are dead to Christ. In sum, however, whoever is truly Christian, of whatever state or order, has his own contests, has his own cross:
And if he patiently takes it up, if he steadfastly bears it, by his testimony he glorifies the Lord—only let him not claim for himself the praise of his good works: for this is not to glorify God, but to clarify oneself. Every one of the faithful has his own combats, has as adversary the devil, has as judge of the games God, has as theater not only the Church and the angels but also the unbelievers, as Paul says to the Corinthians: 'We are made a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to men.' If we conquer, the angels rejoice, the churches of the faithful rejoice, and Christ himself rejoices in his members. But if we are conquered through our own cowardice, Satan triumphs with his angels, the unbelievers insult us and afflict God with reproaches, saying:
'Behold those who boast that they are redeemed from the tyranny of Satan, who proclaim that they are dead to the world—and yet they are overcome by their own lusts no less than we, whom they say are still held under the reign of Satan. What profits them the baptism by which they say the old man with his deeds is put off and the new man put on, who is created according to God? What profits them the Holy Spirit, by whose governance they say they are ruled? Why do they always have the gospel, the gospel on their lips, while their whole life is at variance with the precepts of the gospel?' With how great shame, do you suppose, is the Church suffused, when these things are cast up by her enemies and she has nothing wherewith to refute the reproaches?
Do we not see the whole assembly of the Church cast down its countenance and blush, whenever some virgin who had wedded Christ, having slipped from the angelic fellowship, has defected to fornication or marriage? What great grief seizes the souls of us all, but especially of the pastors, if ever a soldier of Christ, proving inferior to torments, has renounced his emperor? And on the other side, how great is the triumph of Satan?
Therefore, most beloved brethren, if we truly love God, if daily we ask from the heart 'Hallowed be thy name,' let us with the utmost zeal keep watch, lest anywhere we defile his name, but let us glorify him both by death and by life, living according to the admonitions of blessed Paul without complaint as the guileless sons of God, without reproach in the midst of a depraved and perverse nation, among whom let us shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life to the glory of Christ Jesus, our king and the judge of our games, who accounts as his own whatever is done in his members. Let us suffer with him, that with him we may be glorified in the day of the Lord.
Let us here glorify him before men, that he may glorify us with his splendor before his angels when, as the blessed Paul says, 'he shall come to be glorified in his saints.' 'No one is crowned unless he has striven lawfully.' And those who covet a corruptible crown abstain from all things, doing nothing that does not conduce to victory: what does it behove us to do, that we may attain that incorruptible and unfading crown of immortal life in the heavens? Here, if anyone should ask how a man can be a martyr without the shedding of blood: whoever with this mind follows justice, that he would sooner admit death than be willing to turn aside from justice, to him a ready will shall be reckoned for martyrdom.
For God does not judge anyone by the outcome of events, but by the disposition. For why should he be defrauded of the glory of martyrdom, through no fault of whom it stood that he did not accomplish martyrdom? So, on the contrary, whoever lives with this mind, that he would deny Christ if loss of goods or torments of the body or death were to be incurred, shall bear the wage of an apostate. He who for a little money perjures himself—will he fear to deny Christ, if his whole estate be endangered, if infamy, prison, and death be threatened? He who for a slight fever flees to the remedies of enchantresses—will he prefer to endure torments sadder than death rather than renounce Christ? Nay, he who so often for a brief little delight of the flesh, for momentary glory, defects from Christ—will he hold life cheap for Christ's sake?
Nor did the tyrant make this man an apostate, but the apostate came to the tyrant. And as the manner of striving is alike, so the minds of the brethren are to be fortified for these battles with the same arms by which we have shown that they must be strengthened for martyrdom. It is faith that fights and conquers in the martyrs: nor did anyone fail in torments save through failure of faith. God, therefore, must be assiduously entreated to increase faith in us: for it is the gift of God, and to him is owed all the glory of victory. Let us press upon and fix in their minds how horrendous a crime all idolatry is, how severely it was punished by God under the old law, how many thousands Moses slaughtered on account of the golden calf.
Next let there be set forth a comparison of manifest idolatry, when one immolates to idols, with hidden idolatry, when, with God despised, one obeys Satan's concupiscence. Then let there be compared with each other God, the fount of every good, and the devil, the prince of all malice. Let the inequality of the fellowship also be shown: on the one side are the sons of God, fellow-citizens of the angels and heirs of blessed immortality; on the other, the sons of Belial, the company of all demons and heirs of hell. Let the unequal kind of warfare also be compared, let the diverse wages be set side by side. If these things have first been made persuasive and fixed in the inmost vitals, the victory will be easy. As it is, faith swims on the lips of many, while in the heart it is either nonexistent or vehemently languid.
For who does not profess what we read in Deuteronomy: 'Hear, the Lord thy God is one Lord'? And: 'Thou shalt adore the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve'? Who does not daily recite with his mouth, 'I believe in God the Father almighty'? But he does not believe in God who places the trust of all his felicity in him alone [and yet does not], nor has he one God and Lord who by fornication, by luxury and avarice does the biddings of Satan, nor does he serve him alone who serves the belly, who is given over to this world, who is set in what is depraved. The heathen suppose there are many gods, and do you seem to yourself a perfect Christian because you hold it as settled that there is one God? What great thing do you do? The Jews believe the same, who daily blaspheme in their synagogues:
the demons believe the same, and tremble. If you truly believe in God, believe him just and truthful: just in rewarding the pious and punishing the impious, truthful in his promises. Believe that there is no hope of salvation except through his Son, whom he delivered to death for us all: believe that nothing evil can befall those who have given themselves wholly to his will and persevere in him. This is to believe in God the Father, this is to believe in his Son, this is to believe in the Holy Spirit, one God, and in the holy Church, the mystical body of Christ, outside which there is no salvation and in which there is no destruction. Whoever shall have fixed the feet of his soul upon such a rock will stand immovable against all the assaults of temptations. For example:
provoked by some insult, the flesh suggests to you a desire for vengeance. Before you answer, thus think within yourself: this reviling man the devil has suborned that he may cast me down and, once cast down, destroy me; but listen to what your emperor, in whose army you serve, counsels: 'Blessed,' he says, 'are the meek, for they shall possess the earth,' and 'Vengeance is mine, and I will repay.' Consider what that most valiant leader of Christ, Paul, counsels: 'Not revenging ourselves, dearly beloved, but give place to wrath.' The devil says: 'Enjoy your vengeance and lose eternal life.' God says: 'Overcome evil with good, and resist not evil, and receive with my Son the possession of the heavenly kingdom.' Then consider which it is more expedient to obey.
Through your own lust the devil says to you: 'Commit adultery and enjoy the passing pleasure of the body, and be my slave and co-heir of hell.' Hear rather what God says to you: 'Despise the passing pleasure and receive a hundredfold the joy of a good conscience in this world, and eternal life in the world to come'; and weigh which of the two is the better to heed. Through the desire of the flesh Satan suggests to you, as once through Eve, 'Live merrily'; on the contrary Christ says: 'Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall receive comfort.' In the same manner, against the other temptations set before the tempter the shield of the Scriptures, in which God speaks to you with no less trustworthiness than if he were speaking to you face to face, mouth to mouth.
From these torrents take up for yourself the stones with which you may cast down the proud Goliath. You have an example from your Lord; thus did he lay the devil low. Nor should you lose heart if he assaults you again and again, and presently comes on with greater engines: he can do nothing against him who is with you. Say that word of John: 'Greater is he that is in us than he that is in this world.' Let that saying of the Lord come to your aid: 'Be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.' If the soldier of Christ has been trained by such prayers for the conflict, day by day he will find his adversary weaker. Yet the watch is not to be relaxed if ever the enemy feigns tranquility; but observing his snares, let him say with blessed Habakkuk:
'I will stand upon my watch and fix my step upon the rock,' guarding my heart with all vigilance, lest any entrance lie open to the one prowling about and seeking whom he may devour. But the safest fortification of the heart is sobriety together with urgent prayer and continual meditation on the Scriptures. For 'all Scripture, divinely inspired, is profitable for teaching, for reproving, for correcting, for instructing in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, furnished unto every good work.' From this, therefore, sentences are to be gathered, which you may keep at hand and, as it were, ready for battle, so that with them you may at once cast down the serpent as it raises its head. For there is no disease of souls for which the divine Scripture would not supply a ready remedy.
Hence are to be procured the examples of the godly, but especially of Christ, by which each one may either rouse or console himself. I come now to those evils which either accompany the very nature of man or seem to be inflicted by chance. These too a godly soul, equipped for battle, will turn for himself into matter for a crown. By an example I will make what I say clearer. Someone is stripped of his goods, whether by war or shipwreck or robbery. Let him not straightway think of the noose, or of a plan to repair by evil arts what has perished, but let him speak thus with himself: 'It is the Lord who tests me, whether I love him with my whole heart. He gave, he has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.' Let him give thanks for what he received of the Lord's kindness:
and let him give thanks for what he has lost, unto the proving of his faith. If he shall have said these things in the same spirit in which holy Job said them, with him he shall receive his reward. The Lord esteems not how much a man loses, but how patiently; even as he regards not how much a man bestows upon the needy, but with what spirit. Someone has a son uniquely dear; untimely death bereaves you of him; the plague despoils you of your dearest ones, your bride, your children, your friends: bear it patiently and say: 'So it seemed good to the Lord, and thus perhaps it was profitable both for us and for ours. Blessed be the name of the Lord.' There are also diseases that bring torments no less cruel than any savagery of torturers can inflict, such as pleurisy, sciatica, gout, paralysis, the stone, ulceration of the kidneys and the bladder.
If any such thing befall, let not the mind be exasperated into impatience, nor let the tongue burst forth into blasphemous cries, but let it say with blessed David and Eli the priest: 'It is the Lord; let him do what is good in his own eyes.' Thus shall we turn the evils that are not inflicted for the confession of Christ into a crown for ourselves and into glory for Christ. And it will happen, perhaps, that the Lord, appeased by our endurance, will either take away the afflictions or mitigate them; but if that does not happen, yet by this reasoning we shall bring it about that what would have been intolerable to an impatient spirit becomes milder through patience. With these and like arguments let us not cease to exhort one another to the illustrating of the glory of the Lord, whose title and insignia we bear.
Let us render to him our martyrdom, each in his own state and rank, not only in adversities but also in prosperities. In adversities let us recognize the love of the Father who scourges us unto correction, and let us give thanks to that charity by which he loves us as sons whom he wills not to disown but, once amended, to receive back. In prosperities let us likewise give thanks to his goodness, by which he comforts us that we may be able to bear the weight of temptations: so shall it come to pass that our whole life may be nothing else than a testimony, declaring among believers and unbelievers the wisdom, goodness, mercy, and truth of God the Father, and of his Son Jesus, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.