IV. ON CONTINENCE. Concerning the virtue of the soul which is called continence, it is difficult to discourse in a manner sufficiently fitting and worthy; but our smallness, under the burden of so great a weight, he will aid, whose great gift this virtue is. For he who grants it to his faithful continent ones, himself gives speech to his ministers who speak concerning it. Therefore, being about to speak on so great a matter what he himself shall have given, we first say and prove that continence is a gift of God. In the book of Wisdom we have it written that unless God gives it, no one can be continent; the Lord, concerning that greater and more glorious continence which is contained in the marriage bond, says: 'Not all receive this word, but those to whom it is given.'
And since conjugal chastity itself, unless it be restrained from unlawful intercourse, cannot be preserved, the Apostle proclaimed both to be gifts of God, when he spoke concerning each mode of life, that is, both the conjugal and that which is without marriage, saying: 'I would that all men were even as I myself; but each has his own gift from God, one thus, another thus.' And lest continence should seem to be hoped for from the Lord as necessary only in the lust of the lower parts of the flesh, it is also sung in the psalm: 'Set, O Lord, a guard to my mouth, and a door of continence about my lips.'
But in this testimony of the divine word, if we understand 'mouth' as we ought to understand it, we recognize how great a gift of God is the continence there placed. For it is a small thing to restrain the mouth of the body, lest something that is not expedient should burst forth through the sound of the voice; there is the mouth of the heart within, where he who spoke those words, and wrote them to be spoken by us, desired that a guard and a door of continence be set for him by the Lord. For many things we do not say with the mouth of the body, and yet we cry out with the heart; but no word of any matter proceeds from the mouth of the body of which there is silence in the heart. Therefore that which does not flow out from there does not sound abroad; but that which does flow out from there, if it is evil, though it move not the tongue, defiles the soul.
There, then, is continence to be placed, where the conscience even of those who are silent speaks. For it comes about through the door of continence that there does not go forth from there that which, even with the lips of the flesh closed, defiles the life of the one thinking. Finally, in order to show more openly that inner mouth which he signified through those words — when he had said, 'Set, O Lord, a guard to my mouth, and a door of continence about my lips' — he immediately added: 'Incline not my heart unto malicious words.' What is the inclining of the heart but consent? For he has not yet spoken, whoever, at the suggestions and imaginings of whatever things occurring in the heart, has consented by no inclining of the heart. But if he has consented, he has already spoken in the heart, even if he has not sounded with the mouth;
even if he has not done it with the hand or with any part of the body, that which nevertheless he has already resolved must be done by him in thought — he is guilty by the divine laws, though hidden from human senses, by the word spoken in the heart, with no deed committed through the body. He would by no means have moved a member outwardly in the deed, the beginning of which deed had not first preceded inwardly in the word. For not falsely is it written: 'The beginning of every work is a word.' For men do many things with the mouth closed, the tongue quiet, the voice restrained; but yet they do nothing by the work of the body which they have not first spoken in the heart.
And by this, since there are many sins in inner words which are not in outer deeds, but there are no sins in outer deeds which do not precede in inner words, there will be purity of innocence from both, if the door of continence be set about the inner lips. Wherefore the Lord himself also says with his own mouth: 'Cleanse the things that are within, and the things that are without shall be clean.' And likewise in another place, when he was refuting the foolish talk of the Jews, because they slandered his disciples for eating with unwashed hands: 'Not what enters into the mouth,' he says, 'defiles a man; but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles a man.' Which sentence, if it be taken wholly of the mouth of the body, is absurd.
For food does not defile a man, but vomit does not defile whom food does not. Food indeed enters into the mouth, vomit proceeds out of the mouth. But without doubt the former words pertain to the mouth of the flesh, where he says: 'Not what enters into the mouth defiles a man'; but the latter to the mouth of the heart, where he says: 'But what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles a man.' Finally, when the apostle Peter asked of him, as it were, the exposition of this parable, he replied: 'Are you also still without understanding? Do you not understand that everything that enters into the mouth goes into the belly and is cast out into the privy?' Here certainly we recognize the mouth of the flesh into which food enters.
But in those things which he adds, that we might recognize the mouth of the heart, the slowness of our heart would not follow, unless Truth deigned to walk even with the slow. For he says: 'But the things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart' — as if he said: 'When you hear "of the mouth," understand "of the heart."' I speak of both; but I explain the one by the other. The inner man has an inner mouth, and this the inner ear discerns; the things which proceed from this mouth come forth from the heart, and these defile a man. Then, having now left aside the name 'mouth,' which can also be understood of the body, he shows more openly what he means. For 'out of the heart,' he says, 'come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies. These are the things that defile a man.'
There is certainly none of these evils, which can be perpetrated even by the members of the body, that an evil thought does not precede and defile a man, even if something hinders the shameful and criminal works of the members from following. For if the power is not given, the hand is idle from the killing of a man — is the heart of the murderer therefore clean from crime? Or if he cannot seize another's property as he wishes, is he therefore not a thief in the very will? Or if she whom the unchaste man wishes to corrupt is chaste, has he therefore not committed adultery with her in his heart? Or if a harlot is not found in the brothel, does he therefore who seeks her not fornicate in his mind?
Or if to him who desires to harm his neighbor through a lie, the time or the place is lacking, has he therefore not already spoken false testimony with the inner mouth? Or if anyone, fearing men, does not with the tongue of the flesh dare to sound forth blasphemy, is he therefore not guilty of this crime, who says in his heart: 'There is no God'? Thus the other evil deeds of men, which no motion of the body performs, which no sense of the body knows, have their hidden guilty ones, whom consent alone defiles in the thought — that is, the malicious word of the inner man.
Fearing that his heart should be inclined toward this, that man asks of the Lord that a door of continence be set about the lips of this mouth, which may restrain the heart lest it be inclined into malicious words — and restrain it by not allowing the thought to proceed into consent; for thus, according to the apostolic precept, sin does not reign in our mortal body, nor do we present our members as weapons of iniquity unto sin. From fulfilling which precept those are certainly strangers who, for this reason do not move their members to sin, because no power is permitted them: which, if it were present, they would forthwith show, by the motions of their members as of weapons, who reigns within them.
Accordingly, as far as in them lies, they present their members as weapons of iniquity unto sin, because they will that which they for this reason do not present, because they cannot. And through this, that continence which, when the genital members are curbed in chastity, is wont most especially and properly to be named continence, is violated by no transgression, if the higher continence, of which we have now long been speaking, be kept in the heart. Therefore the Lord, when he had said, 'For out of the heart come forth evil thoughts,' then, showing what pertains to evil thoughts, added: 'murders, adulteries,' and the rest. Nor did he say all; but having named certain ones for the sake of example, he admonished that others too are to be understood.
Of which there is nothing that can be done, if evil thought has not preceded, by which is inwardly established that which is outwardly performed; and proceeding from the mouth of the heart, it already defiles a man, even if, no opportunity being permitted, it is not performed outwardly through the members of the body. Therefore, the door of continence being set in the mouth of the heart, whence come forth all the things that defile a man, if nothing of the kind be permitted to go forth thence, purity follows, in which the conscience can now rejoice — although that perfection is not yet present, where continence shall not struggle with vice. But now, as long as the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, it is enough for us not to consent to the evils which we feel within ourselves.
But when this consent takes place, then there goes forth from the mouth of the heart that which defiles a man. But when, through continence, consent is not held, the evil of carnal concupiscence, against which spiritual concupiscence fights, is not permitted to do harm. But it is one thing to fight well, which is now, when the strife of death is resisted; another to have no adversary, which shall then be, when death, the last enemy, shall be destroyed. For continence itself, when it curbs and holds back the lusts, at the same time both craves the good, to whose immortality we tend, and rejects the evil, with which in this mortality we contend. For it is the lover and beholder of the one, but of the other both the enemy and the witness — both craving the honorable and fleeing the disgraceful.
Continence would surely not labor in curbing the lusts, if nothing pleased us against what is fitting, if nothing from evil concupiscence resisted our good will. The Apostle cries out: 'I know,' he says, 'that there dwells not in me, that is, in my flesh, good. For to will is present with me, but to accomplish the good I find not.' For now it can come about that the good be done, that consent be not given to evil concupiscence; but the good shall be accomplished when that evil concupiscence itself shall be ended. And likewise the same Teacher of the Gentiles cries out: 'I delight in the law of God according to the inner man, but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind.'
This battle none experience in themselves except the warriors of the virtues and the vanquishers of the vices; nothing overcomes the evil of concupiscence except the good of continence. But there are those who, being wholly ignorant of the law of God, do not even reckon evil concupiscences among enemies, and, serving them with pitiable blindness, moreover even think themselves blessed by sating rather than by taming them. But those who through the law have come to know them — for through the law is the knowledge of sin, and 'I did not know concupiscence,' he says, 'unless the law had said: You shall not covet' — and yet are overcome by their assault, because they live under the law, by which what is good is commanded but not also given, do not live under grace, which gives through the Holy Spirit what is commanded through the law:
For this reason the law entered in secretly, that in them the offense might abound. The prohibition increased concupiscence and made it invincible, so that transgression might be added, which was not without the law, even though sin was; for where there is no law, neither is there transgression. Thus the law, grace not aiding, while forbidding sin, is moreover a strength of sin committed. Whence the Apostle says: 'The strength of sin is the law.' Nor is it to be wondered at that human weakness added strength to evil even from a good law, while it trusts in its own strength for the doing of that very law; for, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, which he gives to the weak, and wishing to establish its own, which the weak man lacks, the reprobate and proud man is not subject to the righteousness of God.
But if the law, like a tutor, leads the one made a transgressor — as one thereby more grievously wounded, that he might long for the physician — to grace: against the harmful sweetness by which concupiscence prevailed, the Lord gives a beneficial sweetness, by which continence may delight the more, and our land yields its fruit, by which the soldier is fed who wars down sin with God's help. Such soldiers the apostolic trumpet kindles into battle with this blast. 'Let not sin therefore reign,' he says, 'in your mortal body, unto obeying its desires, neither present your members as weapons of iniquity unto sin, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as weapons of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you;
for you are not under the law but under grace.' And in another place: 'Therefore, brethren,' he says, 'we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you shall die; but if by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.' This, then, is now being done, as long as this our mortal life is under grace: that sin — that is, the concupiscence of sin, for by the name of sin he calls this in this place — may not reign in our mortal body. And it is shown to reign, if its desires are obeyed. There is therefore in us the concupiscence of sin, which is not to be allowed to reign; there are its desires, which are not to be obeyed, lest, if they are obeyed, it reign.
Wherefore let not concupiscence usurp our members for itself, but let continence claim them for itself, that they may be weapons of righteousness unto God, not weapons of iniquity unto sin; for thus sin shall not have dominion over us. For we are not under the law, which indeed commands the good but does not give it, but we are under grace, which, doing that which the law commands, can make us love it, so as to command the free. And likewise, when he exhorts that we live not according to the flesh, lest we die, but that by the Spirit we mortify the deeds of the flesh, that we may live, he certainly sounds the trumpet, shows the war in which we are engaged, and, that we may fight fiercely and mortify our enemies, lest we be mortified by them, kindles us. But who these enemies are, he expressed clearly enough.
For those whom he wished to be mortified by us are these very things, namely the works of the flesh. For thus he says: 'But if by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live.' And that we may know what these are, let us likewise hear the same one writing to the Galatians and saying: 'Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornications, uncleannesses, wantonnesses, idolatry, sorceries, enmities, contentions, jealousies, animosities, dissensions, heresies, envyings, drunkennesses, revellings, and things like these; concerning which I foretell you, as I have foretold, that those who do such things shall not possess the kingdom of God.'
For there too, in saying these things, he was pointing out that very war, and by the same heavenly and spiritual trumpet of Christ was rousing the soldiers to mortify these enemies. For above he had said: 'But I say, walk by the Spirit, and do not fulfill the desires of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; for these are opposed to one another, so that you do not the things that you would. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.' Therefore he wishes those established under grace to have this conflict against the works of the flesh. And to demonstrate these works of the flesh, he added those which I recalled above:
'Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornications' and the rest, whether those which he recalled or those which he admonished are to be understood, especially adding: 'and things like these.' Finally, in this battle against the carnal army, as it were, bringing forth another line of battle, a spiritual one, 'But the fruit of the Spirit,' he says, 'is charity, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, continence; against such there is no law.' He did not say 'against these,' lest they be thought to be the only ones — although even if he had said this, we ought to have understood all the goods of the same kind that we could conceive — but he says 'against such,' meaning both these and whatever things are like them.
Yet in that among the good things which he enumerated he placed continence in the last position — the continence about which we have now undertaken to discourse and on account of which we have already said much — it was chiefly this that he willed to cling fast to our minds. For it is continence that prevails most in this war, in which the spirit lusts against the flesh, since it in a certain manner crucifies the very concupiscences of the flesh. Wherefore, when the Apostle had said these things, he immediately added: 'They that are Christ's have crucified their flesh with its passions and concupiscences.' This is the work of continence; thus are the works of the flesh mortified. And it mortifies those whom, as they fall away from continence toward consent to perpetrate such works, concupiscence drags along.
But that we may not fall away from continence, we ought above all to keep watch against those snares of diabolical suggestions, lest we presume upon our own strength; for 'cursed is everyone who places his hope in man.' And who is this man but a man himself? He cannot therefore truly say that he does not place his hope in man, who places it in himself. For this too, to live according to man, what is it but to live according to the flesh? Let him therefore hear, who is tempted by such a suggestion — and, if any Christian sense is in him, let him tremble — let him hear, I say: 'If you shall live according to the flesh, you shall die.' But someone will be ready to say to me that it is one thing to live according to man, and another to live according to the flesh:
namely because man is a rational creature, and in him there is a rational soul, whereby he differs from the beast; but the flesh is the weak and earthly part of man, and therefore to live according to it is vicious. On which account he who lives according to man does not live according to the flesh, but rather according to that part of man whereby he is man, that is, according to the spirit of the mind, whereby he stands above the beasts. But this disputation is perhaps of some worth in the schools of the philosophers; we, however, in order that we may understand the Apostle of Christ, ought to attend to how the Christian books are wont to speak.
It is certainly the faith of us all that Christ came, having assumed a man from the Word of God — not indeed without a rational soul, as certain heretics would have it — and yet we read: 'The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.' What here is 'flesh' to be understood but 'man'? And 'all flesh shall see the salvation of God' — what can be understood but 'every man'? 'To thee shall all flesh come' — what is it but 'every man'? 'Thou hast given him power over all flesh' — what is it but over 'every man'? 'By the works of the law shall no flesh be justified' — what is it but 'no man shall be justified'? And the same Apostle, expressing this more plainly elsewhere, says: 'A man shall not be justified by the works of the law.' He also rebukes the Corinthians, saying:
'Are you not carnal, and walk you not according to man?' When he had called them carnal, he did not say 'you walk according to the flesh,' but 'according to man'; because by this too, what did he wish to be understood but 'according to the flesh'? For surely, if to walk — that is, to live — according to the flesh were blameworthy, but according to man were praiseworthy, he would not have said reproachfully, 'you walk according to man.' Let man acknowledge the reproach, let him change his purpose, let him avoid destruction. Hear, O man; do not walk according to man, but according to Him who made man; do not fall away from Him who made you, nor toward yourself. For it was a man who said — a man who nevertheless did not live according to man:
'Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God.' See whether he who truly said this was living according to man. Therefore the Apostle, in admonishing man not to live according to man, restores man to God. But he who lives not according to man but according to God, surely does not even live according to himself, for he too is a man. Yet he is also said to live according to the flesh when he lives thus, because even by the flesh alone being named, 'man' is understood, as we have already shown — just as by the soul alone being named, 'man' is understood; whence it is said: 'Let every soul be subject to the higher powers,' that is, every man; and:
'Seventy-five souls went down into Egypt with Jacob,' that is, seventy-five men. Do not therefore live according to yourself, O man; thence you had perished, but you have been sought out. Do not, I say, live according to yourself; if you had perished, you have been found. Do not accuse the nature of the flesh, when you hear: 'If you shall live according to the flesh, you shall die.' For it could also have been said, and most truly said: 'If you shall live according to yourselves, you shall die.' For the devil has no flesh, and yet, because he willed to live according to himself, he stood not in the truth. What wonder then, if living according to himself, when he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own? — which the Truth spoke truly of him. Therefore, when you hear:
'Sin shall not have dominion over you,' do not trust in yourself that sin may not have dominion, but in Him to whom a certain holy man says in prayer: 'Direct my ways according to thy word, and let not any iniquity have dominion over me.' For lest perhaps, when we had heard 'Sin shall not have dominion over us,' we should exalt ourselves and attribute this to our own strength, the Apostle at once saw this and added: 'For you are not under the law, but under grace.' Grace therefore brings it about that sin shall not have dominion over you. Do not then trust in yourself, lest it have dominion over you thence all the more. And when we hear: 'If by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live,' let us not attribute this so great good to our own spirit as though it could do these things of itself.
For lest we should relish this carnal notion with a spirit dead rather than a spirit that mortifies, he straightway added: 'For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.' Therefore, in order that by our spirit we may mortify the works of the flesh, we are led by the Spirit of God, who gives the continence by which we may bridle, tame, and conquer concupiscence. In this so great a battle, in which man lives under grace and, when aided he fights well, rejoices in the Lord with trembling, there are nevertheless not lacking even to strenuous warriors and to those who, though unconquered, mortify the works of the flesh, some wounds of sins, for the healing of which they may daily and truly say:
'Forgive us our debts' — contending against these same vices and against the devil, the prince and king of the vices, all the more watchfully and keenly by prayer itself, lest his death-bringing suggestions avail anything, by which he incites the sinner besides to excuse rather than to accuse his sins, and so those wounds are not only not healed, but even, though they were not deadly, are grievously and mortally inflicted. And here therefore there is need of a more cautious continence, by which the proud appetite of man may be restrained, whereby he is pleased with himself and is unwilling to be found blameworthy, and disdains, when he sins, to be convicted that he himself has sinned — not with wholesome humility accepting the accusation of himself, but rather with ruinous conceit seeking his own excuse.
To curb this pride, that man asked continence from the Lord, whose words I have set down above and, as I could, commended. For when he had said, 'Set, O Lord, a watch before my mouth and a door of continence about my lips; incline not my heart to evil words,' explaining more evidently why he said this, he added: 'to make excuses in sins.' For what is more malignant than these words, by which the wicked man denies himself to be wicked, even when convicted of a wicked deed which he cannot deny? And since he cannot cover the deed, nor can call it well done, and sees that it stands manifest as done by himself, he seeks to lay upon another what he did, as though thence he could take away what he had deserved.
Unwilling to be guilty, he rather adds to his guilt, and by excusing rather than accusing his sins, he is ignorant that he does not remove the punishment from himself, but the pardon. For before human judges, since they can be deceived, to purge by whatever falsehood what was wrongly done seems to be of some avail for a time; but before God, who cannot be deceived, no deceitful defense is to be employed, but a truthful confession of sins. And some indeed, who are accustomed to excuse their sins, complain that they are driven to sin by fate, as though the stars had decreed such things, and heaven had first sinned by decreeing such things, so that man might afterward sin by committing them; others prefer to impute to fortune the fact that they sin —
they who think that all things are agitated by fortuitous chances, and yet contend that they hold and assert this opinion not by fortuitous rashness but by clear-sighted reason. What madness then is it, to ascribe their disputations to reason and to subject their actions to chance? Others refer the whole of what they do wickedly to the devil, and are unwilling to have even a share with him, since they may suspect that he persuaded them to evil by hidden suggestions, but cannot doubt that they themselves consented to those suggestions, from wherever they came. There are even those who extend their excuse into an accusation of God — wretched by the divine judgment, but blasphemous by their own frenzy.
For against Him they bring in, from a contrary principle, a rebelling substance of evil, which He could not have resisted unless He had mingled a part of His own substance and nature with that same rebel, to be defiled and corrupted; then, they say, sin occurs when the nature of evil prevails over the nature of God. This is the most filthy insanity of the Manichaeans, whose diabolical contrivances the undoubted Truth most easily overturns — the Truth which confesses the nature of God to be incontaminable and incorruptible. And what shameful defilement and corruption is not deservedly believed of these men, by whom God, who is supremely and incomparably good, is believed to be contaminable and corruptible?
There are also these, who in the excuse of their sins accuse God in such a way as to say that sins please Him. For if they displeased Him, they say, He would by no means, with His utterly omnipotent power, permit them to be done — as though indeed He had permitted sins to go unpunished, even in those whom, by the remission of sins, He frees from everlasting torment. For no one receives pardon of the graver punishment due, unless he pay some punishment, though far less than he owed; and so the bounty of mercy is imparted in such a way that the justice of discipline is not abandoned. For even a sin that seems unavenged has its own punishment following at its heels, so that no one, in respect of what he has committed, either grieves not through bitterness or grieves not through blindness. As therefore you say: