1. 1. It is difficult to treat suitably and worthily of that virtue of the soul which is called continence; but he whose great gift this virtue is will help our smallness under the burden of so great a weight. For he who grants it to his faithful continent ones himself gives speech to his ministers who speak of it. And so, intending to speak of so great a matter only what he himself shall grant, we first say and prove that continence is a gift of God. In the book of Wisdom we have it written that no one can be continent unless God grants it (Wis 8:21). And the Lord, speaking of that greater and more glorious continence by which one abstains from the marriage bond, says: not all can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given (Matt 19:11). And since marital chastity itself cannot be preserved either unless one abstains from unlawful intercourse, the Apostle proclaimed both to be a gift of God when he spoke of each way of life, that is, both the married and that which is without marriage, saying: I wish that all men were as I myself am; but each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another (1 Cor 7:7).

1. 2. And lest continence should seem to be necessary, and to be hoped for from the Lord, only in the lust of the lower parts of the flesh, it is also sung in a Psalm: set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth, and a door of continence about my lips (Ps 141:3 (140:3)). Now in this testimony of the divine word, if by mouth we understand—as we ought to understand—the continence there set down, we recognize how great a gift of God it is. For it is a small thing to keep guard over the mouth of the body, lest something that is not fitting break forth from it in the sound of the voice.

For within there is a mouth of the heart, where he who spoke those words and wrote them down to be spoken by us desired that a guard and a door of continence be set for him by the Lord. For there is much that we do not utter with the mouth of the body and yet cry out with the heart; but no word of anything comes forth from the mouth of the body when there is silence of it in the heart. From there, then, what does not flow forth does not sound abroad; but what does flow forth from there, if it is evil, even if it does not move the tongue, defiles the soul.

There, then, continence must be set, where the conscience of those who keep silent also speaks. For it comes about through the door of continence that there does not go forth from there what, even with the lips of the flesh closed, defiles the life of the one thinking it.

2. 3. Finally, to show more openly the inner mouth which he signified by those words, after he had said: set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth, and a door of continence about my lips, he at once added: incline not my heart to evil words (Ps 141:3–4 (140:3–4)).

What is the inclining of the heart but consent? For whoever has not consented, by any inclining of the heart, to the promptings of whatever images presenting themselves in the heart, has not yet spoken. But if he has consented, he has already spoken in his heart, even if he has not sounded it with his mouth: even if he has not done with his hand or with any part of his body what nevertheless he has already determined in thought that he must do;

he is guilty before the divine laws, though hidden from human perception, having admitted no deed through the body, the word having been spoken in the heart. For in no way would he have moved a member outwardly in a deed whose beginning had not first gone before within in a word.

For it is not written falsely: the beginning of every work is a word (Sir 37:16 (LXX)). For men do many things with the mouth closed, the tongue quiet, the voice restrained; yet they do nothing by the work of the body that they have not first spoken in the heart. And on this account, since there are many sins in inner words that are not in outer deeds, while there are none in outer deeds that do not go before in inner words, there will be from both the purity of innocence if a door of continence is set about the inner lips.

2. 4. For which reason the Lord himself also says with his own mouth: cleanse what is within, and what is outside will be clean (Matt 23:26). And likewise in another place, when he was refuting the foolish talk of the Jews, because they were finding fault with his disciples for eating with unwashed hands: not what enters into the mouth, he says, defiles a man; but what comes forth from the mouth, this defiles a man (Matt 15:11).

If this saying were taken entirely of the mouth of the body, it would be absurd. For one whom food does not defile is not defiled by vomit. Food, indeed, enters into the mouth; vomit comes forth from the mouth.

But without doubt the earlier words pertain to the mouth of the flesh, where he says: not what enters into the mouth defiles a man; and the later words to the mouth of the heart, where he says: but what comes forth from the mouth, this defiles a man.

Finally, when the apostle Peter sought from him an explanation, as it were, of this parable, he answered: are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the belly and is passed on into the drain? (Matt 15:16–17).

Here we certainly recognize the mouth of the flesh, into which food enters. But in what he adds, that we might recognize the mouth of the heart, the slowness of our heart would not follow him, unless the Truth deigned to walk even with the slow. For he says: but what comes forth from the mouth comes out of the heart (Matt 15:18).

As if he said: "when you hear from the mouth, understand from the heart." I speak of both; but I explain the one by the other. The inner man has an inner mouth, and the inner ear discerns this; the things that come forth from this mouth come out of the heart, and these defile a man. Then, now leaving aside the name mouth, which can be understood also of the body, he shows more openly what he means. For out of the heart, he says, come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are what defile a man (Matt 15:19–20).

There is certainly none of these evils, which can also be perpetrated 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 free from the killing of a man; is the heart of a murderer therefore clean of the crime?

Or if one cannot steal another's property as he wishes, is he therefore not a thief in his very will? Or if she whom the unchaste man wishes to defile is chaste, has he therefore not committed adultery with her in his heart? Or if a harlot is not found in the brothel, does the one who seeks her therefore not commit fornication in his mind?

Or if the time or place is lacking to one who longs to harm his neighbor by a lie, has he therefore not already borne false witness with the inner mouth? Or if anyone, fearing men, does not dare to sound forth blasphemy with the tongue of the flesh, is he therefore not guilty of this crime, who says in his heart: there is no God (Ps 14:1 (13:1))?

So the other evil deeds of men, which no motion of the body carries out, which no bodily sense knows, have their hidden guilty ones, whom consent alone defiles in thought—that is, the evil word of the inner man. Fearing that his heart should be inclined into this, the one who wrote those words asks of the Lord that a door of continence be set about the lips of this mouth, to restrain the heart lest it be inclined into evil words; and to 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 to sin (Rom 6:12–13).

From the fulfilling of this precept those are surely strangers who do not move their members to sin only because no power is permitted them: for if it were present, they would at once show, by the motions of their members as of weapons, who reigns within them. Accordingly, as far as it lies in them, they present their members as weapons of iniquity to sin, because they will what they do not present only because they cannot.

2. 5. And on this account that continence which, when the genital members are restrained, is wont most especially and properly to be called "continence," is violated by no transgression, if the higher continence, of which we have now long been speaking, is kept in the heart. Therefore, when the Lord had said: for out of the heart come evil thoughts, he then went on to add what pertains to evil thoughts: murders, adulteries (Matt 15:19), and the rest.

Nor did he name them all; but, having named certain ones by way of example, he reminded us that others too were to be understood.

There is none of these that can be done if an evil thought has not gone before, by which there is fashioned within what is carried out without;

and coming forth from the mouth of the heart it already defiles a man, even if, no opportunity being permitted, it is not carried out without through the members of the body.

When, therefore, a door of continence has been set at the mouth of the heart, from which come forth all the things that defile a man, if nothing of the kind is permitted to go forth from there, cleanness follows, in which the conscience can now rejoice—though it is not yet that perfection in which continence will no longer struggle with vice.

But now, as long as the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh (Gal 5:17), it is enough for us not to consent to the evils that we feel in ourselves. But when this consent takes place, then there comes forth from the mouth of the heart what defiles a man. But when, through continence, consent is not granted, the evil of carnal desire, against which spiritual desire fights, is not allowed to do harm.

3. 6. But it is one thing to fight well, which is now the case when the contention with death is resisted, and another to have no adversary, which will be the case then, when the last enemy, death (1 Cor 15:55, 26), shall be destroyed.

For continence itself, when it bridles and restrains the lusts, at the same time both desires the good toward whose immortality we tend, and rejects the evil with which in this mortal state we contend. For of the one it is the lover and beholder, of the other both the enemy and the witness; both desiring honor and fleeing dishonor. Continence would surely not labor in bridling the desires, if nothing pleased us contrary to what is fitting, if nothing from evil desire opposed our good will.

The Apostle cries out: I know, he says, that in me, that is, in my flesh, no good dwells. For the willing lies near at hand for me, but I do not find how to accomplish the good (Rom 7:18). For now the good can come about, that one not consent to evil desire; but the good will be accomplished when evil desire itself comes to an end. 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 fighting against the law of my mind (Rom 7:22–23).

3. 7. This battle none experience in themselves but the warriors of the virtues and the vanquishers of the vices; the evil of desire is overcome by nothing but the good of continence.

There are, however, some who, being wholly ignorant of the Law of God, do not even reckon evil desires among their enemies, and serving them in pitiable blindness, even think themselves blessed besides, by satisfying them rather than mastering them.

But those who have come to know them through the Law

(for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin, and, he says, I would not have known desire, if the law had not said: 'you shall not covet' (Rom 3:20; 7:7)), and yet are overcome by their assault, because they live under the law, by which what is good is commanded but not also given, and do not live under grace, which gives through the Holy Spirit what is commanded through the Law: for these the Law entered in, that the offense might abound in them (Rom 5:20).

The prohibition increased desire and made it unconquerable, so that transgression was added, which without the Law was not, even though sin was. For where there is no law there is no transgression either (Rom 4:15).

Thus the law, when grace does not help, forbidding sin, is besides the strength of the sin committed, whence the Apostle says: the strength of sin is the Law (1 Cor 15:56). Nor is it to be wondered at that human weakness has added strength to evil even from a good law, while it relies on its own strength to fulfill the law itself. For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, which he gives to the weak, and wishing to establish his own, which the weak man lacks, he is not subject to the righteousness of God (Rom 10:3), reprobate and proud. But if the Law, like a tutor, leads the one made a transgressor—as one wounded the more gravely for this, that he might desire a physician—to grace (See Gal 3:24);

then, against the harmful sweetness by which desire was prevailing, the Lord gives a beneficial sweetness by which continence may delight the more, and our land gives its fruit (Ps 67:7 (66:7); 85:13 (84:13)), on which the soldier is fed who, with God's help, vanquishes sin.

3. 8. Such soldiers the apostolic trumpet kindles to battle with this sound. Let not sin therefore reign, he says, in your mortal body, to obey its desires, nor present your members as weapons of iniquity to sin, but present yourselves to God as living from the dead, and your members as weapons of righteousness to God; for sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law but under grace (Rom 6:12–14).

And in another place: therefore, he says, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh; for if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh you will live; for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God (Rom 8:12–14).

This, then, is what is now being done, as long as this mortal life of ours is under grace: that sin—that is, the desire of sin (for in this place he calls this by the name of sin)—may not reign in our mortal body. And it is shown to reign if its desires are obeyed. There is, then, in us the desire of sin, which must not be permitted to reign; there are its desires, which must not be obeyed, lest by obeying them it reign. For which reason let desire not usurp our members for itself, but let continence claim them for itself, that they may be weapons of righteousness to God, lest they be weapons of iniquity to sin; for thus sin will not have dominion over us. For we are not under a law that indeed commands the good but does not give it, but we are under grace, which, doing what the law commands, can command us who love it as free.

3. 9. Likewise, when he exhorts us not to live according to the flesh, lest we die, but by the Spirit to put to death the deeds of the flesh, that we may live, the trumpet that sounds surely shows the war in which we are engaged, and kindles us to fight fiercely and to put to death our enemies, lest we be put to death by them.

But who these enemies are he expressed plainly enough. For those whom he wished to be put to death by us are the very ones, namely the works of the flesh. For thus he says: but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live (Rom 8:13).

And that we may know what these are, let us likewise hear the same man writing to the Galatians and saying: now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornications, uncleannesses, wantonness, idolatry, sorceries, enmities, contentions, jealousies, animosities, dissensions, heresies, envyings, drunkenness, carousings, and the like, of which I tell you beforehand, as I have foretold, that those who do such things will not possess the kingdom of God (Gal 5:19–21).

For there too, in saying these things, he was showing the very war, and with the same heavenly and spiritual trumpet was rousing the soldiers of Christ to put to death these enemies. For above he had said: I say, walk by the Spirit and do not carry out 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 do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law (Gal 5:16–18).

Therefore he wishes those who have been established under grace to have this conflict against the works of the flesh. And to point out these works of the flesh, he added what I recalled above: now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornications (Gal 5:19), and the rest, whether those he recalled or those he reminded us were to be understood, especially adding: and the like.

Finally, in this battle, producing as it were against the carnal army, in a certain way, another battle line, a spiritual one: but the fruit of the Spirit is, he says, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, continence; against such things there is no law (Gal 5:22–23). He did not say "against these," lest they should be thought to be the only ones—although, even if he had said this, we ought to understand all the goods of the same kind that we could think of—but he said: against such things, that is, both these and whatever are similar.

But that, among the goods he recalled, he set in the last place continence—of which we have now undertaken to treat, and on account of which we have already said much—he especially wished it to cling to our minds. For it avails most in this war in which the spirit lusts against the flesh, since in a certain way it crucifies the very lusts of the flesh. Whence, when the Apostle had said these things, he at once added: but those who are Christ's have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires (Gal 5:24).

This is the action of continence; thus are the works of the flesh put to death. But they put to death those whom, failing from continence, desire drags to consent to the perpetrating of such works.

4. 10. But that we may not fail from continence, we must be especially vigilant against those snares of the devil's promptings, lest we presume on our own strength: for cursed is everyone who places his hope in man (Jer 17:5). And who is this but a man? Therefore he cannot truly say that he does not place his hope in man, who places it in himself.

For this also, 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 prompting, and, if there is any Christian sense in him, let him tremble; let him hear, I say: if you live according to the flesh, you will die (Rom 8:13).

4. 11. But someone will 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 the rational mind by which he differs from the beast; but the flesh is the lowest and earthly part of man, and therefore to live according to it is vicious.

For which reason the one who lives according to man does not, in fact, live according to the flesh, but rather according to that part of man by which he is man, that is, according to the spirit of the mind, by which he is preeminent over the beasts.

But this argument is perhaps of some value in the schools of the philosophers; we, however, in order to understand the Apostle of Christ, ought to attend to how Christian books are accustomed to speak. It is surely the faith of all of us for whom Christ is to live, that man was assumed by 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 (John 1:14). What is here to be understood by flesh but man? And all flesh shall see the salvation of God (Luke 3:6)—what can be understood but every man?

To you all flesh shall come (Ps 65:2 (64:3))—what is this but every man? You have given him power over all flesh (John 17:2)—what is this but over every man? By the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified (Rom 3:20)—what is this but no man shall be justified? And the same Apostle, expressing this more plainly elsewhere: a man is not justified by the works of the Law (Gal 2:16), he says.

He also rebukes the Corinthians, saying: are you not carnal and walking according to man? (1 Cor 3:3). 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 "according to the flesh" were blameworthy but to walk—that is, to live—according to man were praiseworthy, he would not say reproachfully: you walk according to man. Let man acknowledge the reproach, change his purpose, 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 to yourself. For it was a man who said—who nevertheless did not live according to man: not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves as from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God (2 Cor 3:5). See whether he lived according to man, who truthfully said these things. Therefore, in admonishing man not to live according to man, the Apostle restores man to God. But the one who lives not according to man, but according to God, surely does not even live according to himself, because he too is a man.

But for this reason one is said to live also "according to the flesh," when one lives in this way, because man is understood even when the flesh alone is named, as we have already shown,

just as man is understood when the soul alone is named;

whence it is said: let every soul be subject to the higher powers (Rom 13:1), that is, every man, and: seventy-five souls went down into Egypt with Jacob (Gen 46:27), that is, seventy-five men.

Do not, then, live according to yourself, O man; thence you had perished, but you have been sought out. Do not, I say, live according to yourself; thus you had perished, and you have been found. Do not accuse the nature of the flesh, when you hear: if you live according to the flesh, you will die (Rom 8:13).

For it could have been said, and most truly: "if you live according to yourselves, you will die." For the devil has no flesh, and yet, because he wished to live according to himself, he did not stand in the truth (John 8:44). What wonder, then, if, living according to himself, when he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own (John 8:44)?—which the Truth said truly of him.

5. 12. When, therefore, you hear: sin shall not have dominion over you (Rom 6:14), do not trust in yourself that sin may not have dominion over you, but in him to whom a certain holy man says in prayer: direct my steps according to your word, and let no iniquity have dominion over me (Ps 119:133 (118:133)).

And indeed, lest perchance, when we had heard: sin shall not have dominion over you, we should exalt ourselves and attribute this to our own strength, the Apostle saw this at once and added: for you are not under the law, but under grace (Rom 6:14). Grace, therefore, brings it about that sin does not have dominion over you.

Do not, then, trust in yourself, lest it have dominion over you from there all the more. And when we hear: if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live (Rom 8:13), 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 be wise after this carnal sense, with the spirit dead rather than putting to death, he immediately added: for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God (Rom 8:14). And so, that we may put to death the works of the flesh by our spirit, we are led by the Spirit of God, who gives the continence by which we bridle, master, and conquer desire.

5. 13. In this so great a battle, in which man lives under grace and, when with help he fights well, rejoices in the Lord with trembling, there are nevertheless not lacking, even to vigorous warriors and to those who, though unconquered, put to death the works of the flesh, certain wounds of sins,

for the healing of which they daily say truthfully: forgive us our debts (Matt 6:12), striving against the same vices and against the devil, the chief and king of vices, much more watchfully and keenly by that very prayer, lest his deadly promptings should avail anything—by which he further incites the sinner to excuse his sins rather than to accuse them, and so those wounds are not only not healed, but even, though they were not deadly, are inflicted gravely and lethally. Here, then, there is need of a more careful continence, by which the proud appetite of man may be restrained, by which he pleases himself and does not wish to be found culpable, and disdains, when he sins, to be convicted that he himself has sinned, not taking up the accusation of himself with wholesome humility, but rather seeking the excuse of himself with ruinous pride. To restrain this pride, the man whose words I have set down above and commended as best I could sought continence from the Lord. For when he had said: set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth, and a door of continence about my lips; incline not my heart to evil words; explaining more clearly why he said this, he said: to make excuses in sins (Ps 141:3–4 (140:3–4)). For what is more evil than those words by which an evil man denies himself to be evil, even when convicted of an evil deed that he cannot deny? And since he cannot conceal what he has done, and cannot call it well done, and sees that it is plain to have been done by him, he seeks to refer to another what he has done, as though he could thereby take away what he has deserved. Unwilling to be guilty, he rather adds to his guilt, and, by excusing rather than accusing his sins, he does not know that he removes from himself not the penalty, but the pardon. For with human judges, since they can be deceived, it seems to be of some use for a time to clear oneself, by whatever deceit, of what has been wrongly done; but with God, who cannot be deceived, a deceitful defense is not to be employed, but a truthful confession of sins.

5. 14. 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 this and the heaven had first sinned by decreeing such things, so that man afterward sinned by committing such things.

Others prefer to impute to fortune the fact that they sin: they who think that all things are driven by fortuitous chances, and yet contend that they hold and assert this not by fortuitous rashness, but by reason clearly perceived. What madness, then, is it to attribute one's arguments to reason and to subject one's actions to chance?

Others refer everything that they do wrongly to the devil, and do not wish to have even a share with him, though they may suspect that he persuaded them to evils by hidden promptings, while they cannot doubt that they themselves consented to those promptings, from wherever they came. There are also those who extend their excuse into an accusation of God, wretched by the divine judgment, but blasphemers by their own madness.

For they bring in, against him, from a contrary principle, a substance of evil rebelling against him, which he could not have resisted unless he had mingled a part of his own substance and nature, to be contaminated and corrupted, with that same rebelling substance; and then they say that it sins, as it were, when the nature of evil prevails over the nature of God. This is the most unclean madness of the Manichees, whose diabolical contrivances the undoubted truth most easily overturns—the truth that confesses the nature of God to be incontaminable and incorruptible. But what shameful contamination and corruption is not deservedly believed of those by whom God, who is supremely and incomparably good, is believed to be contaminable and corruptible?

6. 15. There are also those who, in this manner, in excusing their sins, accuse God, so as to say that sins please him. For if they displeased him, they say, by his most omnipotent power he would in no way permit them to be done. As though, indeed, he had permitted sins to be unpunished, even in those whom by the forgiveness of sins he frees from everlasting punishment.

For no one receives pardon of the graver penalty due, unless he pays some penalty, however far less than was due; and thus the bounty of mercy is imparted in such a way that the justice of discipline is not abandoned either. For even the sin that seems unavenged has its own penalty following close at heel, so that no one but either grieves over what he has admitted with bitterness, or, in blindness, does not grieve.

As, then, you say: "why does he permit these things, if they displease him?" so I say: "why does he punish these things, if they please him?"

And on this account, just as I confess that these things would not be done at all unless they were permitted by the Almighty, so you confess that the things ought not to be done

which are punished by the Just One, so that, by not doing the things he punishes, we may deserve to learn from him why he permits the things he punishes to exist.

For solid food, as it is written, is for the perfect (Heb 5:14), in which those who have advanced well now understand that it pertained rather to the omnipotence of God to permit evils coming from the free choice of the will to exist. For so great is his omnipotent goodness that he can make goods even out of evils, whether by pardoning, or by healing, or by adapting and turning them to the advantages of the godly, or even by most justly avenging them.

For all these are goods, and most worthy of the good and omnipotent God, and yet they are not done except out of evils. What, then, is better, what more omnipotent than he who, while he does nothing of evil, does good even out of evils?

Those who have done evil cry out to him: forgive us our debts (Matt 6:12); he hears, he pardons. Their evils have harmed the sinners: he comes to their aid and heals their infirmities. The enemies of his own rage: out of their rage he makes martyrs. Finally, he even condemns those whom he judges worthy of condemnation: though they suffer their own evils, he nevertheless does what is good. For what is just cannot but be good; and surely, just as sin is unjust, so the punishment of sin is just.

6. 16. But power was not lacking to God to make such a man as could not sin; yet he preferred to make him such that it lay before him to sin if he willed, and not to sin if he willed not—forbidding the one, commanding the other: so that there should first be for him the good merit of not sinning, and afterward the just reward of not being able to sin. For he is going to make even his saints in the end such that they cannot sin at all. For he has even now such angels of his, whom we so love in him that we fear of none of them that he should become a devil by sinning. This we presume of no righteous man in the mortality of this life. But we are confident that all will be such in the immortality of that life. For the omnipotent God, who works goods even out of our evils, what goods will he give, when he shall have freed us from all evils? Much could be argued more fully and more subtly concerning the good use of evil; but we have not undertaken this in the present discourse, and its excessive length is to be avoided.

7. 17. Now, then, let us return to that for the sake of which we said these things. We have need of continence, and we recognize it to be a divine gift, so that our heart may not be inclined into evil words, to make excuses in sins. But to restrain what sin do we not have continence necessary, lest it be committed, since it restrains this very thing too—lest, if it has been committed, it be defended with wicked pride? Universally, then, we have need of continence, that we may turn away from evil. But to do good seems to pertain to another virtue, that is, to righteousness.

Of this the sacred psalm admonishes us, where we read: turn away from evil and do good. And to what end we should do these things, it presently added, saying: seek peace and pursue it (Ps 34:14 (33:15)). For peace will be perfect for us then, when our nature, inseparably cleaving to its Creator, will have nothing in us to oppose us from ourselves. This too the Savior himself wished, as it seems to me, to be understood, where he says: let your loins be girded and your lamps burning (Luke 12:35). What is it to gird the loins? To restrain the lusts, which belongs to continence. But to have lamps burning is to shine and be fervent in good works, which belongs to righteousness. Nor here did he keep silent to what end we should do these things, adding and saying: and you yourselves like men waiting for their lord, when he shall return from the wedding (Luke 12:36). For when he comes, he will reward us who have restrained ourselves from the things that desire commanded and have done the things that love commanded, that in his perfect and everlasting peace, without any contention of evil and with the highest delight of good, we may reign.

7. 18. All of us, then, who believe in the living and true God, whose supremely good and unchangeable nature neither does any evil nor suffers any evil, from whom is every good that can even be diminished, and who by his own good, which he himself is, can in no way be diminished,

when we hear the Apostle saying: walk by the Spirit, and do not carry out 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 do the things that you wish (Gal 5:16–17);

far be it from us to believe what the madness of the Manichees believes, that here two natures are shown to be in conflict from principles contrary to one another, one of evil, the other of good.

These two are, in fact, both good: both the spirit is good and the flesh is good; and man, who consists of both, the one commanding and the other serving, is surely good, but a changeable good:

which, nevertheless, cannot come to be except from the unchangeable good, from whom is every created good, whether small or great; but however small, made nonetheless by the great; and however great, in no way to be compared to the greatness of its maker. But in this good nature of man, well founded and established by the good, there is now war, because there is not yet salvation.

Let the infirmity be healed, and there is peace. But this infirmity guilt deserved; nature did not have it. This guilt, indeed, the grace of God has now remitted to the faithful through the washing of regeneration; but under the hands of the same physician nature still struggles with its infirmity. And in such a fight, total victory will be health: not temporary health, but eternal; where not only is this infirmity ended, but henceforth none arises.

For which reason the righteous man addresses his soul and says: bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his recompenses, who is gracious to all your iniquities, who heals all your infirmities (Ps 103:2–3 (102:2–3)). He is gracious to iniquities when he forgives sins; he heals infirmities when he checks depraved desires; he is gracious to iniquities by giving indulgence, he heals infirmities by giving continence.

The former is done in baptism for those who confess; the latter is done in the contest for those who strive, in which our own sickness must be conquered by us through his help. Even now the former is done, by which we are heard when we say: forgive us our debts; and the latter, when we are heard saying: lead us not into temptation (Matt 6:12–13). For each one, as the apostle James says, is tempted, drawn away and enticed by his own desire (Jas 1:14).

Against which vice the medicinal help is sought from him who can heal all infirmities of this kind, not by the separation of an alien nature from us, but by the repair of our own nature in us. Whence the aforesaid Apostle did not say: each one is tempted by desire, but added: his own, so that whoever hears this may understand how he ought to cry out: I said, Lord, have mercy on me; heal my soul, for I have sinned against you (Ps 41:4 (40:5)).

For it would not have needed healing, unless by sinning it had vitiated itself, so that its own flesh lusted against it—that is, so that it fought against its own self from that part by which it was weakened in the flesh.

8. 19. For the flesh desires nothing except through the soul; but the flesh is said to lust against the spirit when the soul, by carnal desire, struggles against the spirit.

All of this we are, and the flesh itself, which dies when the soul departs, is our lowest part—not to be cast off as something to be fled, but laid down to be received back, nor, once received, to be abandoned thereafter. The body is sown a natural body; it will rise a spiritual body (1 Cor 15:44).

Then the flesh will no longer lust against the spirit, when it too will be called spiritual, since it will be made subject to the spirit, to be made alive forever, not only without any opposition, but even without any need of bodily nourishment. These two, therefore, which now oppose one another in us—since in both we are ourselves—let us pray and act that they may be in concord. For we ought not to think either of them an enemy, but the vice by which the flesh lusts against the spirit:

and when this is healed it will no longer be, and both substances will be safe, and in both there will be no fight. Let us hear the Apostle: I know, he says, that in me, that is, in my flesh, no good dwells (Rom 7:18). He says this, surely, because the vice of the flesh in a good thing is not good: and when it has ceased to be, the flesh will be, but it will no longer be vitiated or vicious. That it nevertheless pertains to our nature,

the same Teacher shows by saying first: I know that in me—no good dwells—which, to explain, he added: that is, in my flesh. He thus says that his flesh is himself. It is not, then, itself our enemy: and when its vices are resisted, it itself is loved, because it itself is cared for. For no one ever hated his own flesh (Eph 5:29),

as the Apostle himself says. And in another place he says: therefore I myself with the mind serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin (Rom 7:25). Let those who have ears hear: therefore I myself; I with the mind, I with the flesh; but with the mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

In what way does he serve the law of sin with the flesh? Surely not by consenting to carnal desire? Far be it; but by having there the motions of desires, which he did not wish to have and yet had. But by not consenting to them, with the mind he served the Law of God and held his members fast, lest they become weapons of sin.

8. 20. There are, then, in us evil desires, by not consenting to which we do not live evilly; there are in us the desires of sins, by not obeying which we do not accomplish evil, but by having them we do not yet accomplish good.

The Apostle shows both: that the good is not accomplished here, where evil is thus desired, and that evil is not accomplished here, when such desire is not obeyed.

For he shows the one where he says: the willing lies near at hand for me, but I do not find how to accomplish the good (Rom 7:18); and the other where he says: walk by the Spirit, and do not carry out the desires of the flesh (Gal 5:16).

For there he does not say that to do good does not lie near at hand for him, but to accomplish it;

nor here does he say: do not have the desires of the flesh, but: do not carry them out.

And so evil desires arise in us when what is not lawful pleases us; but they are not carried out when, with the mind serving the Law of God, the lusts are restrained.

And the good is done when that which pleases wrongly is not done, the good delight prevailing; but the perfection of the good is not fulfilled, so long as, with the flesh serving the law of sin, lust entices and, although it is restrained, is nevertheless stirred.

For there would be no need for it to be restrained, unless it were stirred. There will be at some time also the perfection of the good, when there is the consuming of evil: the former at its height, the latter reduced to nothing. But if we think this is to be hoped for in this mortal state, we are deceived. For it will be then, when death will not be; and it will be there, where eternal life will be.

For in that age and in that kingdom there will be the highest good and no evil, when and where there will be the highest love of wisdom and no labor of continence. The flesh, then, is not evil, if it is free from evil—that is, from the vice by which man was vitiated, not made evil, but himself doing evil.

For from both parts, that is, soul and body, made good by the good God, he himself did the evil by which he was made evil. From the guilt of which evil he is now even released through indulgence; yet, lest he should think light what he did, he still fights with his own vice through continence.

But far be it that there should be any vices in those who reign in that peace which is to come, since in this war they are daily diminished in those who advance—not sins only, but the very desires too, with which one struggles by not consenting and by consenting to which one sins.

8. 21. That the flesh, then, lusts against the spirit, that no good dwells in our flesh, that a law in our members fights against the law of the mind, is not a mingling made of two natures from contrary principles, but a division of one nature against itself, made on account of the desert of sin.

We were not thus in Adam, before nature, having heard and followed its deceiver, despised and offended its author; this is not the prior life of created man, but the later penalty of the condemned.

From which condemnation those who have been freed through Jesus Christ contend with their own penalty as free men, not yet with full salvation, but having now received the pledge of salvation; but those not freed are both guilty of sins and entangled in punishments.

But after this life there will remain for the guilty, in eternity, penalty for guilt; for the freed there will remain in eternity neither guilt nor penalty; but there will remain in eternity the good substances, spirit and flesh, which the good and unchangeable God founded good, though changeable.

They will remain, however, changed for the better, never again to be changed for the worse, all evil being utterly consumed—both what man did unjustly and what he suffered justly. With these two kinds of evil altogether perishing, of which the one is of preceding iniquity, the other of consequent unhappiness, man's will will be upright, without any depravity.

There it will be clear and plain to all—what now is believed by many of the faithful, understood by few—that evil is not a substance, but that, just as a wound in the body, so a substance that has vitiated itself began to be a wound when the plague set in, and there ceases to be one when health is perfected.

When, therefore, all evil arising from us and perishing in us, and our good too increased and perfected to the summit of most happy incorruption and immortality, what will each substance of ours be like? Since now, in this corruption and mortality, while still the corruptible body weighs down the soul (Wis 9:15) and, as the Apostle says, the body is dead because of sin (Rom 8:10), that same Apostle nevertheless bears such testimony to our flesh, that is, to our lowest and earthly part, as to say what I recalled a little before: for no one ever hated his own flesh, and at once adds: but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ also does the Church (Eph 5:29).

9. 22. By what error, then—I do not say error, but downright madness—do the Manichees ascribe our flesh to some fabulous race of darkness or other, which they wish to have always had its own evil nature without any beginning, when the truthful teacher exhorts husbands to govern their wives by the example of their own flesh, and exhorts them to this very thing also by the example of Christ and the Church?

Finally, the whole passage of the apostolic letter, very much to the point, is to be recalled. Husbands, he says, love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing of water in the word, that he might present the Church to himself glorious, having neither spot nor wrinkle nor any such thing, but that she might be holy and immaculate. So, he says, husbands also ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself (Eph 5:25–28). Then he added what we have already recalled: for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ the Church (Eph 5:29). What does the madness of most unclean impiety say to these things? What do you say to these things, Manichees?—you who try to bring in to us, even from the apostolic letters, two natures without beginning, one of good, the other of evil, and who do not wish to hear the apostolic letters that would correct you of that sacrilegious perversity.

As you read: the flesh lusts against the spirit (Gal 5:17), and: no good dwells in my flesh (Rom 7:18), so read: no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ also does the Church (Eph 5:29).

As you read: I see another law in my members fighting against the law of my mind (Rom 7:23), so read: as Christ loved the Church, so husbands also ought to love their wives as their own bodies (Eph 5:25, 28). Do not be treacherous in those testimonies of Holy Scripture and deaf in these, and you will be corrected in both. For if you receive these as is fitting, you will try to understand those too as is true.

9. 23. The Apostle suggested to us three certain pairings: Christ and the Church, husband and wife, spirit and flesh.

Of these the former look out for the latter, the latter serve the former. All are good, when in them they keep, by the beauty of order, some things excellently set above, some things fittingly subjected.

Husband and wife receive a precept and an example of how they ought to be with one another. The precept is: let wives be subject to their husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife (Eph 5:22–23), and: husbands, love your wives (Eph 5:25).

But the example is given to wives from the Church, to husbands from Christ. As the Church, he says, is subject to Christ, so let wives also be to their husbands in everything (Eph 5:24). Likewise, a precept having been given to husbands also, that they love their wives, he added the example: as Christ loved the Church (Eph 5:25).

But he exhorted husbands also from a lower thing, that is, from their own body, not only from a higher, that is, from their own Lord. For he did not only say: husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church, which is from the higher, but he also said: husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies (Eph 5:28), which is from the lower: because both the higher and the lower things are all good.

Yet the wife did not receive the example from the body or the flesh, that she should be subject to the husband as the flesh to the spirit; but either the Apostle wished what he omitted to say to be understood by consequence, or perhaps because the flesh lusts against the spirit in the mortality and infirmity of this life, he therefore did not wish to apply to the wife the example of subjection from it.

But for husbands he wished it, because, although the spirit lusts against the flesh, even in this very thing it looks out for the flesh, not as the flesh lusting against the spirit looks out, by such opposition, either for the spirit or for itself.

Yet the good spirit would not look out for it—whether by nourishing and cherishing its nature through providence, or by resisting its vices through continence—unless each substance pointed to God, the maker of both, even by the beauty of this order of theirs.

What is it, then, that you, in true madness, both boast that you are Christians and, against the Christian Scriptures, contend with eyes closed—or rather extinguished—with such great perversity, both asserting that Christ appeared to mortals in a false flesh, and that the Church belongs in soul to Christ, in body to the devil, and that the male and female sex are works of the devil, not of God, and that the flesh cleaves to the spirit as an evil substance to a good substance?

10. 24. If what we have recalled from the apostolic letters seems to you to reply too little, hear yet other things, if you have ears. What does the most insane Manichee say of the flesh of Christ? That it was not true, but false. What does the blessed Apostle say to this? Be mindful that Christ Jesus rose from the dead, of the seed of David, according to my gospel (2 Tim 2:8).

And Jesus Christ himself says: handle and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have (Luke 24:39). How is there truth in their teaching, which proclaims that there was falsehood in the flesh of Christ? How was there no evil in Christ, in whom there was so great a lie? Because, indeed, to men exceedingly clean, true flesh is an evil and false flesh instead of true is not an evil: true flesh of one born of the seed of David is an evil, and a false tongue saying: handle and see, for a spirit does not have bones and flesh, as you see that I have (Luke 24:39), is not an evil! What does the deceiver of men say of the Church, in his deadly error? That in respect of souls it belongs to Christ, in respect of bodies to the devil? What does the Teacher of the Gentiles say to this, in faith and truth? Do you not know, he says, that your bodies are members of Christ? (1 Cor 6:15).

Of the male and female sex, what does the son of perdition say? That neither sex is from God, but from the devil. What does the Vessel of election say to this? As, he says, the woman is from the man, so also the man is through the woman; but all things are from God (1 Cor 11:12).

Of the flesh, what does the unclean spirit say through the Manichee? That it is an evil substance and a creature not of God, but of the enemy. What does the Holy Spirit say to this through Paul? For as the body is one, he says, and has many members, but all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so also is Christ (1 Cor 12:12). And a little after: God set the members, each one of them, in the body as he willed (1 Cor 12:18). Again a little after: God, he says, so tempered the body, giving greater honor to that which lacked it, that there should be no divisions in the body, but that the members should be alike anxious for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is glorified, all the members rejoice together (1 Cor 12:24–26).

How is the flesh evil, when souls themselves are admonished to imitate the peace of its members? How is it a creature of the enemy, when souls themselves, which rule bodies, take an example from the members of the body—so that they may not have among themselves the divisions of enmities—that what God bestowed on the body through nature, they too may love to have through grace? Rightly, when he wrote to the Romans, he said: I beseech you, brethren, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God (Rom 12:1). Not without cause do we contend that darkness is not light and light is not darkness, if we present a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, out of the bodies of the race of darkness.

11. 25. "But," they say, "how is the flesh, by a certain likeness, compared to the Church? Does the Church lust against Christ, when the same Apostle has said: the Church is subject to Christ (Eph 5:24)?"

Plainly the Church is subject to Christ, for the spirit lusts against the flesh precisely so that the Church may be subject to Christ in every part; but the flesh lusts against the spirit, because the Church has not yet received the peace that has been promised as perfect. And on this account the Church is subject to Christ from the pledge of salvation, and the flesh lusts against the spirit from the weakness of infirmity.

For those to whom he said these things were not other than members of the Church: walk by the Spirit, and do not carry out 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 do the things that you wish (Gal 5:16–17).

These things were surely said to the Church, which, if it were not subject to Christ, the spirit would not lust against the flesh in it through continence. For which reason they could indeed not carry out the desires of the flesh, but, the flesh lusting against the spirit, they could not do the things that they wished, that is, not to have even the desires of the flesh themselves.

Then, why should we not confess that in spiritual men the Church is subject to Christ, but in carnal men it still lusts against Christ? Or did they not lust against Christ to whom it was said: Is Christ divided? (1 Cor 1:13). And: I could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to carnal, as to little ones in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able, but neither indeed are you now able: for you are still carnal. For while there are among you jealousy and contention, are you not carnal? (1 Cor 3:1–3). Against whom do jealousy and contention lust, but against Christ?

For these desires of the flesh Christ heals in his own, but in none does he love them. Whence the holy Church, so long as it has even such members, is not yet without spot and wrinkle. To this are added also those sins for which the daily voice of the whole Church is: forgive us our debts (Matt 6:12);

from which, lest we should think the spiritual to be strangers, not any of the carnal nor any even of the spiritual themselves, but he who reclined upon the Lord's breast, and whom he loved before the rest (See John 13:23),

if we say, he says, that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8). But in every sin—more in the greater, less in the lesser—there is nevertheless a lusting against righteousness. And of Christ it is written: who was made for us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption (1 Cor 1:30).

In every sin, therefore, there is without doubt a lusting against Christ; but he who heals all our infirmities (Ps 103:3 (102:3)), when he shall have brought the Church to the promised health of its infirmity, then in none of its members will there be any spot or wrinkle, however slight. Then in no way will the flesh lust against the spirit, and therefore there will be no cause why the spirit too should lust against the flesh.

Then all this fight will receive its end, then there will be the highest concord of both substances, then there will be so far no carnal one there that even the flesh itself will be spiritual. What, then, each one living according to Christ now does with his own flesh—when he both lusts against its evil desire, since he restrains it, to be healed, while he holds it not yet healed, and yet nourishes and cherishes its good nature, since no one ever hates his own flesh (Eph 5:29)—this Christ also does with the Church, so far as it is permitted to compare lesser things with greater.

For he both restrains it by rebukes, lest, puffed up by impunity, it spring apart, and raises it by consolations, lest, weighed down by infirmity, it succumb. Hence that saying of the Apostle: for if we judged ourselves, we should not be judged; but when we are judged, we are rebuked by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with this world (1 Cor 11:31–32), and that in the psalm: according to the multitude of the sorrows in my heart, your consolations have gladdened my soul (Ps 94:19 (93:19)). Then, therefore, the perfect health of our flesh, without any opposition, is to be hoped for, when there will be for the Church of Christ a sure security, without any fear.

12. 26. Let it have sufficed to have argued these things against the Manichees, who are deceitfully continent, on behalf of true continence, lest the fruitful and glorious labor of continence, when it restrains and bridles our lowest part, that is, the body, from immoderate and unlawful pleasures, be thought not to chastise it wholesomely, but to assail it in enmity.

For the body is indeed diverse in nature from the mind, but it is not alien from the nature of man. For the mind does not consist of body; but yet man consists of mind and body: and surely God, whom he frees, frees the whole man. Whence the Savior himself also took up the whole man, deigning to free in us the whole of what he made. Those who hold an opinion against this truth, what does it profit them to restrain their lusts?—if indeed they restrain any. What can be made clean in them through continence, whose continence is itself so unclean? Which ought not even to be called continence.

For to hold the opinion that they hold is the poison of the devil; but continence is a gift of God. And just as not everyone who suffers something, or who endures any pains whatever most patiently, has that virtue which likewise is a gift of God and is called patience

(for many endure many torments, lest in their crimes they betray either those guilty along with them or themselves; many for the sake of fulfilling and obtaining their most burning lusts, or of not relinquishing the things to which they are bound by the chain of a depraved love; many for the sake of diverse and pernicious errors by which they are vehemently held—of all of whom far be it that we should say that they have true patience)

so not everyone who restrains something, or who even restrains the very lusts of flesh or mind in a marvelous way, is to be said to have that continence of whose usefulness and beauty we are speaking.

For some, which may seem marvelous to say, restrain themselves through incontinence; as if a woman should restrain herself from her husband, because she has sworn this to an adulterer.

Some through injustice, as if a spouse should not render to the spouse the debt of sexual union, because he or she can now conquer such an appetite of the body.

Likewise some restrain themselves, deceived by a false faith, hoping for vain things, pursuing vain things: among whom are all heretics and whoever, under the name of religion, are deceived by some error; whose continence would be true, if their faith were also true; but since that, because it is false, is not even to be called faith, without doubt this too is unworthy of the name of continence.

For shall we say that continence, which we most truly call a gift of God, is a sin? Far be such detestable madness from our hearts. But the blessed Apostle says: everything that is not from faith is sin (Rom 14:23). That, therefore, which does not have faith is not to be called continence either.

12. 27. There are also those who, openly serving malignant demons, restrain themselves from the pleasures of the body, that through them they may satisfy wicked pleasures whose onset and ardor they do not restrain. Whence, to say something and to pass over the rest because of the length of the discourse, some even do not touch their own wives, while, as though clean, through magical arts they contrive to reach the wives of others.

O marvelous continence—or rather, singular wickedness and uncleanness! For if it were true continence, the carnal desire ought rather to have restrained from adultery than, for the sake of perpetrating adultery, to have restrained from the marriage bed. For this carnal desire conjugal continence is wont to relax, and to impose moderation by its reins to this extent: that not even in marriage itself should there be a flowing into immoderate license, but a measure should be kept—either the measure due to the infirmity of the spouse, which the Apostle prescribes not by way of command, but concedes by way of indulgence (1 Cor 7:6), or the measure suited to the procreation of children, which was the one cause of the joining of flesh with one another for the holy fathers and mothers of old. And in doing this, continence—that is, moderating and in a certain way limiting in spouses the carnal desire and ordering its restless and disordered motion within certain bounds, as it were—makes good use of the evil of man, whom it makes and wills to be made perfectly good, just as God makes use even of evil men for the sake of those whom he makes good.

13. 28. Far be it, then, that we should say that those have the continence of which Scripture says: and this very thing was of Wisdom, to know whose gift it was (Wis 8:21), who by restraining themselves either serve errors, or conquer some lesser desires only in order to satisfy others, by whose magnitude they are conquered. But that which is true continence, coming from above, wills not to press down some evils by other evils, but to heal all evils by goods. To embrace its action briefly: the duty of continence keeps watch for the restraining and healing of absolutely all the delights of desire that are opposed to the delight of wisdom.

Whence those measure it too narrowly, without doubt, who define it as restraining only the lusts of the body; better surely are those who do not add "of the body," but say that desire or cupidity generally is to be governed, and pertains to continence. This cupidity, which is reckoned among the vices, is not only of the body, but also of the mind. For if there is a cupidity of the body in fornications and drunkenness, surely enmities, contentions, jealousies, and finally animosities are exercised not in the pleasures of the body, but rather in the motions and disturbances of the mind (See Gal 5:19–21)?

Yet all these the Apostle named the works of the flesh, whether they pertained properly to the mind or to the flesh, calling man himself, namely, by the name of flesh. For they are works of man, which are not called works of God, since man, who does these things, lives according to himself, not according to God, in so far as he does these things. But there are other works of man, which are rather to be called works of God. For it is God, says the Apostle, who works in you both to will and to work, according to his good will (Phil 2:13). Hence too that saying: for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God (Rom 8:14).

13. 29. The spirit of man, therefore, cleaving to the Spirit of God, lusts against the flesh—that is, against itself, but on its own behalf—so that those motions, whether in the flesh or in the soul, that are according to man, not according to God, which still exist through the acquired infirmity, may be restrained by continence for the sake of acquiring salvation, so that man, no longer living according to man, may now be able to say: and now I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me (Gal 2:20).

For where there is "not I," there is, more happily, "I"; so that, when according to man some reprobate motion arises, to which he does not consent who with the mind serves the Law of God, he may also say that other thing: now it is no longer I who do it (Rom 7:17).

For to such men those things too are said, which, as their companions and partakers, we ought to hear: if you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God; set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are upon the earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God; when Christ shall appear, your life, then you also will appear with him in glory (Col 3:1–4).

Let us understand to whom he speaks—or rather, let us listen more attentively. For what is plainer than this? What more open? He surely speaks to those who have risen with Christ, not yet, indeed, in the flesh, but in the mind, whom he calls both dead and, from this, the more alive; for your life, he says, is hidden with Christ in God. The voice of such dead men is: and now I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me (Gal 2:20). Those, then, whose life was hidden in God, are admonished and exhorted to put to death their members which are upon the earth. For this follows: put to death, therefore, your members which are upon the earth (Col 3:5).

And lest anyone too slow should think that those visible members of the body were to be put to death by such men, at once opening up what he means, he says: fornication, uncleanness, disturbance, evil desire, and avarice, which is the service of idols (Col 3:5). Is it then to be believed that these men, who were already dead and whose life was hidden with Christ in God, were still fornicating, still living in unclean habits and works, still serving disturbances, evil desire, and avarice? Who, being mad, would hold this of such men? What, then, does he wish them to put to death—by the work of continence, namely—but those very motions still living in a certain importunity of theirs, without the consent of our mind, without the operation of the bodily members? And how are these put to death by the work of continence, except when the mind does not consent to them, nor are the members of the body presented to them as weapons,

and—what is greater, and to be cared for with the greater vigilance of continence—when our very thought itself, although it is touched in a certain way by their suggestion and, as it were, whispering, is nevertheless turned away from them, lest it be delighted by them, and is turned to thinking on the things above more delightfully, naming them in discourse for this end: that one may not dwell in them, but flee from them?

Which comes about if we hear effectively, with his help who prescribes this through his Apostle: seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God; set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are upon the earth (Col 3:1–2).

14. 30. But when he had recalled those evils, he added and said: on account of which the wrath of God comes upon the sons of unbelief (Col 3:6). He surely terrified them wholesomely, lest the faithful should think that, on account of their faith alone, even if they lived in these evils, they could be saved—the apostle James crying out against this notion with a most manifest voice and saying: if anyone says that he has faith, but does not have works, can faith save him? (Jas 2:14).

Whence here too the Teacher of the Gentiles said that on account of those evils the wrath of God comes upon the sons of unbelief. But when he says: in which you also once walked, when you lived in them (Col 3:7), he sufficiently shows that they no longer live in them. For to these they were dead, so that their life might be hidden in God with Christ.

Since, then, they no longer lived in them, they were now bidden to put such things to death. For while they themselves did not live in them, those things lived; just as I have already shown a little before, and they were called their members—namely, those vices which dwelt in their members, by the manner of speech in which the container stands for the contained, as it is said, "the whole forum talks of it," when it is men who talk, who are in the forum. By this very manner of speech it is sung in a Psalm: let all the earth adore you (Ps 66:4 (65:4)), that is, all men who are on the earth.

14. 31. But now put off, he says, you also, all these things (Col 3:8), and he recalls more evils of this kind. But what is it that it does not suffice him to say: put off all these things, but, adding a conjunction, he said: you also? Except that they should not, for this reason, think that they do these evils and live in them with impunity, because their faith frees them from the wrath that comes upon the sons of unbelief who do these things and who live in them without faith. Put off, he says, you also those evils, on account of which the wrath of God comes upon the sons of unbelief, and do not promise yourselves impunity for them on account of the merit of faith.

But he would not say put off to those who had already put off, in that part in which they did not consent to such vices, nor gave their members to them as weapons of sin, except that the life of the saints, as long as we are mortal, consists in this deed and is still engaged in this work. For while the spirit lusts against the flesh, this matter is carried on with great intentness: depraved delights, unclean lusts, carnal and shameful motions are resisted by the sweetness of holiness, by the love of chastity, by spiritual vigor and the beauty of continence: thus they are put off by those who are dead to them, and who do not live in them by consenting. Thus, I say, they are put off, while by continued continence they are pressed down, lest they rise again. Whoever, as though secure, has ceased from this putting off of them, they will at once leap forth into the citadel of the mind and will themselves cast it down from there and reduce it into their own servitude, shamefully and deformedly captive.

Then sin will reign in the mortal body of man, to obey its desires; then it will present its members as weapons of iniquity to sin (Rom 6:13), and his last state will be worse than the first (Matt 12:45). For it is far more tolerable not to have begun a contest of this kind than, having begun it, to have abandoned the struggle and to have been made, from a good fighter or even a victor, a captive. Whence the Lord did not say, "he who has begun," but: he who perseveres to the end, he will be saved (Matt 10:22).

14. 32. But whether, fighting keenly, we are not conquered, or, conquering sometimes even with an unhoped-for or unexpected ease, let us give glory to him who gives us continence. Let us remember that a certain righteous man said in his abundance: I shall not be moved forever (Ps 30:6 (29:7)), and that it was shown to him how rashly he had said this, as though attributing to his own strength what was bestowed on him from above. And this we have learned from his own confession; for he presently added: Lord, in your will you furnished strength to my beauty; but you turned away your face, and I became troubled (Ps 30:7 (29:8)).

By a medicinal providence he was deserted for a little while by his ruler, lest through deadly pride he should himself desert his ruler. Whether, then, here, where we struggle to subdue and diminish our vices, or there, which is to be in the end, where we shall be free from every enemy because free from every plague, this is wholesomely done with us, that he who glories, may glory in the Lord (1 Cor 1:31).