Of Two Other Chief Remedies, Which Are to Resist Temptation in Its Beginnings, and Never to Be Idle

QO* resisting first beginnings St. Jerome says: “Slay your enemy while he is small, strangle him at the commencement, root him out before he grows, because afterwards you will not be able.” Temptation is like a spark, which, if it once catches on, causes a conflagration. Of one spark cometh a great fire (Ecclus. xi. 34). The poet says: “Resist beginnings; too late is the medicine made up when the mischief has gathered strength by long delay.” And a much better authority advises the same, the Holy Ghost by the Prophet David: Blessed is he who shall take and dash thy little ones against the rock (Psalm cxxxvi. 9). And by his son Solomon: Catch for us the little foxes that lay waste the vineyards (Cant. ii. 15). When the little foxes of temptations are small, when thoughts are just beginning to arise of rash judgment, of pride, of misplaced affection, of particular friendship, then is the time to dash them against the solid rock, which is Christ and the consideration of His example, that they may not grow and so come to lay waste the vineyard of your soul. We cannot help temptations’ and evil thoughts’ coming upon us; but happy is he who knows how to get rid of them at the beginning, at their first appearance. So St. Jerome explains this passage. It is very important to resist the beginnings, when the enemy is weak and has but little strength; then resistance is easy, afterwards very difficult.

St. Chrysostom illustrates this by a comparison. When a sick man has a desire to eat something that will do him harm and he vanquishes the desire, he escapes the harm that that unwholesome dish would have done him and is healed of his sickness the sooner; but if for a small gratification of taste he partakes of that injurious dish, he aggravates his sickness, and may come to die of it or to suffer great pain in his cure, all which misfortune he might have escaped by taking a little pains to check at the beginning that gluttonous desire of eating that harmful food. So, when there comes upon a man a thought or desire of looking at some dangerous object, if he conquers himself at the beginning, restraining his eyes and rejecting at once the evil thought, he delivers himself from the molestation and pain of the temptation which otherwise would have arisen therefrom and from the harm which he might have incurred by consenting to it. But if he does not conquer and restrain himself at the beginning, then for that little negligence or that little pleasure which he got by looking or thinking, he may come afterwards to die the death of his soul, or at least to have great difficulty and trouble in resisting. Thus what would have cost him little or nothing at the beginning, comes in the end to cost him dear. Hence the importance of resisting beginnings.

In the Lives of the Fathers it is related how the devil once appeared to St. Pacomius in the form of a very beautiful woman. The saint asked him why he practised such malicious craft to ensnare men. The devil said: “If you start giving some entry to our first little stirrings, at once we apply stronger incentives to provoke you to sin; but if we see that you resist at the outset and give no entry to the imaginations and thoughts which we bring up, we disappear like smoke.”

It is also a great remedy against temptations never to be idle. Cassian says that the Fathers of Egypt took this for a first principle, and kept it as an ancient tradition received from their elders, and recommended it to their disciples for a singular good remedy. “Let the devil always find you busy.” So God taught St. Anthony, and gave him this remedy to enable him to persevere in solitude and defend himself against temptations. St. Augustine quotes his case. He says that St. Anthony could not always be at prayer, though he was St. Anthony, and was assailed and harassed at times by various thoughts. He made his petition to God: “Lord, what shall I do? I would fain be good, and my thoughts will not let me.” And he heard a voice that said to him: “Anthony, if thou desirest to please God, pray; and when thou canst not pray, labor with thy hands. Take care to be always busy with something; do what is in thy power, and the protection of the Lord shall not fail thee.” Others say that there appeared to him an angel in the form of a youth, who dug a little and then went for a little on his knees in prayer, his hands joined and lifted up, which was teaching the same lesson. Idleness is the root and origin of many temptations and many evils; and it is very important for us that the devil may never find us idle, but always busy.