That Penance and Mortification of the Flesh Is a Very Good Remedy against Temptations to Impurity

THE blessed St. Jerome says: “The fiery arrows of the devil are to be extinguished by the rigor of fasting and watching,” and such was his own practice. The same St. Jerome relates of St. Hilarion that, wearied and tired out with temptations of the flesh and evil thoughts, he waxed wroth with his body and said: “Ass, I will make thee stop thy kicking, for I will stop thy barley and give thee only straw. I am minded to kill thee with hunger and thirst, to lay heavy loads on thee, to weary thee with heat and cold, that thou mayest think rather of merely getting something to eat than of wantonness.” An excellent remedy this, commended by the saints, and much used by the servants of God even without their feeling this war.

In the chronicles of the Order of blessed St. Francis it is related that someone asked a holy man why St. John Baptist, having been sanctified in his mother’s womb, betook himself to the desert and there did such severe penance (Mark i. 4-6). The holy man answered: “Tell me why, when meat is fresh and good, do they salt it?” The other answered: “The better to preserve it from corruption.” “So, then,” said the other, “the glorious Baptist salted himself with penance that his sanctity might be better preserved from all corruption of sin,” as the Church has it in her hymn. But if, even in time of peace, before these temptations are felt, it is proper to practise this exercise of penances and mortifications, how much more proper will it be in time of war! St. Thomas says, and he has it from Aristotle: Castitas dicitur a castigatione—“Chastity is so called from chastisement,” because this vice must be restrained by chastisement of the body; and he says that unclean vices are like boys that need the whip because they are wanting in reason.

And if from this ill-treatment of the body there follows weakness or injury to bodily health, the same St. Jerome answers elsewhere: Melius est stomachum dolere quam mentem—‘“It is better for the stomach to be hurt than the soul.” Better for the legs to totter for weakness than for chastity to waver. Still, discretion is always necessary; and so these remedies must be used according to the strength of the subject, and the temptation and the danger of each individual. There is a case of the war’s being so violent as to threaten the loss of chastity; and then the right thing is to wager the body, at any risk, to secure the life of the soul. Physicians say here: Hutremis morbis extrema et exquisita sunt remedia—“When the illness is deadly, and seems to be now making an end of the man, far-fetched and extraordinary remedies are used.” So it must be in temptations and spiritual infirmities, when they are violent. Quite a different case is that of one struggling with a temptation that is no more than normal and ordinary, in which there is not so much danger to be apprehended, and, consequently, no such excessive pains are needed to overcome it.

But masters of spiritual life observe that these temptations of the flesh sometimes arise from the flesh itself, and redound on to the soul from the body, This is usually the case with youths and persons of sound health, in the enjoyment of bodily comforts. Then, as has been said, it is very profitable to apply the remedy there, since there is the root of the malady. At other times the temptation springs from the soul by suggestion of the devil. The sign of that is when the struggle is rather with thoughts and foul imaginations than with impure feelings and motions of the body; or, if there are any such, it is not that the temptation begins with them, but it begins with thoughts, of which those feelings and motions in the flesh are the result. And this is the case sometimes when the body is quite weak and almost dead, and yet those thoughts are most lively, as St. Jerome relates to have happened to himself; for when his body was weak, worn away and half-dead with the great penances and austerities which he practised, still he fancied himself at times to be in the midst of the dances and balls of the Roman ladies.

They also have down in their books another sign, which is when the temptations come out of season, just when the:* man would least wish to have them, and there is least occasion for them; when they pay no reverence to times of meditation or Mass, or to holy places in which, bad as a man may be, he yet generally has some sentiment of piety and reverence, and abstains from thinking of such things. Nay, sometimes the thoughts are monstrous and hideous beyond anything that the man ever heard of or considered or imagined. By the force with which they come, and the strange words that he hears interiorly, the man feels that they do not come of himself, but of another’s saying and another’s doing. All these things are manifest signs that this is a persecution coming of the devil, and does not arise from the flesh, although the body is affected thereby. Then other remedies are to be applied. And all say that for this end it is good to take up some lawful occupation calling for care and effort, so as to drive out of the mind those foul imaginations. To this intent St. Jerome, as he himself relates, set himself to learn Hebrew, a laborious task, but not unfruitful in his case.

The same St. Jerome tells of a young monk, a Greek by birth, who was in a monastery of Egypt, much harassed by this temptation of the flesh. He fasted much and did great penances, but still the temptation did not cease. The superior took this means to cure him. He commanded a monk, one of the most ancient of the brethren, a grave and rough man, to contradict this youth many times, and reprove him in harsh and injurious terms, and, after having rated him soundly, then to go to complain of him as if he had been the offended party and not the other monk. The ancient had the wit to do this right well, and at every step he took occasion of anything that turned up to scold him severely, and further than that he marched him straight off to trial before the superior, and had prearranged witnesses ready to say that this other monk had been disrespectful to his senior. The superior rebuked him and gave him sound good penances, as though he were in fault. This went on every day, and the poor fellow, seeing himself so ill-used and the victim of so much false witness, was much afflicted and very sad in his cell, and shed many tears, begging our Lord to turn to his defense, because he saw himself forlorn and abandoned, finding no human support— everybody was against him. There was no fault or breach of discipline committed in the house but they imputed it to him, and two or three would get up at once to testify against him, and draw upon his head penances and rebukes. This went on for a whole year. At the end of the year another monk asked him how the temptation of the flesh was going on. He answered: Vivere mihi non licet, et fornicari licebit ?—“They won’t let me so much as live, and do you ask me if I have any thought of that? I have no memory of that temptation.” So his spiritual father cured him; with the greater pain and affliction he got quit of the lesser. And St. Jerome adds this, speaking to persons in religion: “Tf this man had been living alone, who ever would have aided him to overcome the temptation?” And in the rule of his monks this is one of the reasons that the saint gives to show how religion and a life under obedience befits us: “That you may not do what you have a mind to do; that you may eat what they give you, wear the dress that shall fall to your lot, do the task they put upon you, go to bed at night tired, and be made to get up when you have not had your fill of sleep”—Ut non facias quod vis, comedas quod iuberis, vestiare quod acceperis, operis tui pensum persolvas, lassus ad stratum venias, necdum expleto somno surgere compellaris. Thus, one thing upon another, you are so occupied by obedience that temptations find no room to enter, and you have no time to think of anything but of what you have got to do.

The blessed St. Francis used to say that he had learned by experience how the devils dreaded and kept aloof from severity and rigor of penance, and fastened on and tempted mightily those who treated themselves to comforts and delicacies. St. Athanasius relates of St. Anthony Abbot that he taught the same to his disciples. ‘Believe me, brethren, the devil greatly dreads the vigils of good men, their prayers and fasts and voluntary poverty.” St. Ambrose quotes to this effect the saying of the prophet: I clad myself in sackcloth, and sheltered and guarded my soul with fasting (Psalm Ixviii. 11-12). This, he says, is a good defense and armor against the enemy. We have also for this the teaching of Christ, Who told us, when He cast out the unclean spirit which the disciples had been unable to cast out: This sort of devil goeth not out but by prayer and fasting (Mark ix. 28). To prayer, He adds penance and fasting as a very proper means to scare away this sort of devils. Thus, under these temptations we should not rest satisfied with having recourse to prayer, but we should also exercise ourselves very specially in corporal works of penance and mortification, always with the consent of our confessor or superior, that in all things we may be more assured of our way.

A religious who was assailed by this temptation asked holy Brother Giles what remedy he should take against it. “What would you do, my brother,” said the saint, “if a dog were coming to bite you?” The religious answered: “TI would take a stone or a stick, and give it him till I made him run away from me.” The saint said: “Do so, then, with your flesh which offers to bite you, and this temptation will fly away from you.” So excellent is this remedy that sometimes any labor and pain, though it be but slight, is apt to divert and get rid of this temptation, as to stretch out one’s arms in the form of a cross, to bend the knees, to strike one’s breast, to take a discipline, to pinch oneself or pull out hairs, to stand for some time on one leg, and the like.

It is related in the Life of St. Andrew the Apostle that, while St. Andrew was at Corinth, an old man named Nicholas came to him and told him that for seventy-four years he had lived an immoral life, giving the rein to his disorderly appetites and surrendering himself to all manner of shameful lust; that a little while ago he had gone into a brothel to offend God, taking with him the Gospel; that a bad woman belonging to that establishment, with whom he sought to sin, held off from him in great terror, and besought him not to touch her, nor approach the place where she was, because she saw in him marvelous and mysterious things. Upon that, the old man asked St. Andrew to give him a remedy for that his great weakness and inveterate custom of sinning. The saint put himself in prayer and fasted five days, entreating our Savior to pardon this miserable old man and grant him the gift of chastity. At the end of the five days the apostle, still persevering in prayer, heard a voice from heaven which said to him: “T grant what thou askest Me for the old man, but it is My will that, as thou hast fasted for him, so he should fast and afflict himself on his own account if he wishes to be saved.” The holy apostle bade Nicholas fast, and all the Christians to make prayer for him and crave mercy of the Lord. God heard them so effectually that Nicholas on his return home gave away all he had to the poor, and macerated his flesh with great austerity; and for the space of six months he ate nothing but dry bread, and his only drink was a little water. Having accomplished this penance, he passed out of this life; and God revealed to St. Andrew, who at that time was absent, that he was saved.

In the “Spiritual Meadow” there is a story of a monk’s going to one of the ancient Fathers and asking him: “What shall I do to escape suffering the evil thoughts that assail me?” The old man said to him: “I have never been tried with the like thoughts.” The monk was scandalized at that answer, and went off to another ancient Father and said to him: “I want you to know that such and such a Father has told me that he never either has been or is assailed with evil thoughts; and I am shocked because it seems to me that he has said a thing beyond the bounds of human nature.” The Father said to him: “It cannot be without reason that man of God spoke to you such words; go back and beg his pardon, and he will tell you the reason why he said so.” The monk went back and said to him: “Forgive me, Father, for going off the other day so foolishly without taking leave of you; I beg you further to tell me how you have escaped such assaults.” The old man answered: “Because, ever since I have been a monk, I have never eaten my fill of bread, nor drunk enough water to satisfy me, nor slept enough; and this abstinence has kept me from the conflict of thoughts which you spoke of.”