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| Chapter IV. A review of the passions of gluttony and fornication and their remedies.
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Chapter IV.
A review of the passions of gluttony and fornication and
their remedies.
And to make this clearer not
only by a short discussion to the best of my ability, but by
Scripture proof as well,
gluttony and fornication, though they exist in us naturally (for
sometimes they spring up without any incitement from the mind, and
simply at the motion and allurement of the flesh) yet if they are to be
consummated, must find an external object, and thus take effect only
through bodily acts. For “every man is tempted of his own lust.
Then lust when it has conceived beareth sin, and sin when it is
consummated begets death.”1314
For the
first Adam could not have fallen a victim to gluttony unless he had had
material food at hand, and had used it wrongly, nor could the second
Adam be tempted without the enticement of some object, when it was said
to Him: “If Thou art the Son of God, command that these stones be
made bread.”1315
And it is clear
to everybody that fornication also is only completed by a bodily act,
as God says of this spirit to the blessed Job: “And his force is
in his loins, and his strength in the navel of his
belly.”1316
And so these two
faults in particular, which are carried into effect by the aid of the
flesh, especially require bodily abstinence as well as spiritual care
of the soul; since the determination of the mind is not in itself
enough to resist their attacks (as is sometimes the case with anger or
gloominess or the other passions, which an effort of the mind alone can
overcome without any mortification of the flesh); but bodily
chastisement must be used as well, and be carried out by means of
fasting and vigils and acts of contrition; and to this must be added
change of scene, because since these sins are the results of faults of
both mind and body, so they can only be overcome by the united efforts
of both. And although the blessed Apostle says generally that all
faults are carnal, since he enumerates enmities and anger and heresies
among other works of the flesh,1317
yet in
order to cure them and to discover their nature more exactly we make a
twofold division of them: for we call some of them carnal, and some
spiritual. And those we call carnal, which specially have to do with
pampering the appetites of the flesh, and with which it is so charmed
and satisfied, that sometimes it excites the mind when at rest and even
drags it against its will to consent to its desire. Of which the
blessed Apostle says: “In which also we all walked in time past
in the desires of our flesh, fulfilling the will of the flesh and of
our thoughts, and were by nature children of wrath even as the
rest.”1318
But we call
those spiritual which spring only from the impulse of the mind and not
merely contribute no pleasure to the flesh, but actually bring on it a
weakness that is harmful to it, and only feed a diseased mind with the
food of a most miserable pleasure. And therefore these need a single
medicine for the heart: but those which are carnal can only be cured,
as we said, by a double remedy. Whence it is extremely useful for those
who aspire to purity, to begin by withdrawing from themselves the
material which feeds these carnal passions, through which opportunity
for or recollection of these same desires can arise in a soul that is
still affected by the evil. For a complicated disease needs a
complicated remedy. For from the body the object and material which
would allure it must be withdrawn, for fear lest the lust should
endeavour to break out into act; and before the mind we should no less
carefully place diligent meditation on Scripture and watchful anxiety
and the withdrawal into solitude, lest it should give birth to desire
even in thought. But as regards other faults intercourse with our
fellows is no obstacle, or rather it is of the greatest possible use,
to those who truly desire to get rid of them, because in mixing with
others they more often meet with rebuke, and while they are more
frequently provoked the existence of the faults is made evident, and so
they are cured with speedy remedies.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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