|
JOHN: Your shrewd question has anticipated the subject, which even if
you had said nothing must have arisen from our discourse, and therefore I
do not doubt that it will be effectually grasped by your minds, since
indeed your sharp wits have outstripped our instruction. For the puzzle of
any question is easily removed, when the inquiry anticipates the answer,
and is the first to travel along the road which it is to follow. And so to
the treatment of those faults of which we have spoken above, intercourse
with other men is not merely no hindrance, but a considerable help, for the
more often that the outbursts of their impatience are exposed, the more
thorough is the sorrow and compunction which they bring on those who have
failed, and the speedier is the recovery of health which they confer on
those who struggle against them. Wherefore even when we are living in
solitude, though the incentive to irritation and matter for it cannot arise
from men, yet we ought of set purpose to meditate on incitements to it,
that as we are fighting against it with a continual struggle in our
thoughts a speedier cure for it may be found for us. But against the spirit
of fornication the system is different, and the method an altered one. For
as we must deprive the body of opportunities of lust, and contact with
flesh, so we must deprive the mind of the recollection of it. For it is
sufficiently dangerous for bosoms that are still weak and infirm even to
tolerate the slightest recollection of this passion, in such a way that
sometimes at the remembrance of holy women, or in reading a story in Holy
Scripture a stimulus of dangerous excitement is aroused. For which reason
our Elders used deliberately to omit passages of this kind when any of the
juniors were present. However for those who are perfect and established in
the feelings of chastity there can be no lack of proofs by which they may
examine themselves, and establish their perfect uprightness of heart by the
uncorrupted judgment of their own conscience. There will then be for the
man who is thoroughly established a similar test even in regard to this
passion, so that one who is sure that he has altogether exterminated the
roots of this evil may for the sake of ascertaining his chastity, call up
some picture as with a lascivious mind. But it is by no means proper for
such a test to be attempted by those who are still weak (for to them it
will be dangerous rather than useful), ut conjunctionem femineam et
palpationem quodammodo teneram atque mollissimam corde pertractent. Cure
ergo perfects quis virtute fundatus ad illecebram blandissimorum tactuum,
quos cogitando confinxerit, nullum mentis assensum, nullam commotionem
carnis in se deprehenderit exagitatam, he will have a very sure proof of
his purity, so that training himself to this steadfast purity he will not
only possess the blessing of chastity and freedom from defilement in his
heart, but even if he is obliged to touch the body of a woman, he will be
horrified at it.
With this Abbot John brought his Conference to an end, as he saw that
it was just time for the refreshment of the ninth hour.
|
|