Volume II, Treatise IV, Chapter I

That We Are All in This Life Exposed to Temptation

“Son, applying yourself to the service of God, persevere in justice with fear, and prepare your soul for temptation.” (Ecclesiasticus 2:1) St. Jerom, upon these words of Ecclesiastes, “there is a time of war and atime of peace,” (Ecclesiastes 3:8), says, that as long as we are in this life, it is a time of war; and when we shall come to the other world, it will be a time of peace, according to these words, ‘he has established his abode in peace.”—(Ps. Ixxv. 2.) And it is for this reason, that the name of Jerusalem, that is to say, the vision of peace, is given to this heavenly country, to which we aspire. ‘ Let nobody, therefore,” adds he, “think himself at present secure, in this time of war, in which we are continually to fight, that at length we may rest in peace,” such a peace as nothing shall be able tointerrupt. St. Austin, upon these words of the apostle:— “I do not the good that I would do,” (Serm. xlv. sup. (Romans 7:15)) says, that the life of a just man, is not a triumph but a combat; and therefore at present we hear the cries of war, such as are expressed by the words, which the apostle makes use of, when he complains of the repugnance of nature to what is good, and of its inclination to evil. ‘TI do not,” says he, “the good I would do; but I do the evil I would not. I see in my members another law, which is contrary to the law of my mind, and which subjects it to the law of concupiscence, which is in my members.” But songs of triumph will be heard, when our mortal body shall be clothed with immortality, and then we shall cry out with the apostle, “death is absorbed in victory. © death, where is your victory, O death, where is your sting?”—-(1 Corinthians 15:54) The same thoughts are very well expressed by these words of Job—“The life of man is a continual warfare, and his days are like those of a hireling.” (Job 7:1) For as a day workman labours from morning till night without ceasing, and then receives his day wages; so our life is as a day’s work, full of pain and temptations, after which, each one will receive a reward according to what he shall have done.

But let us at present examine the cause of this continual war. The apostle St. James points it out in his canonical epistle— from whence,”’ says he, “proceed these combats and dissensions we feel in ourselves? Do they not proceed from concupiscence, which makes war against you?” (James 4:1) The source of all thisis within ourselves; and the source is the repugnance we have to what is good, which has remained in our flesh since the entrance of sin. Because the earth of our flesh was no less cursed than the other; and therefore it produces so many thorns and thistles which prick and torment us. The saints compare us to that ship in the gospel which was no sooner launched into the sea, but a tempest rose that covered it with waves. For our soul is in our body, as in a ship, that leaks on all sides, and which the winds of a thousand different passions, expose every moment to shipwreck.

The cause then of the continual temptations which torment us, is our corrupt nature. “For the corruption of our body which clogs _the soul,” (Wisdom 9:15), is that incentive to sin we carry about us, and that inclination to evil, with which we are born. Our greatest enemy is within us, and wages continual war against us. Nor are we consequently to wonder at our being tempted. For since we are children of Adam, and “have been conceived in. iniquity and brought forth in sin,” (Psalms 1:7), how can we be exempted from temptations, or how can we hinder our evil inclinations from making war continually against us? In the prayer therefore which our Saviour taught us, St. Jerom observes, that he does not bid us beg of God, “to have no temptations, for that is impossible;” (Heir. in illud.) but only, that “he would not suffer us to fall or sink under them.” (Matthew 6:13) After the same manner he taught his disciples, when he said to them, “‘ watch and pray lest ye enter into temptation;” (Matthew 26:41), “for to enter into temptation,” says the same St. Jerom, “is not to be tempted, but to be overcome by temptation.” Joseph was tempted to commit adultery, but he resisted the temptation; Susanna likewise was tempted after the same manner, but God gave her also the grace of resisting. Now this it is we beg God in the Lord’s prayer, that he would give us the grace and strength to support ourselves in temptation, and not to remove temptations wholly from us. ‘ Thou art mistaken, brother,” says the same saint, writing to Heliodorus, “thou art mistaken if thou believest that a Christian is quite exempted from temptation; never art thou more strongly set upon, than when thou believest, that thou art not at all assaulted.” Never does the devil make fiercer war upon thee, than when thou thinkest he is at peace with thee, ‘“Ouradversary is as a roaring lion, who goes about seeking whom he may devour, and canst thou then think thou art secure? He lies in ambush for the rich, and in hidden places to destroy the innocent. His eyes are always upon the poor; as a lion in his den, he lays snares for him in secret.” (Psalms 9:30) It isa mistake to think we can live in peace here below. We are in a time of war; and to startle at temptations, is, as if a soldier should startle at the report of a musket, and thereupon quit the army; or as if a man should cease going to sea, because the motion thereof raises some qualms in his stomach.

St. Gregory says, many erroneously imagine, that as soon as they are attacked by any violent temptation, all is lost, and that God has forsaken them. They are very much mistaken; for all men are subject to temptations, and they who aim at perfection, are more subject than others; as the wise man tells us in the words we have already cited. The apostle teaches us the same. “All,” says he, “who will live piously in Jesus Christ, shall suffer persecution.” (2 Timothy 3:12) All who will advance in virtue, shall be exposed to temptations; as for others, they often know not, even what it is to be tempted; they are not sensible of the rebellion and combat of the flesh against the spirit.

Upon this passage of the apostle, “the flesh lusteth against the spirit,’ St. Austin says, “that it is in good people, it so lusteth. Because in the bad, it has not any thing to lust against, and that it is only where the spirit is, that is to say, where there is a real desire of virtue, that it lusteth against the spirit.’—(Serm. xliii. in Evan. St. Joan.) The wicked, therefore, having not the spirit which fights against the flesh, are not sensible of the rebellion of the flesh against the spirit, nor need the devil lose time in tempting them; since of themselves, and without resistance, they yield to him. We go not to hunt after tame animals, but after the stag, and other wild beasts noted for their swiftness; it is after those, whose feet God has made as swift as hart’s feet, and those who keep upon the mountains, that the devil hunts; for, as for such as live like tame animals, he has no need to run after them; they are already his own; “and he minds not,’”’ says St. Gregory, “to disturb those of whom he enjoys a quiet possession.” —(Lib. xxiv. Moral. c. 7.) Wherefore we ought not only not to wonder at our having temptations, but should look upon them as a good sign, according to the words of St. John Climachus, who says, “that the most infallible mark of having overcome the devil, is that he assaults you violently.” —(Grad. xxvi. de. Disc. art. 60.) For he attacks you, only because you struggled with him, and shook off his yoke. This is the cause of his hating and persecuting you; and without this, he would not so much torment you.

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