To Demetrius.
8In speaking thus I do not wish to utter an ill-omened prophecy against you but only to warn you as an apprehensive and prudent monitor who in your case fears even what is safe. What says the scripture? “If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee, leave not thy place.” We must always stand under arms and in battle array, ready to engage the foe. When he tries to dislodge us from our position and to make us fall back, we must plant our feet firmly down, and say with the psalmist, “he hath set my feet upon a rock” and “the rocks are a refuge for the conies.” In this latter passage for ‘conies’ many read ‘hedgehogs.’ Now the hedgehog is a small animal, very shy, and covered over with thorny bristles. When Jesus was crowned with thorns and bore our sins and suffered for us, it was to make the roses of virginity and the lilies of chastity grow for us out of the brambles and briers which have formed the lot of women since the day when it was said to Eve, “in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee.” We are told that the bridegroom feeds among the lilies, that is, among those who have not defiled their garments, for they have remained virgins and have hearkened to the precept of the Preacher: “let thy garments be always white.” As the author and prince of virginity He says boldly of Himself: “I am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valleys.” “The rocks” then “are a refuge for the conies” who when they are persecuted in one city flee into another and have no fear that the prophetic words “refuge failed me” will be fulfilled in their case. “The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats,” and their food are the serpents which a little child draws out of their holes. Meanwhile the leopard lies down with the kid and the lion eats straw like the ox; not of course that the ox may learn ferocity from the lion but that the lion may learn docility from the ox.
But let us turn back to the passage first quoted, “If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee, leave not thy place,” a sentence which is followed by these words: “for yielding pacifieth great offences.” The meaning is, that if the serpent finds his way into your thoughts you must “keep your heart with all diligence” and sing with David, “cleanse thou me from secret faults: keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins,” and come not to “the great transgression” which is sin in act. Rather slay the allurements to vice while they are still only thoughts; and dash the little ones of the daughter of Babylon against the stones where the serpent can leave no trail. Be wary and vow a vow unto the Lord: “let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.” For elsewhere also the scripture testifies, “I will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.” That is to say, God will not punish us at once for our thoughts and resolves but will send retribution upon their offspring, that is, upon the evil deeds and habits of sin which arise out of them. As He says by the mouth of Amos: “for three transgressions of such and such a city and for four I will not turn away the punishment thereof.”
9I cull these few flowers in passing from the fair field of the holy scriptures. They will suffice to warn you that you must shut the door of your breast and fortify your brow by often making the sign of the cross. Thus alone will the destroyer of Egypt find no place to attack you; thus alone will the first-born of your soul escape the fate of the first-born of the Egyptians; thus alone will you be able with the prophet to say: “my heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and give praise. Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp.” For, sin stricken as she is, even Tyre is bidden to take up her harp and to do penance; like Peter she is told to wash away the stains of her former foulness with bitter tears. Howbeit, let us know nothing of penitence, lest the thought of it lead us into sin. It is a plank for those who have had the misfortune to be shipwrecked; but an inviolate virgin may hope to save the ship itself. For it is one thing to look for what you have cast away, and another to keep what you have never lost. Even the apostle kept under his body and brought it into subjection, lest having preached to others he might himself become a castaway. Heated with the violence of sensual passion he made himself the spokesman of the human race: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” and again, “I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good, I find not. For the good that I would, I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do;” and once more: “they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the spirit of God dwell in you.”
10After you have paid the most careful attention to your thoughts, you must then put on the armour of fasting and sing with David: “I chastened my soul with fasting,” and “I have eaten ashes like bread,” and “as for me when they troubled me my clothing was sackcloth.” Eve was expelled from paradise because she had eaten of the forbidden fruit. Elijah on the other hand after forty days of fasting was carried in a fiery chariot into heaven. For forty days and forty nights Moses lived by the intimate converse which he had with God, thus proving in his own case the complete truth of the saying, “man doth not live by bread only but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord.” The Saviour of the world, who in His virtues and His mode of life has left us an example to follow, was, immediately after His baptism, taken up by the spirit that He might contend with the devil, and after crushing him and overthrowing him might deliver him to his disciples to trample under foot. For what says the apostle? “God shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.” And yet after the Saviour had fasted forty days, it was through food that the old enemy laid a snare for him, saying, “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” Under the law, in the seventh month after the blowing of trumpets and on the tenth day of the month, a fast was proclaimed for the whole Jewish people, and that soul was cut off from among his people which on that day preferred self-indulgence to self-denial.
In Job it is written of behemoth that “his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly.” Our foe uses the heat of youthful passion to tempt young men and maidens and “sets on fire the wheel of our birth.” He thus fulfils the words of Hosea, “they are all adulterers, their heart is like an oven;” an oven which only God’s mercy and severe fasting can extinguish. These are “the fiery darts” with which the devil wounds men and sets them on fire, and it was these which the king of Babylon used against the three children. But when he made his fire forty-nine cubits high he did but turn to his own ruin the seven weeks which the Lord had appointed for a time of salvation.
And as then a fourth bearing a form like the son of God slackened the terrible heat and cooled the flames of the blazing fiery furnace, until, menacing as they looked, they became quite harmless, so is it now with the virgin soul. The dew of heaven and severe fasting quench in a girl the flame of passion and enable her soul even in its earthly tenement to live the angelic life. Therefore the chosen vessel declares that concerning virgins he has no commandment of the Lord. For you must act against nature or rather above nature if you are to forswear your natural function, to cut off your own root, to cull no fruit but that of virginity, to abjure the marriage-bed, to shun intercourse with men, and while in the body to live as though out of it.
11I do not, however, lay on you as an obligation any extreme fasting or abnormal abstinence from food. Such practices soon break down weak constitutions and cause bodily sickness before they lay the foundations of a holy life. It is a maxim of the philosophers that virtues are means, and that all extremes are of the nature of vice; and it is in this sense that one of the seven wise men propounds the famous saw quoted in the comedy, “In nothing too much.” You must not go on fasting until your heart begins to throb and your breath to fail and you have to be supported or carried by others. No; while curbing the desires of the flesh, you must keep sufficient strength to read scripture, to sing psalms, and to observe vigils. For fasting is not a complete virtue in itself but only a foundation on which other virtues may be built. The same may be said of sanctification and of that chastity without which no man shall see the Lord. Each of these is a step on the upward way, yet none of them by itself will avail to win the virgin’s crown. The gospel teaches us this in the parable of the wise and foolish virgins; the former of whom enter into the bridechamber of the bridegroom, while the latter are shut out from it because not having the oil of good works they allow their lamps to fail. This subject of fasting opens up a wide field in which I have often wandered myself, and many writers have devoted treatises to the subject. I must refer you to these if you wish to learn the advantages of self-restraint and on the other hand the evils of over-feeding.