There remains the last Sacrament, which is called Extreme Unction, from which a most useful lesson is gathered — one not for the last hour only, but for the whole course of life. For in that Sacrament all those parts of the body are anointed in which the five senses of the body reside, and over each is said: "May God forgive you whatever you have sinned through the sight"; and so for the rest. From this we understand that the five senses are gates through which sins of every kind enter into the soul. Accordingly, if anyone diligently guards these gates, he will easily escape an immense multitude of sins, and so will live well and die most happily.
Let us therefore speak briefly of the guarding of these five gates. That the eye is a gate through which enter the sins pertaining to lust, Christ, the teacher of all, teaches when He says: "Whoever looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. And if your right eye scandalizes you, pluck it out and cast it from you: for it is better for you that one of your members should perish than that your whole body be cast into hell" (Matt. 5). Then we know that the elders who saw Susanna naked (Dan. 13) at once burned with lust for her, and were afterwards miserably put to death. We know too that David (2 Sam. 11), that special friend of God, from the mere sight of Bathsheba washing herself, fell into adultery, from which murder and countless losses followed. Finally, natural reason is ready at hand: for the beauty of a woman in a certain way compels itself to be loved by a man, and the beauty of a man by a woman; nor does that love rest until it comes to the union of bodies, on account of the concupiscence which remains in us from original sin. This evil the holy Apostle also laments when he says: "I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind and making me captive in the law of sin that is in my members. Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 7).
What remedy shall we find against this grave temptation? The remedy is ready and easy with God's help, if one is willing to use it. The remedy is found in St. Augustine, in the one hundred and ninth Epistle, which epistle contains the rule for consecrated virgins; for this holy Father speaks thus to his consecrated virgins: "Let your eyes, if they are cast upon anyone, be fixed upon no one." For a simple glance is almost unavoidable, but it cannot — or at least is not wont to — wound hearts unless it is prolonged. Therefore if anyone accustoms himself not deliberately to gaze upon a beautiful person, even if he chances to fall in with such persons and, out of good habit, straightway turns his eyes away, there will be no danger for him. For St. Augustine writes truly that it is not the sight but the lingering in looking that is dangerous. And this is what holy Job taught by his own example when he said: "I made a covenant with my eyes, that I would not so much as think upon a virgin" (Job 31). There he does not say, "I made a covenant that I would not look," but "that I would not think" — that is, that he would not linger so long in the sight of a virgin that the sight would penetrate to the heart, and he would begin to think about her beauty, and gradually even to desire her conversation and her embrace. And he gives an excellent reason, such as it became a most holy man to give: "For what part would God have in me?" — as if he meant to say: God is my portion and all my good, the greatest good indeed, than which nothing better can be conceived; but God loves none but the chaste and the just.
To this belongs also the admonition of the Lord: "If your eye scandalizes you, pluck it out" (Matt. 18); that is, so possess it as though you possessed it not, and so train your eyes as though you were blind. Moreover, those who in early youth begin to be careful about this matter do not have to struggle for the rest of their life to flee and avoid such vices; whereas those who have been badly habituated can indeed with difficulty — yet can, with the help of God's grace — change their ways and break the snare.
But someone will perhaps say: why does God not wish beauty to be looked upon and loved? The answer is easy, and indeed twofold. For God created men and women for marriage; for thus God said in the beginning: "It is not good for man to be alone; let us make him a help like unto himself" (Gen. 2). Now a man does not need the help of a woman except for begetting and rearing offspring, as we taught above from the doctrine of St. Augustine (On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis, Book 9, ch. 7) in his book on Genesis literally interpreted. But a man and a woman would not easily get along, nor gladly live together for their whole life, unless beauty were present to win love. Since, therefore, woman was made beautiful so as to be loved by her husband, she should not be loved with a love that urges toward union except by her own husband; for this reason it is said in the law of the Lord: "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife" (Exod. 20). And to husbands the Apostle says: "Husbands, love your wives" (Eph. 5). Besides, there are many good and beautiful things which are not to be desired by all, but only by those to whom they are suited. The eating of meat and the drinking of wine are good things, but for the healthy, not for the sick. So also the beauty of men and women after the resurrection, when we shall be truly healthy, will be able to be loved most safely by all, since then the disease of carnal concupiscence, under which mortals labor, will be absent. And so it should not seem strange if all are now permitted to gaze with delight upon the sun, and the moon, and the stars, and flowers, and other beautiful things of that kind, which do not nourish the disease of concupiscence, but are not permitted to contemplate with delight beautiful women or handsome men, lest perhaps that contemplation feed the disease. After the sense of sight comes the sense of hearing, which must be guarded no less diligently than the sense of sight.
But with the ears must be joined the tongue, which is the instrument of speech: for words, whether good or evil, do not reach the hearing unless they sound through the instrument of the tongue. And since the tongue, unless it be most diligently guarded, is the cause of very many evils, St. James therefore cries out and says: "If any man does not offend in word, he is a perfect man"; and a little after: "Behold how small a fire kindles how great a forest! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity" (Jas. 3).
In this passage the holy Apostle teaches three things: first, that to guard the tongue well is a most difficult thing, and that therefore they are rare — and they alone perfect men — who know how to guard the tongue well. Secondly, that from an evil tongue very great harm can arise in the briefest time, which he explains by a similitude drawn from a spark of fire, which, unless it is at once extinguished, can consume a vast forest of trees. For so a single word incautiously uttered can stir up suspicions of some crime, whence enmities, quarrels, contentions, murders, and the destruction of entire families follow. Finally, St. James teaches that an evil tongue is not one single evil thing, but includes within itself a multitude of evils; therefore he calls it a world of iniquity. For by it all crimes are either prepared, as adulteries and robberies, or perpetrated, as perjuries and false testimonies, or defended, as when the wicked man excuses the evil he has committed, or feigns a good he has not done. And again the evil tongue is rightly called a world of iniquity, because through the tongue man sins against God, by blaspheming and forswearing; against his neighbor, by detracting and reviling; and against himself, by boasting that he has done good works which in truth he has not done, and by lying that he has not done the evils which he did.
To this testimony of the Apostle James I wish to add the testimony of the prophet David in the first of the Gradual Psalms: "Deliver my soul, O Lord," he says, "from wicked lips and from a deceitful tongue" (Ps. 119). If the holy king feared for himself because of a wicked and deceitful tongue, what ought private men to do — and much more, if they are not only private persons but poor, weak, and obscure?
The Prophet adds: "What shall be given to you, or what shall be added to you, to a deceitful tongue?" The words are obscure on account of the character of the Hebrew language, but the sense seems to me to be this: "Not without cause do I fear for myself because of a wicked and deceitful tongue, for so great an evil is such a tongue that no evil seems able to be added to it." The Prophet proceeds and says: "The sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals that lay waste." By these words it is declared, in a most elegant similitude, how great an evil the deceitful tongue is; for he makes it like to arrows. For first, arrows strike from afar and fly with such speed that they can hardly be avoided; next, the arrows to which the deceitful tongue is compared are said to be shot forth by a mighty and strong hand. Thirdly, it is added that those arrows are sharp — that is, well polished and sharpened by a skilled craftsman. Finally, he adds that they are like coals that lay waste — that is, so fiery that they can desolate anything, however hard — and that for this reason the deceitful and wicked tongue is like not so much the arrows of men as arrows sent down from heaven, such as the lightnings of heaven, which nothing at all can resist. Certainly this prophetic description of the deceitful and wicked tongue is such that no evil so great can be conceived that could bear comparison with the deceitful and wicked tongue.
And that all these things may be still more easily understood, I will add two examples from the Scriptures. Let the first be that of the most wicked Doeg the Edomite, who accused the priest Ahimelech before King Saul (1 Sam. 21) — which was sheer calumny and imposture. But because King Saul was at that time most ill-disposed toward David, he readily believed everything, and ordered to be slain at once not only Ahimelech but all the other priests, to the number of eighty-five men, who had in nothing sinned against the king. Nor was King Saul content with this slaughter: he ordered to be killed all who dwelt in the priestly city named Nob — not only men and women, but he extended his cruelty even to little children and sucklings, and to the very animals, the sheep, the oxen, and the asses. And of this very deceitful and wicked tongue of Doeg the Edomite it is credible that David spoke in the Psalm of which we have already expounded a part. By this example we plainly learn how great is the power of a deceitful and wicked tongue for evil.
The second example we shall take from the Gospel according to St. Mark (Mark 6). When the daughter of Herodias danced before Herod the Tetrarch and his princes, the dancing of that girl pleased Herod so much that before them all he swore he would give the girl whatever she should ask, even half of his kingdom. This foolish and rash oath was the cause of very many evils. For first the daughter of Herodias asked her mother what she should request, and her mother advised her to ask for the head of John the Baptist; this very thing she asked, and presently the head of the Lord's Forerunner, cut off from his body, was brought in on a dish. How great are the evils here! The mother sinned most grievously, asking a most unjust thing. Herod sinned no less grievously, who ordered one to be slain who was the Forerunner of the Lord, more than a prophet, than whom no greater had arisen among those born of women, and whom Herod himself knew to be a just and holy man — and that without cause, without trial, at the time of a solemn banquet, at the petition of a dancing girl.
But let us hear the evils of the punishment, now that we have heard the evils of the guilt. A little later Herod was stripped of his princedom by the emperor Gaius and relegated to perpetual exile; and thus he who had sworn that he would give half his kingdom exchanged the whole kingdom for perpetual exile, as Josephus bears witness in his book of the Antiquities (bk. 17, ch. 5). The daughter of Herodias herself, who by her dancing was the cause of the death of St. John the Baptist, while crossing a frozen river, fell into the deep when the ice broke — with her whole body except her head, which, severed from her body, danced upon the ice, so that all might understand for what cause she had so miserably perished. Finally, Herodias herself, seized with excessive grief, straightway died, and followed her daughter to the torments of hell. Nicephorus Callistus wrote this tragedy in his History (bk. 1, ch. 2). Behold how many evils, both of guilt and of punishment, followed from the rash oath of Herod the Tetrarch!
Let us now come to the remedy which prudent men must apply to the sins of the tongue. The holy prophet David, at the beginning of the thirty-eighth Psalm, indicates the remedy which he himself used: "I said," he says, "I will take heed to my ways, that I may not sin with my tongue" (Ps. 38); that is, "I, in order to escape the sins of the tongue, diligently guard my ways; for I neither speak, nor think, nor do anything, except after a prior judgment upon the things which I am about to do" — for "ways" are those by which men walk in this life. Therefore the remedy against harmful words — and not only against harmful words, but also against harmful deeds, or desires, or thoughts — is the reflection, or premeditation, of what I am about to do, to say, to think, or to desire. And this is proper to man: not to do anything rashly, but to bend his consideration back upon the things that are to be done, and if indeed they accord with right reason, to do them, but if not, not to do them. And what we have said of action must be understood likewise of speech, of desire, and of the other works of the rational soul.
But if perhaps some cannot premeditate all the things they are about to do or say, certainly there should be no prudent man, desirous of eternal salvation, who does not each day, early in the morning before he undertakes the business of this life, approach God in prayer, and beg that his ways, his deeds, his desires, his thoughts be directed to the glory of God and the salvation of his soul. Then, when the day is done, before he goes up to his bed to sleep, let him examine his conscience and ask an account of himself whether he has offended God in thought, in word, in deed, or in desire; and if he finds any offense against God, especially a mortal one, let him not dare to close his eyes to seek the night's rest until he has first been reconciled to God by true penance, and has formed a true and firm purpose of guarding his ways, that he may not sin with his tongue, nor in his deeds or appetites. And let this suffice concerning the guarding of the tongue.
As now concerns the sense of hearing, very little remains to be said. For if the tongue is restrained by the bridle of reason from breaking forth into evil words, there will be almost nothing that can corrupt the sense of hearing. There are four kinds of words for which the door of the sense of hearing must especially be closed, lest through the ears evil things should penetrate to infect the heart. The first place is held by words against the faith, which on account of human curiosity are listened to not unwillingly; and yet if they penetrate within, they take away faith from the heart — faith which is the root and beginning of all good things. But among unbelieving words none are more pernicious than those of men who deny either the providence of God or the immortality of the human soul. For such words make not so much heretics as atheists, and open the widest possible door to every crime. The second kind of evil words consists in detractions, which do away with fraternal charity, and are eagerly listened to — but by curious people. For holy David, who was a man according to God's own heart, says in the Psalms: "The man that secretly detracted his neighbor, him did I persecute" (Ps. 100). And since detractions are not seldom heard at banquets, St. Augustine had placed these little verses on the wall beside his table:
Whoever loves to gnaw with his words at the life of the absent, let him know that this table is unworthy of him.
This is related by Possidius in his Life of St. Augustine. The third kind of evil words is that which consists in flatteries. For flatteries are willingly heard, and yet they beget conceit and pride; and pride is the queen of vices, and most of all an enemy to God. The fourth kind of evil words pertains to lust, and is found in amatory talk and lascivious songs. And by the lovers of this world nothing is heard more sweetly, though nothing is more harmful than that kind of utterance. For lascivious songs are like the songs of the sirens, which delighted men in order to cast them into the sea and devour them.
Against all these dangers the salutary remedy is to have upright friends, and to be separated from the wicked with all watchfulness of mind. For strangers do not readily dare to mingle detracting, heretical, flattering, or lascivious words with those whom they have either not seen before, or with whom they are not familiar.
And so Solomon, instructing his son at the beginning of Proverbs, expressed the first precept in these words: "Hear, my son, the instruction of thy father," etc. "If sinners shall entice thee, consent not to them. If they shall say: Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood, let us hide snares for the innocent without cause; let us swallow him up alive like hell, and whole as one that goeth down into the pit; we shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoils; cast in thy lot with us, let us all have one purse. My son, walk not thou with them," etc. "They themselves also lie in wait against their own blood, and practise deceits against their own souls" (Prov. 1). This counsel, then, of the wisest of men can readily serve as a remedy for the sense of hearing, that it be not easily corrupted by evil words; especially if we add the saying of the Lord (Matt. 10), who was wiser than Solomon and openly declared that a man's enemies are they of his own household. And so much for the sense of hearing.
The third sense is that of smell, about which almost nothing occurs that needs to be said. For the sense of smelling is concerned with odors, which have no great power to corrupt the soul; and precious perfumes pertain to but few: while common ones, such as the scents of flowers,
I come to the fourth sense, which is called the sense of taste. The sins that enter through this gate to corrupt the soul are in general two: gluttony and drunkenness; but from these very many others arise. Concerning gluttony and drunkenness we have the admonition of the Lord in Luke: "Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness" (Luke 21). And another admonition of the Apostle in the Epistle to the Romans: "Not in rioting and drunkenness" (Rom. 13). Indeed, these two sins are numbered in Holy Scripture among deadly crimes, the Apostle saying in the Epistle to the Galatians: "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are: fornication, uncleanness, immodesty, lust, idolatry, witchcrafts, etc., murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like; of which I foretell you, as I have foretold, that they who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God" (Gal. 5). Nor is this the only punishment of these sins; gluttony and drunkenness also weigh down the hearts of men, so that they cannot rise to think of and pursue the things of God. This our Savior taught (Luke 21), and St. Basil in his homily on fasting explains it by two most fitting comparisons. The first is taken from the sun and vapors. For just as those thick vapors which rise from damp places cover the heaven with clouds and hinder the rays of the sun from reaching us, so also from gluttony and drunkenness certain fumes and, as it were, vapors are stirred up within us, which darken the heaven of reason and rob us of the rays of the divine light. The second comparison is drawn from smoke and bees. For just as bees, the makers of honey, are driven from their hives by smoke, so too the wisdom of God — which, like a bee, is wont to produce in our souls the honey of virtues, of grace, and of heavenly consolations — is driven out by nothing more readily than by the smoke of gluttony and drunkenness.
To this is added that gluttony and drunkenness also injure the health of the body. A physician named Antiphanes, most skilled in his profession, asserted — as Clement of Alexandria relates in the second book of his Pedagogue — that one cause of nearly all diseases is the abundance and variety of foods. On the contrary, St. Basil, in his first homily on fasting, judged that abstinence should be called the parent of good health. And everywhere physicians, to restore health to bodies that are ill, employ fasting and prescribe abstinence from wine and meat. Add to this that gluttony and drunkenness are greatly harmful not only to the well-being of body and soul, but also to one's domestic estate. Gluttony and drunkenness have made many a rich man poor, and many a master a slave. Finally, gluttony and drunkenness deprive many poor men and beggars of the alms of the rich. For those who are not content with sober food and drink easily consume all their substance on their own pleasures, so that nothing remains for their needy brethren. And that saying of the Apostle is fulfilled: "One indeed is hungry, and another is drunk" (1 Cor. 11).
But leaving these things aside, let us come to the remedies. A remedy against gluttony and drunkenness can be the example of all the saints. I pass over the Hermits and Monks, of whom St. Jerome writes in his epistle to Eustochium on the preservation of virginity, that among them to have eaten anything cooked was accounted luxury. I pass over St. Ambrose, who, as Paulinus testifies in his Life, fasted every day except the solemn feasts and Sundays. I pass over St. Augustine, who, as Possidius testifies in his Life, had vegetables and herbs at his table, and meat only sometimes for the sake of guests or the sick. I pass over the other Saints. If anyone will attentively consider what the Lord of all and the Father of all Himself did, when in the desert He Himself undertook the charge of feeding His people, he will without doubt learn the art of sobriety wonderfully well. For forty years God
— alone mighty, alone wise, and alone good — who was able, who knew how, and who willed to provide in the very best way for His beloved people, rained manna down upon them from heaven and drew water out of the rock. Now manna was a food not unlike a cake made of flour and honey, as is said in the book of Exodus (Ex. 16). Behold how soberly the most wise Lord willed His people to dine and sup: a cake was their food, water their drink; and yet they all lived sound and healthy, until they began to be held fast by a desire for flesh.
After the example of the Father, the Son of God, Christ Jesus, "in whom are all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God" (Col. 2), when He furnished at once a dinner and a supper for many thousands of hearers, gave them pieces of bread and fish, and water to drink. Nor was it only while He was still mortal that the Lord Christ prepared so sober a banquet for His hearers; but also after the resurrection, when all power in heaven and on earth had been given to Him (John 21), He gave His disciples a meal on the seashore of bread and fish alone, and that a sparing one; nor is any mention made of wine or of other things. O how far distant are the counsels of God from the counsels of men! The King of heaven and earth delights in simplicity and sobriety, and is chiefly solicitous to enrich, to fill, and to gladden the soul; but men prefer to hearken to their own concupiscence, and to the devil their enemy, rather than to God — so that we may say with the Apostle (Phil. 3) that the god of carnal men is none other than the belly.
There remains the sense of touch, which is the coarsest of all, and at the same time the most lively of all. Through this sense there enter, to defile the soul and at the same time to corrupt other men, the works of the flesh, which the blessed Apostle enumerates, saying: "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornication, uncleanness, immodesty" (Gal. 5). And so by these three words the Apostle includes all kinds of impurity. Nor is there need to go further in explaining these things, which ought rather never to be heard of. For so speaks the same Apostle writing to the Ephesians: "But fornication and all uncleanness, let it not so much as be named among you, as becometh saints" (Eph. 5).
Now the remedies against all these evils that occur to me are the following; and they are nearly the very same ones that physicians use to cure the sick. For physicians begin first with fasting or abstinence: they forbid the sick the eating of meat and the drinking of wine. The very same must be done by the man who is given over to lust: he must abstain from excessive food and excessive drink. This is what the Apostle prescribes to his Timothy: "Use," he says, "a little wine for your stomach's sake and your frequent infirmities" (1 Tim. 5:23); that is: use wine because of the weakness of your stomach, but a little wine, so as to guard against lust, for "in wine is lust" (Eph. 5:18). Then the physicians of the body administer bitter potions, the opening of a vein, and other things of that kind which are repugnant to nature. So the holy man said with the Apostle: "I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway" (1 Cor. 9:27). The holy Fathers established a way of life wholly contrary to the delights and pleasures of the flesh — in fastings, watchings, lying upon the ground, scourges, hair-shirts — not out of hatred for the body, but out of hatred for the lustful flesh. I will bring forward one example out of many. St. Hilarion, as St. Jerome bears witness in his Life, when he was tempted by lustful thoughts, said, addressing his own body: "I will see to it that you do not kick; I will not feed you on barley, but on chaff; I will waste you away with hunger and thirst, I will weigh you down with a heavy load; I will drive you through heat and cold, so that you think of food rather than of wantonness." Moreover, the physicians of the body prescribe exercise, or the game of ball, or something of that kind. And the like greatly conduces to preserving the health of the soul: namely, if a man who longs for eternal salvation assigns some hour each day to meditating on the mysteries of our redemption, or on the four last things, or on other devout subjects. But if meditation does not succeed as he would wish, let him at least spend some time every day in reading the holy Scriptures, or devout books, or the lives of the Saints.
Finally, a most effective remedy for overcoming all the temptations of the flesh and the sins of lust is to flee idleness. For no one is so exposed to shameful thoughts as the man who has nothing to do, and who wastes his time either watching the passers-by from a window, or gossiping and playing with friends. On the contrary, none are more free from filthy thoughts than those who spend whole days occupied in the labors of tilling the fields. For this reason our Master Christ chose poor parents, who earned their bread by their own labor; and He Himself too, before entering upon the labors of preaching, willed to follow a craftsman's trade, and assisted him who labored at that same craft — for they said of Him: "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?" I have wished to add this so that artisans and country folk may not be discontented with their lot, since the Wisdom of God chose that lot for Himself, for His Mother, and for His most holy foster father — not that they needed this remedy, but to warn us weak ones to flee idleness, if we would avoid these sins.