The second struggle that confronts us is that with the spirit of carnal lust — the most prolonged and perpetual one, and very few win in this battle. The passion of fornication in a person arises at a very early stage of puberty and does not stop until he conquers his other passions. Inasmuch as the emergence of this passion is twofold (in the body and in the soul), then to oppose it requires a dual weapon. Fasting alone is insufficient to acquire complete chastity. You need to couple it with a penitent and regretful nature, and unrelenting prayers against the vile spirit of fornication. Apart from this, you need to constantly read the Bible, think about God, alternating it with physical exertion and handiwork that restrain the thoughts from wandering to and fro. Most of all, what is needed is humility, without which there can be no victory over any passion.
Triumph over this passion is dependent upon a complete cleansing of the heart, from which — according to the word of the Lord — flows the poison of this sickness. “For out of the heart” says He, “proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications…” (Mat. 15:19).
And indeed, if every success in virtue is the work of God’s grace and the overcoming of various passions is His victory, then to acquire chastity and to prevail over carnal passion is more so the work of a special grace of God, about which the Holy Fathers, experienced in the cleansing of the soul from this passion, give witness. For not to feel the sting of the flesh while still living in the flesh is, in a way, akin to coming out of the body. That is why it is impossible for a person to fly upwards into the heavenly heights of perfection on his own wings, if the Lord’s grace doesn’t extricate him from the earthly quagmire. Because there is no virtue through which people are more equated to the Angels than that of acquiring chastity.
(St.) John Cassian
The Institutes
