The meaning and the fruits of temperance
The last of the four cardinal virtues is the virtue of temperance – in Latin: temperentia – or moderation. To give us a deeper understanding of the concept of temperance, Josef Pieper in his treatise on this virtue reminds us of “the primary and essential meaning“ of the verb temperare, which denotes the action of disposing “various parts into one unified and ordered whole“ (Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues, University of Notre Dame Press, p. 146).
All words stemming from temperare seem to be about “proportion“ and the relation of various elements. For example, if one looks into the etymology of the word “temperament“ – in Latin: temperamentum – , one finds that it originally means a “proportioned mixture of elements“, and more specifically, in ancient medicine, the characteristic disposition of a person in terms of a certain combination of the four humors (and their associated qualities) of sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic and melancholic.
Likewise then, we can think of temperance as hitting at the well ordered and properly related “presence“ of certain elements rather than their “abstinence“. It relates to “order within oneself“ (p. 147), just like our specific “temperament“, which has the potential to give us characteristic exercises and challenges in the practice of temperance.
“The purpose and goal of temperantia is man‘s inner order (…).
Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues, University of Notre Dame Press, p. 147-150
Temperantia is distinguished from the other cardinal virtues by the fact that it refers exclusively to the active man himself. Prudence looks to all existent reality; justice to the fellow man; the man of fortitude relinquishes, in self-forgetfulness, his own possessions and his life. Temperance, on the other hand, aims at each man himself. (…)
For man there are two modes of this turning toward the self: a selfless and selfish one. Only the former makes for self-preservation; the latter is destructive. (…) Temperance is selfless self-preservation. Intemperance is self-destruction through the selfish degradation of the powers which aim at self-preservation.
It is a commonplace though nonetheless mysterious truth that man‘s inner order – unlike that of the crystal, the flower, or the animal – is not a simply given and self-evident reality, but rather that the same forces from which human existence derives its being can upset that inner order to the point of destroying the spiritual and moral person. (…)
It is always the decisive center of the whole, indivisible person by which the inner order is upheld or upset. (…)
The discipline of temperance, understood as selfless self-preservation, is the saving and defending realization of the inner order of man. (…) For since the first sin man has been not only capable of loving himself more than he loves God his Creator but, contrary to his own nature, inclined to do so. The discipline of temperance defends him against all selfish perversion of the inner order, through which alone the moral person exists and lives effectively.“
We find a hint here already that this “selfless self-preservation“ of temperance – of “chastity, continence, humility, gentleness, mildness, studiositas“ (p. 151) – is quite impossible without looking to God and loving God. The cure for the various modes of intemperance – “unchastity, incontinence, pride, uninhibited wrath, curiositas“ (p. 151) – might be to love God first and zealously and to be infused with His love. Man cannot fully bring himself into order as a spiritual and moral person and cannot uphold this inner order on his own – without God.
The fruits of temperance are beauty and purity, while both the fruit and the source of intemperance is despair.
“Not only is temperance beautiful in itself, it also renders men beautiful. (…) The infantile disorder of intemperance, on the other hand, not only destroys beauty, it also makes man cowardly; intemperance more than any other thing renders man unable and unwilling to ‘take heart‘ against the wounding power of evil in the world.
Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues, University of Notre Dame Press, p. 203-205
It is not easy to read in a man‘s face whether he is just or unjust. Temperance or intemperance, however, loudly proclaim themselves in everything that manifests a personality: in the order or disorder of the features, in the attitude, the laugh, the handwriting. Temperance, as the inner order of man, can as little remain ‘purely interior‘ as the soul itself, and as all other life of the soul or mind. It is the nature of the soul to be the ‘form of the body‘.
This fundamental principle of all Christian psychology not only states the in-forming of the body by the soul, but also the reference of the soul to the body. On this, a second factor is based: temperance or intemperance of outward behavior and expression can have its strengthening or weakening repercussion that all outer discipline – whether in the sphere of sexual pleasure or in that of eating and drinking, of self-assertion, of anger, and of the gratification of the eye – obtains its meaning, its justification, and its necessity. (…)
Intemperantia and despair are connected by a hidden channel. Whoever in stubborn recklessness persists in pursuing perfect satisfaction and gratification in prestige and pleasure has set his foot on the road to despair. Another thing, also, is true: one who rejects fulfillment in its true and final meaning, and, despairing of God and himself, anticipates nonfulfillment, may well regard the artificial paradise of unrestrained pleasure-seeking as the sole place, if not of happiness, then of forgetfulness, of self-oblivion (…). That sin is a burden and a bondage is nowhere more apparent than in intemperantia, in that obsession of selfish self-preservation, which seeks itself in vain.
Temperance, on the contrary, is liberating and purifying. This above all: temperance effects purification. (…) the virtue of temperance and moderation aims at preserving man uninjured and undefiled for God.“
When speaking about the connection between intemperance and despair, Pieper quotes a line from Sacred Scripture, from Saint Paul‘s letter to the Church at Ephesus. Let us look at this verse about giving oneself up to “incontinence“ in the wider context of the whole passage:
“So I tell you this, indeed I insist on it in the Lord – walk no longer as the pagans do, stumbling around in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance in them due to the hardness of their heart. Since they are past feeling, they have turned themselves over to indecency for the practice of every kind of immorality, with greed for more. However, you did not learn Messiah in this way – if indeed you have heard Him and were taught in Him, as the truth is in Yeshua. With respect to your former lifestyle, you are to lay aside the old self corrupted by its deceitful desires, be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self – created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.“
Ephesians 4: 17-19
Without “the life of God“, the inner order of man is always in danger. Not only because the Creator is the source of all good order in creation, but also because He is the source of faith, hope, and love, and of true peace and joy – of that which dispels despair. A despairing man will almost always fall from the height of his true calling into the realms of selfish self-gratification. Because man is made for happiness and always strives for happiness, because he is existentially thirsty for happiness, in his thirst then he will drink from the most muddy waters if he cannot get to clear waters, or at least feels that he cannot get to them.
“No man can live without delight. That is why a man deprived of spiritual joy goes over to carnal pleasures.“
Saint Thomas Aquinas
We will not look at each and every aspect of temperance, but for the sake of brevity only at what is called “chastity“. But before we go there, we will quickly dive into a quite interesting notion in the writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas: that the sense of touch is the basis of all our senses, is linked with cognitive talent and intelligence, and that temperance mainly deals with pleasure that is derived from the sense of touch.
Temperance and the sense of touch
According to Saint Thomas Aquinas, the virtue of temperentia “has reference above all to the pleasure assigned to the sense of touch“, to which “are assigned both sexual pleasure and the pleasures of eating and drinking“ (p. 186). About our sense of touch, he says that all our other senses are based on it. Quoting from the writings of the Universal Teacher of the Church, Josef Pieper explains to us the surprising interconnections we find in his thoughts between touch, temperance, and cognition:
“By the sense of touch, above all, a being becomes sentient – animal; where there is no sense of touch, there is no sentient life. This is the first point. Second: ‘Among all sentient creatures man has the best sense of touch.‘ ‘There are animals which see more sharply or hear more acutely or smell more intensely than man. In the sense of touch, however, man differs from all other sentient beings by having a much more acute perception.‘ And third: ‘Among men themselves those who possess the better sense of touch have the better power of cognition.‘ ‘One might suppose that cognitive talent should rather correspond to the excellence of the sense of sight than to that of touch, as the sense of sight is the intellectual sense and best perceives differences in things… But one must say that cognitive talent corresponds more to the excellence of the sense of touch because the sense of touch is the basis of all other senses. Therefore he who was the better sense of touch has consequently simply a more sensitive nature and as a result a keener intelligence. For the excellence of sensitivity is the basis of excellence of intelligence. (…)“
Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues, University of Notre Dame Press, p. 186-187
According to Saint Thomas Aquinas then, one would have to say that the most intelligent people are at the same time the most sensitive people – people with a high sensitivity based on an acute sense of touch. But if there are two very prominent and strong pleasures connected with the sense of touch, namely those of eating and drinking and of sexual pleasure, one would have to conclude that the most sensitive people must somehow find it hardest to be temperate in their enjoyment of these pleasures. And if the sense of touch is a sense of a special rank among the senses as the basis of all our senses and in fact of our whole sentient, cognitive and spiritual life, then the fact that we receive the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ in the form of bread and wine as food, as “bread from heaven“, into our mouths takes on an even deeper meaning…
“Chastity is impossible without the Eucharist.“
Saint Philipp Neri
Chastity vs. unchastity
“Only the chaste man and the chaste woman are capable of true love.“
Saint John Paul II
“Chastity is a difficult, long term matter; one must wait patiently for it to bear fruit, for the happiness of loving kindness which it must bring. But at the same time, chastity is the sure way to happiness.“
“Chastity as a virtue (…) is constituted in its essence by this and nothing else, namely, that it realizes the order of reason in the province of sexuality. Unchastity as a sin, on the other hand, is in its essence the transgression and violation of the rational order in the province of sexuality. (…)
Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues, University of Notre Dame Press, p. 155-156
The concept ‘order of reason‘, first of all, does not signify that something must agree with the imperative of an ‘absolute reason‘ detached from its object. Reason includes a reference to reality; indeed, it is itself this reference. ‘In accord with reason‘ is in this sense that which is right ‘in itself‘, that which corresponds to reality itself. The order of reason accordingly signifies that something is disposed in accordance with the truth of real things.
Secondly, ratio is not that reason which arbitrarily restricts itself to the province of purely natural cognition. Ratio here signifies – in its widest sense – man‘s power to grasp reality. Now, man grasps reality not only in natural cognition but also (…) by faith in the revelation of God. (…) ‘The order of reason‘, accordingly, is the order which corresponds to the reality made evident to man through faith and knowledge.“
The Christian man or woman lives not only within the natural order of things, but also within a “supernatural“ order – participating in the life of God through Christ. What does the Catechism of the Catholic Church have to say about the virtue of chastity in light of the natural and supernatural realities?
“Chastity means the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being. Sexuality, in which man’s belonging to the bodily and biological world is expressed, becomes personal and truly human when it is integrated into the relationship of one person to another, in the complete and lifelong mutual gift of a man and a woman.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, Articles 2337 – 2348
The virtue of chastity therefore involves the integrity of the person and the integrality of the gift. (…)
Chastity includes an apprenticeship in self-mastery which is a training in human freedom. The alternative is clear: either man governs his passions and finds peace, or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy. (…)
Chastity is a moral virtue. It is also a gift from God, a grace, a fruit of spiritual effort. The Holy Spirit enables one whom the water of Baptism has regenerated to imitate the purity of Christ. (…)
All the baptized are called to chastity. The Christian has ’put on Christ,‘ the model for all chastity. All Christ’s faithful are called to lead a chaste life in keeping with their particular states of life. At the moment of his Baptism, the Christian is pledged to lead his affective life in chastity.“
Chastity in its “negative“ aspect means abstaining from every use of the sexual faculties outside of the unitive and procreative meaning of sexuality in marriage. The Catechism explicitly lists various offenses against a chaste conduct: lust, masturbation, fornication, pornography, prostitution, and rape.
Each and every among these different forms of unchastity is, according to Saint Thomas Aquinas, not only intemperance but also “injustice“. One must understand these sins not only as a lack of self-mastery but also as a breach against justice towards one‘s neighbor. This link between mastering oneself concerning one‘s sexuality and dealing justly with others is emphasized in the following lines of Saint Paul‘s first letter to the Church at Thessalonica:
“For this is the will of God – your sanctification: to abstain from sexual immorality; to know, each of you, how to possess his own vessel in holiness and honor – not in the passion of lust like the pagans who do not know God; and not to overstep his brother and take advantage of him in this matter – because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, as we told you before and solemnly warned you. For God did not call us to impurity, but in holiness. Consequently, the one who rejects this is not rejecting man, but God, who gives His Ruach ha-Kodesh to you.“
1 Thessalonians 4: 3-8
At the same time, these lines also hint at the fact that unchastity is first of all – as every sin – a breach of just piety towards God, and in this case also especially against oneself, against one‘s own integrity as God‘s child, as God‘s special possession. This is made explicit in Saint Paul‘s exhortations to the Corinthians:
“Flee from sexual immorality! Every other sin a man commits is outside the body – but the one committing sexual immorality sins against his own body. Or don‘t you know that your body is a temple of the Ruach ha-Kodesh who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body.“
1 Corinthians 6: 18-20
The body of a man or woman baptized in Jesus Christ is the Lord‘s possession, bought with the prize of his most precious blood. It is a temple of the Holy Spirit – a confined space in which God‘s very Spirit dwells. As the body, the agent of our freedom and responsibility, the agile form of our soul, participates in the life of God through the sacraments, it shall lend itself completely to act in purity and holiness.
Yet for all its central meaning which the virtue of chastity exhibits in the life of the baptized who are called to holiness, Josef Pieper warns us of a mistake frequently made concerning the virtue of chastity and the sins of unchastity:
“(…) the stubborn and really quite fanatical preference given to temperantia, especially to chastity, which runs through the whole history of Christian doctrine as a more or less hidden undercurrent or countercurrent, has a very special aspect. No one, at any rate, has attached to justice or prudence or to any other of the three theological virtues such an emphatic and evidently not simply factual, but emotionally charged, evaluation. Of course, there would not be the slightest objection against such an evaluation per se – for strictly speaking, virtues as such cannot be overrated. But here we are speaking of an evaluation and overevaluation based on a false premise; of an evaluation, therefore, which implies a misunderstanding of what is supposedly valued so highly. And against this we must object strongly.
Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues, University of Notre Dame Press, p. 167-168
In the province of temperantia, as we have said before, it is man‘s attitude toward creation which is decided, and most incisively. And the ‘wrong premise‘ upon which rest the overevaluation and erroneous value given to temperantia in general and chastity in particular amounts to this, namely, the explicit or implied opinion that the sensual reality of the whole of creation, and above all the nonspiritual element in man himself, is actually evil. To sum up: the ‘wrong premise‘ is an explicit, or, more often, an implicit, even unconscious and unintended, Manichaeism.
(…) The specifically human task, or better still, the specifically Christian task, would consist in rising above this entire ‘lower‘ sphere and mounting by ascetic practice to a purely spiritual way of life. Not only do fasting, vigils, and sexual continence take on a very special importance from this basic approach, but they move necessarily into the center of attention of the man striving for perfection. This evaluation, however, shares and indeed intensifies the errors of its origin; and despite all outward similarity, it has as little to do with the Christian evaluation of those three things as the heresies of the Manichees, the Montanists, and the Cathari have to do with the Catholic dogma that proclaims that created reality is good in all its spheres, and is not subject to the arbitrariness of human evaluation; indeed, it is the basis and the point of departure of all evaluation as well as of all realization of value.“
In the age of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Catholicism was yet unchallenged and uninfluenced by Protestantism, which has a certain tendency to the errors of “Manichaeism“ and Gnosticism. That the created reality, the human body with all its natural urges, desires and faculties, and therefore human sexuality are good – even very good – , was more clear to Saint Thomas Aquinas and his contemporaries than it is to us.
“(…) for Thomas it is plainly self-evident – indeed so self-evident that it need hardly be mentioned even to those but moderately instructed (while it may still be well not to remain silent on this point) – that the sexual powers are not a ‘necessary evil‘ but really a good. With Aristotle, he says incisively that there is something divine in human seed. It is equally self-evident to Thomas‘s thinking that, ‘like eating and drinking,‘ the fulfillment of the natural sexual urge and its accompanying pleasure are good and not in the least sinful, assuming, of course, that order and moderation are preserved. For the intrinsic purpose of sexual power, namely, that not only now but also in days to come the children of man may dwell upon the earth and in the Kingdom of God, is not merely a good, but, as Thomas says, ‘a surpassing good.‘ Indeed, complete asensuality, unfeelingly adverse to all sexual pleasure, which some would like to regard as ‘properly‘ perfect and ideal according to Christian doctrine, is described in the Summa Theologica not only as an imperfection but actually as a moral defect (vitium).“
Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues, University of Notre Dame Press, p. 153-154
Chastity is not well understood if it is only something “negative“ and not first and foremost affirmative of created life, of manhood and womanhood, of procreation, sexuality, and marriage. And chastity is so closely connected with charity, with love, that they are almost like inseparable twins.
Chastity needs the flame of love as its basic drive, motivation, and goal to be a virtue as warm and gentle as the sun, and to not become a merely cold and rigid abstinence from pleasure. If one wants to live a chaste life, one needs “positive“ motivations – one needs real and high goals to strive for in charity. If unchastity is sinning against God, against neighbor and even against oneself, chastity on the other hand is a service of love toward God, our neighbor and even toward ourselves.
Concerning the first two dimensions, giving our bodies over to our God who is their rightful owner, who is our Creator, our Redeemer and our Resurrection, and keeping the marriage bed pure and chaste, out of general reverence for the sacrament of matrimony and a concrete and powerful love toward one‘s own present or future spouse, are among such positive strivings.
“Let marriage be held in honor among all and the marriage bed kept undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.“
Hebrews 13: 4
If we want to lead a chaste life, we need to put marriage in its rightful place as the licit context for this one and only real and true form of human sexuality, towering high and strong above every counterfeit, which is never separated from the aspects of enacting a personal union between a man and a woman and of potential fruitfulness resulting in children. Marriage, sexuality and procreation are sacred matters and need to be treated with the same reverence, honor, and care as everything that is sacred.
The body is meant to be a gift. It is not meant to be “our own“. Rather our body – our very self – is a gift we continually receive from our Creator, made to be given back to Him as a gift, and to be given as a gift to our spouse. A body separated from this dimension of being a gift is a body that “degenerates“ and becomes less than it is and is supposed to be. Our body “aches“ and “tortures“ us most exactly then: when it is not a gift actually given over in our union with God, and given over to our spouse, but is kept in some sort of separation. Chastity means protecting and enacting this character and calling of our body as a gift. And chastity is the natural result of the continual practice of giving our body back to God – as we do in all devotion and our participation in the sacraments.
Thirdly, a positive motivation for a chaste life can spring from the consequences of chastity and unchastity for ourselves. One needs to understand that temperance and chastity are always about our whole integrated being. Their fruit in us is order, self-possession and peace – indeed happiness, while unchastity must with necessity wield a destructive power over us and lead to the unhappiness of having “lost“ ourselves.
“In what way and why does unchastity destroy the structure of the person?
Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues, University of Notre Dame Press, p. 159-161
Unchastity most effectively falsifies and corrupts the virtue of prudence. All that conflicts with the virtue of prudence stems for the most part from unchastity; unchastity begets a blindness of spirit which practically excludes all understanding of the goods of the spirit; unchastity splits the power of decision; conversely, the virtue of chastity more than any other makes man capable and ready for contemplation. (…)
(…) unchastity constricts man and thus renders him incapable of seeing objective reality. An unchaste man wants above all something for himself; he is distracted by an unobjective ‘interest‘; his constantly strained will-to-pleasure prevents him from confronting reality with that selfless detachment which alone makes genuine knowledge possible. (…)
The abandonment of an unchaste heart to the sensual world has nothing in common with the genuine dedication of a searcher for truth to the reality of being, of a lover to his beloved. Unchastity does not dedicate itself, it offers itself. It is selfishly intent upon the ‘prize,‘ upon the reward of illicit lust. ‘Chaste,‘ says St. Augustine, ‘is the heart that loves God without looking for reward.‘ (…) Where the selfish motive is absent, we may speak of thoughtlessness, curiosity, or of impulses so completely natural that they lie outside the scope of moral judgment – but not of unchastity.“
Unchastity then means a selfish interestedness. And by selfishness is not meant that we want to enjoy the good things of creation. Because in fact, we cannot help but desire these things due to our natural urges and needs. And we shall have them, in the case of sexual fulfillment, within the confines of marriage. There simply needs to be a relational context, a real togetherness, for the enjoyment of the good and licit pleasures of creation – otherwise it will not even ever be real joy.
Both gluttony and unchastity are endeavors in blindness: One is blinded by the created object one wants for oneself, one wants to sort of “steal“ it to enjoy it on one‘s own, and therefore one is blind to the reality of others. This blindness either for the greater context of created reality or for the concrete other is the imprudence and injustice contained in intemperance.
But to get the full picture, we must finally make a distinction between temperantia and continentia, and between intemperantia and incontinentia. Most people struggle with the latter.
“This dark portrayal of the destructive force of unchastity applies in all its harshness only to unchastity as intemperentia, but not to unchastity as incontinentia; just as that which has been said of chastity is fully pertinent only to chastity as temperantia but not to chastity as continentia. This significant distinction must be briefly explained.
Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues, University of Notre Dame Press, p. 1162-164
(…) Chastity as temperantia, or unchastity as intemperantia: This means that each, respectively, has become a deep-rooted basic attitude of man, and, as it were, a second nature to him. Chastity as continentia, or unchastity as incontinentia: This means that neither is necessarily based on what might be called a natural inclination of being; neither has as yet grown firm roots in the existential core of man. This second mode of chastity is not the perfected virtue of temperance and moderation, but a strenuous control; and this mode of unchastity is not a consummate intemperance, but a mere lack of control. (…)
In Thomas‘s explicit opinion, the effort of self-control pertains only to the less perfect steps of the beginner, whereas real, perfected virtue, by the very nature of its concept, bears the joyous, radiant seal of ease, of effortlessness, of self-evident inclination. On the other hand, unchastity in the form of lack of self-control is less pernicious, less sinful, than unchastity in the form of actual intemperance. (…) he who sins from lack of control is quick to repent; and repentance is the repudiation of sin. On the other hand, he who sins from a deep-rooted basic attitude of intemperance directs his will expressly toward sin; he does not repent easily; indeed, ‘he is happy to have sinned, because sinning has become ‘natural‘ for him.‘ The merely uncontrolled can be ‘recalled‘ to order; actual intemperance, however, is not easily revocable. To sin from a basic attitude of one‘s will is real malice; to sin in a gust of passion is weakness – infirmitas. One who is merely uncontrolled is not unchaste, even though he acts unchastely.“
These are important distinctions. They make us understand that most people are beginners on the pathway of chastity who struggle with self-control and may from time to time fall into unchaste behavior out of weakness taking over, not out of a full-blown evil will. There is a difference between a man who sins but is sad about his sin afterwards and wishes to be freed from his sin, and a man who sins but rejoices about his sin afterwards and wishes to be “free“ to continue with it. This is the difference between the weak man, who still strives for goodness, and the evil man, who calls evil good and good evil and who would very readily entice others to sin alongside of him.
King David in his adultery with Bathsheba is an example in Sacred Scripture of the former case: sinning out of weakness. And of course, he is an example of true repentance pleading with the Lord his God for His mercy, too. This is the “psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came to him, after he went to Bathsheba“:
“Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your mercy. According to Your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You are just when You speak, and blameless when You judge. Behold, I was born in iniquity and in sin when my mother conceived me. Surely You desire truth in the inner being. Make me know wisdom inwardly. Cleanse me with hyssop and I will be clean. Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness, so the bones You crushed may rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from Your presence – take not Your Ruach ha-Kodesh from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit. Then will I teach transgressors Your ways and sinners will return to You. Deliver me from bloodguilt, O God – God of my salvation. Then my tongue will sing for joy of Your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare Your praise. For You would not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it, nor be pleased by burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise. In Your favor do good to Zion. Build up the walls of Jerusalem. Then You will delight in righteous sacrifices and whole burnt offerings. Then bulls will be offered on Your altar.“
Psalm 51
This must be our prayer, too: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from Your presence – take not Your Holy Spirit from me.“
C.S. Lewis once said that chastity is the most unpopular of the Christian virtues. It definitely is one of those virtues we barely understand in the right way in modern times, which might be a main factor contributing to its unpopularity. Yet to full-heartedly strive for the realization and perfection of this virtue was difficult for men and women in all ages. Famously, Saint Augustine of Hippo wrote in his “Confessions“ that for a long time, as he was standing on the treshold to becoming a baptized member of the Body of Christ, his “prayer“ was not like David‘s “Create in me a clean heart“ but sounded more like “Give me chastity and continence, but not yet“. He was already able to see the supreme beauty of a life in chastity, but unable to let go of the pleasures unchastity offered – pleasures hanging on a tree like a desirable fruit ready to be picked without too much effort.
Chastity and temperance are not a matter of mere will-power, even though a constant training in general self-control is surely required. But they are to be counted among the sevenfold fruit of the Holy Spirit. Growing in this virtue needs sanctifying grace given to us from above, primarily through the veins of the seven sacraments. We are never saved from our enslaving sins without God‘s grace. King David knew that.
“Brothers and sisters, you were called to freedom – only do not let your freedom become an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. (…) walk by the Ruach, and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Ruach, but the Ruach sets its desire against the flesh – for these are in opposition to one another, so that you cannot do what you want. (…) Now the deeds of the flesh are clear: sexual immorality, impurity, indecency, idolatry, witchcraft, hostility, strife, jealousy, rage, selfish ambition, dissension, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, just as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit God‘s kingdom. But the fruit of the Ruach is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control – against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Messiah have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. (…) For whatever a man sows, that he also shall reap. For the one who sows in the flesh will reap corruption from the flesh. But the one who sows in the Ruach will reap from the Ruach eternal life. So let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we don‘t give up.“
Galatians 5: 13 – 6: 9
“Flesh“ in the language of Saint Paul is not to be equated with “body“. It denotes our fallen nature caught in sin, our body and soul shackled and dead in sin. Saint Paul tries to remind the Galatians and us that this “flesh“, this old man, was crucified in our baptism and that we were raised to a new life “in the Spirit“. We shall sow and reap “in the Spirit“, not “in the flesh“. And the one who does not give up, who does not lose heart in his striving toward all that is good and keeps sowing “in the Spirit“, living a sacramental life, shall one day reap the full grain of the Spirit‘s grown up seeds.
Epilogue: The desecration of marriage and revelling in intemperance as the mark of heresies
In Sacred Scripture we find many warnings about the heresies that are to come. These heresies sprang up from the beginning, are with us now in the present, and will attempt to bewilder the faithful in the future.
One of their distinguishing marks is that they miss the point of truth in things pertaining to marriage and chastity and temperance in two different, yet ultimately related ways. Some of these heresies give people a license to unchaste deeds, while others forbid them from the rightful, licit and even surpassingly good satisfaction of their natural human needs.
“But I have a few things against you. You have some there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who was teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before Bnei-Yisrael, to eat food sacrificed to idols and to commit sexual immorality. Likewise you also have those who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Repent then!“
Apocalypse 2: 14-16
“But this I have against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess – yet she is teaching and deceiving My servants to commit sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her immorality.“
Apocalypse 2: 20-21
“Loved ones, though very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I felt it necessary to write to you urging you to continue to contend for the faith that was once for all handed down to the kedoshim. For certain people have secretly slipped in – those who from long ago have been marked out for this judgment. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into indecency and deny our only Master and Lord, Yeshua the Messiah. (…) These people are hidden rocky reefs at your love feasts – shamelessly feasting with you, tending only to themselves. They are waterless clouds, carried along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, doubly dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.“
Jude 3-13
“They consider carousing in broad daylight a pleasure. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceitful pleasures while feasting together with you. They have eyes full of adultery that never stop sinning, enticing unstable souls. (…) These people are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. The gloom of utter darkness has been reserved for them. For by mouthing grandiosities that amount to nothing, they entice in sensual fleshly passions those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption – for a person is a slave to whatever has overcome him.“
2 Peter 2: 13-19
“Now the Ruach clearly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, following deceitful spirits and teachings of demons through the hypocrisy of false speakers – whose own conscience has been seared. They forbid people to marry; they command people to abstain from foods that God created for the faithful to share with thanksgiving, having come to know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified through the word of God and prayer.“
1 Timothy 4: 1-5