The Three Stages
We must distinguish simple thoughts, that is, ones without passion, from passionate thoughts.
If we are examining the way in which sins of thought begin, we notice that the latter, namely passionate thoughts are accompanied by a large number of simple thoughts.
Let us take money as an example. Someone thinks of a sum of money belonging to someone else. His imagination urges him to theft, and in his spirit he has already sinned. At the same time as he is thinking of the money, he thinks also of the purse, of the bag, of the living quarters and what not.
Yet it is the thought of the money that is passionate. While, on the contrary, the thought of the bag or the living quarters was merely a simple thought, because the spirit feels no passion for these particular things.
So with other thoughts: vainglory, the opposite sex, and so on.
Thus in our moral development we can distinguish three very important stages:
firstly, never to commit a sin in our acts;
secondly, never to pause at a passionate thought;
and thirdly, to keep our peace of soul in the face of impure pictures or memories of offences received.
Maximos the Confessor Centuries on Charity, 2, 84ff. (SC9, pp.118ff.)
One Vice leads to Another
Augustine said:
‘None can find joy in God if they live in vice.’
Jerome said:
‘We are so indulgent with our vices, inasmuch as they are things we like doing, because we attribute them to human nature.
Isidore said:
‘To renounce our vices completely we must avoid any opportunity to commit sin.
‘Anyone who does something bad commits a double sin because he gives in to his own will and then reinforces it by persisting in his pride.
‘The vices follow one another: as soon as one has gone another takes its place.
‘Sometimes little vices ward off bigger ones. But you cannot heal vices with other vices; healing comes rather through the practice of virtues.’
Caesarius said:
‘Our only enemies are our vices.’
Defensor Grammaticus Book of Sparkling Sayings, 27 (SC77, pp. 352ff.)
~ Thomas Spidlik, Drinking from the Hidden Fountain, A Patristic Breviary: Ancient Wisdom for Today’s World
