Impurity
“And behold, there was a certain man before him, who had the dropsy.”—Luke 14:2
The man who indulges in impurity is like a person suffering from dropsy. The dropsical man is so tormented by thirst that the more he drinks, the more thirsty he becomes. Such, too, is the nature of the accursed vice of impurity: it is never satisfied. “As the dropsical man,” says St. Thomas of Villanova, “the more he abounds in moisture, the more he thirsts, so it is with the waves of carnal pleasures.” Today I will speak of the vice of impurity, and I will show, in the first point, the delusion of those who say that this vice is but a small evil, and in the second, the delusion of those who say that God takes pity on this sin and does not punish it.
First Point.—Delusion of those who say that sins against purity are not a great evil.
1. The unchaste man, then, says that sins against purity are but a small evil. This happens because all others feel the stench of his filthiness and abhor it, while he alone neither feels it nor abhors it. He is like “the sow wallowing in the mire” (Sus lota in volutabro luti—2 Peter 2:22), immersed in his own filth, which does not let him see the evil he does. You who speak this way, can you deny that this sin is a mortal sin? If you deny it, you are a heretic, for St. Paul says: “Do not err. Neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, etc., shall possess the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6:9). And if it is a mortal sin, it is no small matter, for it is more grievous than theft, than detraction, than the breaking of a fast, and than other mortal sins. How, then, can you say that it is a small evil? Perhaps a mortal sin seems a small evil to you? Is it a small evil to despise the grace of God, to turn your back on him, and to lose his friendship for a brief, beastly pleasure?
2. St. Thomas teaches that mortal sin, because it is a contempt offered to an infinite God, contains a certain infinitude of malice. “A sin committed against God has a certain infinitude, on account of the infinitude of the Divine Majesty” (Summa III, q. 1, a. 2, ad 2). Is mortal sin a small evil? It is so great an evil that if all the angels and all the saints, the apostles, the martyrs, and even the Mother of God offered all their merits to atone for a single mortal sin, they would not suffice. No, for that satisfaction would be finite, while the debt is infinite, on account of the infinite Majesty of God that has been offended.
The hatred that God bears toward the sin of impurity is too great for measure. If a lady finds a hair on her plate, she will not eat that morning out of disgust. Now, with what disgust must God, who is Purity itself, behold the filth committed against his law? He loves his purity infinitely, and consequently he hates immeasurably the sensuality that men call a small evil. Even the demons, who in heaven were of nobler rank than the other angels, disdain to tempt men to sins of the flesh.
3. St. Thomas says (On the Education of Princes, Bk. 5, ch. 51) that Lucifer, who is believed to have been the devil that tempted Jesus Christ in the desert, tempted him to other sins but disdained to tempt him against chastity. Is this sin a small evil? Is it a small evil, then, to see a man who has a rational soul, enriched by God with so many graces, make himself like the beasts by this sin? “Fornication and pleasure,” says St. Jerome, “pervert the understanding and change a man into a beast” (In Oseam, c. 4). In the unchaste man are most truly verified the words of David: “And man, when he was in honor, did not understand: he is compared to senseless beasts, and is become like to them” (Ps. 48:13).
St. Jerome says that there is nothing more vile or base than to let oneself be conquered by the flesh. Nihil vilius quam vinci a carne—“Nothing is more vile than to be conquered by the flesh.” Is it a small evil to forget God and to drive him from one’s soul in order to give a filthy satisfaction to the body—a satisfaction of which, once it is past, the person himself is ashamed? Of this the Lord complains against the unchaste: “Thus saith the Lord God: Because thou hast forgotten me, and hast cast me off behind thy back” (Ezek. 23:35). St. Thomas says that by every vice a man departs from God, but most of all by the vice of impurity. Per luxuriam maxime recedit a Deo—“By lust one recedes most from God” (In Job, cap. 31).
4. Add to this that this sin, by the number of sins into which it easily multiplies, becomes an immense evil. A blasphemer does not always blaspheme, but only when he is drunk or has occasion to grow angry. A thief does not steal every day, but only when the chance comes to him. An assassin, who murders others for a living, will at most commit eight or ten homicides. But the unchaste man is a continual torrent of sins—of thoughts, of words, of looks, of sinful delights, of touches—so that when he goes to confession he finds it impossible to tell their number. Even while they sleep, the devil sets obscene objects before them, so that on awakening they may consent to them; and being made slaves of the enemy, they obey and consent. The reason is that in this sin it is easy to contract a bad habit, for men are not inclined to the other vices of blaspheming, of detraction, of murder, while to this vice nature itself inclines them.
Hence St. Thomas says that no sinner is so ready to despise God as the unchaste man, on every occasion that presents itself to him. Nullus ad Dei contemptum promptior—“None is more ready for contempt of God.” The sin of impurity then commonly brings with it a train of other sins—of defamation, of theft, of hatreds, of boasting of its own filthiness. Besides, it ordinarily brings scandal: other sins—blasphemies, murders, perjuries—cause horror in others, but this sin moves and draws others, who are also flesh, to commit it, or at least to commit it with less horror.
5. St. Cyprian writes that the devil totum hominem agit in triumphum libidinis—“brings the whole man into the triumph of lust” (On the Good of Chastity). He triumphs over the whole man, over the body and over the soul: over the memory, by making it recall those pleasures in order to delight in them; over the intellect, by making it desire occasions of sin; over the will, by making it love those impurities as its last end, and as if there were no longer a God. Job said: “I made a covenant with my eyes, that I would not so much as think upon a virgin. For what part should God from above have in me?” (Job 31:1, 2). Job trembled to look at a maiden, saying that if ever he fell into a bad thought, God would have no part in him.
From impurity, writes St. Gregory, are born blindness, ruin, hatred of God, and despair of eternal life. De luxuria caecitas mentis, praecipitatio, odium Dei, desperatio futuri saeculi generantur—“From lust are generated blindness of mind, rashness, hatred of God, and despair of the future age” (St. Gregory, Moralia, Bk. 13). For, as St. Augustine says, though the unchaste man grows old, the vice does not grow old in him. And therefore St. Thomas says that the devil delights in no sin so much as in the sin of impurity, for the reason that nature clings to no sin so much as to this one, so that the appetite for it becomes insatiable. Diabolus dicitur gaudere maxime de peccato luxuriae, quia est maximae adhaerentiae; et difficile ab eo homo potest eripi: insatiabilis est enim delectabilis appetitus—“The devil is said to rejoice most in the sin of lust, because it is of the greatest adherence, and man can with difficulty be snatched from it, for the appetite for pleasure is insatiable” (Summa I-II, q. 73, a. 5, ad 2).
Go now, and say that the sin of impurity is but a small evil. At the hour of your death you will not speak this way; then every sin of this kind will seem to you a monster of hell. And still less will you speak this way before the judgment seat of Jesus Christ, who will tell you what the Apostle has written: “No fornicator, or unclean, hath inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God” (Eph. 5:5). He who has chosen to live like a beast is not worthy to sit with the angels.
6. Most beloved brethren, let us always pray to God to deliver us from this vice, for if we do not, our souls will be lost. The vice of impurity brings with it blindness and obstinacy. All vices darken a man, but most of all the vice of impurity: “Fornication, and wine, and drunkenness take away the understanding” (Hos. 4:11). Wine makes a man lose his mind and his reason; this vice does the same. Hence St. Thomas says that the unchaste man does not live according to reason. In nullo procedit secundum judicium rationis—“In nothing does he proceed according to the judgment of reason.”
Now, if the unchaste man loses the light and no longer sees the evil he does, how can he abhor it and amend his life? The Prophet Hosea says that the unchaste, blinded in their own mire, do not even think of returning to God, since their vice makes them no longer know God: “They will not set their thoughts to return to their God; for the spirit of fornication is in the midst of them, and they have not known the Lord” (Hos. 5:4). And so St. Lawrence Justinian wrote that this sin makes men forget God: “The delights of the flesh induce forgetfulness of God.” And St. John Damascene said: “The carnal man cannot look upon the light of truth.” Thus the unchaste man no longer understands what is meant by the grace of God, nor judgment, nor hell, nor eternity: “Fire hath fallen upon them, and they shall not see the sun” (Ps. 57:9).
Some of these blind men go so far as to say that fornication with unmarried women is not in itself a sin, since, they say, it was not a sin in the Old Law; and they cite Hosea, to whom God said: “Go, take thee a wife of fornications, and have of her children of fornications” (Hos. 1:2). But the answer is that by these words God did not permit Hosea to commit fornication, but willed that he take for his wife a woman who had formerly been a fornicator, that is, a harlot; and he said, “and have of her children of fornications,” inasmuch as the children that were to be born of her were the children of a harlot, as St. Jerome explains on this text. Idcirco fornicationis appellandi sunt filii, quod sint de meretrice generati—“Therefore they are to be called children of fornication, because they are born of a harlot.” For the rest, fornication, in the Old Law as in the New, has always been a mortal sin, as St. Paul writes: “No fornicator or unclean, hath inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God” (Eph. 5:5). See, then, how far the blindness of such men reaches; and from this it comes that, even though they go to confession, their confessions are null, because true sorrow is wanting in them. But how can they have this true sorrow if they neither know nor abhor their sins?
7. Moreover, this vice brings obstinacy with it. To overcome temptations, especially of this kind, continual prayer is necessary, as the Lord warns us: “Watch ye, and pray, that ye enter not into temptation” (Mark 14:38). But how will the unchaste man pray to God to deliver him from temptation, when he goes about seeking to be tempted? At times he even abstains from prayer, for fear of being heard and healed of the disease that he wishes to last, as St. Augustine confessed of himself: “I feared that you would soon hear me and soon heal me of the disease of concupiscence, which I wished to be satiated rather than extinguished” (Confessions, Bk. 8, ch. 7).
St. Peter called this sin a ceaseless crime: “Having eyes full of adultery and of ceaseless sin” (2 Pet. 2:14)—ceaseless on account of the obstinacy to which impurity leads. Such a one says: But I always confess it. This is the worse for you, for since you always return to sin, these confessions serve only to make you continue in it, by saying, “I will confess it afterward.” If you knew that this sin certainly leads you to hell, you would hardly say, “I will not give it up; it does not matter that it harms me.” But the devil deceives you this way: Commit it, he says, for you will confess it afterward. But for the confession to be good, sorrow of heart and a firm purpose are required; and where is this sorrow and this purpose, if you always return to your vomit? If you had had it, and had received grace in your confessions, you would not have relapsed—or at least you would have held out a long time without relapsing. But within eight or ten days, and perhaps sooner, you have always fallen again. What sign is this? It is a sign that you have always been out of the grace of God. If a sick man at once vomits up the remedies he takes, it is a sign that his disease is incurable.
8. St. Jerome writes that the vice of impurity, when it has become habitual in a man, ends only when that wretch is cast into the fire of hell: “O infernal fire, lust, whose fuel is gluttony, whose sparks are brief conversations, whose end is hell!” Such men become like the vultures that are content to let themselves be killed by the hunters rather than leave the rottenness of the carcasses on which they feed. Just so it happened to a certain young woman, as Father Segneri relates, who, after carrying on a sinful affair with a young man, fell sick in bed and seemed to be converted. But when she was near the end of her life, she asked her confessor for leave to send for the young man, in order to exhort him to change his life at the sight of her death; and the confessor, with little prudence, gave her this leave and taught her what she should say to her paramour when he came.
But listen to what happened. When the unhappy woman saw him near her, she forgot the promise she had made to the confessor and the sermon she was to preach to the young man. And what did she do? She raised herself and sat up in the very bed; then she stretched out her arms toward him and said: Friend, I have always loved you, and now, at the end of my life, I love you still. I see already that on your account I am going to hell, but for love of you I do not care to be damned. And after saying this, she fell back upon the bed and breathed out her soul. These facts are related by Father Segneri (Christ. Istr. Rag., 24, n. 10). Oh, how difficult it is for one who has grown habituated to this vice to amend his life and turn sincerely to God, and not to end up in hell, as this wretched woman did!
Second Point.—Delusion of those who say that God takes pity on this sin.
9. The unchaste speak this way, but St. Thomas of Villanova does not. He says that in the sacred Scriptures we read of no sin so chastised by God as the sin of impurity. Luxuriae facinus prae aliis punitum legimus—“We read that the crime of lust is punished above others” (Sermon 4 for the First Sunday of Lent). For this sin we read in Scripture that a deluge of fire once came down from heaven upon four cities, and in a moment burned not only the men but even the stones: “And the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven” (Gen. 19:24). St. Peter Damian then relates that a man and a woman who sinned together against purity were found burnt by fire and black as cinders.
10. Moreover, Salvian writes that it was especially to punish impurity that the universal deluge came upon the earth, with rain falling for forty days and forty nights, so that the waters rose fifteen cubits above the highest mountains; and God willed that only eight persons be saved in the ark together with Noah. All the rest of mankind—and the earth was then more populous than it is now—were left dead in punishment of the sin of impurity. But mark the words of God in this chastisement that he sent upon the world for this sin. He said: “My spirit shall not remain in man forever, because he is flesh” (Gen. 6:3). Lyranus comments: “That is, too deeply entangled in carnal sins.” The Lord went further and said: “For it repenteth me that I made man” (Gen. 6:7).
The wrath of God is not like ours, which clouds the mind and drives us into excesses. His is a judgment wholly just and tranquil, in which God by punishment sets right the disorder of sin. But that we might understand how much he hates impurity, he spoke as though repenting of having created man, who offended him so greatly by this vice. This sin is seen, even today, to be punished temporally upon the earth more than any other sin. Enter some public hospital and hear the cries that so many poor young men send up—this one cut by razors, that one burned with searing irons—and why? In punishment of this sin; and if they do not die of it, at least they remain drained of their strength and tormented for the whole of their lives, according to what is threatened in Scripture: “Thou hast cast me off behind thy back; bear thou also thy wickedness and thy fornications” (Ezek. 23:35).
11. St. Remigius writes that, excepting children, few of the adults are saved, because of the sins of the flesh. Exceptis parvulis, ex adultis propter carnis vitium pauci salvantur—“Excepting little children, few adults are saved on account of the vice of the flesh” (quoted in St. Cyprian, On the Good of Chastity). In conformity with this, it was revealed to a holy soul that, as pride has filled hell with devils, so impurity fills it with men (Colloq., disp. 9, ex. 192). St. Isidore gave the reason: by no other sin do men make themselves slaves of the devil so much as by this of impurity. Magis per luxuriam humanum genus subditur diabolo, quam per aliquod aliud—“More by lust is the human race subjected to the devil than by anything else” (St. Isidore, Bk. 2, ch. 39). Hence St. Augustine says that in this kind of sin “the combat is common and the victory rare.” And from this it comes that hell is filled with souls on account of this sin.
12. All that I have said, my hearers, I have not said in order that anyone among you who may be defiled with this vice should be driven to despair, but that he may be healed. Let us come, then, to the remedies. There are two great remedies—prayer, and flight from the occasions. As to prayer: Oratio pudicitiae praesidium et tutamen est—“Prayer is the defense and protection of chastity,” wrote St. Gregory of Nyssa (On Prayer); and before him, Solomon, speaking of himself, said the same: “And as I knew that I could not otherwise be continent, except God gave it… I went to the Lord, and besought him” (Wis. 8:21).
Thus this vice cannot be resisted unless God helps us. The remedy, therefore, is that as soon as a temptation of this kind presents itself, we turn at once to God, naming and repeating again and again the most holy names of Jesus and Mary, which have a special power to drive away these evil thoughts. I have said at once, without giving the temptation a hearing or beginning to reason with it. When some evil thought presents itself to the mind, it must be shaken off at once, as one instantly shakes off the sparks that fly from the fire, and one must instantly call Jesus and Mary to one’s aid.
13. As to flight from the occasions, St. Philip Neri used to say that in this warfare the cowards win—that is, those who flee from the occasions. Therefore you must, before all else, keep a restraint on the eyes and not look at young women; otherwise, says St. Thomas, this vice can scarcely be avoided. Luxuria vitari vix potest, nisi vitetur aspectus mulieris pulchrae—“Lust can scarcely be avoided unless the sight of a beautiful woman is avoided” (Summa I-II, q. 167, a. 2). Hence Job said: “I made a covenant with my eyes, that I would not so much as think upon a virgin” (Job 31:1). He was afraid to look at a maiden, because from looks it is easy to pass to desires, and from desires to deeds.
And on this point St. Francis de Sales used to say that to look at a woman does not harm so much as to look at her again: then the devil, if he could not conquer at the first glance, will conquer at the second. And if we must flee the sight of women, much more must we flee conversation with them: “Tarry not among women” (Ecclus. 42:12). We must be persuaded that in this matter of the senses no caution is enough; and so we must always fear and flee: “A wise man feareth and declineth from evil; a fool is confident” (Prov. 14:16). The wise man fears and flees; the fool is confident and falls.
Points for Reflection
1. “As soon as a temptation of this kind presents itself, the remedy is to turn at once to God, naming and repeating again and again the most holy names of Jesus and Mary” (§12)
2. “Lust can scarcely be avoided unless the sight of a beautiful woman is avoided” (§13)
3. “We must be persuaded that in this matter of the senses no caution is enough; and so we must always fear and flee” (§13)