(76) The Lust [or longing Desire] is the introducing ointo a Thing, and out of the Lust comes the Form [or Image] of the Lust, viz. a Body, and the Source [or active Quality] of Sins sticks therein; and you may more easily hinder the Lust, than break the Body, which is very hard; therefore it is good to turn away the Eyes, and then the P Tincture goes not into the Essences by which the Spirit is impregnated; for the Lust indeed is not the Mind wholly, but they are Sisters; for when the Lust impregnates the Mind, then it is already a half Substance, and there must necessarily follow a Breaking, or there comes to be a whole Substance, and an Essence of a Thing.

(33) Think that you suffer a great punishment when you obtain the object of corporeal desire; for the attainment of such objects never satisfies desire.

(39) We must then exercise ourselves in taking care about those things which fall under the power of the passions, fleeing like those who are truly philosophers such articles of food as excite lust, and dissolute licentiousness in chambering and luxury; and the sensations that tend to luxury, which are a solid reward to others, must no longer be so to us. For God's greatest gift is self-restraint.

(78) While it is but glimmering it is only a gentle, soft, longing delight or pleasing lust in thee, and does not consume thee; but if thou exhaltest thy heart still more, and thou kindlest the sweet quality or fountain, so that it becomes a burning flame, then thou kindlest all the qualifying or fountain spirits, and then the whole body bumeth, and so mouth and hands fall on to work.

(3) And if it be a thing that pleaseth thee, or hath pleased thee before, there riseth in thee a passing delight for to think on that thing what so it be. Insomuch, that thou restest thee in that thought, and finally fastenest thine heart and thy will thereto, and feedest thy fleshly heart therewith: so that thee think for the time that thou covetest none other wealth, but to live ever in such a peace and rest with that thing that thou thinkest upon. If this thought that thou thus drawest upon thee, or else receivest when it is put unto thee, and that thou restest thee thus in with delight, be worthiness of nature or of knowing, of grace or of degree, of favour or of fairhead, then it is Pride. And if it be any manner of worldly good, riches or chattels, or what that man may have or be lord of, then it is Covetyse. If it be dainty meats and drinks, or any manner of delights that man may taste, then it is Gluttony. And if it be love or plesaunce, or any manner of fleshly dalliance, glosing or flattering of any man or woman living in this life, or of thyself either: then it is Lechery.

(3) 'Thou, O Nakiketas, after pondering all pleasures that are or seem delightful, hast dismissed them all. Thou hast not gone into the road that leadeth to wealth, in which many men perish.'

(9) With respect to what is called desire, these men are said to have asserted as follows: That desire indeed, itself, is a certain tendency, impulse, and appetite of the soul, in order to be filled with something, or to enjoy something present, or to be disposed according to some sensitive energy ; but that there is also a desire of the contraries to these, and this is a desire of the evacuation and absence, and of having no sensible perception of certain things. That this passion likewise is various, and is nearly the most multifarious of all those that pertain to man. But that many human desires are adscititious, and procured by men themselves. Hence this passion requires the greatest attention, and no casual care and corporeal exercise.

For that the body when empty should desire food, is natural: and again, it is also natural, that when filled, it should desire an appropriate evacuation. But to desire superfluous nutriment, or superfluous and luxurious garments or coverlids, or habitations, is adscititious. They also reasoned in the same manner concerning furniture, vessels, servants, and cattle subservient to food. And universally, with respect to human passions, they are nearly things of such a kind, as to be nowhere permanent, but to proceed to infinity. Hence attention should be paid to youth from the earliest period, in order that they may aspire after such things as are proper, may avoid vain and superfluous desires, and thus be undisturbed by, and purified from, such-like appetites, and may despise those who are objects of contempt, because they are bound to [all-various] desires.

But it must be especially observed, that vain, noxious, superfluous, and insolent desires subsist with those who have the greatest power. For there is not any thing so absurd, which the soul of such boys, men, and women, does not incite them to perform. In short, the variety of food which is assumed, is most manifold. For there are an infinite number of fruits, and an infinite multitude of roots, which the human race uses for food. It likewise uses all-various kinds of flesh; and it is difficult to find any terrestrial, aerial, or aquatic animal, which it does not taste. It also employs all-various contrivances in the preparation of these, and manifold mixtures of juices. Hence it properly follows that the human tribe is insane and multiform, according to the motion of the soul, for each kind of food that is introduced into the body, becomes the cause of a certain peculiar disposition.

(1) SENSUALITY is a power of our soul, recking and reigning in the bodily wits, through the which we have bodily knowing and feeling of all bodily creatures, whether they be pleasing or unpleasing. And it hath two parts: one through the which it beholdeth to the needfulness of our body, another through the which it serveth to the lusts of the bodily wits. For this same power is it, that grumbleth when the body lacketh the needful things unto it, and that in the taking of the need stirreth us to take more than needeth in feeding and furthering of our lusts: that grumbleth in lacking of pleasing creatures, and lustily is delighted in their presence: that grumbleth in presence of misliking creatures, and is lustily pleased in their absence. Both this power and the thing that it worketh in be contained in the Memory.

(59) Also, I receive it from before the seat of his throne, where all holy souls of men stand before him, and rejoice before him; [and I tell thee] that the desire of the flesh in soft pleasingness, to be rich, to be handsome, beautiful and fair, or to be mighty or potent, is a very bath or lake of hellish wrath, into which thou crowdest and runnest, as if thou wert drawn in with cartropes; for there is very great danger therein.

(1) Lust is that snake; How say you it is dead? If it obtains the state of Pharaoh, So as to command the (frozen) rivers to flow, Straightway it is led to pride like Pharaoh's, Through pressure of want this snake is as a fly, Beware, keep that snake in the frost of humiliation, Draw it not forth into the sunshine of 'Iraq! So long as that snake is frozen, it is well; Conquer it and save yourself from being conquered, Pity it not, it is not one who bears affection. For that warmth of the sun kindles its lust,

(41) Therefore if one who uses his power to live a virtuous life receives praise, then much more worthy of reverence and honour is he who has given us this free and sovereign power and has allowed us to live as we choose, not allowing us to become en- slaved and subjected to necessity by our acts of choice and rejection. But if both can have no anxiety, he who chooses incontinence and he who chooses abstinence, yet the honour is not equal. He who indulges his pleasures gratifies his body; but he who is controlled liberates from its passions his soul which is master of the body. And if they tell us that we are called to freedom, only let us not use our freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, as the apostle says. If lust is to be gratified and a life of sin regarded as morally neutral, as they say, either we ought to indulge our desires in every direction and, if this is our desire, do the most lascivious and immoral acts, in that we are following our instincts in every way; or we may suppress certain desires and live no longer a life which recognizes no distinction of right and wrong, nor be absolute slaves to our most dishonourable members, the stomach and the private parts, gratifying our carcase for the sake of desire. For desire is nourished and invigorated if it is encouraged in indulgence, just as, on the other hand, it loses strength if it is kept in check.

(2) Before ere man sinned was the Sensuality so obedient unto the Will, unto the which it is as it were servant, that it ministered never unto it any unordained liking or grumbling in any bodily creature, or any ghostly feigning of liking or misliking made by any ghostly enemy in the bodily wits. But now it is not so: for unless it be ruled by grace in the Will, for to suffer meekly and in measure the pain of the original sin, the which it feeleth in absence of needful comforts and in presence of speedful discomforts, and thereto also for to restrain it from lust in presence of needful comforts, and from lusty plesaunce in the absence of speedful discomforts: else will it wretchedly and wantonly welter, as a swine in the mire, in the wealths of this world and the foul flesh so much that all our living shall be more beastly and fleshly, than either manly or ghostly.

(78) Therefore beware of the Longing [Lust or Desire;] and say not in thyself, I stand in the Dark, the Lord sees me not, [nor] what I think and do. He stands in the Gate of the Mind, where the Soul stands (before the clear Face of God) in the opened Gate; and all thy Abominations are known before God, and thou makest the Element of God blush [or change Colour] with them; thou grievest the chaste Virgin (which dwells in her own Center, and is given to be a Companion to thee in thy Mind) and makest her sad; she warns thee of the Way of the Ungodly; if thou followest [her Counsel,] and turnest, and breakest in unto her, by earnest Repentance, then she crowns thee in thy Mind with Wisdom and Understanding, that thou mayest then very well avoid the Devil; but if they doest not, then thou fallest out of one Sin and Abomination into another, and makest thy Measure full and running over, and then the Devil helps thee into his Kingdom, and thou art very serviceable to him; for thou art a true Scourge to the Children of God, not only with Reproaching, but also in Deeds [or in the Work of thy Hands,] which the Devil dares not do; thou doest him acceptable service. He amuses thee finely with the Name [i of God,] so that thou bringest forth from thy Lips, and teachest it; but thy Heart is a Thief and

(6) And there are those whom injury seems to chafe, So that it makes them greedy for revenge, And such must needs shape out another's harm. This threefold love is wept for down below; Now of the other will I have thee hear, That runneth after good with measure faulty. Each one confusedly a good conceives Wherein the mind may rest, and longeth for it; Therefore to overtake it each one strives. If languid love to look on this attract you, Or in attaining unto it, this cornice, After just penitence, torments you for it. There's other good that does not make man happy; 'Tis not felicity, 'tis not the good Essence, of every good the fruit and root. The love that yields itself too much to this Above us is lamented in three circles; But how tripartite it may be described, I say not, that thou seek it for thyself."

(402) we have to educate, can ever become musical until we and they know the essential forms of temperance, courage, liberality, magnificence, and their kindred, as well as the contrary forms, in all their combinations, and can recognise them and their images wherever they are found, not slighting them either in small things or great, but believing them all to be within the sphere of one art and study. Most assuredly. And when a beautiful soul harmonizes with a beautiful form, and the two are cast in one mould, that will be the fairest of sights to him who has an eye to see it? The fairest indeed. And the fairest is also the loveliest? That may be assumed. And the man who has the spirit of harmony will be most in love with the loveliest; but he will not love him who is of an inharmonious soul? That is true, he replied, if the deficiency be in his soul; but if there be any merely bodily defect in another he will be patient of it, and will love all the same. I perceive, I said, that you have or have had experiences of this sort, and I agree. But let me ask you another question: Has excess of pleasure any affinity to temperance? How can that be? he replied; pleasure deprives a man of the use of his faculties quite as much as pain. Or any affinity to virtue in general?

(56) Therefore, O Man, look to it! [have a care] how you use the bestial Lust; it is (in itself) an Abomination before God, whether it be in the State of Wedlock, or out of it. But the right Love and Fidelity (in the Fear of God) covers it before the Countenance of God; and (through the Sun of the Virgin) it is regenerated to be a pure undefiled Creature again, in the Faith, if thy Confidence be in God.

(122) Therefore the original lust sticketh in the circle of the heart, in the council of the seven spirits; and as they generate the spirit, so also it is.

(6) The woman whom one may desire with the thought, ' May she enjoy love with me! ' — after coming together with her, joining mouth with mouth, and stroking her lap, he should mutter: — 'Thou that from every limb art come, That from the heart art generate, Thou art the essence of the limbs! Distract this woman here in me, As if by poisoned arrow pierced!'

(6) And again: Was the sword then by beauty blunted?" And I agree with Antisthenes when he says, "Could I catch Aphrodite, I would shoot her; for she has destroyed many of our beautiful and good women." And he says that "Love is a vice of nature, and the wretches who fall under its power call the disease a deity." For in these words it is shown that stupid people are overcome from ignorance of pleasure, to which we ought to give no admittance, even though it be called a god, that is, though it be given by God for the necessity of procreation. And Xenophon, expressly calling pleasure a vice, says:

(21) In like manner, when the King of kings says "Abstain," Again, "Eat ye," is said recognising the snares of lust, And afterwards, " Exceed not," to enjoin temperance. When there is no subject, When thou endurest not the pains of abstinence And fulfillest not the terms, thou gainest no reward. How easy those terms! how abundant that reward! A reward that enchants the heart and charms the soul! Prayers to God to change our base inclinations and give us higher aspirations. O Thou that changest earth into gold,