study.xeb.ai · mystics · cassian
Book VI

On the Spirit of Fornication.

The spirit of fornication — the book Gibson would not translate.

Translated for study.xeb.ai · CC0 — Gibson did not translate this text

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Restored for this editionGibson did not translate this text. In its place his 1894 volume prints one sentence: “We have thought best to omit altogether the translation of this book.” What follows is a new translation from Petschenig’s Latin (CSEL XVII, printed pages 113–127), made for this edition and dedicated to the public domain under CC0. Our notes are collected at the foot of the page, under a heading of their own; Gibson has none here, because he wrote none. How this English was made, what was checked and what could not be, is set out on the methodology page.

I. Of the twofold battle against the spirit of fornication.

Our second combat, by the tradition of the fathers,1 is against the spirit of fornication: long beyond all the rest and protracted, thoroughly overcome by very few — a monstrous war, and one which, although it begins to assail the race of men from the earliest time of puberty, is not put out unless the other faults are first overcome. For the assault is twofold, armed with a twin fault, rising up to battle; and therefore it must in like manner be withstood with a twofold line of battle, since, as it gains strength, congealed together out of a disease of the flesh and of the soul, so neither can it be subdued unless both are fighting alike.2 For bodily fasting alone is not enough for the gaining or the possessing of the purity of perfect chastity, unless there has first gone before contrition of spirit, and prayer that perseveres against this most unclean spirit, and then unbroken meditation on the Scriptures, and spiritual knowledge has been joined to that meditation, and the labour and work of the hands too, restraining and calling back the unsteady wanderings of the heart, and before all things true humility has been founded, without which the triumph over any fault whatever will never be able to be gained.

1Traditione, the bare ablative, is Petschenig's text (CSEL XVII, printed page 115); his apparatus records traditionem as the reading of H and the first hand of L, which he rejects, and Migne supplies a preposition, juxta traditionem Patrum (PL 49. 267). The translation follows the printed base text.
2Concretum is neuter and cannot agree with the feminine obpugnatio of the sentence before it; its subject is the neuter certamen or bellum with which the chapter opens, or an unexpressed uitium. The Latin does not settle which, and the English "it" does not have to; concresco is intransitive, so the participle is active in sense and the English is "congealed together", not "having been compounded" by anything. Utrisque pariter dimicantibus is an ablative absolute, and utrisque is left open in the same way: the twofold line of battle just named — that is, the two remedies set against the assault, or the flesh and the soul it is compounded of.

II. Of the principal correction against the spirit of fornication.

For the correction of this fault comes down principally from perfection of heart, out of which heart the poison of this sickness too is marked, by the voice of the Lord, as proceeding. "Out of the heart," says He, "proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false testimonies,"3 and the rest. That, then, must be purged first of all out of which the spring of life and of death is known to flow, as Solomon says: "With all watchfulness keep thy heart: for out of these are the issues of life."4 For the flesh is servant to the heart's decision and command. And therefore the frugality of fasts must be pursued with the utmost zeal, lest the flesh, refreshed5 by an abundance of food and set against the soul's saving precepts, growing haughty, should cast down the spirit that rules it. But if we should lay the whole sum upon the chastening of the body alone, while the soul does not likewise fast from the other faults, nor is taken up with divine meditation and with spiritual pursuits, we shall by no means be able to climb to that loftiest summit of true perfection,6 with that principal part which is in us assailing the purity of our body.7 We must therefore first make clean, according to the Lord's saying, "that which is within the cup and the platter, that that which is without may become clean also."8

3S. Matt. xv. 19. Cassian's et cetera is his own and stands outside the quotation; the Authorized Version's list ends "blasphemies", and its falsa testimonia is the singular "false witness".
4Prov. iv. 23 (LXX.). Two divergences, both kept. Ex his is plural — "out of these" — following the Greek ἐκ γὰρ τούτων; the Authorized Version and the Vulgate both have the singular ("for out of it are the issues of life", quia ex ipso uita procedit). And omni custodia is a guarding word, not a diligence word: Gibson prints the Authorized Version's "Keep thy heart with all diligence" for this verse at Conf. XIII. x, but the argument of chapter XII turns on custodia and custodiri being the same word, and this edition renders it from the Latin. Petschenig prints tuum cor in that order, letter-spaced as a quotation, and records cor tuum as the reading of H, the second hands of L and T, and the printed editions.
5Refecta ("refreshed") is Petschenig's text, from C A G L T; H, S and the printed editions read referta, "stuffed", which is what Migne follows. Both make sense; the base text is Petschenig's.
6Integritatis is rendered "perfection" here and "integrity" everywhere else in this book. The noun is governed by fastigium, a word of culmination, and in that construction Gibson's own English is the perfection family — "the crown of perfection" for integritatis consummatio (Inst. V. vii), "the goal of perfection" for ad integritatis calcem (Inst. V. ix), "the heights of perfection" for integritatis culmen (Inst. XII. xi). The cost is that perfectio stands in this same paragraph ("perfection of heart") and the two Latin nouns therefore share one English word here, as they would in Gibson.
7Principali is ablative in Petschenig and the clause is an ablative absolute, not a stated cause: the mind's ruling part is what assails the body's purity while we confine ourselves to the body. Migne prints the nominative principale and the word order puritatem corporis nostri; the sense turns on the case. "Principal part" keeps Cassian's own ring — principaliter opens the chapter and principali closes it, under a heading that reads de principali correctione. Gibson's English for the substantive is "the ruling power" (Conf. VII. xii).
8S. Matt. xxiii. 26. Petschenig prints parabsidis, the rarer form, from C and L, against parapsidis in A G H T and paropsidis in Migne. Fiat, "may become", is Cassian's verb where the Authorized Version has "may be", and id quod de foris est, "that which is without", where it has "the outside of them".

III. How much solitude, together with abstinence, contributes as a remedy toward overcoming the fault of fornication.

Next, the other faults are wont to be cleansed even by intercourse with men and by daily exercise, and in a manner to be cured by the hurt of the fall itself: the ailments of anger, of dejection, of impatience, for instance, are healed9 by meditation of heart and by unsleeping care, and by the frequent company of the brethren as well and their constant provoking; and while, once they have been stirred up, they are the oftener brought into the open and the more frequently rebuked, they come the sooner to health. But this disease needs, along with affliction of the body and contrition of heart, solitude also and withdrawal, that when the pernicious fever of the heats has been laid aside it may be able to come to a complete condition of health. As it is generally useful for those labouring under a particular sickness that harmful foods should not be offered even to the very gaze of their eyes, lest by occasion of the sight any deadly desire be begotten in them, so quiet and solitude contribute very much to the driving away of this disease in particular, that the sick mind, in no way broken in upon by various shapes, coming to a purer gaze of contemplation, may be the more easily able to root out the pestilent tinder10 of lust.

9Petschenig prints a singular subject, languor, with a plural verb, sanantur; the three genitives that depend on it are three ailments, and the plural verbs that follow (manifestantur, arguuntur, perueniunt) have the faults themselves for their subject. The English carries the plural verb and loses the singular noun.
10Fomes is tinder — the word that lights, set here among aestus and febris. Gibson's one rendering of it is "incentive" (Inst. V. v, "the baneful and fiery incentive to vice"), which this book needs for incentiuum in chapters IIII, XVII and XXII.

IIII. Of the difference between continence and chastity, and whether both are always held at once.

Yet let no one suppose from this that we deny that continent men11 are found even when set in the congregation of the brethren: which we confess can very easily happen. For it is one thing to be continent, that is, ἐγκρατῆ, enkratē, and another to be chaste, and, so to speak, to pass into a state12 of integrity or incorruption, which is called ἁγνόν, hagnon13 — which virtue is ascribed chiefly to those alone who continue virgins either in flesh or in mind, as both the Johns are known to have been in the New Testament, and in the Old likewise Elijah, Jeremiah and Daniel. And in their rank these too will not undeservedly be reckoned, who after the experience of corruption have come, through long toil and diligence, to a like condition of purity in integrity of mind and body, and who feel the stings of the flesh not so much through the attack of shameful lust as only through a motion of nature. And this condition, we say, can be attained with the greatest difficulty amid the throngs of men. But whether it is also impossible, let each man not expect to learn it from our judgment, but search it out by the examination of his own conscience. For the rest, we do not doubt that there are many continent men who extinguish14 and keep down the attack of the flesh, which they endure either rarely or daily, whether by the fear of hell or by the desire of the kingdom of heaven. And as the elders declare that such men can avoid being wholly overwhelmed by the incitements of the faults, so they lay it down that such men cannot always remain secure and unwounded. For every one set in a wrestling-match, however often he conquers and overcomes his adversary, must nevertheless himself also be troubled at times.

11Continens is "continent" here and through this chapter, and the noun continentia is "abstinence" at chapter XVII, where it means restraint in food. Gibson uses both words; "abstinence" is the commoner, and "continence" is his where the Latin sets the word against castitas as the lower of two states, which is the whole burden of this chapter and of Conference XII. xi. Flattening the two into one English word would dissolve the distinction the chapter exists to draw.
12In affectum ... transire: "to pass into a state". Affectus is "affection" elsewhere in this book (chapters VII and XII); here it is a condition passed into rather than a disposition held, and "state" is the rendering the style sheet of this edition already prints for this sentence. Because affectus takes "state" here, status is "condition" throughout, as Gibson renders it at Conf. IX. xxxi. The noun stands six times in this book — once in chapter III (ad integrum sanitatis statum), twice in this chapter, once in chapter XXI (and again in that chapter's heading), and twice in chapter XXIII, where statum solidissimum closes the book. Chapter XXII's "condition of the flesh" is a different word, condicio.
13The only Greek in Cassian's Latin here, and it is the point of the chapter. Petschenig prints both words in the accusative, agreeing with continentem and castum; they are given as he prints them, not normalised to the nominative, and the transliterations are supplied by this edition and are not in the Latin. ἐγκρατής is the man who holds himself in; ἁγνός is the man who is pure. Cassian's gloss makes integritas a word about chastity and not about moral uprightness — which is why this edition renders it "integrity" and not "uprightness".
14Extingunt, with one u, is what the page prints; Petschenig's apparatus gives extinguunt as the reading of the second hands of A and G, which Migne follows.

V. That the attack of fornication cannot be vanquished by human zeal alone.

Wherefore, if we have it at heart, with the Apostle,15 to strive lawfully in the spiritual contest, let us hasten to overcome this most unclean spirit with all intentness of mind, not trusting in our own powers (for human diligence does not prevail to accomplish this), but in the succour of the Lord. For just so long must the soul be attacked by this fault, until it shall recognise that it is waging a war beyond its own powers, and that it cannot obtain the victory by its own labour or zeal unless it shall have been upheld by the Lord's help and protection.

152 Tim. ii. 5. Gibson renders legitime decertare "strive lawfully" wherever it stands — Inst. V. xvi, VII. xx, X. v, XII. xxxii — and quotes the verse itself at Inst. V. xii: "One who strives in the games is not crowned unless he has contended lawfully." Cum apostolo is moved forward in the English because "strive lawfully with the Apostle" would be read as striving against him.

VI. Of the peculiar grace of God in the gift of chastity.

And in truth, though in all advances of the virtues and in the storming of all the faults the grace and the victory are the Lord's, yet in this especially a peculiar benefit of God and a special gift is most plainly declared, both by the judgment of the fathers and by the proof of that cleansing itself, to those who have been counted worthy to possess it.16 For it is in a manner to go out of the flesh, for one dwelling in the body, and it is beyond nature, for one encompassed with frail flesh, not to feel the stings of the flesh. And therefore it is impossible for a man to fly up on his own wings, so to speak, to a reward so lofty and heavenly, unless the grace of the Lord shall have led him forth out of the mire of earth by the gift of chastity. For by no virtue are carnal men so properly made equal to the spiritual angels in the imitation of their manner of life as by the merit and grace of chastity, through which, while they are still living upon earth, they have, according to the Apostle, "citizenship in heaven"17 — which, when the corruption of the flesh has been laid aside, it is promised that the saints shall have in time to come, and which they possess here already in frail flesh.

16Eam is feminine and its antecedent is not settled by the Latin: purgationis stands nearest, gratia and uictoria stand in the same sentence, and the chastity the chapter is about is named only in the chapter heading. Beneficium and donum are neuter and cannot be meant. The English "it" leaves the question where Cassian leaves it. Meruerint is rendered "counted worthy" and not "deserved": mereor with an infinitive regularly means to be granted the privilege of, and a sentence whose whole burden is that this is God's special gift cannot be made to say that men earn it.
17Phil. iii. 20. Municipatum is the Old Latin word, "citizenship", for the Greek πολίτευμα; the Vulgate has conuersatio and the Authorized Version "our conversation is in heaven", which is also Gibson's rendering of the verse at Conf. III. vi and III. vii. Cassian's word is kept, because the sentence is about what the chaste already hold as citizens and not about how they behave — and because conuersatio stands in this same sentence, of the angels' manner of life, three words away. Promittitur is impersonal and governs an accusative and infinitive: it is promised that the saints will have it, not that the saints are promised anything.

VII. An instance from the contest of this world, according to the word of the Apostle.

Hear what the Apostle says: "Every one that striveth in a contest abstaineth from all things."18 Let us inquire what those "all things" are from which he said that a man abstains, that instruction in the spiritual contest may be gained by us from a comparison with the carnal one. For those who are eager to strive lawfully in this visible contest have not liberty to use all the foods which the wantonness19 of desire may suggest, but only those which the discipline of those same combats has appointed. And they must abstain not only from forbidden foods and from drunkenness and all surfeiting, but from all sluggishness and idleness and sloth as well, that by daily exercises and unbroken practice their strength20 may be able to grow. And so they are made strangers to all anxiety and sadness and worldly business, and to the affection and the act of marriage as well, so that they know nothing else besides the exercise of their discipline and are not entangled at all in any worldly care, hoping to win from him alone who presides over the combat the provision of their daily food, and the glory of the crown, and prizes of victory worthy of praise.21 And so far do they keep themselves clean from every pollution of intercourse that, when they are preparing themselves for the combat of the games, lest perchance, deluded22 by some nocturnal deception in sleep, they lessen the strength won over a long time, they cover the parts of the loins with plates of lead — namely, that the coldness23 of the metal, laid upon the genital members, may be able to check the foul humours: for they understand that they must beyond doubt be conquered, and can no longer accomplish the combat set before them once their strength is gone, if the deceiving image of a hurtful pleasure shall have corrupted the firmness of chastity24 they had secured beforehand.

181 Cor. ix. 25. The Authorized Version reads "every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things"; Cassian's Latin, which is the Vulgate's, has ab omnibus se abstinet, and the sentence that follows exists to ask what those "all things" are. The familiar English would leave the question with nothing to fasten on. A quibus omnibus dixerit is an indirect question with the verb of abstaining elided; "that a man abstains" supplies it from the verse just quoted.
19Libido is "wantonness" in this book, not "lust", which glossary.json fixes to concupiscentia; the two nouns stand in a single sentence at chapter XII and cannot share one English word. Petulans, which would otherwise be "wanton", takes "unbridled" there for the same reason.
20Uirtus is "virtue" throughout this book except here, where it is the bodily prowess of athletes in the games — the same thing the next section calls uires — and "virtue" would say something the Latin does not.
21Condignaque praemia uictoriae laude is a crux. Praemia uictoriae, "prizes of victory", keeps the three objects of conquirere in one shape — each an accusative with its own genitive — and leaves condigna ... laude as the ordinary idiom, worthy of praise. The other parse, taking uictoriae laude together as the complement of condigna, gives "rewards worthy of the praise of victory", which breaks the pattern and states a relation no reader can cash out.
22Delusi is a participle, not a second thing feared: the ne governs minuant alone, and what the athletes guard against is the loss of strength, the dream being only how it happens. It is the same verb as the inlusio of chapters X, XI and XXIII, and per somnum nocturna fallacia is the thing those chapters call a nocturnal illusion: the pagan athletes are described in the same words as the monks, which is the point of the comparison.
23Rigor is stiffness or cold. Cold is the sense taken here, because the lead is expected to check a flow, and it is Gibson's own English for the noun at Inst. I. ix ("the morning cold in winter", for matutinus hiemis rigor); the other reading, the metal's hardness, is available and is not excluded by anything in the sentence.
24Pudicitia, a fourth Latin word in this book for the chaste state, beside castitas, castimonia and integritas. It occurs once, of athletes, and in a sentence where none of the other three stands; "chastity" is its plain English and is what Gibson gives the first two. Prouisam is accusative feminine and agrees with soliditatem, not with the genitive pudicitiae.

VIII. A comparison with the purification of those who are to have their combat in an earthly contest.

If, then, we have understood the discipline of the world's contest, by whose example the blessed Apostle wished to instruct us, showing how great is the observance in that discipline, how great the diligence, how great the watchfulness — what will it befit us to do, and with what purity shall we have to guard the chastity of our body and soul, we who must feed daily on the sacrosanct flesh of the Lamb, which even the precepts of the old law permit no unclean person to touch? For in Leviticus it is thus commanded: "Every one that is clean shall eat flesh. And whatever soul shall have eaten of the flesh of the sacrifice of salvation which is the Lord's, in whom there is uncleanness, shall perish before the Lord."25 How great, then, is the gift of integrity26 — an integrity without which neither could they who were under the old testament take part in the figurative sacrifices, nor can they who desire to win the corruptible crown of this world be crowned.

25Lev. vii. 19, 20 (LXX.). Cassian's text differs from the Authorized Version at three points and each is kept: sacrificii salutaris, "the sacrifice of salvation", follows the Greek σωτηρίου where the Authorized Version has "peace offerings"; in qua est inmunditia puts the uncleanness inside the soul rather than upon the man, and qua is feminine and reaches back over sacrificii and carnibus to anima; and peribit coram domino, "shall perish before the Lord", stands where the Authorized Version has "shall be cut off from his people".
26Munus is a gift, and it is also a duty or an office, and the Latin here will bear either: "how great is the gift of integrity" or "how great an office is that of integrity". "Gift" is printed because munus is unambiguously the gift of God at chapter VI (munere castitatis), which is this book's thesis; the other reading is not excluded. Sine qua is feminine and agrees with integritatis, not with the neuter munus, and it governs both limbs of the et ... et that follows — the athletes are not being told they cannot be crowned, but that they cannot be crowned without it.

VIIII. How great a purity of heart we ought always to prepare for the eyes of God.

And so with all watchfulness the hiding-places of our heart must first be purged. For what those men desire to attain in purity of body, we ought to possess even in the hidden places of the conscience, in which the Lord, sitting as umpire and president of the games,27 continually watches the struggle of our course and our combat — so that the things which we shrink from committing in the open we may not suffer, even inwardly, to knit themselves together through an unguarded thought, and that in those things wherein we are put to shame by men's knowledge, we may not be defiled by so much as a secret connivance. And this connivance, though it can escape the notice of men, will yet not be able to lie hidden from the knowledge of the holy angels and of Almighty God Himself, which no secrets elude.28

27Arbiter atque agonotheta: Gibson renders the same two nouns of Christ at Conf. VII. xx — "the merciful judge of our contest, and president of the games, Christ Himself", for clementissimus arbiter atque agonotheta praesidens Christus. His "judge" is qualified there by "of our contest"; unqualified it reads forensic in a sentence that is athletic from end to end (agonotheta, pugnam, cursus, certaminis), so "umpire" stands here. Agonotheta is one of the Greek words Cassian gives in Latin letters, and it stays in them.
28Quam nulla subterfugiunt secreta: quam is accusative feminine singular and its antecedent is scientiam, which belongs to the angels and to God together; nulla ... secreta is the subject. The clause therefore says that no secret gets past that knowledge — the angels' as well as God's. A rendering that turns it into "from whom no secrets escape" attaches it to God alone and drops the angels out of the claim.

X. What is the sign of perfect and entire purity.

And of this purity the evident sign and full proof will be this: should no enticing image meet us at rest and slackened into sleep, or at least, should one break in, should it have no power to stir up any impulses29 of lust. For although such a commotion is not imputed as amounting to the full guilt of sin, that commotion is nevertheless not yet a sign of a perfect mind, nor a manifestation of a fault thoroughly burnt out, since illusion is at work through deceiving images of this kind.30

29Concupiscentiae motus: "impulses" rather than "motions", because the stirring is inward — of an appetite, not of the body. The bodily sense follows two lines later in commotio, which is "commotion", and the two words are kept apart in English as they are in the Latin. The cost is that talis commotio resumes concupiscentiae motus with an intensive prefix, and the two English words do not show the intensification.
30Huiusmodi is indeclinable and stands immediately after imagines: it is the images that are of this kind, pointing back to the imago inliciens of the first sentence, and inlusio has not been mentioned before and needs no qualifier. Cum takes the indicative here and is explanatory, not temporal: the deficiency is diagnostic, not intermittent.

XI. From what fault a nocturnal illusion proceeds.

For the character of the thoughts, which is guarded too carelessly by reason of the day's distractions, is put to the proof by the quiet of the night. And therefore, when any such illusion has come between, it is not to be reckoned the fault of sleep, but the negligence of the preceding time and the manifestation of a disease lying hidden within, which the hour of night did not first bring to birth, but drew out, hidden as it was in the inmost fibres of the soul, to the surface of the skin by the refreshment of sleep, proving the hidden fevers of the heats, which we, having fed upon harmful thoughts, contracted through the whole space of the day: as bodily sicknesses too are wont to be gathered not at that season in which they seem to break out, but have been got by the negligence of the time gone by, when someone, having fed unwisely upon unsuitable foods, drew upon his very self humours that were harmful and deadly.

XII. That purity of the flesh cannot be obtained without cleanness of heart.

And therefore God, the creator and founder of the human race, knowing beyond all others the nature of His own handiwork and its cure, applied the care of medicine there whence He knew that the causes of the disease principally flowed: "Whosoever," says He, "hath looked on a woman to lust after her hath already committed adultery with her in his heart."31 In marking unbridled eyes He blames not so much them as that inward sense which misuses their office in seeing. For the heart is sick and wounded with the dart of wantonness — the heart which looks in order to lust, twisting by its own fault the benefit of sight, rightly granted to itself by the Creator, into the services of wicked works, and bringing out, by occasion of the gaze, the disease of lust hidden away within its very self. For this reason, then, the health-giving commandment is prescribed to that heart, by whose fault the worst sickness comes forth by occasion of sight. For it is not said, "With all watchfulness keep thine eyes"32 — which surely ought to have been watched before all else, if the affection of lust did proceed from the eyes themselves (for the eyes furnish the soul with nothing beyond the simple office of sight) — but He says, "With all watchfulness keep thy heart,"33 the medicine being laid chiefly upon that which can in every case abuse the service of the eyes.

31S. Matt. v. 28. Petschenig prints no stop at all between emanare and quicumque, where he punctuates his other quotation-openings with a colon and Migne supplies one here; the page was read again at fourteen diameters and the paper is clean. The English supplies a colon, which is the smallest mark that will carry the join. Moechatus est eam takes a direct accusative, following the Greek ἐμοίχευσεν αὐτήν, where the Vulgate and the Authorized Version have "with her".
32Prov. iv. 23 (LXX.), altered. Petschenig sets this phrase in single quotation marks because Cassian is citing it in order to argue about it and not quoting it as Scripture — it is what the verse does NOT say. That is the convention of the edition, not of this page, and it is printed here in ordinary double marks, as Gibson prints the same construction at Conf. XVI. xvi.
33Prov. iv. 23 (LXX.). Dicit has no expressed subject, and the Latin does not settle who says it. The capital is a decision, taken here for God, whose act governs the paragraph from deus ... curam adhibuit through notans ... arguit and who is the one prescribing the commandment two lines earlier. Against that: the verse is Solomon's, and chapter II attributes it to him by name; and the first limb of the pair, non enim dicitur, is impersonal, so the pair may equally be read "it is not said ... but it says" with Scripture as the speaker. Nothing in the Latin decides it, and this note is where the decision is recorded rather than hidden in a letterform.

XIII. What is the first watch of the cleansing of the flesh.

This, then, will be the first watch of this cleansing: that when the memory of the female sex has crept upon our mind through the subtle suggestion of diabolical cunning, we should, first calling up the recollection of our mother, of our sisters, of our kinsfolk, or at any rate of holy women, make haste to thrust that memory out of our recesses as quickly as may be; lest, if we have dwelt upon it too long, the enticer to evils, having once got an occasion from the sex, should thence subtly roll the mind down and cast it headlong toward those persons through whom he may plant harmful thoughts. Wherefore we ought continually to remember that precept, "With all watchfulness keep thy heart,"34 and, according to God's primal command, carefully to watch for the harmful head of the serpent — that is, the first beginnings of evil thoughts, by which the devil tries to creep into our soul — and let us not through negligence allow the rest of its body to penetrate into our heart, that is, the consent to delight, which without doubt, if it be let in, will slay the mind with a venomous bite when once it is taken captive.35 We must also put out, as they emerge, "the sinners" of our "land" — that is, our carnal senses — "in the mornings" of their own arising,36 and, while they are yet "little ones, dash the sons of Babylon against the rock";37 for unless they have been killed off while they are still most tender, they will grow up through connivance and rise against us the stronger, to our ruin, or at the least will not be overcome without great groaning and toil. For while "the strong man" — that is, our spirit — "armed keepeth his house", fortifying the recesses of his heart with the fear of God, "all his substance shall be in peace" — that is, the gains of his labours and the virtues won over a long time. "But if a stronger than he shall come upon him and overcome him" — that is, the devil, by consent to thoughts — "he shall take away his armour wherein he trusted", that is, the memory of the Scriptures or the fear of God, "and shall divide his spoils",38 scattering, that is, the merits of the virtues, each through the fault opposed to it.

34Prov. iv. 23 (LXX.).
35Dei principale mandatum is not the great commandment: what follows it is the serpent's head, that is, Genesis iii. 15, and principale here is first-given, not greatest. English "chief commandment" would name the wrong text. Captiuatam is a bare perfect passive participle agreeing with mentem, with no agent expressed; making the consent the captor would say what the Latin does not, and would put the capture before the bite instead of after it.
36Ps. c. (ci.) 8. Peccatores is "sinners" where the Authorized Version has "the wicked of the land", and in matutinis is plural where it has "early". Cassian has also put nostrae into the verse and added sui ortus, which is why "our" and "of their own arising" stand outside the quotation marks here.
37Ps. cxxxvi. (cxxxvii.) 9. Filios Babylonis and ad petram, singular, against the Authorized Version's "thy little ones" and "the stones".
38S. Luke xi. 21, 22. Cassian's verbs are future throughout — erit, diripiet, diuidet — where the Authorized Version has the present, and he writes domum, "house", for its "palace" and omnis substantia, "all his substance", for its "his goods". The wording of the clauses is his adaptation and not the received Latin of the verses, and the marks show which words are being cited, not that they stand so in any Bible.

XIIII. That we should strive not to weave the praise of chastity, but to expound its accomplishment.

And, to pass over all that has been woven into the holy Scriptures in praise of this virtue (for it is not my purpose to weave the praise of chastity, but to explain, by the traditions of the fathers, concerning its own nature, or how it ought to be acquired and guarded, or what its end is), I will put down one saying only of the blessed Apostle, whereby it may be plain how, writing to the Thessalonians, he preferred that virtue to all the rest, commending it with such nobility of language as this.

XV. That the virtue of chastity is specially called holiness by the Apostle.

"This," he says, "is the will of God, your sanctification."39 And lest he should perhaps leave it doubtful or obscure to us what exactly he meant to call sanctification — whether righteousness, or love, or humility, or patience (for sanctification is believed to be gained in all those virtues) — he subjoins and plainly shows what he meant to call sanctification in its proper sense: "This is the will of God, your sanctification: that ye should abstain," he says, "from fornication; that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in honour and sanctification, not in the passion of desire, even as the Gentiles which know not God."40 See with what praises he extols it, calling it the honour of the vessel — that is, of our body — and sanctification. Therefore, conversely, he who is in the passion of desire stands in dishonour and uncleanness, and lives a stranger to sanctification. A third time also, a little further on, he subjoins, declaring it once more to be holiness: "For God hath not called us unto dishonour, but unto holiness. And so he that despiseth these things despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given His Holy Spirit in us."41 He joined an inviolable authority to his precept, saying "he that despiseth these things" — that is, the things I have said above concerning holiness — "despiseth not man", that is, me who lay down these commands, "but God, who speaketh in me",42 who has also appointed our heart to be a dwelling-place for His Holy Spirit. You see with what proclamations, and with how great praises, he has exalted it in simple and pure words: first, by assigning sanctification properly to this virtue; next, asserting that through it the vessel of our body is to be set free from uncleanness; thirdly, in that, when dishonour and reproach have been cast off, that vessel is to abide in honour and sanctification; last of all — and this is the supreme recompense, perfect reward and blessedness — he marked out that through it the Holy Spirit shall be the dweller of our breast.

391 Thess. iv. 3. Inquiens is a participle whose head lies in the chapter before (commendans); it is given as "he says" because the chapter break stands between them.
401 Thess. iv. 3-5. Cassian writes in honore et sanctificatione in that order, where the Vulgate and the Authorized Version have sanctification first. Non in passione desiderii is the Vulgate's wording, "not in the passion of desire"; the Authorized Version has "not in the lust of concupiscence", and the weight of the chapter falls on the noun passio, which Cassian picks up again in his own sentence two lines later.
411 Thess. iv. 7, 8. In ignominiam, "unto dishonour", stands where the Vulgate and the Authorized Version have in inmunditiam, "unto uncleanness", and the two words are set against each other in Cassian's own sentence at the end of section 1. Sanctimonia stands where they have sanctificationem; it is "holiness" here and through chapters XVI and XVIIII, and sanctificatio is "sanctification", because Petschenig prints two nouns. Cassian's rursus, "once more", treats them as one word; the English follows the Latin and lets the argument show through it.
422 Cor. xiii. 3. Petschenig letter-spaces sed deum, qui in me loquitur as a quotation and the marks follow him, but the clause is not part of 1 Thessalonians iv: Cassian has carried a phrase of 2 Corinthians into his exposition of the other verse. Read as lemma and gloss — qui haec spernit / id est ..., non hominem spernit / hoc est ..., sed deum / qui in me loquitur, qui etiam ... — the marks would close after sed deum and the two qui-clauses would both be Cassian's. The printed text is followed and the alternative recorded. Mansurum in the sentence that follows is neuter and its subject is uas, the vessel of our body, not the virtue that every other pronoun in the sentence stands for.

XVI. Of another testimony of the Apostle concerning the same holiness of chastity.

And although the discourse is drawing toward the end of the little book, I will set down yet another testimony, like this one, of the same Apostle, beyond the promise.43 For, writing to the Hebrews, "Pursue peace," he says, "with all, and holiness, without which no man shall see God."44 Here too he has plainly declared that without holiness — which is wont to be called integrity of mind, or purity of body45 — God cannot be seen at all. For here too he likewise brings in the same meaning, explaining: "lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau."46

43Praeter promissum is taken adverbially with ponam: he is adding a testimony he had not undertaken to add. Promissum agrees in gender, number and case with testimonium, so "besides the promised testimony of the same Apostle" is grammatically available and is excluded only by the sense and by the chapter heading. Praeter may also be "contrary to", that is, against an undertaking to stop.
44Heb. xii. 14. Sectamini is the frequentative deponent, "pursue", where the Vulgate has sequimini and the Authorized Version "Follow"; cum omnibus is "with all", with no noun, where it has "with all men"; and Cassian writes deum, "God", where it has "the Lord".
45Solet is third singular with no expressed subject anywhere in the sentence — the only nominatives in the paragraph are participial. The Apostle, Scripture, and general usage are all available, and the two formulae named (integritas mentis, puritas corporis) are the ascetic vocabulary of Cassian's own tradition rather than anything Paul habitually writes. The English leaves the subject unnamed, as the Latin does.
46Heb. xii. 16. The verse is a ne-clause and has no verb of its own in the Latin; "there be" is supplied.

XVII. That the hope of a loftier reward ought to increase the guarding of chastity.

And so, in the measure that the reward of chastity is lofty and heavenly, chastity is assailed with snares of the adversaries so much the heavier.47 And therefore we must the more earnestly apply, with constant groanings of prayers, not only abstinence of the body but even contrition of heart, that the furnace of our flesh, which the Babylonish king does not cease to kindle with the incitements of carnal suggestions, may be quenched when the dew of the Holy Spirit comes down into our hearts.48

47Lacessitur has no expressed subject: it is recoverable in Latin only from the genitive castitatis, and an English pronoun cannot reach inside a genitive modifier to find it — "it" would be read of the reward, which is in heaven and is not what the adversaries ambush. The noun is therefore repeated. Tanto is an ablative of measure and belongs to the comparative grauioribus, not to the verb. The correlative itself is uneven in the Latin — quantum with two positives, tanto with a comparative — and the English gives it the ordinary English pair.
48Dan. iii. 19-50. Gibson uses the same two English words of the same image at Inst. V. xiv — "the fiery furnace of our body, which is kindled by the Babylonish king" — and the dew is the dew of the three children in the furnace. Descendente ... rore is participle-first and is taken as an ablative absolute, "when the dew comes down"; read as an ablative of means with extinguatur, "by the dew", it would make the dew a thing we apply rather than a thing that descends. The word order decides it as far as it can be decided.

XVIII. That, as chastity cannot be obtained without humility, so neither can knowledge without chastity.

For as the elders say that this chastity cannot be laid hold of unless the foundations of humility have first been laid in the heart, so they lay it down that not even the fountain of true knowledge can be reached so long as49 the root of this fault remains lodged in the inmost places of our soul; and that it is indeed possible for integrity to be found without the grace of knowledge, but impossible for spiritual knowledge to be possessed without the chastity of integrity;50 because both the gifts are diverse and it is not to all that one grace of the Holy Spirit is given, but that grace is bestowed on each for which he has shown himself, by his own zeal or diligence, worthy and fit. Finally, though the virtue of integrity is believed to have been perfect in all the holy apostles, yet the gift of knowledge overflowed more abundantly in Paul, because he prepared himself fit for that knowledge by skilful zeal and diligence.

49Donec here is "so long as", not "until". Read "until" and the sentence says that the fountain of knowledge cannot be reached until the root of the fault has settled in the soul, which is the opposite of what the chapter argues and of what its heading says; and the ut ... ita correlative requires the second limb to mirror the first, which states a standing precondition. Chapter V has the other value of the same conjunction. Insederit is a perfect of the resulting state: the root has taken its seat and stays there.
50Integritatis castimonia is kept literal — "the chastity of integrity" — and the genitive is one of definition: the chastity in question is the unimpaired state chapter IIII defined, not mere restraint. Castimonia is not the heading's castitas, though this edition gives both the same English after Gibson.

XVIIII. A saying of S. Basil, the Bishop, on the quality of his own virginity.

There is current a severe saying of S. Basil, Bishop of Cæsarea: "I both know not a woman," said he, "and am not a virgin."51 To such a degree did he understand that the incorruption of the flesh lies not so much in abstinence from a woman as in that integrity of heart which perpetually keeps the holiness of the body truly incorrupt,52 whether by the fear of God or by the love of chastity.

51Gibson translates the identical opening of Inst. VII. xix — Fertur sancti Basili Caesariensis episcopi sententia — as "There is current a saying of S. Basil, Bishop of Cæsarea", and titles that chapter "A saying of S. Basil, the Bishop, directed against Syncletius". The wording here is his, though fertur is the reportative passive and "is reported" would carry the distance his phrase loses. The dictum itself is et ... et, "both ... and": Basil sets the two facts side by side and lets the paradox stand. The style sheet of this edition prints "and yet I am not a virgin"; et is not adversative, and the softening is not printed here.
52Uere stands immediately before incorruptam and forms a unit with it — incorrupt in the true sense — while perpetuo, separated from it by the noun, goes with custodit. The Latin has no et between the two adverbs, and coordinating them flattens the distinction the epigram exists to make: Basil's flesh IS perpetually untouched, and that is exactly why perpetuity cannot be the operative term.

XX. What is the end of true integrity and purity.

This, then, is the end of integrity and the perfect proof: if, while we sleep, no titillation53 of pleasure has crept upon us, and if the foul concretions54 are voided, as the necessity of nature requires, without our knowing it. And as it is beyond nature to cut these away entirely and to lop them off for ever, so to bring them back to an unavoidable and very rare necessity of nature is the mark of the highest virtue — a necessity which is wont to assail a monk when two months have gone between. Yet let this be said according to our own experience, not according to the judgment of the elders, by whom even this truce of the time just named was habitually reckoned exceedingly short;55 lest, if we should be willing to expound it in the manner in which we received it from the elders themselves, we should be thought, by those who through their own negligence or slacker zeal have known too little of this purity, to have described things incredible or impossible.

53Titillatio is a light tickling or stimulation. Gibson has no fixed word for it — "incitement" at Conf. XI. xiv, "excitement" at Conf. XIX. xvi — and both of those are needed here for incentiuum, which stands in chapters IIII, XVII and XXII. The English cognate is exact and is not a euphemism.
54Concretio is a congealing or a coagulation, and the noun is plural here — the three verbs that follow (abscidere, amputare, reuocare) all take quas for their object. "Concretion" is the exact English cognate and keeps the plural; its modern medical colouring is the cost. The root is the same as chapter XXII's concretam exuberantiam and Conference II. xxiii's concretum ... in medullis, both printed "congealed" in this edition. Pro necessitate naturae is "as the necessity of nature requires", not "by" it: pro with the ablative is proportion, not agency.
55Admodum iudicabantur angustae: the elders reckoned this two-month truce scanty. Angustae is said of the indutiae, and a narrow truce is a short peace — so they looked for a longer interval than two months and held the stricter standard, not the gentler one. That is why Cassian gives the two months as his own experience and not as theirs: were he to set out the measure in the manner in which he received it from the elders themselves, men who through their own negligence know little of this purity would take him to have described things incredible or impossible (ne ... incredibilia uel inpossibilia descripsisse credamur), which is a fear only a stricter standard could raise. Pulsare with a person for its object is to assail or batter, not to knock at a door, and indutiae is a military armistice: the two words are one figure.

XXI. How we can retain the condition of perfect purity.

And this condition we shall be able so to hold continuously, and never to exceed the natural measure nor the time defined above, if we consider that God is alike by day and by night the searcher and the knower,56 not only of our secret acts but of all thoughts whatsoever, and if we believe that we shall render Him an account for everything that is astir in our heart, just as for our deeds and works.

56Diurnum and nocturnum are accusative singular masculine and are epithets of inspectorem, not adverbs of the clause; pariter binds them to each other. Conscius with the genitive is one who shares the knowledge of a thing, who is privy to it — not testis, a witness, which is a forensic role this sentence avoids. "The knower" is the nearest single English word and does not carry the sharing.

XXII. How far the integrity of our body can be brought, or what is the sign of a mind thoroughly refined.

This far, then, must we hasten, and to this point must we fight against the impulses of the soul and the incitements of the flesh, until this condition of the flesh fulfils the necessity of nature yet does not rouse pleasure, driving out the congealed overflow without any itching or hurt,57 rousing no struggle for chastity.58 But let the mind, so long as it still sleeps and is deluded by the vision of images, know that it has not yet been refined to the entire perfection of chastity.

57Sine ullo pruritu: "without any itching", which is what this edition already prints for the same phrase at Conference II. xxiii, where Abbot Moses says the same thing about the same thing. Pruritus is an itch and also a prurience, and noxa is harm and also a culpable fault; both English words take the physical sense, and in a chapter that is asking whether the discharge incurs guilt the second sense of each is not idle.
58Castitati is dative — a struggle raised FOR chastity to face, not one directed AGAINST it, which would be the stronger claim. Suscitet and suscitans are the same verb, twice negated, and the English keeps one verb for both.

XXIII. The remedies of healing by which the purity of our heart and body may be able to remain perfect.

Therefore, that these illusions may not be able to creep upon us even when we are asleep, an even and moderate fast must always be kept: for whoever shall have exceeded the measure of strictness must needs exceed the bounds of relaxation too. And caught by that unevenness he will without doubt be drawn away from this most level condition of tranquillity, now worn out with too much emptiness, now distended with too ample food. For with a change of refreshment the quality of our purity must needs be changed too. Next, unbroken humility and patience of heart must be applied without ceasing, and an intent wariness through the day against anger or the other passions; for where the poison of rage is lodged, there the burning of wantonness must needs make its way in as well. But above all things an unsleeping care by night is needful. For as the purity and watchfulness of the day prepare the chastity of the night, so the vigils of the night send on ahead, to the heart and equally to the daytime observance, a most solid condition and strength.59

59Praemittunt sends forward to what is coming — the day — and cordi and obseruationi diurnae are its datives of destination, not benefactive datives; solidissimum is accusative neuter and modifies statum alone, robur carrying no adjective of its own. The chapter heading's perfecta stands in hyperbaton, split from puritas by four words, so it may be attributive ("the perfect purity ... may remain") or predicative ("the purity ... may remain perfect"); the English keeps both open.

Notes on the Restored Text

1Traditione, the bare ablative, is Petschenig's text (CSEL XVII, printed page 115); his apparatus records traditionem as the reading of H and the first hand of L, which he rejects, and Migne supplies a preposition, juxta traditionem Patrum (PL 49. 267). The translation follows the printed base text.
2Concretum is neuter and cannot agree with the feminine obpugnatio of the sentence before it; its subject is the neuter certamen or bellum with which the chapter opens, or an unexpressed uitium. The Latin does not settle which, and the English "it" does not have to; concresco is intransitive, so the participle is active in sense and the English is "congealed together", not "having been compounded" by anything. Utrisque pariter dimicantibus is an ablative absolute, and utrisque is left open in the same way: the twofold line of battle just named — that is, the two remedies set against the assault, or the flesh and the soul it is compounded of.
3S. Matt. xv. 19. Cassian's et cetera is his own and stands outside the quotation; the Authorized Version's list ends "blasphemies", and its falsa testimonia is the singular "false witness".
4Prov. iv. 23 (LXX.). Two divergences, both kept. Ex his is plural — "out of these" — following the Greek ἐκ γὰρ τούτων; the Authorized Version and the Vulgate both have the singular ("for out of it are the issues of life", quia ex ipso uita procedit). And omni custodia is a guarding word, not a diligence word: Gibson prints the Authorized Version's "Keep thy heart with all diligence" for this verse at Conf. XIII. x, but the argument of chapter XII turns on custodia and custodiri being the same word, and this edition renders it from the Latin. Petschenig prints tuum cor in that order, letter-spaced as a quotation, and records cor tuum as the reading of H, the second hands of L and T, and the printed editions.
5Refecta ("refreshed") is Petschenig's text, from C A G L T; H, S and the printed editions read referta, "stuffed", which is what Migne follows. Both make sense; the base text is Petschenig's.
6Integritatis is rendered "perfection" here and "integrity" everywhere else in this book. The noun is governed by fastigium, a word of culmination, and in that construction Gibson's own English is the perfection family — "the crown of perfection" for integritatis consummatio (Inst. V. vii), "the goal of perfection" for ad integritatis calcem (Inst. V. ix), "the heights of perfection" for integritatis culmen (Inst. XII. xi). The cost is that perfectio stands in this same paragraph ("perfection of heart") and the two Latin nouns therefore share one English word here, as they would in Gibson.
7Principali is ablative in Petschenig and the clause is an ablative absolute, not a stated cause: the mind's ruling part is what assails the body's purity while we confine ourselves to the body. Migne prints the nominative principale and the word order puritatem corporis nostri; the sense turns on the case. "Principal part" keeps Cassian's own ring — principaliter opens the chapter and principali closes it, under a heading that reads de principali correctione. Gibson's English for the substantive is "the ruling power" (Conf. VII. xii).
8S. Matt. xxiii. 26. Petschenig prints parabsidis, the rarer form, from C and L, against parapsidis in A G H T and paropsidis in Migne. Fiat, "may become", is Cassian's verb where the Authorized Version has "may be", and id quod de foris est, "that which is without", where it has "the outside of them".
9Petschenig prints a singular subject, languor, with a plural verb, sanantur; the three genitives that depend on it are three ailments, and the plural verbs that follow (manifestantur, arguuntur, perueniunt) have the faults themselves for their subject. The English carries the plural verb and loses the singular noun.
10Fomes is tinder — the word that lights, set here among aestus and febris. Gibson's one rendering of it is "incentive" (Inst. V. v, "the baneful and fiery incentive to vice"), which this book needs for incentiuum in chapters IIII, XVII and XXII.
11Continens is "continent" here and through this chapter, and the noun continentia is "abstinence" at chapter XVII, where it means restraint in food. Gibson uses both words; "abstinence" is the commoner, and "continence" is his where the Latin sets the word against castitas as the lower of two states, which is the whole burden of this chapter and of Conference XII. xi. Flattening the two into one English word would dissolve the distinction the chapter exists to draw.
12In affectum ... transire: "to pass into a state". Affectus is "affection" elsewhere in this book (chapters VII and XII); here it is a condition passed into rather than a disposition held, and "state" is the rendering the style sheet of this edition already prints for this sentence. Because affectus takes "state" here, status is "condition" throughout, as Gibson renders it at Conf. IX. xxxi. The noun stands six times in this book — once in chapter III (ad integrum sanitatis statum), twice in this chapter, once in chapter XXI (and again in that chapter's heading), and twice in chapter XXIII, where statum solidissimum closes the book. Chapter XXII's "condition of the flesh" is a different word, condicio.
13The only Greek in Cassian's Latin here, and it is the point of the chapter. Petschenig prints both words in the accusative, agreeing with continentem and castum; they are given as he prints them, not normalised to the nominative, and the transliterations are supplied by this edition and are not in the Latin. ἐγκρατής is the man who holds himself in; ἁγνός is the man who is pure. Cassian's gloss makes integritas a word about chastity and not about moral uprightness — which is why this edition renders it "integrity" and not "uprightness".
14Extingunt, with one u, is what the page prints; Petschenig's apparatus gives extinguunt as the reading of the second hands of A and G, which Migne follows.
152 Tim. ii. 5. Gibson renders legitime decertare "strive lawfully" wherever it stands — Inst. V. xvi, VII. xx, X. v, XII. xxxii — and quotes the verse itself at Inst. V. xii: "One who strives in the games is not crowned unless he has contended lawfully." Cum apostolo is moved forward in the English because "strive lawfully with the Apostle" would be read as striving against him.
16Eam is feminine and its antecedent is not settled by the Latin: purgationis stands nearest, gratia and uictoria stand in the same sentence, and the chastity the chapter is about is named only in the chapter heading. Beneficium and donum are neuter and cannot be meant. The English "it" leaves the question where Cassian leaves it. Meruerint is rendered "counted worthy" and not "deserved": mereor with an infinitive regularly means to be granted the privilege of, and a sentence whose whole burden is that this is God's special gift cannot be made to say that men earn it.
17Phil. iii. 20. Municipatum is the Old Latin word, "citizenship", for the Greek πολίτευμα; the Vulgate has conuersatio and the Authorized Version "our conversation is in heaven", which is also Gibson's rendering of the verse at Conf. III. vi and III. vii. Cassian's word is kept, because the sentence is about what the chaste already hold as citizens and not about how they behave — and because conuersatio stands in this same sentence, of the angels' manner of life, three words away. Promittitur is impersonal and governs an accusative and infinitive: it is promised that the saints will have it, not that the saints are promised anything.
181 Cor. ix. 25. The Authorized Version reads "every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things"; Cassian's Latin, which is the Vulgate's, has ab omnibus se abstinet, and the sentence that follows exists to ask what those "all things" are. The familiar English would leave the question with nothing to fasten on. A quibus omnibus dixerit is an indirect question with the verb of abstaining elided; "that a man abstains" supplies it from the verse just quoted.
19Libido is "wantonness" in this book, not "lust", which glossary.json fixes to concupiscentia; the two nouns stand in a single sentence at chapter XII and cannot share one English word. Petulans, which would otherwise be "wanton", takes "unbridled" there for the same reason.
20Uirtus is "virtue" throughout this book except here, where it is the bodily prowess of athletes in the games — the same thing the next section calls uires — and "virtue" would say something the Latin does not.
21Condignaque praemia uictoriae laude is a crux. Praemia uictoriae, "prizes of victory", keeps the three objects of conquirere in one shape — each an accusative with its own genitive — and leaves condigna ... laude as the ordinary idiom, worthy of praise. The other parse, taking uictoriae laude together as the complement of condigna, gives "rewards worthy of the praise of victory", which breaks the pattern and states a relation no reader can cash out.
22Delusi is a participle, not a second thing feared: the ne governs minuant alone, and what the athletes guard against is the loss of strength, the dream being only how it happens. It is the same verb as the inlusio of chapters X, XI and XXIII, and per somnum nocturna fallacia is the thing those chapters call a nocturnal illusion: the pagan athletes are described in the same words as the monks, which is the point of the comparison.
23Rigor is stiffness or cold. Cold is the sense taken here, because the lead is expected to check a flow, and it is Gibson's own English for the noun at Inst. I. ix ("the morning cold in winter", for matutinus hiemis rigor); the other reading, the metal's hardness, is available and is not excluded by anything in the sentence.
24Pudicitia, a fourth Latin word in this book for the chaste state, beside castitas, castimonia and integritas. It occurs once, of athletes, and in a sentence where none of the other three stands; "chastity" is its plain English and is what Gibson gives the first two. Prouisam is accusative feminine and agrees with soliditatem, not with the genitive pudicitiae.
25Lev. vii. 19, 20 (LXX.). Cassian's text differs from the Authorized Version at three points and each is kept: sacrificii salutaris, "the sacrifice of salvation", follows the Greek σωτηρίου where the Authorized Version has "peace offerings"; in qua est inmunditia puts the uncleanness inside the soul rather than upon the man, and qua is feminine and reaches back over sacrificii and carnibus to anima; and peribit coram domino, "shall perish before the Lord", stands where the Authorized Version has "shall be cut off from his people".
26Munus is a gift, and it is also a duty or an office, and the Latin here will bear either: "how great is the gift of integrity" or "how great an office is that of integrity". "Gift" is printed because munus is unambiguously the gift of God at chapter VI (munere castitatis), which is this book's thesis; the other reading is not excluded. Sine qua is feminine and agrees with integritatis, not with the neuter munus, and it governs both limbs of the et ... et that follows — the athletes are not being told they cannot be crowned, but that they cannot be crowned without it.
27Arbiter atque agonotheta: Gibson renders the same two nouns of Christ at Conf. VII. xx — "the merciful judge of our contest, and president of the games, Christ Himself", for clementissimus arbiter atque agonotheta praesidens Christus. His "judge" is qualified there by "of our contest"; unqualified it reads forensic in a sentence that is athletic from end to end (agonotheta, pugnam, cursus, certaminis), so "umpire" stands here. Agonotheta is one of the Greek words Cassian gives in Latin letters, and it stays in them.
28Quam nulla subterfugiunt secreta: quam is accusative feminine singular and its antecedent is scientiam, which belongs to the angels and to God together; nulla ... secreta is the subject. The clause therefore says that no secret gets past that knowledge — the angels' as well as God's. A rendering that turns it into "from whom no secrets escape" attaches it to God alone and drops the angels out of the claim.
29Concupiscentiae motus: "impulses" rather than "motions", because the stirring is inward — of an appetite, not of the body. The bodily sense follows two lines later in commotio, which is "commotion", and the two words are kept apart in English as they are in the Latin. The cost is that talis commotio resumes concupiscentiae motus with an intensive prefix, and the two English words do not show the intensification.
30Huiusmodi is indeclinable and stands immediately after imagines: it is the images that are of this kind, pointing back to the imago inliciens of the first sentence, and inlusio has not been mentioned before and needs no qualifier. Cum takes the indicative here and is explanatory, not temporal: the deficiency is diagnostic, not intermittent.
31S. Matt. v. 28. Petschenig prints no stop at all between emanare and quicumque, where he punctuates his other quotation-openings with a colon and Migne supplies one here; the page was read again at fourteen diameters and the paper is clean. The English supplies a colon, which is the smallest mark that will carry the join. Moechatus est eam takes a direct accusative, following the Greek ἐμοίχευσεν αὐτήν, where the Vulgate and the Authorized Version have "with her".
32Prov. iv. 23 (LXX.), altered. Petschenig sets this phrase in single quotation marks because Cassian is citing it in order to argue about it and not quoting it as Scripture — it is what the verse does NOT say. That is the convention of the edition, not of this page, and it is printed here in ordinary double marks, as Gibson prints the same construction at Conf. XVI. xvi.
33Prov. iv. 23 (LXX.). Dicit has no expressed subject, and the Latin does not settle who says it. The capital is a decision, taken here for God, whose act governs the paragraph from deus ... curam adhibuit through notans ... arguit and who is the one prescribing the commandment two lines earlier. Against that: the verse is Solomon's, and chapter II attributes it to him by name; and the first limb of the pair, non enim dicitur, is impersonal, so the pair may equally be read "it is not said ... but it says" with Scripture as the speaker. Nothing in the Latin decides it, and this note is where the decision is recorded rather than hidden in a letterform.
34Prov. iv. 23 (LXX.).
35Dei principale mandatum is not the great commandment: what follows it is the serpent's head, that is, Genesis iii. 15, and principale here is first-given, not greatest. English "chief commandment" would name the wrong text. Captiuatam is a bare perfect passive participle agreeing with mentem, with no agent expressed; making the consent the captor would say what the Latin does not, and would put the capture before the bite instead of after it.
36Ps. c. (ci.) 8. Peccatores is "sinners" where the Authorized Version has "the wicked of the land", and in matutinis is plural where it has "early". Cassian has also put nostrae into the verse and added sui ortus, which is why "our" and "of their own arising" stand outside the quotation marks here.
37Ps. cxxxvi. (cxxxvii.) 9. Filios Babylonis and ad petram, singular, against the Authorized Version's "thy little ones" and "the stones".
38S. Luke xi. 21, 22. Cassian's verbs are future throughout — erit, diripiet, diuidet — where the Authorized Version has the present, and he writes domum, "house", for its "palace" and omnis substantia, "all his substance", for its "his goods". The wording of the clauses is his adaptation and not the received Latin of the verses, and the marks show which words are being cited, not that they stand so in any Bible.
391 Thess. iv. 3. Inquiens is a participle whose head lies in the chapter before (commendans); it is given as "he says" because the chapter break stands between them.
401 Thess. iv. 3-5. Cassian writes in honore et sanctificatione in that order, where the Vulgate and the Authorized Version have sanctification first. Non in passione desiderii is the Vulgate's wording, "not in the passion of desire"; the Authorized Version has "not in the lust of concupiscence", and the weight of the chapter falls on the noun passio, which Cassian picks up again in his own sentence two lines later.
411 Thess. iv. 7, 8. In ignominiam, "unto dishonour", stands where the Vulgate and the Authorized Version have in inmunditiam, "unto uncleanness", and the two words are set against each other in Cassian's own sentence at the end of section 1. Sanctimonia stands where they have sanctificationem; it is "holiness" here and through chapters XVI and XVIIII, and sanctificatio is "sanctification", because Petschenig prints two nouns. Cassian's rursus, "once more", treats them as one word; the English follows the Latin and lets the argument show through it.
422 Cor. xiii. 3. Petschenig letter-spaces sed deum, qui in me loquitur as a quotation and the marks follow him, but the clause is not part of 1 Thessalonians iv: Cassian has carried a phrase of 2 Corinthians into his exposition of the other verse. Read as lemma and gloss — qui haec spernit / id est ..., non hominem spernit / hoc est ..., sed deum / qui in me loquitur, qui etiam ... — the marks would close after sed deum and the two qui-clauses would both be Cassian's. The printed text is followed and the alternative recorded. Mansurum in the sentence that follows is neuter and its subject is uas, the vessel of our body, not the virtue that every other pronoun in the sentence stands for.
43Praeter promissum is taken adverbially with ponam: he is adding a testimony he had not undertaken to add. Promissum agrees in gender, number and case with testimonium, so "besides the promised testimony of the same Apostle" is grammatically available and is excluded only by the sense and by the chapter heading. Praeter may also be "contrary to", that is, against an undertaking to stop.
44Heb. xii. 14. Sectamini is the frequentative deponent, "pursue", where the Vulgate has sequimini and the Authorized Version "Follow"; cum omnibus is "with all", with no noun, where it has "with all men"; and Cassian writes deum, "God", where it has "the Lord".
45Solet is third singular with no expressed subject anywhere in the sentence — the only nominatives in the paragraph are participial. The Apostle, Scripture, and general usage are all available, and the two formulae named (integritas mentis, puritas corporis) are the ascetic vocabulary of Cassian's own tradition rather than anything Paul habitually writes. The English leaves the subject unnamed, as the Latin does.
46Heb. xii. 16. The verse is a ne-clause and has no verb of its own in the Latin; "there be" is supplied.
47Lacessitur has no expressed subject: it is recoverable in Latin only from the genitive castitatis, and an English pronoun cannot reach inside a genitive modifier to find it — "it" would be read of the reward, which is in heaven and is not what the adversaries ambush. The noun is therefore repeated. Tanto is an ablative of measure and belongs to the comparative grauioribus, not to the verb. The correlative itself is uneven in the Latin — quantum with two positives, tanto with a comparative — and the English gives it the ordinary English pair.
48Dan. iii. 19-50. Gibson uses the same two English words of the same image at Inst. V. xiv — "the fiery furnace of our body, which is kindled by the Babylonish king" — and the dew is the dew of the three children in the furnace. Descendente ... rore is participle-first and is taken as an ablative absolute, "when the dew comes down"; read as an ablative of means with extinguatur, "by the dew", it would make the dew a thing we apply rather than a thing that descends. The word order decides it as far as it can be decided.
49Donec here is "so long as", not "until". Read "until" and the sentence says that the fountain of knowledge cannot be reached until the root of the fault has settled in the soul, which is the opposite of what the chapter argues and of what its heading says; and the ut ... ita correlative requires the second limb to mirror the first, which states a standing precondition. Chapter V has the other value of the same conjunction. Insederit is a perfect of the resulting state: the root has taken its seat and stays there.
50Integritatis castimonia is kept literal — "the chastity of integrity" — and the genitive is one of definition: the chastity in question is the unimpaired state chapter IIII defined, not mere restraint. Castimonia is not the heading's castitas, though this edition gives both the same English after Gibson.
51Gibson translates the identical opening of Inst. VII. xix — Fertur sancti Basili Caesariensis episcopi sententia — as "There is current a saying of S. Basil, Bishop of Cæsarea", and titles that chapter "A saying of S. Basil, the Bishop, directed against Syncletius". The wording here is his, though fertur is the reportative passive and "is reported" would carry the distance his phrase loses. The dictum itself is et ... et, "both ... and": Basil sets the two facts side by side and lets the paradox stand. The style sheet of this edition prints "and yet I am not a virgin"; et is not adversative, and the softening is not printed here.
52Uere stands immediately before incorruptam and forms a unit with it — incorrupt in the true sense — while perpetuo, separated from it by the noun, goes with custodit. The Latin has no et between the two adverbs, and coordinating them flattens the distinction the epigram exists to make: Basil's flesh IS perpetually untouched, and that is exactly why perpetuity cannot be the operative term.
53Titillatio is a light tickling or stimulation. Gibson has no fixed word for it — "incitement" at Conf. XI. xiv, "excitement" at Conf. XIX. xvi — and both of those are needed here for incentiuum, which stands in chapters IIII, XVII and XXII. The English cognate is exact and is not a euphemism.
54Concretio is a congealing or a coagulation, and the noun is plural here — the three verbs that follow (abscidere, amputare, reuocare) all take quas for their object. "Concretion" is the exact English cognate and keeps the plural; its modern medical colouring is the cost. The root is the same as chapter XXII's concretam exuberantiam and Conference II. xxiii's concretum ... in medullis, both printed "congealed" in this edition. Pro necessitate naturae is "as the necessity of nature requires", not "by" it: pro with the ablative is proportion, not agency.
55Admodum iudicabantur angustae: the elders reckoned this two-month truce scanty. Angustae is said of the indutiae, and a narrow truce is a short peace — so they looked for a longer interval than two months and held the stricter standard, not the gentler one. That is why Cassian gives the two months as his own experience and not as theirs: were he to set out the measure in the manner in which he received it from the elders themselves, men who through their own negligence know little of this purity would take him to have described things incredible or impossible (ne ... incredibilia uel inpossibilia descripsisse credamur), which is a fear only a stricter standard could raise. Pulsare with a person for its object is to assail or batter, not to knock at a door, and indutiae is a military armistice: the two words are one figure.
56Diurnum and nocturnum are accusative singular masculine and are epithets of inspectorem, not adverbs of the clause; pariter binds them to each other. Conscius with the genitive is one who shares the knowledge of a thing, who is privy to it — not testis, a witness, which is a forensic role this sentence avoids. "The knower" is the nearest single English word and does not carry the sharing.
57Sine ullo pruritu: "without any itching", which is what this edition already prints for the same phrase at Conference II. xxiii, where Abbot Moses says the same thing about the same thing. Pruritus is an itch and also a prurience, and noxa is harm and also a culpable fault; both English words take the physical sense, and in a chapter that is asking whether the discharge incurs guilt the second sense of each is not idle.
58Castitati is dative — a struggle raised FOR chastity to face, not one directed AGAINST it, which would be the stronger claim. Suscitet and suscitans are the same verb, twice negated, and the English keeps one verb for both.
59Praemittunt sends forward to what is coming — the day — and cordi and obseruationi diurnae are its datives of destination, not benefactive datives; solidissimum is accusative neuter and modifies statum alone, robur carrying no adjective of its own. The chapter heading's perfecta stands in hyperbaton, split from puritas by four words, so it may be attributive ("the perfect purity ... may remain") or predicative ("the purity ... may remain perfect"); the English keeps both open.
On this pageGibson did not translate this text. In its place his 1894 volume prints one sentence: “We have thought best to omit altogether the translation of this book.” What follows is a new translation from Petschenig’s Latin (CSEL XVII, printed pages 113–127), made for this edition and dedicated to the public domain under CC0. Our notes are collected at the foot of the page, under a heading of their own; Gibson has none here, because he wrote none. How this English was made, what was checked and what could not be, is set out on the methodology page.