Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. XII:
The Book of Pastoral Rule, and Selected Epistles, of Gregory the Great.: How those are to be admonished who sin from sudden impulse and those who sin deliberately.

Chapter XXXII.

How those are to be admonished who sin from sudden impulse and those who sin deliberately.

(Admonition 33.).  Differently to be admonished are those who are overcome by sudden passion and those who are bound in guilt of set purpose.  For those whom sudden passion overcomes are to be admonished to regard themselves as daily set in the warfare of the present life, and to protect the heart, which cannot foresee wounds, with the shield of anxious fear; to dread the hidden darts of the ambushed foe, and, in so dark a contest, to guard with continual attention the inward camp of the soul.  For, if the heart is left destitute of the solicitude of circumspection, it is laid open to wounds; since the crafty enemy strikes the breast the more freely as he catches it bare of the breastplate of forethought.  Those who are overcome by sudden passion are to be admonished to cease caring too much for earthly things; since, while they entangle their attention immoderately in transitory things, they are not aware of the darts of sins which pierce them.  Whence, also, the utterance of one that is stricken and yet sleeps is expressed by Solomon, who says, They have beaten me, and I was not pained; they have dragged me, and I felt it not.  When shall I awake and again find wine (Prov. xxiii. 35)?  For the soul that sleeps from the care of its solicitude is beaten and feels not pain, because, as it foresees not impending evils, so neither is it aware of those which it has perpetrated.  It is dragged, and in no wise feels it, because it is led by the allurements of vices, and yet is not roused to keep guard over itself.  But again it wishes to awake, that it may again find wine, because, although weighed down by the sleep of its torpor from keeping guard over itself, it still strives to be awake to the cares of the world, that it may be ever drunk with pleasures; and, while sleeping to that wherein it ought to have been wisely awake, it desires to be awake to something else, to which it might have laudably slept.  Hence it is written previously, And thou shalt be as one that sleepeth in the midst of the sea, and as a steersman that is lulled to rest, having let go the rudder (Prov. xxiii. 35).  For he sleeps in the midst of the sea who, placed among the temptations of this world, neglects to look out for the motions of vices that rush in upon him like impending heaps of waves.  And the steersman, as it were, lets go the rudder when the mind loses the earnestness of solicitude for guiding the ship of the body.  For, indeed, to let go the rudder in the sea is to leave off intentness of forethought among the storms of this life.  For, if the steersman holds fast the rudder with anxious care, he now directs the ship among the billows right against them, now cleaves the assaults of the winds aslant.  So, when the mind vigilantly guides the soul, it now surmounts some things and treads them down, now warily turns aside from others, so that it may both by hard exertion overcome present dangers, and by foresight gather strength against future struggle.  Hence, again, of the strong warriors of the heavenly country it is said, Every man hath his sword upon his thigh because of fears in the night (Song of Sol. 3.8).  For the sword is put upon the thigh when the evil suggestion of the flesh is subdued by the sharp edge of holy preaching.  But by the night is expressed the blindness of our infirmity; since any opposition that is impending in the night is not seen.  Every man’s sword, therefore, is put upon his thigh because of fears in the night; that is, because holy men, while they fear things which they do not see, stand always prepared for the strain of a struggle.  Hence, again, it is said to the bride, Thy nose is as p. 65b the tower that is in Lebanon (Song of Sol. 7.4).  For the thing which we perceive not with our eyes we usually anticipate by the smell.  By the nose, also, we discern between odours and stenches.  What, then, is signified by the nose of the Church but the foreseeing discernment of Saints?  It is also said to be like to the tower that is in Lebanon, because their discerning foresight is so set on a height as to see the struggles of temptations even before they come, and to stand fortified against them when they do come.  For things that are foreseen when future are of less force when they are present; because, when every one has become more prepared against the blow, the enemy, who supposed himself to be unexpected, is weakened by the very fact of having been anticipated.

But, on the other hand, those who of set purpose are bound in guilt, are to be admonished to perpend with wary consideration how that, when they do what is evil of their own judgment, they kindle stricter judgment against themselves; and that by so much the harder sentence will smite them as the chains of deliberation have bound them more tightly in guilt.  Perhaps they might sooner wash away their transgressions by penitence, had they fallen into them through precipitancy alone.  For the sin is less speedily loosened which of set purpose is firmly bound.  For unless the soul altogether despised eternal things, it would not perish in guilt advisedly.  In this, then, those who perish of set purpose differ from those who fall through precipitancy; that the former, when they fall by sin from the state of righteousness, for the most part fall also into the snare of desperation.  Hence it is that the Lord through the Prophet reproves not so much the wrong doings of precipitance as purposes of sin, saying, Lest perchance my indignation come out as fire, and be inflamed, and there be none to quench it because of the wickedness of your purposes (Jer. iv. 4).  Hence, again, in wrath He says, I will visit upon you according to the fruit of your purposes (Jer. 23.2).  Since, then, sins which are perpetrated of set purpose differ from other sins, the Lord censures purposes of wickedness rather than wicked deeds.  For in deeds the sin is often of infirmity or of negligence, but in purposes it is always of malicious intent.  Contrariwise, it is well said through the Prophet in describing a blessed man, And he sitteth not in the chair of pestilence (Ps. i. 1).  For a chair is wont to be the seat of a judge or a president.  And to sit in the chair of pestilence is to commit what is wrong judicially; to sit in the chair of pestilence is to discern with the reason what is evil, and yet deliberately to perpetrate it.  He sits, as it were, in the chair of perverse counsel who is lifted up with so great elation of iniquity as to endeavour even by counsel to accomplish evil.  And, as those who are supported by the dignity of the chair are set over the crowds that stand by, so sins that are purposely sought out transcend the transgressions of those who fall through precipitancy.  Those, then, who even by counsel bind themselves in guilt are to be admonished hence to gather with what vengeance they must at some time be smitten, being now made, not companions, but princes, of evil-doers.