Page:On The Spiritual Battle.pdf/28

 person cannot fight. By commanding us to tuck up our loins, he means that we are confronted by the sin of fornication and that it is necessary for this battle to guard ourselves against it. The tucking up he speaks of is abstinence in purity and the restraining of depraved desires so that the battle is not lost through them. Few people are found who stand their ground against this iniquity so that fornication does not find some way in, because it is a forceful iniquity. Other sins will be worked up in a person through various things, but this sin does not wait for anything from anywhere else–it has a strong footing in our bodies themselves. For that reason, our bodies have enormous incitement and passion towards fornication within themselves and are always ready to do its treacherous work in us. A person is strongly driven to the consummation of sin by his own nature, and what help that sin has around it then! Men and women are the basis of that sin toward each other and there are many reasons for that. That is why the person who is clothed and stands his ground in the face of that sin is blessed. And who is so tucked up that he stands in it and perseveres? That is why, when some people take great pains, wanting to wring it out of themselves, they still bow to it through its slipperiness. It has an immense and powerful drive and delightful desires are there, cunningly seizing the heart and sometimes stripping a person’s defenses.

I am not saying that it would always be like this for everyone, but it sometimes pertains to people. Some people do not know anything about suffering violence from this sin, because God gave them a great gift in this regard. But those who do not fear God do not endure very much before they commit these abominations; evil people do not easily control themselves in this area. For that reason, a great reward will be kept in heaven for the person who has a good heart and who labors against what he is tempted in, whether he is with a virgin or a whether good will is found in him when he is wronged. That is why it is good advice that those who want to engage in the battle tuck up their belts and constrain such desires with the help of God. If those desires are tested in a man through the company of some individual, he should tuck up his clothing again properly that so that he is not overcome. Grave thoughts fall into people’s hearts because of such associations, and the heart is enflamed with desires in the flesh. A person may endanger himself with his foolishness because he lies like a wolf on a scythe, not protecting himself from death. In the same way, this kind of powerless person does not run away from some illicit love. It is necessary here to tuck one’s clothing up properly to protect it from harmful mud.

We can understand this tucking up another way according to the words of Saint Peter, who teaches faithful people saying, “Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 1: 13 KJV) He not only commands us to tuck up the physical loins, but also the loins of the mind, taking the first interpretation that I spoke of about tucking up–how people tuck up a robe so that they are not muddied or hampered in battle. Whoever has a long robe in battle has already long lost the battle far from the battlefield, because his enemies do not allow him to tuck up his clothing before they defeat him, catching him by his long robe. But we have an even more cunning swordsman in the spiritual battle, the devil. He grabs hold of that which he sees dragging on the ground around us and overcomes us through it. The robe of this discourse represents those things around us that cling to us or that we cling to. They are necessary and helpful to us like clothing, because a person would be naked here in the world if he did not have some help from earthly things and people. But they are helpful only when a person is able to make use of them without attachment. The many things a foolish person acquires are unnecessary, and so are the way he uses them and the way he behaves towards them. They are only necessary when used and regarded according to God’s will, modestly and appropriately.