Greco-Christian stream·The Imitation of Christ·Book III — On Inward Consolation·Chapter XXXV. That There Is No Security Against Temptation In This Life
XXXV. No security against temptation in this life
The hard saying: non est securitas in hac vita. As long as we are in the body, there is no holiday from temptation. The watchfulness that this fact imposes; the impossibility of a place to which the soul could retire and be safe.
Source context
- Theme
- permanent vulnerability to temptation as a constitutive condition of embodied human life
- Soul-faculty
- Consciousness Soul
Steiner
not engaged in the GA corpus
Cross-tradition
- Pauline anthropologyPaul's account in Romans 7 of the unceasing war between flesh and spirit structurally parallels Kempis's insistence that no state of earthly life secures the soul against renewed assault.
- Desert Father tradition (Apophthegmata Patrum)The desert fathers' teaching that the monk remains subject to logismoi until the moment of death presents a cross-tradition congruence with this chapter's refusal to locate any permanent safe harbour within incarnate existence.
- Sufi doctrine of nafsThe Sufi mapping of the nafs al-ammara as a perpetually active lower self that requires unrelenting vigilance offers a cross-tradition congruence with Kempis's denial that temptation can be finally overcome in this life.
Chapter XXXV. That There Is No Security Against Temptation In This Life
THAT THERE IS NO SECURITY AGAINST TEMPTATION IN THIS LIFE
"My Son, thou art never secure in this life, but thy spiritual armour will always be needful for thee as long as thou livest. Thou dwellest among foes, and art attacked on the right hand and on the left. If therefore thou use not on all sides the shield of patience, thou wilt not remain long unwounded. Above all, if thou keep not thy heart fixed upon Me with steadfast purpose to bear all things for My sake, thou shalt not be able to bear the fierceness of the attack, nor to attain to the victory of the blessed. Therefore must thou struggle bravely all thy life through, and put forth a strong hand against those things which oppose thee. For to him that overcometh is the hidden manna given,(1) but great misery is reserved for the slothful.
2"If thou seek rest in this life, how then wilt thou attain unto the rest which is eternal? Set not thyself to attain much rest, but much patience. Seek the true peace, not in earth but in heaven, not in man nor in any created thing, but in God alone. For the love of God thou must willingly undergo all things, whether labours or sorrows, temptations, vexations, anxieties, necessities, infirmities, injuries, gainsayings, rebukes, humiliations, confusions, corrections, despisings; these things help unto virtue, these things prove the scholar of Christ; these things fashion the heavenly crown. I will give thee an eternal reward for short labour, and infinite glory for transient shame.
3"Thinkest thou that thou shalt always have spiritual consolations at thy will? My Saints had never such, but instead thereof manifold griefs, and divers temptations, and heavy desolations. But patiently they bore themselves in all, and trusted in God more than in themselves, knowing that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.(2) Wouldst thou have that immediately which many have hardly attained unto after many tears and hard labours? Wait for the Lord, quit thyself like a man and be strong; be not faint-hearted, nor go aside from Me, but constantly devote thy body and soul to the glory of God. I will reward thee plenteously, I will be with thee in trouble."(3)
(1) Revelation ii. 17. (2) Romans viii. 17. (3) Psalm xci. 15.