SR
← The Imitation of Christ/Book 1 · Counsels on the Spiritual Life
Chapter 13Imit.1.13

De resistendis tentationibus.

The Inescapable Reality of Temptation

As long as we live, we cannot be free from temptation; even the holiest are not exempt, and so we must remain watchful in prayer.

As long as we live in this world, we can't be free from tribulation and temptation. That's why it's written in Job: <quote>Temptation is the life of man upon the earth</quote>.✦1 So each of us ought to stay alert to our own temptations and watch in prayer, lest the Devil find an opportunity to deceive — he who never sleeps but <quote>goes about seeking whom he may devour</quote>.✦2 No one is so holy and perfect that he does not sometimes have temptations, and we cannot be entirely free from them.

The Hidden Good Found in Temptation

Though grievous, temptations humble, purify, and instruct us; the saints grew through them, while those who could not endure fell away, and no place or order is exempt.

Temptations are still very useful to us, even though they're painful and hard to bear, because through them a person is humbled, purified, and taught. All the saints went through many trials and temptations and grew in holiness, but those who couldn't endure temptations proved unfaithful and fell away. There's no religious order so holy, no place so secluded, that temptations and adversity are absent.

Why Temptation Arises from Within

Because concupiscence dwells within us, temptations never truly cease; fleeing them only makes them worse, but patience and true humility make us stronger than our enemies.

No one is entirely safe from temptation for as long as they live, because the source of our temptation lies within us. Since we are born in concupiscence, no sooner does one trial or temptation recede than another comes upon us, and there is always something we must endure. For we have lost the good of true happiness. Many people try to flee temptations and fall into them all the more heavily. We cannot conquer by flight alone, but through patience and true humility we become stronger than all our enemies.

The Way of Patient Endurance

Merely avoiding temptation outwardly is useless; through patient endurance and God's help we overcome, and we should treat the tempted with the gentleness we would wish for ourselves.

If you only turn away from temptation outwardly and don't uproot it at the source, you'll make little progress — in fact, the temptations will come back sooner and rage all the more fiercely. Gradually, through patience and long-suffering, with God's help, you'll overcome far better than you would through harshness and your own relentless striving. In times of temptation, often seek counsel, and when dealing with someone who is tempted, don't act harshly — pour in comfort, just as you would wish it done for you.3

Watching the Door of the Heart

Temptation begins with a wavering heart and little trust in God; it reveals what we truly are, and must be resisted at its very first onset before it gains full entry.

Every evil temptation begins with an unsteady heart and a small trust in God — just as a ship without a rudder is driven here and there by the waves, so a person who is slack and sets aside their purpose is tempted from every side.✦ Fire tests iron, and temptation tests a just person.✦ We often don't know what we're capable of, but temptation reveals what we truly are. You need to be especially watchful at the very start of a temptation, because the enemy is defeated more easily then — if the door of your mind is never allowed to let him in, but the moment he knocks, you meet him right there on the threshold. That's why someone said: Resist the beginnings — a remedy comes too late. First, a simple thought comes to mind; then a vivid image; after that, pleasure and a wrong impulse, and then consent. And so the wicked enemy gradually makes his way all the way in, because no one resisted him at the start. And the longer you've been sluggish about resisting, the weaker you become day by day, and the stronger your enemy grows against you.

God's Wise Ordering of Our Trials

Temptations vary in timing and intensity according to God's wise and fair providence, which arranges all things for the salvation of the elect.

Some people suffer heavier temptations at the beginning of their conversion, some at the end, and some seem to fare badly throughout their whole life. Not a few are only lightly tempted, according to the wisdom and fairness of God's ordering — which weighs each person's condition and their merits, and arranges all things for the salvation of God's own elect.

Prayer and Humility in the Midst of Trial

We must not despair under temptation but pray fervently, trusting that God will provide a way to endure, and humble ourselves under His hand for He saves the lowly.

So we shouldn't despair when we're tempted, but pray to God all the more fervently, that he may deign to help us in every trial — for he will surely, as Saint Paul says, "make a way through the temptation itself, so that we can endure it."✦4 So let us humble our souls under the hand of God in every temptation and trial, because the humble in spirit he will save — and he will lift them up.✦5

Temptation as the Proof of Progress

Tribulation tests and reveals our spiritual progress; true virtue shows itself in adversity, and those who fall in small daily temptations are kept humble and unable to trust in themselves.

In temptations and tribulations a person is tested to see how much progress has been made, and there greater merit is found, and virtue shows itself more clearly. It is not a great thing if a person becomes devout and fervent when not feeling the weight of trial, but if in a time of adversity that person patiently holds firm, there is hope of great progress.6 Some are kept safe from great temptations, yet they're overcome so often by daily ones that, humbled, they'd never place their confidence in themselves in great matters — they who are so easily weakened in such small things.7

Read the original Latin

Quamdiu in mundo vivimus sine tribulatione et tentatione esse non possumus. Unde in Job scriptum est: Tentatio est vita hominis super terram. Ideo unusquisque sollicitus esse deberet circa tentationes suas, et vigilare in orationibus, ne Diabolus inveniret locum decipiendi, qui nunquam dormitat, sed circuit quærens quem devoret. Nemo tam sanctus et perfectus est, qui non habeat aliquando tentationes, et plene eis carere non possimus.

Sunt tamen tentationes hominibus valde utiles, licet molestæ sint et graves, quia in his homo humiliatur, purgatur et eruditur. Omnes Sancti per multas tribulationes et tentationes transierunt et profecerunt, et qui tentationes sustinere nequiverunt, reprobi facti sunt, et defecerunt. Non est aliquis ordo tam sanctus, et locus tam secretus, ubi non sint tentationes et adversitates.

Non est homo securus a tentationibus totaliter, quam diu vixerit, quia in nobis est unde tentamur. Ex quo in concupiscentia nati sumus, una tribulatione vel tentatione recedente alia supervenit, et semper aliquid ad patiendum habemus. Nam bonum felicitatis perdidimus. Multi quærunt tentationes fugere, et gravius incidunt in eas. Per solam fugam non possumus vincere, sed per patientiam et veram humilitatem, omnibus hostibus efficimur fortiores.

Qui tantummodo exterius declinat, nec radicem evellit, parum proficiet, imo citius ad eum tentationes redient, et pejus sævient. Paulatim, et per patientiam cum longanimitate Deo juvante melius superabis, quam cum duritia et importunitate propria. Sæpe accipe consilium in tentatione, et cum tentato noli duriter agere, sed consolationes ingere, sicut tibi optares fieri.

Initium omnium malarum tentationum inconstantia animi est, et parva ad Deum confidentia, quia sicut navis sine gubernaculo hinc inde a fluctibus impellitur, ita homo remissus, et suum propositum deferens varie tentatur. Ignis probat ferrum, et tentatio hominem justum. Nescimus sæpe quid possumus, sed tentatio aperit quid sumus. Vigilandum tum præcipue circa initium tentationis, quia tunc facilius hostis vincitur, si ostium mentis nullatenus intrare finitur, sed extra limen statim ut pulsaverit illi obviatur. Unde quidam dixit, Principiis obsta, sero medicina paratur. Nam primo occurrit menti simplex cogitatio, deinde fortis imaginatio, postea delectatio, et motus pravus, et assensio, sicque paulatim hostis malignus ex toto ingreditur, dum illi non resistitur in pricipio. Et quanto diutius ad resistendum quis torpuerit, tanto in se quotidie debilior fit, et hostis contra eum potentior.

Quidam in principio conversionis suæ graviores tentationes patiuntur, quidam in fine, quidam quasi per totam vitam suam male habent. Nonnulli fatis leviter tentantur, secundum divinæ ordinationis sapientiam et æquitatem, quæ statum, et hominum merita pensat, et cuncta ad electorum suorum salutem præordinat.

Ideo non debemus desperare, cum tentamur, sed eo ferventius Deum exorare, quatenus dignetur in omni tribulatione nostra nos adjuvare, qui utique, secundum dictum S. Pauli, etiam faciet cum tentatione proventum, ut possimus sustinere. Humiliemus ergo animas nostras sub manu Dei in omni tentatione et tribulatione, quia humiles spiritu salvabit, et exaltabit.

In tentationibus et tribulationibus probatur homo quantum profecit, et ibi majus meritum existit, et virtus melius patescit. Nec magnum est, si homo devotus fit, et fervidus, cum gravitatem non sentit, sed si tempore adversitatis patienter se sustinet, spes magni profectus erit. Quidam a magnis tentationibus custodiuntur, et in quotidianis tam sæpe vincuntur, ut humiliati, nunquam de se ipsis in magnis confidant, qui in tam modicis infirmantur.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Job.7.1 — Does not a human have a hard service on earth, and are not his days like the days of a hired worker?
  2. ↩1Pet.5.8 — Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
  3. ↩Jas.1.6 — But let him ask in faith, doubting nothing; for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven by the wind and tossed.
  4. ↩Prov.17.3 — The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, but the LORD tests hearts.
  5. ↩1Cor.10.13 — No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to humanity. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear, but with the temptation he will also provide the way out, so that you may be able to endure it.
  6. ↩Jas.4.10;1Pet.5.6 — Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. 1Pet.5.6 — Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩Scripture quotation from Job 7:1 (Vulgate). Final resolution deferred to Moses stage.
  2. 2 ↩Quotation from 1 Peter 5:8 (Vulgate). Final resolution deferred to Moses stage.
  3. 3 ↩The closing clause echoes the Golden Rule (Mt 7:12 / Lk 6:31): 'sicut tibi optares fieri.'
  4. 4 ↩The quoted span echoes 1 Cor 10:13 (Vulgate: "faciet cum tentatione proventum ut possitis sustinere"). Final resolution deferred to Moses stage.
  5. 5 ↩The clause 'humiles spiritu salvabit, et exaltabit' echoes Ps 146:6 (Vulgate) / Ps 147:6 ('humiliat autem peccatores usque ad terram') and more directly James 4:10 / 1 Pet 5:6 ('humiliamini sub potenti manu Dei… Deus autem humiliat superbos et humilibus dat gratiam'). The pairing of saving and exaltation also recalls Ps 149:4. Final resolution deferred.
  6. 6 ↩cum here read concessive ('when/although') rather than temporal or causal, contrasting the easy fervor of untried devotion with the true test of adversity.
  7. 7 ↩ut introduces a result clause ('so that'), rendered naturally in English.