Marriage and Virginity (continued)
hand remains unstained by the deed of homicide, is the heart of the murderer therefore untainted by the crime? If someone is unable to commit a robbery he wants to commit, is he therefore not a thief in intention? If a woman with whom an unchaste man wants to commit adultery is chaste, has he therefore not committed adultery with her in his heart? If a prostitute is not found in the street, does the one looking for her therefore not commit the impurity in his mind? If someone tries to harm another person by telling lies, but there is no suitable time or place, has he therefore not already given lying evidence with his inner mouth? If someone says in his heart, There is no God (Ps 14:1), but for fear of other people does not dare utter the blasphemy with his body's tongue, is he therefore not guilty of this wickedness?
So it is too with the other evil deeds of people, when no bodily movement puts them into effect and no bodily sense is aware of them. They still have their guilt in secret. The consent in thought alone, that is, the malicious speech of the interior mouth, makes them unclean.
Fearing that his heart would lapse like this the psalmist asks the Lord for the gate of continence to be put on the lips of his mouth. This will restrict his heart to prevent it from lapsing into malicious speech; but it will restrict it by not allowing thought to develop into consent. In this way, as the apostle commands, We should not let sin rule in our mortal body, and we should not offer our bodies to sin as weapons for deeds of wickedness (Rom 6:12-13).
Those who do not do the physical deed of sinning, only because they are denied the opportunity to do so, are certainly far from carrying out this command. If the opportunity does occur, they immediately show who is the master within them by the actions of their bodies as his weapons. They do offer their bodies to sin as weapons for deeds of wickedness as much as they are able, because that is what they want to do and they do not actually do it only because they are unable to.
5. It follows that the purity that is exercised in controlling the reproductive organs, which is what is usually meant by the word "continence" used in its literal sense, suffers no violation or infringement, if the more perfect continence we have been speaking about at length is maintained in the heart. For this reason, when the Lord said, From the heart come evil thoughts, he then went on to say what evil thoughts are about, murder, adultery, and the rest (Mt 15:19). He did not mention them all, but named some by way of example and left the rest to be understood. None of these deeds can be done if there has been no prior evil thought, by which the deed performed externally is