Wandering Thoughts
A brother asked a hermit, “What can I do? My mind is always thinking about fornication; and does not let me rest even for an hour, and my heart is suffering.”
So the hermit said to him, “When the demons sow thoughts in your heart, and you feel this, don’t listen to your heart, for that is the demons’ suggestion. Though the demons are careful to send thoughts to you, they do not force you to accept them. It is up to you to receive or reject them. Do you know what the Midianites did? They decked their daughters and set them where the Israelites could see them: but they did not force them to intermingle; it was as each one wished. Others were wrathful and uttered threats, and avenged the act of whoredom with the death of those who had dared do it. This is what should be done Israelites the lust that rises in us.”
But the brother replied “What am I to do, if I am weak, and this passion masters me?”
The hermit said, “This is the way to be strong: when temptations start to speak in your do not answer them but get up, pray, do penance, and say ‘Son of God, have mercy upon me'”
But the brother said “Look here, abba, I meditate on such words, but they do not help me to be penitent, for I do not know the meaning of the words on which I am meditating.”
The hermit said, “Well, go on meditating. I have heard that Poemen and other monks said that a snake-charmer does not know the meaning of his words: but the snake hears them, and knows their meaning, and obeys the charmer and lies down. So though we do not know the meaning of the words, the demons hear, and are afraid and flee”.
– De vitis Patrum, Sive Verba Seniorum, Liber V