18 definitions
Chastity (n.) as Cassian fought for it has nothing to do with acts or partners; it targets a reality other than any sexual connection between two people.
Chastity (n.) is near when the thought of procreation leaves the mind no more stirred than if it had been thinking about brickmaking.
Concupiscence (n.) is any involvement of the will in desire — the explicit wish to act is only its most visible form.
Confession (n.) works by itself: speaking a bad thought aloud makes you blush, makes it real, and drags into the light the Devil who hides in the mind's recesses.
Conscience (n.) is the moneychanger of the self: as the emperor's image is stamped on coins, God's image must be on our thoughts, and we must check whether the effigy is real or mixed with desire.
Discernment (n.) is the monk treating his own thoughts as a miller sorts grain, a centurion picks soldiers, a moneychanger weighs coins.
Dreams (n.) that are impure are not the night's fault but the surfacing of a fever we fed all day by glutting ourselves on unhealthy emotions.
Evil (n.) betrays itself by being hard to say: the monk who stole bread could not speak of it, and only when he confessed aloud did the Devil go out of him.
Fasting (n.) is where asceticism starts, because gluttony is the first link in the chain that leads on to lust.
Gluttony (n.) must be fought with restraint, since starving oneself to death would be a crime; lust may be fought with no holds barred, since its suppression kills no one.
Libido (n.) grows in the dark corners of the mind, and shares its root with libet — "it pleases."