plied with appetizing food; even that very body that so often burns with an unholy fire will at last become the food of worms, will emit in its decay an intolerable stench, and will finally crumble away into a handful of dust which one breath might blow away. And should I give this food of worms, which bears about in itself the elements of its own corruption, should I give it all in dulgence in sensual pleasures, thus placing my soul in danger of burning forever in hell? Or should such a body, because it is now clad with a certain kind of beauty, so infatuate and befool me, that for its sake I should be ready to sacrifice God and heaven? Am I not blind and mad to allow myself to be captivated by love for such a mass of corruption, whose deformity and stench will in a short time fill me with horror? Ah, it is evident I have not thought enough of these things before! No, says a holy hermit with reason, “there is no better way of taming the living flesh than by thinking what it will be when dead.”[1] Truly, whenever I am tempted to impure love by another’s beauty, all I need do to conquer the temptation is to fly for refuge to death, and represent to myself what that beauty will be like in a short time. Oh, would that I could now open a grave before your eyes, a grave in which a dead body has lain for a month; that I could invite you to look at it in the words of the sisters of the dead Lazarus to Christ: “Come and see!”[2] Come, O unchaste young man, and see what that is, or shortly will be, which you have so foolishly loved and still love: Come and see! Come, vain and proud woman, see what you will soon become; see how the blackened and mortifying flesh is dropping from your bones; see how the lips and nose are eaten away and leave only gaping holes; see the worms creeping out of the eyes and the whole body a horrible mass of corruption! You cannot bear the insupportable stench; you turn your eyes away from the hideous sight; you run off terror-stricken; you cannot bear to think of such a horrible thing; nay, you look at me with disgust because I dare to draw such a loathsome picture for you! Yet it is a true one; for, alas! what is man when he turns into foul carrion? And therefore I must again think to myself: truly, it is not worth while to allow myself to be so captivated by love for such a mass of corruption as for its sake to offend God even by a wilful desire and condemn my soul to hell forever.
