Continence
idea · 5 works · 6 mentions · 11 anchored passages
continence · chastity · chastity and sobriety · enkrateia · self-control · self-mastery · spiritual discipline · virginity
in the texts
Stromata
The virtue of self-mastery over bodily and other desires, central to the whole passage.
There is continence with respect to the tongue, to possessions, to their use, and to desire.
But if both have freedom from fear—both he who has chosen incontinence and he who has chosen continence—still the dignity is not the same.
For either they teach men to live indifferently, or, striking too high a note, they proclaim a continence based on impiety and on love of enmity.
Letters
Spiritual discipline of self-mastery presented as communion with God and the source of health for the soul.
If but a little continence be in us, we are higher than all things.
And as I learn this perfectly, continence seems to me to be God, because he desires nothing, but has all things in himself;
so great was the power of continence in him, that the nourishment was not corrupted within him, since he himself did not have corruption.
De ieiunio adversus psychicos
The virtue of self-restraint in food and sex, presented as the discipline under attack by the Psychics.
I recognize, then, the animal faith bound up wholly with the cult of the flesh, prone to much-devouring no less than to much-marrying, so that it deservedly accuses the spiritual discipline, its rival for the same substance, in this species too of continence, since that discipline likewise puts a bridle on gluttony at times by no food, or food late or dry, just as it puts one on lust by allowing b …
De Monogamia
Sexual restraint or virginity, held up as the higher good compared to marriage
Continence honours the law of marriage, licence tempers it;
monogamy and continence—the one chaste, in Zacharias the priest;
even if the Paraclete had this day determined entire and unbroken virginity or continence, so as not to permit the fervour of the flesh to spend itself even in a single marriage, even so he would seem to introduce nothing new, since the Lord himself opens the kingdom of heaven to eunuchs, being himself a eunuch—looking upon whom the apostle too, being himself castrated, prefers continence.
De Virginibus Velandis
Sexual self-restraint achieved through effort, distinguished from and ranked above virginity
For virginity consists in grace, but continence in virtue.