Beaten, It Rises Stronger

All other vices grow feeble when they are overcome. Once beaten, they become weaker day by day, and with change of place and the passing of time they lessen and subside; or at any rate, since they are unlike the virtues opposed to them, they are more easily shunned and avoided. But this one, when it is beaten, rises again keener than ever for the struggle. When we think it destroyed, it comes back to life, stronger for its death. The other kinds of vice usually attack only those they have overcome in the fight. This one pursues its conquerors all the more keenly, and the more thoroughly it has been resisted, the more vigorously it attacks the man who is proud of his victory over it. Here lies the crafty cunning of our adversary: where he cannot overcome the soldier of Christ with the enemy’s weapons, he lays him low with his own spear.