Aiming at the Mark

Think of those whose business is the use of weapons of war. Whenever they want to show their skill in their art before a king of this world, they try to shoot their arrows or darts into certain small targets that have the prizes painted on them. They know that there is no other way to secure the end and the prize they hope for than by the line of their aim, and they will enjoy it only when they have managed to hit the mark set before them. But if the mark happens to be taken out of their sight, then however far their unskilled aim strays from the straight path, they cannot see that they have wandered from the line they meant to keep, because they have no clear mark to prove the skill of their aim or to show up its badness. So, while they shoot their missiles idly into empty air, they cannot see where they have gone wrong or how utterly they have missed, since there is no mark to accuse them and show how far they have strayed from the right direction. Nor can an unsteady look help them to correct and restore the straight line they were told to keep. [a]

So it is with us. The end we have set before us is, as the apostle says, eternal life, for he declares: “You have your fruit that leads to holiness, and the end, eternal life.” But the immediate goal is purity of heart, which he not unfairly calls “holiness,” and without it that end cannot be reached. It is as if he had said in other words: “You have your immediate goal in purity of heart, but the end is eternal life.” The same blessed apostle teaches us about this goal, and pointedly uses the very word, skopos, when he says: “Forgetting the things that are behind and reaching forward to those that are ahead, I press toward the mark, for the prize of the high calling of the Lord.” In Greek this is put more clearly, kata skopon dioko, “I press toward the mark.” It is as if he said: “With this aim, by which I forget the things that are behind, that is, the faults of my earlier life, I strive to reach the heavenly prize as my end.”

Whatever, then, can help to guide us to this object, purity of heart, we must follow with all our might; but whatever holds us back from it we must shun as a dangerous and harmful thing. It is for this that we do and endure everything. For this we think little of our relatives, our country, honors, riches, the delights of this world and every kind of pleasure: so that we may keep a lasting purity of heart. So when this object is set before us, we will always direct our actions and thoughts straight toward reaching it. If it is not constantly fixed before our eyes, this will not only make all our toils vain and useless, and force us to endure them for nothing and without any reward, but it will also stir up all kinds of thoughts at odds with one another. For the mind that has no fixed point to return to, and to fasten on above all, is sure to rove from hour to hour and minute to minute among all sorts of wandering thoughts, and to be constantly changed, by whatever comes to it from outside, into whatever state first presents itself.