Our Very Own Possessions

We ought, then, to take the greatest care that our inner man also casts off and does away with all those possessions of its sins which it acquired in its former life. Because they cling continually to body and soul, these are our very own, and unless we reject them and cut them off while we are still in the flesh, they will not stop accompanying us after death. For just as good qualities, or love itself, which is their source, can be gained in this world and, after this life has closed, make the one who loves it lovely and glorious, so our faults carry over into that eternal remembrance a mind darkened and stained with foul colors. [a]

For the beauty or ugliness of the soul is produced by its virtues or its vices. The color it takes from them either makes it so glorious that it may well hear from the prophet, “And the king will take pleasure in your beauty,” or so black and foul and ugly that it must surely acknowledge the stench of its shame and say, “My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness.” And the Lord himself says to it: “Why is the wound of the daughter of my people not closed?” And so these are our very own possessions, which remain continually with the soul, which no king and no enemy can either give us or take away from us. These are our very own possessions, which not even death itself can part from the soul. By renouncing them we can reach perfection, and by clinging to them we will suffer the punishment of eternal death.