When a Decision Must Be Kept and When It May Be Broken

We do not lay this down about those fundamental commands without which our salvation cannot exist at all, but about the things we can either relax or hold to without endangering our state. Examples are an unbroken and strict fast, total abstinence from wine or oil, a complete ban on leaving one’s cell, or constant attention to reading and meditation. All of these can be practiced as we choose without harm to our profession and purpose, and, if need arises, can be given up without blame. But we must most resolutely make up our minds to keep those fundamental commands, and not even to shrink from death for their sake if need arises. About these we must say without wavering: “I have sworn and resolved.” This should be done to preserve love, for whose sake everything else should be disregarded, so that the beauty and perfection of its calm may not be stained. In the same way we must swear for the purity of our chastity, and we ought to do the same for faith, sobriety and justice. To all of these we must cling with unchanging persistence, and to forsake them even for a little while deserves blame. But in the case of those bodily exercises, which are said to profit a little, we must, as we said, make our decisions in such a way that, if a clearer opportunity for a good deed comes along that would lead us to relax them, we are not bound by any rule about them, but may give them up and freely take up what is more useful. For if those bodily exercises are dropped for a time, there is no danger; but to have given up these others even for a moment is deadly. [a]