The Conferences

St. John Cassian · c. 426–429 AD

17 of 497

Section 16

A question on the changing character of the thoughts

GERMANUS. How is it then, that even against our will, aye and without our knowledge idle thoughts steal upon us so subtilely and secretly that it is fearfully hard not merely to drive them away, but even to grasp and seize them? Can then a mind sometimes be found free from them, and never attacked by illusions of this kind?