VIrtue in temptation?

Remember this quote from the St. John of the Cross reading?
"For if a soul is not tempted, tried, and proved through temptations and trials, its senses will not be strengthened in preparation for wisdom. It is said therefore in Ecclesiasticus: He who is not tempted, what does he know? And he who is not tried, what are the things he knows? [Ecclus. 34:9-10]."

I immediately thought, as I'm sure you did, wait, there's a book called Ecclesiaticus? Ha ha! Silly internautes! Obviously they mean Ecclesiastes! Well, the more fool us, as I quickly discovered that there is no Ecclesiastes 34. Ecclesiasticusis the Vulgate title of the book of Sirach, which is used in the Catholic Bible but not in the Hebrew Scriptures or the Protestant Bible. Catholicism: Protestantism plus!

(To my dear Protestant readers: of course I jest. Since you're always going around ordaining women and other such marvels, we Catholics need to get our own in somewhere.)

However, the super-academic New Revised Standard Version that I use translates that passage : "An educated person knows many things, and one with much experience knows what he is talking about. An inexperienced person knows few things, but he that has traveled acquires much cleverness." Too much craziness. First, the NRSV just used a gendered pronoun. Whaaaat?! Secondly, the valence of words changes greatly depending on the translation, but I fail to see how you get from "temptation" to "experience". I mean, in language, not in life.

The New American Bible, the official text of the U.S. Bishops' Conference, gives us: "A man with training gains wide knowledge; a man of experience speaks sense. One never put to the proof knows little, whereas with travel a man adds to his resourcefulness."

All this is making me dizzy. Of course, the main thing that piqued my interest in that quote, aside from the Biblical intrigue, is the fact that St. John of the Cross seems to be praising temptation as a means to strengthening faith. It occurred to me that, outside the Lord's Prayer, I haven't heard anything about temptation in a good while. Catholics my age just aren't raised with the notion of sin as a list of things you're better off avoiding as widely as possible; I was in college before I'd ever heard of "the near occasion of sin". I think I've been taught to guard against apathy, to monitor my soul for caring about and serving others - but not to avoid the urges to do the seven deadly. Why don't we talk about this, and why don't we talk about the temptation to willful ignorance, to spiritual laziness, to falling out of love with God - which John of the Cross worries about much more than he worries about lust or blasphemy?

I'm starting a multi-part series on temptation for us. To begin with, some quotes from secular authorities.

We gain the strength of the temptation we resist. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

And accordingly:
The force of the blow depends on the resistance. It is sometimes better not to struggle against temptation. Either fly or yield at once. - Francis H. Bradley
(Wise from a behavioral psychology standpoint, not so wise if you're, for example, kicking an addiction.)

Do not worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older it will avoid you. - Joey Lauren Adams
(She's the collaborator and sometime muse of Kevin Smith, who did Dogma - clearly a mini-enclave of performing artists thinking about the big moral questions.)

No temptation can ever be measured by the value of its object. - Colette

You oughtn't to yield to temptation. Well, somebody must, or the thing becomes absurd. - Anthony Hope
(Love that.)

Do you really think that it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations that it requires strength, strength and courage, to yield to. - Oscar Wilde

And famously:
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. - Oscar Wilde