Moralia in Job 1340

36. Sins are so interwoven that, while one is shunned, we almost always slip into another. The Church consists of three orders. — The sinews of his testicles are the pestilent arguments of his machinations. For by them he raises up the forces of his cunning, and corrupts the fluid hearts of mortals. His testicles are perverse suggestions, by which he grows hot in the corruption of the mind, and in the ravished soul begets the offspring of iniquitous deeds. But the sinews of these testicles are entangled, because the arguments of his suggestions are bound up with intricate contrivances, so that he makes very many so to sin that, if perchance they seek to flee one sin, they do not escape it without the snare of another;

and they commit a fault while they shun one, and can by no means loose themselves from one when in another they consent to be bound. — This we shall show better, if we bring forward some examples of this entanglement from the conduct of men. But because holy Church consists of three orders — namely, of the married, of the continent, and of rulers; whence also Ezekiel saw three men delivered, namely Noah, Daniel, and Job (Ezek. 14:14ff.); and in the Gospel the Lord, when he tells of some in the field, others in bed, and others at the mill (Luke 17:34-35), doubtless shows three orders in the Church — we shall clearly give satisfaction, if we search out particulars from each. 36. The temptations of those who serve the world.

— For behold, a certain man, while he seeks the friendships of this world, binds himself by an oath to some other person leading a life like his own, that he will conceal that man's secrets in total silence; but the one to whom the oath was sworn is found to be committing adultery, so much so that he even attempts to kill the adulteress's husband. But he who gave the oath returns to his mind, and is assailed on this side and that by diverse thoughts. And he dreads to keep silent, lest by keeping silence he become a partaker at once of adultery and of murder; and he trembles to disclose, lest he bind himself by the guilt of perjury. Bound, therefore, with the entangled sinews of the testicles, because to whatever side he turns, he fears that he may not be free from the contagion of transgression.

On the desire to serve God through obedience; concerning superiors. — Another, forsaking all things that are of the world, and seeking to break his own wills in all things, desires to subject himself to another's governance, but with too little cautious inquiry discerns the one who ought to be set over him before God. To whom perchance the one who is chosen without judgment, when he has now begun to preside, forbids the things that are of God, and commands the things that are of the world. Weighing, therefore, either what the fault of disobedience is, or what the contagion of secular life, the subject both trembles to obey and dreads not to obey, lest either, by obeying, he desert God in His precepts, or again, by not obeying, he despise God in the superior he has chosen;

and either, complying with unlawful things, he practices against God that which he sought for God's sake, or again, not complying, he subjects to his own judgment the one whom he had sought as his judge. Openly, therefore, this man, through the vice of his own lack of discretion, is bound fast with the entangled sinews of the testicles, because whether obeying or indeed not obeying, he is bound in the fault of transgression. He was striving to break his own wills, and now he takes care to make them solid even by contempt of his superior. He had resolved to leave the world utterly, and is compelled, even by another's will, to return to the cares of the world. Entangled, therefore, are the sinews, when the enemy's arguments so bind us that the knots of faults, by the very means by which they are sought to be loosed, are the more harshly drawn tight. 38.

Another, neglecting to weigh the burden of ecclesiastical honor, ascends by rewards to a place of rule. But because everything that here is eminent is more afflicted with sorrows than gladdened with honors, while his heart is pressed by tribulations, the fault is recalled to memory, and he grieves that he has come to the labor together with guilt, and recognizes from that very broken difficulty how iniquitous is that which he has committed. Recognizing himself, therefore, guilty because of the rewards bestowed, he wishes to desert the place of the loftiness he has attained, but fears lest it be a graver offense to have relinquished the custody of the flock he has received; he wishes to bear the care of the flock received, but dreads lest it be a worse fault to possess the grace of pastoral rule bought with a price. Through the ambition of honor, therefore, he beholds himself bound on this side and that by guilt.

For he sees neither to be without the guilt of a crime, if either the flock once received be relinquished, or again the sacred office bought in a worldly manner be retained. On every side he fears, and, suspect, dreads his every flank, lest either, standing in the government he has bought, he mourn not worthily, that which even by deserting he does not amend; or certainly, deserting the government, while he strives to do another thing rightly, he commit again another wrong out of that very desolation of the flock. Because, therefore, this Behemoth so binds with inexplicable knots, that for the most part the mind, brought into doubt, is the more tightly bound in a fault from the very source whereby it strives to loose itself from a fault, it is rightly said: The sinews of his testicles are entangled.

For the arguments of his machinations, by the very means by which they are loosened that they may release, are the more entangled that they may hold fast. 39. Where no way of escaping without sin lies open, what is to be done. The intercourse of the married for the fulfilling of lust is not free from fault. — There is, however, something that may be usefully done for the destroying of his wiles: when the mind is constrained between lesser and greatest sins, if there lies open absolutely no way of escaping without sin, let the lesser always be chosen; because even he who is shut in by the encircling of walls on every side, that he may not flee, casts himself into flight there where a lower wall is found. And Paul, when he beheld certain incontinent persons in the Church, conceded the least things, that they might avoid the greater, saying:

But because of fornication, let each man have his own wife (1 Cor. 7:2). And because married persons are then only without fault in their union, when they are joined not for the fulfilling of lust, but for the receiving of offspring, that he might show that even this which he had conceded was not without fault, though the least, he immediately subjoined: But this I say by way of indulgence, not by way of command (ibid., 6). For that is not without fault which is pardoned, and is not commanded. He assuredly saw sin, that which he foresaw could be indulged. But when we are constrained in doubtful matters, we usefully submit to the least, lest in great matters we sin without pardon.

And so for the most part the entanglement of the sinews of this Behemoth is loosed, while through lesser things committed a passage is made to the greatest virtues. There follows: