Moralia in Job 663

Verse 14. — Let his confidence be plucked out of his tabernacle, and let destruction tread upon him as a king. 20. Those whom the devil deceives with flattering persuasions, he snatches away to punishment with violent bonds. — In this place, by the name of destruction, the very enemy of the human race, who brought in destruction, is designated; who is expressed through a certain satellite of his, of whom it is said to John: His name is Death (Rev. vi, 8). This destruction, therefore, in the day of departure, treads as a king upon the ungodly man, because him whom he first deceived with flattering persuasions, he at last snatches away to punishment with violent bonds, and presses him down the more harshly, the more vehemently he binds him in depraved acts.

He also treads here upon the mind of the reprobate while he possesses it, because as often as he has pressed it down with delights, so often has he as it were placed the feet of his tyrannical domination upon it. 21. We can escape not the temptation of sin, but its domination. — But if by the name of destruction not the devil openly, but sin ought to be understood, from which it comes about that the reprobate are dragged to destruction, such destruction, forsooth, as it were a king, treads upon the mind, when it possesses it not resisting. For temptation of sin cannot be lacking to a man placed in this life. But it is one thing to resist sin that tempts, another to serve it that dominates.

But every unrighteous man, because he knows not how to resist the persuasions of sin, and does not dread to be subjected to its domination, is rightly said of him: Let destruction tread upon him as a king. For the reign of this destruction the Apostle drove away from the hearts of his disciples when he said: Let not sin reign in your mortal body (Rom. vi, 12). For he does not say: Let it not be, but Let it not reign, because it cannot be that it is not, but it can be that it does not reign in the hearts of the good. Because, therefore, when any guilt has knocked at the heart of the unrighteous man, it does not find it resisting, but subjects it to its own domination, let it rightly be said: Let his confidence be plucked out of his tabernacle, and let destruction tread upon him as a king.

His confidence, therefore, is plucked out of the earth, when any perverse man, who had prepared many things for himself according to his wish in this life, is dissipated by sudden death. And destruction treads upon him as a king, because either here he is pressed down by vices, or at the time of his death, through the fact that he is snatched away to torments, he is subjected to the demoniac power. Which is therefore so brought about in the minds of the reprobate, because even when the occasion of perpetrating sin is lacking, the thoughts of desires are by no means lacking to their hearts. And though they always follow the devil in deed, yet they greatly bind themselves to him in thought. First, therefore, guilt is in thought, but afterward in deed. Whence it is said to the daughter of Babylon:

Come down into the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground (Isa. xlvii, 1). For although dust is always earth, yet earth is not always dust. What, therefore, ought we to understand by dust except thoughts, which, while they fly about importunately and silently in the mind, blind its eyes? And what is designated by earth except earthly action? And because the mind of the reprobate is first cast down to think depraved things, and afterward to do them, it is rightly said to the daughter of Babylon, who descends from the judgment of inner uprightness, by the smiting sentence, that she should first sit in the dust, and afterward on the ground, because unless she had prostrated herself in thought, she would not have cleaved to the evil deed. There follows: