約伯倫理 第 1311 章

87. The army of the devil, its leader pride, whose offspring are the seven principal vices. — For the tempting vices, which in an invisible battle against us fight on behalf of pride reigning over them, some go before after the manner of leaders, others follow after the manner of an army. For not all faults occupy the heart with equal approach. But while the greater and few forestall the neglected mind, the lesser and innumerable pour themselves upon it in a throng. For pride herself, the queen of the vices, when she has fully captured the vanquished heart, straightway hands it over to be laid waste by the seven principal vices, as if by certain generals of her own. Which generals the army indeed follows, because from them without doubt spring the importunate multitudes of the vices.

This we show better if we set forth by enumerating, as far as we can, the leaders themselves and the army particularly. The root indeed of all evil is pride, of which, Scripture attesting, it is said: The beginning of all sin is pride (Ecclus. X, 18). But its first offspring, namely the seven principal vices, are brought forth from this venomous root: namely, vainglory, envy, wrath, sadness, avarice, gluttony of the belly, lust. For because it grieved Him that we were held captive by these seven vices of pride, therefore our Redeemer came to the spiritual battle of our liberation, full of the Spirit of sevenfold grace. 88. Each of the capital vices has its own army. — But these each have against us their own army.

For from vainglory arise disobedience, boasting, hypocrisy, contentions, obstinacies, discords, and the presumptions of novelties. From envy are born hatred, whispering, detraction, exultation at the adversities of one's neighbour, and affliction at his prosperity. From wrath are brought forth brawls, swelling of mind, insult, clamour, indignation, blasphemies. From sadness are born malice, rancour, faint-heartedness, despair, sluggishness about the commandments, wandering of the mind toward unlawful things. From avarice arise treachery, fraud, deceit, perjuries, restlessness, violences, and hardnesses of heart against mercy.

From gluttony of the belly are propagated foolish mirth, scurrility, uncleanness, much talking, dullness of sense in regard to understanding. From lust are generated blindness of mind, inconsideration, inconstancy, precipitation, self-love, hatred of God, affection for the present world, but dread or despair of the world to come. Because, therefore, the seven principal vices bring forth from themselves so great a multitude of vices, when they come to the heart, they draw with them, as it were, the throngs of a following army. Of these seven, five are spiritual and two are carnal. 89. Each vice arises from another. But each of them is joined to another with so great a kinship, that one is brought forth only out of another.

For the first offspring of pride is vainglory, which, when it has corrupted the oppressed mind, soon begets envy; because indeed, while it craves the power of an empty name, it pines lest any other be able to attain this. Envy too generates wrath, because the more the mind is wounded by the inward wound of spite, the more even the gentleness of tranquillity is lost; and because it is as it were touched like an aching member, therefore the hand of an opposing action is felt to press the more heavily. From wrath too arises sadness, because the more the troubled mind shakes itself inordinately, the more it confounds itself by condemnation; and when it has lost the sweetness of tranquillity, nothing feeds it but the grief that follows from perturbation.

Sadness too is derived toward avarice, because when the confounded heart has lost within itself the good of gladness, it seeks a source whence it may be consoled; and it desires the more to attain outward goods, the more it has no joy to which it may inwardly recur. But after these there remain two carnal vices, that is, gluttony of the belly and lust. But it is clear to all that from gluttony of the belly lust is born, since in the very distribution of the members the genitals are seen to be placed close beneath the belly. Whence, while the one is inordinately refreshed, the other is without doubt roused to shameful acts. 90. The fallacious arguments by which the capital vices strive to deceive the mind.

But the leaders are well said to exhort, the army to howl; because the first vices insinuate themselves into the deceived mind as if under a certain reason, but the innumerable ones that follow, while they drag it into every madness, confound it as with a bestial clamour. For vainglory is wont to exhort the vanquished heart as if from reason, when it says: You ought to seek greater things, that as by power you may be able to surpass many, so also you may be able to be of profit to many. Envy too is wont to exhort the vanquished heart as if from reason, when it says: In what are you less than this man or that? Why, then, are you not either equal or superior to them? How many things can you do which they cannot! They ought not, then, to be superior to you, or even equal.

Wrath too is wont to exhort the vanquished heart as if from reason, when it says: The things that are done against you cannot be borne with equanimity; nay, to endure these patiently is a sin, because if you do not resist them with great exasperation, they are henceforth heaped up against you without measure. Sadness too is wont to exhort the vanquished heart as if from reason, when it says: What have you whereof to rejoice, when you bear so many evils from your neighbours? Consider with what grief all must be regarded who are turned against you in so great a gall of bitterness. Avarice too is wont to exhort the vanquished mind as if from reason, when it says: It is quite without fault that you desire certain things to be had, because you do not seek to be multiplied but you dread to be in want;

and what another wickedly keeps, you spend better. Gluttony of the belly too is wont to exhort the vanquished heart as if from reason, when it says: God created all things clean for eating, and he who refuses to be filled with food, what else does he do but contradict the gift granted him? Lust too is wont to exhort the vanquished heart as if from reason, when it says: Why do you not now expand yourself in your pleasure, when you know not what may follow you? You ought not to lose in desires the time you have received, since you know not how quickly it may pass by. For if God did not will man to be mingled in the pleasure of coition, He would not, at the very beginning of the human race, have made male and female (Gen. I, 27). This is the exhortation of the leaders, which, when it is incautiously

admitted to the secret of the heart, more familiarly persuades to iniquity. And the howling army, of course, follows it, because the unhappy soul, once captured by the principal vices, while it is turned into madness by multiplied iniquities, is laid waste with a savage brutality. 91. What must be done lest the vices harm us. — But the soldier of God, because he skilfully strives to foresee the conflicts of the vices, smells the battle from afar; because, while with anxious thought he regards what the preceding evils may be able to persuade the mind, he detects the exhortation of the leaders by the sagacity of his nostril. And because from afar, by foreknowing, he beholds the confusion of the iniquities that follow, he recognizes, as it were, the howling of the army by smelling it.

Therefore, because we have recognized either the preacher of God, or any soldier of the spiritual conflict, described under the figure of the steed, let us now again behold the same one under the signification of a bird, so that we who by the steed have learned his fortitude may also by the bird learn his contemplation. For because by the described greatness of the steed we have heard how much the holy man endures through patience against the conflicts of the vices, now by the species of birds let us recognize how much he flies through contemplation. It follows: