約伯倫理 第 1336 章

28. The tangled arguments of the devil's preachers; the witnesses of Antichrist are many. — This Behemoth has as many witnesses as it possesses preachers of its iniquity. Are they not his witnesses who corrupt the hearts of men with wicked persuasions, sowing broadcast the venomous seeds of their error? And it is fitly said that the sinews of his testicles are entangled, because, namely, the arguments of his preachers are knotted together with deceitful assertions, so that they feign to be right the things that they persuade men to do perversely, so that the multiplicity of their allegations, like a tangle of sinews, though it may be seen, cannot be untied. The sinews of his testicle are entangled, because the subtleties of his preachers lie hidden beneath double-dealing arguments.

But for the most part, while they infect the heart with words, they display innocence in their deeds. For they would not draw the good to themselves by their persuasion if they showed themselves perverse to them in their actions. But because they are the witnesses of this beast, and are bound with tangled sinews, they both make a show of uprightness that they may lie concealed, and preach perverse things that they may corrupt, imitating without doubt their own head, who like a lion lurks in ambush and rages through the power of an earthly ruler, and flatters through a semblance of holiness. But would that this beast did such things only then, and did not now also, for the corrupting of the inward parts of the faithful, possess these testicles of lust! For evil is not instilled by the speech of the mouth alone, but is offered still worse, and by more, through the example of deeds.

For how many there are who have not seen Antichrist, and yet are his testicles, because they corrupt the hearts of the innocent by the example of their conduct! For whosoever is puffed up in pride, whosoever is tormented by the desires of avarice, whosoever is dissolved by the pleasures of lust, whosoever is set aflame by the goads of unjust and immoderate anger — what else is he but a witness of Antichrist? For while he willingly entangles himself in Antichrist's uses, he ministers to others the offspring of error by his own example. This man does perverse things; that man cleaves to those who do perverse things, and not only does not oppose them, but even favors them. What else, then, is he but a witness of Antichrist, who, having lost the authority of the faith promised to God, bears testimony to error?

Yet if anyone should reprove them, they at once hide themselves under a certain veil of defense, because, namely, their sinews are entangled and evilly interwoven, and can in no way be loosened from their corruption. There follows: