22. 'He draws out from his jaws many whom he has devoured.' From the meaning of the ring the bracelet does not differ, because it too, wherever it is placed, constrains by encircling. But because the bracelet is stretched more widely, by the bracelet the more ample protection of his hidden judgment toward us is signified. Therefore with a bracelet the Lord bores through the jaw of this Leviathan, because by the ineffable power of His mercy He so meets the malice of the ancient enemy that sometimes He lets go even those whom he has already seized; and, as it were, they fall from his mouth who, after guilt has been perpetrated, return to innocence. For who, having been snatched by his mouth, would escape his jaw, if it were not bored through? Did he not hold Peter in his mouth, when he denied (Matt. 26:71)?
Did he not hold David in his mouth, when he plunged himself into so great a gulf of lust (2 Kings/2 Sam. 11:4)? But when each returned to life through penance, this Leviathan lost them in some manner, as though through the holes of his jaw. Therefore through the hole of his jaw they were withdrawn from his mouth who, after the perpetration of so great a wickedness, returned by repenting. But what man may escape the mouth of this Leviathan, so as to commit nothing unlawful? Yet from this we learn how much we are debtors to the Redeemer of the human race, who not only forbade us to go into the mouth of Leviathan, but also granted that we return from his mouth;
who did not take away hope from the sinner, because He bored through his jaw, that He might grant a way of escaping, so that at least after the bite he might flee who, being incautious before, did not fear to be bitten. Everywhere, then, the supernal medicine runs to meet us, because He both gave man commandments that he might not sin, and yet gave remedies for sinning, that he might not despair. Whence it is to be guarded against with the utmost care, lest anyone be seized by the mouth of this Leviathan through the delight of sin; and yet, if he has been seized, let him not despair, because if he perfectly bewails his sin, he still finds a hole in his jaw through which to escape. Now he is ground by the teeth, but still, if a way of escaping is sought, a hole is found in his jaw. Even the captive has whereby to go out, who was unwilling to foresee, lest he be snatched.
Whoever, therefore, is not yet captured, let him flee his jaw; but whoever is already captured, let him seek a hole in the jaw. For our Creator is loving and just. [Old translation, ch. 15.] 23. 'Before guilt, the justice of God is to be feared; after guilt, His mercy is to be hoped for. Let the ruin of the greater be the caution of the lesser.' But let no one say: 'Since He is loving, I sin venially.' And let no one who has sinned say: 'Since He is just, I despair of the remission of sin.' For God remits the crime that is bewailed, but let each one fear to perpetrate that which he knows not whether he may be able worthily to bewail. Before guilt, therefore, let him fear justice; after guilt, nevertheless, let him presume upon His loving-kindness; and let him neither so fear justice as to gain no strength from the consolation of hope;
nor so trust in mercy as to neglect to apply to his wounds the medicine of worthy penance; but let him who presumes that He here spares him, always also think that He judges strictly. Under His loving-kindness, therefore, let the hope of the sinner rejoice, but under His strictness let the correction of the penitent tremble. Let the hope of our presumption, then, have also the bite of fear, so that the justice of the Judge may terrify unto the correcting of sins him whom the grace of the Pardoner invites unto the confidence of pardon. For hence it is said through a certain wise man: 'Say not, The mercies of the Lord are many; He will not remember my sins' (Sir. 5:6). For it forthwith subjoins His justice to His loving-kindness, saying:
'For mercy and wrath come quickly from Him' (ibid., 7). And so the divine clemency, boring through the jaw of this Behemoth, meets the human race everywhere both mercifully and powerfully, because it neither kept silent to the free man the admonition of taking heed, nor withdrew from the captive the remedy of fleeing. For to this end the sins of such men, that is, of David and of Peter, have been set down in Sacred Scripture, that the caution of the lesser might be the ruin of the greater. And to this end, moreover, of both there is intimated both penance and pardon, that the hope of those perishing might be the recovery of the lost. Let no one, therefore, be proud over David falling from his state. Let no one despair over David rising from his fall likewise. Behold how marvelously Sacred Scripture, by the same word, presses down the proud, by which it raises up the humble.
For it recounted one deed done, and in diverse ways it recalled the proud indeed to the dread of humility, but the humble to the confidence of hope. O inestimable medicament of a new kind, which, set in one and the same arrangement, both by pressing down dries up the swollen, and by lifting up waters the parched! From the fall of the greater it terrified us, but from their restoration it strengthened us. 24. 'In vain does he hope for mercy who does not fear justice.' For thus indeed always, thus the mercy of the divine dispensation both restrains us when we grow proud, and props us up lest we fall into despair. [Old translation, ch. 16; another recension, ch. 11.] Whence He also admonishes through Moses, saying: 'Thou shalt not take in pledge the upper or the lower millstone' (Deut. 24:6).
For to 'take' we sometimes mean to 'take away.' Whence also those birds which are greedy for seizing birds are called 'hawks' (accipitres, from accipere). Whence the Apostle Paul says: 'For you suffer if any man take from you, if any man take' (2 Cor. 11:20). As if he said: If any man seizes. Now the pledge of the debtor is the confession of the sinner. For a pledge is taken from a debtor, when from a sinner the confession of sin is now held. The upper and lower millstone, moreover, is hope and fear. For hope carries up on high, but fear presses the heart down below. But the upper and lower millstone are so necessarily joined to each other that one without the other is held uselessly.
In the breast of the sinner, then, hope and fear ought incessantly to be joined, because in vain does he hope for mercy if he does not also fear justice; in vain does he fear justice if he does not also trust in mercy. Therefore, in place of a pledge, the upper or lower millstone is forbidden to be taken away, because he who preaches to the sinner ought to compose his preaching with such great dispensation that he neither, with hope abandoned, withdraws fear, nor, with fear withdrawn, leaves him in hope alone. For the upper or lower millstone is taken away, if through the tongue of the preacher, in the breast of the sinner, either fear is divided from hope, or hope from fear. 25. 'Why God does not keep His elect unharmed from carnal vices. Pride is a greater sin than lust.'
'Man makes a wound out of the medicine; God makes a medicine out of the wound.' But since, the cause requiring it, having brought David into the midst, we have made mention of so great a crime, the mind of the reader is perhaps moved: why does almighty God not keep those whom He has chosen unto eternity, whom He has taken up also to the summit of spiritual gifts, unharmed from bodily vices? Whence, because we believe it can be satisfied more quickly, we answer briefly. For some, through the gifts of virtues received, through the grace of good works bestowed, fall into the vice of pride, but nevertheless do not recognize whereinto they have fallen.
Accordingly, against them the ancient enemy, because he already dominates within, is permitted to rage even outwardly, so that those who are lifted up in thought may be laid low through the lust of the flesh. Now we know that sometimes it is less to fall into corruption of the body than to sin in silent thought out of deliberate elation; but since pride is believed to be less foul, it is less shunned. Lust, however, men blush at the more, in that they all together know it to be foul. Whence also very often it happens that some, falling into lust after pride, blush at the evil of the hidden guilt through the open fall; and then they even correct greater things, when, cast down in the least, they are more grievously confounded.
For they perceive themselves guilty among lesser things who believed themselves free among graver ones. Therefore, by the loving dispensation of the Lord, this Behemoth, sometimes let loose, draws from guilt to guilt, and while he strikes more, thence he loses the one he had seized, and whence he is seen to have conquered, thence he is overcome. It is pleasing to consider, within the fortified bosom of grace, with how great a favor of mercy God holds us. Behold, he who exalts himself over virtue returns to humility through vice. But he who is exalted by virtues received is wounded not by a sword, but, so to say, by a medicine. For what is virtue, but a medicine? and what is vice, but a wound?
Because, therefore, we make a wound out of the medicine, He makes a medicine out of the wound, so that we who are struck by virtue may be healed by vice. For we twist the gifts of virtues into the use of vices; He takes up the allurements of vices into the craft of virtues, and strikes the state of health that He may preserve it, so that we who, while running, flee humility, may, while falling, cleave to it. But amid these things it is to be known that very many men, the more they fall in many things, are the more tightly bound; and when this Behemoth strikes them out of one vice so that they collapse, out of another also he entangles them lest they rise again. Let man, therefore, consider with what enemy he wages war;
and if he perceives that he has now in some way transgressed, let him fear at least to be drawn from guilt to guilt, so that those wounds may be diligently shunned by which he frequently slays, because it is very rare that our enemy serves the salvation of the elect even by wounds. 'Temptation sometimes becomes the guardian of merits. The devil, by tempting the saints, unwillingly preserves them for the kingdom.' Yet the jaw of this Behemoth being bored through can also be understood otherwise, so that he may be said to hold in his mouth not those whom he has already perfectly entangled in sin, but those whom he still tempts by the persuasions of sin, inasmuch as, for him, to chew any one is to tempt him with the delight of sin.
Indeed, he had received Paul to be chewed, but not to be swallowed, when, after so many sublime revelations, he agitated him with the stings of the flesh (2 Cor. 12:7). Then, therefore, when he received license of temptation against him, he held him in his jaw, but in a jaw bored through. For he who, being elated, could perish, was tempted lest he perish. Therefore that temptation was not a gulf of vices, but a guardian of merits, because this Leviathan wore him down by wearying him in affliction, but did not devour him by seizing him in guilt. But he would not lose men elated in holiness, unless he tempted them. For they indeed would not be holy who grew proud of the glory of holiness, and they would fall so much the more under his jurisdiction, the more they exalted themselves in their own virtues.
But by a marvelous order of dispensation, while they are tempted they are humbled, while they are humbled they now cease to be his. Well, therefore, is the jaw of this Behemoth said to be bored through, because whence he wears down the elect of God, thence he loses them; whence he tempts that he may destroy, thence he acts that they may not perish. And so the ancient enemy, serving the hidden dispensations of God, tempts the souls of the saints unto destruction willingly, but by tempting preserves them for the kingdom unwillingly. Therefore his jaw is bored through, because those whom by tempting, that is, by chewing, he wears down, he loses, as it were, when he swallows them.
Now because this is brought about not by human but by divine providence — that the very cunning of the ancient adversary should serve the benefit of the just, so that when he tempts the elect he rather guards them by tempting — it is well said to blessed Job: 'Or wilt thou pierce his jaw with a bracelet?' Understand: as I do, who, providently disposing all things, guard My elect all the more sturdily in their integrity from the very quarter whence I permit them to be shaken in some measure from that integrity through the jaw of this Leviathan. There follows: