約伯倫理 第 450 章

Verse 16. — And for pride Thou wilt take me as a lioness. 86. By what art the lioness is captured. In the same manner we both fell and are restored. — When the lioness seeks food for her cubs, she rushes greedily into the pit of her capture. For, as is reported of certain regions, along her path a pit is made, in which a beast is placed, that the lioness may be provoked by her appetite to cast herself down into it: and it is prepared both narrow and deep, so that she may be able by leaping to rush into it, but by no means to escape it by leaping out. Another pit also is dug, adjoining the first, which is joined to the one in which the beast is by an opening at its far end.

In this cage the beast is indeed placed, so that the lioness, falling in—since she is pressed by terrors from above—when she desires as it were to hide herself in a more secret part of the pit, willingly enters the cage, whose ferocity is now no longer feared, because being shut in the cage she is caught up. For she who of her own accord fell into the pit returns to the upper parts, hemmed in by bars. Thus, thus indeed is the human mind captured, which, created in the liberty of free will, while it sought to nourish the desires of the flesh, sought food as it were for its cubs like a lioness, and fell into the pit of its own deception, which, at the enemy's persuasion, stretched out its hand to the forbidden food. But in the pit it straightway found a cage, because, coming of its own will to death, it soon bore the prison of its own corruption;

and by the intervention of grace it is led back to the free air. But when it strives to do many things and cannot, it is bound as it were by the bars of a cage by the obstacles of that same corruption of its own. It has now indeed escaped the pit of damnation into which it had fallen, because, aided by the hand of redemption, it has overcome by returning to pardon the punishment of the death that was to follow. Yet, being confined, it endures the cage, because it is also girded by the bonds of supernal discipline, lest it wander through the desires of the flesh. She therefore who of her own accord fell into the pit returns to the free air shut in, because both through the liberty of free will she fell into fault, and yet the grace of the Creator constrains her, compelled and unwilling, away from her own motions.

After the pit, therefore, it endures the cage, which, being snatched from eternal punishment, is bound away from the motions of a depraved liberty and under the dispensation of the heavenly Artificer. Rightly therefore he says: And for pride Thou wilt take me as a lioness; because both the free man brought death upon himself through food, and, being brought back to pardon, lives better shut in under discipline. As a lioness, therefore, he was taken for pride, because now the discipline of his corruption presses him down from the very place whence, not fearing the transgression of the commandment, he boldly leaped into the pit. 87. Thus also one exalted over virtue is allowed to fall, that he may be healed of pride.

— But if for a little while we turn the gaze of our mind away from the fault of our first parent, we find that we ourselves are daily caught like a lioness through the vice of self-exaltation. For often a man, having received virtues, is lifted up into the audacity of his own presumption; but by the wondrous dispensation of God's mercy there is set before his eyes some object into which he may fall. And while through fault he desires something, what else does he covet but prey in a pit? Panting of his own accord, he falls, but by his own powers he cannot rise. And when he considers that he is nothing of himself, he learns without doubt whose help he must seek. Yet him whom supernal compassion, thus captured, lifts as it were out of a pit, it leads back to pardon by his acknowledged weakness.

After the manner of a lioness, therefore, for pride he returns to the upper parts into a cage, who, when he is exalted over virtue, having fallen to desires, is bound in humility. For because he had first perished through his own presumption, by wondrous mercy it is brought about that, shut in by the now-acquired knowledge of his own weakness, he may live. And because the holy man sees this often happen to men, he takes upon himself the voice of our peril; so that when we recognize his weeping, we may learn the things in us to be wept over. But when self-exaltation lifts up our mind, at once the compunction of the highest love withdraws from us; whereas when supernal grace visits us, it straightway urges us, through tears, toward its own desires. Whence it is aptly added: