Verse 22: 'He does not believe that he can return from darkness to light, looking around on every side for the sword.' 45. The impious man, despairing of salvation, grows ever more in wickedness. — Because, while he believes himself struck on every side by ambushes, despairing of salvation, he grows ever more in wickedness. Sometimes indeed this perverse man attends even to the supernal judgments, and fears that these will come upon him. But when he seeks the wages of the present life, these same judgments, which he had begun to fear, being overcome by the madness of avarice, he despises. And indeed he reckons that he can die in sin, yet nevertheless he does not cease from sin. Whence it is also subjoined: