約伯倫理 第 836 章

Verse 21. — His sweetness is the worm. 83. Carnal men are delighted by worldly cares, by which they are gnawed as by worms. — Whosoever desires to prosper in this world, to surpass others, to swell with riches and honours—for such a one worldly care is indeed a delight, and rest is a labour. For he is greatly wearied if there be lacking the worldly care with which he may be wearied. And because it is the nature of worms to be incessantly moved at every single moment, not without reason is the disquiet of thoughts marked by the name of worms. And so the sweetness of a perverse mind is the worm, because it is delightfully fed from that whence it is incessantly agitated by disquiet. The worm can also more openly designate the flesh by its name. Whence it is said above:

Man is rottenness, and the son of man a worm (Job xxv, 6). And so of any lustful man whatever, given over to the pleasures of the flesh, how great is his blindness is demonstrated when it is said: His sweetness is the worm. For what is the flesh but rottenness and a worm? And whoever pants after carnal desires, what else does he love but a worm? For what the substance of the flesh is, the sepulchres bear witness. Who of his parents, who of his faithful friends, can touch the flesh of his beloved, however dear, teeming with worms? And so, when the flesh is coveted, let it be weighed what it is when lifeless, and it will be understood what is loved.

For nothing so avails to subdue the appetite of carnal desires as that each one should weigh, of that which he loves alive, what it will be dead. For having considered the corruption of the flesh, it is more quickly known that, when the flesh is unlawfully coveted, corruption is desired. Well, therefore, is it said of the lustful mind: His sweetness is the worm; because he who burns in the desire of carnal corruption pants after the stench of rottenness. These things, as I remember I promised at the beginning of this third part (Book xi, in the exordium), I have run through in brief: that those things which follow in this work, because they are involved in great obscurity, may, with God helping, be more amply discussed.