Caput XIII
The Two Hidden Vices and the Enemy's Lair
Malice belongs to the violent, but pride and lust — the two subtler vices — flourish even among the humble and poor, corrupting spirit and flesh, and the wicked spirit hides in the lukewarm heart like a creature in damp reeds.
Malice, then, belongs to the violent. Pride and lust, though, belong both to those same people and even to others who for the most part seem gentle. For these two vices are accustomed to flourishing even in beggars themselves and the very poorest. Pride lifts up the spirit; lust corrupts the flesh. Hence that same wicked spirit is said to sleep under cover and in the secret shelter of the reed, and in damp places. Because those he deceives, he first makes grow lukewarm in the love of Christ.✦ Then through elation — signified by the reed, which shines on the outside but is hollow within — he brings them under his power. Next, through the genital members — understood as moist places — he throws them down into baseness.
Crushing the Serpent's Head at First Suggestion
The faithful must reject temptation at its very first suggestion — the serpent's head — for that head is easily crushed by virtue, but once admitted it knots itself into the heart by violent habit, gripping its tail like an unyielding cedar.
Truly, anyone who wants to overcome either these two temptations or any other of the enemy's fabrications should despise that person at the very first suggestion. That suggestion is its head. And that head is easily crushed by any one of the faithful with the foot of virtue, if the first suggestion is rejected. So God says to that same enemy about any zealous soul: 'She will crush your head' (Gen.✦ 3:15). Its tail, however, is the completion of the work, about which it is written: 'It grips its tail like a cedar' (Job 40:12).✦ When the cedar is cut down, it hardens into stone. It grips its tail like a cedar, because if its head—the flattering suggestion—is once received into the heart, from then on it dominates that heart as if by right, and is knotted into it by violent habit, almost inextricably.
The Fire Within and the Remedy of Tears
Those who have yielded to temptation find its fire burns fiercer with consent, yet since flesh cannot escape all enticement, the scorched soul must turn without ceasing to prayer and humble confession, for tears extinguish the flame and confession lays bare the enemy's deceptions.
That's why some people are busy trying to flee their own sins, yet even as they struggle to escape them, they can't. Because the fire of that enticement, once it's been taken into the heart, burns all the more fiercely the more yielding each person has made himself to it by consenting to sin.1 But since there's no way to grant that a mind placed in this flesh shouldn't be touched by the heat of that enticement, it remains that one who's been scorched by wicked blasts must turn, without ceasing, to the help of prayer or confession.2 Indeed, the flood of tears extinguishes the flame of that suggestion more quickly, and humble confession strikes down its deceptions effectively, as though they'd been exposed.3
Read the original Latin
Igitur malitia ad violentos pertinet. Superbia vero et luxuria, tam ad ipsos, quam etiam ad alios, qui mansueti plerumque videntur. Nam in ipsis mendicis et pauperrimis ista duo vitia vigere solent. Elatio namque spiritum erigit, luxuria carnem corrumpit. Unde et isdem nequam spiritus sub umbra et in secreto calami, et in locis humentibus dormire perhibetur. Quoniam eos quos decipit, primo a charitate Christi tepere facit. Tum vero per elationem quae per calamum foris quidem nitentem, sed intus vacuum designatur, sibi eos subjugat. Deinde per genitalia membra, quae loca humentia intelliguntur, ad turpitudinem prosternit.
Sane qui vel haec duo, vel caetera quaelibet ejus figmenta superare cupit, hunc in prima suggestione contemnat. Quae suggestio caput ejus est. Quod videlicet caput ab uno quolibet fidelium virtutis pede facile conteritur, si prima suggestio respuatur. Unde ad eumdem hostem de qualibet studiosa anima Deus dicit: Ipsa conteret caput tuum (Gen. III, 15). Cauda vero illius est operis completio, de qua scriptum est: Stringit caudam suam sicut cedrum (Job XL, 12). Succisa cedrus in lapidem durescit. Caudam vero suam quasi cedrum stringit, quia si caput ejus, quod est blanda suggestio, semel in corde recipitur, deinceps eidem cordi quasi ex jure dominatur, et violenta consuetudine pene insolubiliter innodatur.
Hinc est quod nonnulli peccata sua fugere satagunt, sed evadere haec etiam decertantes nequeunt. Quia tanto ignis suasionis illius semel receptus amplius incendit, quanto se ei ad consentiendum molliorem quisque in vitio praebuerit. Sed quia nulla ratione conceditur, ut mens in hac carne posita suasionis ejus ardore non tangatur, restat ut malignis flatibus adusta, ad orationis aut confessionis opem sine cessatione se convertat. Flammam quippe suggestionis illius et unda lacrymarum citius exstinguit, et humilis confessio fraudes ejus efficaciter tanquam proditas allidit.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Rev.3.16 — So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.
- ↩Gen.3.15 — I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.
- ↩Job.40.12 — Look at every proud one—bring him low; and trample the wicked where they stand.
Notes
- 1 ↩The tanto…quanto correlative construction expresses a direct proportionality: the degree of interior softness (yielding to consent) determines the intensity of the fire's burning.
- 2 ↩Nulla ratione conceditur is rendered as 'there is no way to grant' — the impersonal passive conveys that the condition of embodied human nature makes immunity from temptation's heat impossible.
- 3 ↩Tanquam proditas ('as though betrayed/exposed') personifies the deceptions of the tempter as if confession has turned them inside out, revealing them for what they are.
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