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Chapter 40OdoC.2.40

Caput XXXIX

The Dragon and the Sons of Pride

The enemy reigns over the proud, and pride destroys both worldly and religious people, as illustrated by the dragon drawing stars with its tail and the image of willows watered by a fleeting torrent.

Whoever the enemy delivers into his own dominion is shown by this: that he is said to reign over all the sons of pride.✦ Pride, for its part, strikes down many in worldly pursuits and many placed in the rank of religious life. Of these, for indeed it is written: "The dragon sent forth his tail and swept away a third of the stars" (Apoc.✦ XII, 4). That is, by the utmost persuasion to entangle many in earthly desires, who seem by their zeal for the heavenly life to cling to it. Indeed, concerning those same ones elsewhere: "The willows of the torrent shall surround him," it says (Job XL, 17).✦ Willows are unfruitful trees, but they are watered by a torrent. A torrent swells with winter rains, but in summer it dries up.

Willows by the Torrent: The Fruitless and the Proud

The unfruitful willows signify those who bear no virtue but only outward show, surrounded by the torrent of mortal glory, while mountains represent the swelling of pride and herbs their flowing pleasures.

The willows, then, represent all those who are strangers to the good fruits of the virtues. The torrent, however, represents mortal glory, which is inflated by fleeting honors as if by winter rains, but is wiped out at the end of this life. The willows of the torrent surround the evil spirit, because those whom the love of life — carnal in its thoughts — intoxicates cling to him all the more closely the more abundantly the pleasure of fleeting delight pours itself into them. These are the ones who, like willows, bear no fruit but are green only in their leaves; for they sometimes put forth words of honesty, but show no weight of life from good works. Of whom it is written: "Those who are on his side imitate him" (Wis.1 II, 25), namely always by being proud, never by repenting.2 Likewise concerning them is that passage: "To him the mountains bear herbs" (Job XL, 15).✦3 Through the mountains is expressed the swelling of the proud; through the herbs, their flowing pleasures.

Behemoth's Hunger for the Proud

Behemoth, always hungry for eternal punishment, finds sustenance in the proud who lay themselves low before every vice, feeding its malice through their defilement.

So the mountains bring herbs to this Behemoth, because it is always hungry for the punishment of eternal death in them, as they lay themselves low before it for every vice, as they pass over no evil either in thought or in deed — because it always recognizes its own desires in them, as if it always finds herbs on the mountains by which to stretch the belly of its malice, which each one feeds all the more greedily the more foully he is defiled.✦45

Read the original Latin

Qui autem sint quos suis ditionibus isdem hostis mancipat, per hoc ostenditur, quod rex esse super omnes filios superbiae perhibetur. Superbia vero et multos in saecularibus studiis, et multos in gradu religionis positos prosternit. De istis namque scriptum est: Misit caudam suam draco, et traxit tertiam partem stellarum (Apoc. XII, 4). Quod est extrema persuasione multos terrenis amoribus involvere, qui studio vitae coelestis videntur inhaerere. Sane de illis alias: Circumdabunt eum, inquit, salices torrentis (Job XL, 17). Salices infructuosae arbores sunt, sed torrente rigantur. Torrens hiemalibus pluviis intumescit, sed aestate siccatur.

Per salices ergo saeculares quique significantur a bonis virtutum fructibus alieni. Per torrentem vero mortalis gloria, quae caducis honoribus tanquam hiemalibus pluviis inflatur, sed vitae hujus termino annulatur. Malignum itaque spiritum salices torrentis circumdant, quoniam hi, quos in suis cogitationibus amor vitae carnalis inebriat, tanto illi arctius inhaerent, quanto largius delectatio transitoriae voluptatis eos infundit. Qui scilicet more salicum fructus non ferunt, sed in foliis viridescunt; quia aliquando verba honestatis proferunt, sed nullum vitae pondus ex bonis operibus ostendunt. De quibus scriptum est: Imitatur autem illum qui sunt ex parte ejus (Sap. II, 25), videlicet semper superbiendo, nunquam resipiscendo. Item de his et illud: Huic montes herbas ferunt (Job XL, 15). Per montes tumor superborum, per herbas fluxae voluptates eorum exprimuntur.

Ergo montes huic Beemoth herbas ferunt, quia semper in eis poenam aeternae mortis esuriens, dum ipsi se eidem ad omne vitium sternunt, dum nullum malum aut cogitando aut operando praetereunt, quia semper in eis sua desideria recognoscit, quasi semper in montibus herbas invenit, quibus suae malitiae ventrem tendat, quem tanto delectabilius quisque pascit quanto sordidius inquinatur.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Job.41.25 — On earth there is none like him, made without fear.
  2. ↩Rev.12.4 — And his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it.
  3. ↩Job.40.17 — It makes its tail stiff like a cedar; the sinews of its thighs are tightly knit.
  4. ↩Job.40.15 — Look now at Behemoth, which I made alongside you; it eats grass like an ox.
  5. ↩Job.40.15 — Look now at Behemoth, which I made alongside you; it eats grass like an ox.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩Citation from the Book of Wisdom (deuterocanonical); Moses resolution pending. The Latin reads 'Imitatur autem illum qui sunt ex parte ejus' — the Vulgate Wisdom 2.25 reads 'Imitatur autem illum qui sunt ex parte illius.' The subject of 'imitatur' is ambiguous: the Latin could mean 'he imitates him' or 'it is imitated by him.' Following the sense that those on the evil one's side imitate him.
  2. 2 ↩Continuation of Wisdom 2.25 citation; the gloss 'videlicet semper superbiendo, nunquam resipiscendo' interprets the manner of imitation.
  3. 3 ↩Citation of Job 40.15 (Vulgate numbering). Moses resolution pending. The context in Job refers to Behemoth; the allegorical application here connects mountains (the proud) bearing herbs (fleeting pleasures) for the evil spirit.
  4. 4 ↩The subject of 'esuriens' (hungry) and 'recognoscit' (recognizes) is ambiguous — likely the malign spirit (Behemoth) or the mountains themselves personified. The translation follows the reading that Behemoth finds in the proud ('mountains') a hunger for eternal punishment and recognizes its own desires in them.
  5. 5 ↩'Ventrem tendat' (stretch the belly) is rendered literally to preserve the visceral, bodily metaphor of malice feeding and expanding — a deliberate choice over paraphrase.

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