XXXVII. De libro Exodi.

XXXVII. De libro Exodi.

At midnight, the Lord struck down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on his throne, to the firstborn of the captive woman in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock.^✦ Its meaning is such. While iniquity was overflowing, it was such that no one could escape it. —"It must be judged." —"Exodus." The Lord considered it rare and crushed every beginning and head in His zeal, because it was raging in the darkness of infidelity, namely from the very start of the devil's pride, where he had prepared for himself a throne in the realm of the damned. He did this from the beginning of Adam's transgression, where he himself was captured and imprisoned, having subjected himself to that same devil. Thus, the Lord's judgment was severe, and He brought low everything that had risen against Him. For the true God, the just judge, has condemned the pride of the Devil to the depths of destruction, and has struck down the transgression of Adam with fierce vengeance, breaking every kind of vice in the process, because all vices cling to these. He also crushed every kind of vice from perverse thoughts, as he examines the thoughts of men, because while he cuts them off at the head, he also exterminates them completely. For the Lord, as if struck by the wickedness of death, has brought faithful people back to life through His Son in the regeneration of the Spirit and water, transforming every evil that had killed the old Law into a better part, from the prophets and wise men down to those who were imprisoned by their sins. He indeed struck down the beginnings of vices when he extinguished luxury and disobedience in the new Law, so that many virtues might grow there, where those terrible roots would have been uprooted. For in the mouth of the ancient serpent, lust had been gathered, where he deceived man through food. But from the lineage of Jesse, a girl arose who divided the luxury in the belly of that same serpent, for she gave birth without the taste of luxury in her innocent girlhood, which always rejoices and cannot know sorrow. The Son of God taught about abstinence when He fasted for forty days and nights without food. But he also overcame many evils in idols, as he crushed them; and he revealed hidden miracles through himself, as he defeated the serpent's bite by his blood and the blood of his martyrs.