The Deceiver and the Nature of Good

It is timely, but he will ruin himself, unable to stand with his own sin. Verse 14. Natural law is the source from which the cause of life flows; for law is not laid upon the righteous; but punishment is upon death for the one caught by evils; the fountain of life is the works of the commandments. To the righteous Gentiles, the wealth of the circumcised will be brought. Verse 16. The mind, when it perceives sin, causes pain to the soul; and the dwellings of the impious are habits and dispositions; and moral choices are tents; and there is a way, which seems to be right, that prioritizes what things seem to be. The practical matter is considered with endurance. They will divide a part, or they will share; for the bold one would not be a coward. Verses 20, 23. This seems to me as if he has not placed it in the order of exhortation, but reports what happens; then corrects what follows; namely, 'He who dishonors a poor man sins'; for the things themselves are obvious evils; no one is corrected, no one would recognize such things; and who would praise the others? He who cares for virtue will practice and know in abundance. For he who is always observing the practical matters will have something more; but the pleasant and unfeeling one, that is, the one turning away from labors, will be in want of virtues. Verse 19. The word 'nosia' sometimes signifies a place, sometimes the diseased animals. Either, therefore, the place of wisdom is the theorems in which it dwells, which is superior to false knowledge; or the dwellings of wisdom. For just as gold is superior to silver, so wisdom is to prudence; for the one is in knowing, and the other is in interpreting the things known. Or the 'nosia' of wisdom are the Churches, or the dwellings of the saints; and wisdom is Christ. Verse 17. For those who have the indivisible nature of actions have the length of a life that is harmonious, turning away from evils, that is, death. Verse 20.

There he calls a lawless man, a deceiver, who attempts to know which of the men are like him and desire to transgress; and he leads them into ways, that is, into deeds that are not good. He himself is the one fixing his eyes upon each of the men, perceiving accurately toward what kind of passion someone is leaning; and having known them from their movements, he sets his snares; and having seized them, he leads them into all evils. And he said to define it with his lips, because through his evil suggestions and works, he strives to complete all the inclinations of the man through the men; and this is the furnace of wickedness, the flame consuming the one who has received him with his baits into all wickedness.

St. 34. An eye seeing beautiful things, that is, distinguished things; but which are the beautiful things, must be sought; and not seeing gold, it is grieved; or a bright body, again it is struck down; but listen to what the beautiful things are: the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all creation; so that you see such things, as for example they gladden the soul; since what is the profit to have the eye delighted, but nothing more happening, but the soul to be corrupted?

St. 35. Having said many things of his wickedness above, we will add the remaining things to those already said. After all his excesses, he says also these things to those being persuaded by him: This thing is by necessity (the discerning one having become deaf to the evil), to be used. Natural pleasure is to be used; from God the things are, to enjoy them. But when he has persuaded his obedient one in all things, then he makes him boast in his mind, as if doing great righteousness, and that in old age he posits these things.

St. 36. The faithful not hurrying concerning the sensible things, as if having all; but the one hurrying concerning these things,