This is a sign of a soul lacking good sense, which finds no obstacle in all that lies between it and its sin. For he who is not far gone in mortal error would pray that all the promptings of his mind’s purposes should fail him, so that when he attempts to commit theft or adultery, or murder or sacrilege, or any similar deed, he should not find an easy path, but rather a host of obstacles to hinder its execution. For if he is prevented, he is rid of that supreme malady, injustice, but if he carries out his purpose in security that malady will be upon him. Why then do you continue to envy and admire the fortunes of tyrants, which enable them to achieve with ease all that the madness and brutal savagery of their minds conceive, and hold them blessed, when rather our hearts should bewail them, since poverty and bodily weakness are a positive benefit to the bad, just as abundance of means and strength are most useful to the good? One of the foolish who saw to what a pitch of misery free licence to sin leads said boldly, “That I should be let free is the greater indictment” (Gen. 4:13). For it is a terrible thing that the soul, so wild as it is by nature, should be suffered to go unbridled, when even under the rein and with the whip in full play it can hardly be controlled and made docile. And therefore the merciful God has delivered an oracle full of loving-kindness which has a message of good hope to the lovers of discipline. It is to this purport. “I will not let thee go nor will I abandon thee” (Josh. 1:5). For when the bonds of the soul which held it fast are loosened, there follows the greatest of disasters, even to be abandoned by God who has encircled all things with the adamantine chains of His potencies and willed that thus bound tight and fast they should never be unloosed. Further in another place he says, “All that are bound with a bond are clean” (Num. 19:15), for unbinding is the cause of destruction which is unclean. Never then, when you see any of the wicked accomplishing with ease whatsoever he attempts, admire him for his success, but contrariwise pity him for his ill-luck, for his is a life of continual barrenness in virtue and fruitfulness in vice.
On the Confusion of Tongues 32
Tap any verse to see what it echoes — and start a chain or echo from it.