The Snare of the Wicked Mind

Folly, impiety, and coarseness are these things. For even the external lover of sophistry has spoken of these disturbances. And it is necessary to know a turning about, that these things must be turned around, not held permanently. Even if they sometimes stand in the soul, it is not necessary to have them, but to turn them around and turn away from them.

And I find her more bitter than death along with the woman, who is a beast. I find her, the coarseness that turns around, 'more bitter than death'—because when I take experience of her, I die; I consider her more bitter than death. But if someone considers her death and the destruction of the soul, he will reject her, he will cease from her. Along with the woman, who is a beast. It is also possible to say this most skillful opinion, that she is a woman whom he rejects, whom he saw bringing nothing other than death.

For the opinions and the habit of the women say much regarding the praiseworthy and the scurrilous, as if saying: 'Does Wisdom not bring prudence to a man?' and 'Your wife is like a fruitful vine, your sons like young olive shoots.' From this woman, male offspring are produced, nourished by fire and light. For the blessing of these kinds is that fire and light nourish them.

But again it is said scurrilously: 'Do not pay attention to a bad woman,' it says, 'the lips of a prostitute withdraw, which for a little while sweetens the pharynx. Later, however, you will find her more bitter than bile.' Then after a little while it brings this: 'the feet of folly'; he said the woman is folly. Therefore also he placed her before wisdom

He says that this woman, whom he said is a turning about, whom he had as coarseness, is a beast, not a hunted thing. It is possible also to say this, that someone measures the evil, not as a certain day, but as a wild beast springing upon himself. And it is possible, for the sake of the spoken moral instruction, to take the bad woman to be signified according to the bad history. You know that sins happen to be appropriate to certain things. Mostly, to carry it is a man's thing to wander about sophistically, but for a woman it is to be brought forward in incontinence. Therefore he says this woman, whom he calls a prostitute, whom he calls 'sitting on a couch' and 'calling to those passing by,' is a beast.

It is a snare, even if you take it as a disposition: the cunning and malicious disposition, and the sophistical or heretical one; she is a bad woman. And her heart is a fishhook, and bonds are in her hands; the good will be set apart from her before God, and the sinner will be caught in her. She wants to fish for those approaching. And contrary to this is the fishhook which Jesus cast into the sea. For the net of the divine discipline and of the evangelical teaching is 'a snare cast into the sea and draws from every kind' (Matt 13:47). And since the snare is not perceptible, neither are the things being fished for perceptible. If, therefore, it says, 'from every kind,' it says this: 'from every kind of human character that has fallen into the watery life.'

And concerning the devil it is said in one of the twelve prophets—and this is Amos—'Will he be silent in swallowing up the ungodly the righteous? And will you make men like the fish of the sea and like the creeping things that have no leader?' (Amos 4:2). For he says: 'He drew to a conclusion in a hook and gathered in his net. Because of this, he sacrifices to his net and offers sacrifice to his bob. His bob always wavers, and will he show no mercy in killing nations?' Thus the enemy hunts differently, just as 'the Word of salvation' does. For Jesus 'cast it into the sea' as a snare, and 'Peter is about to cast nets.' And some teachings are such that, looking at each one, they say specifically what kind of person it is. For when it gathers diverse nations by a snare, it is: 'it will show no mercy in killing nations.'

And since the predecessors of false doctrines make them as if they were a divine art or offer sacrifice to them as to a god. This woman, therefore, having been called to have snares, has in her own heart because of her many-sided way of hereticalizing and seizing men, the snare is of the devil. Here we wish to understand that of Job, so that from him and from this we may take the theory. He says that 'no swimming thing coming together will let even one scale of its tail, nor shall the ships of fishermen touch its head' (Job 41:1). Then he says: 'Who will uncover its face? And for the folding of its skin, who would enter?' (Job 41:11). No one is able to uncover its face. Multi-