The Devil's Methods and the Soul's Flight

The veins of the body are not ruptured before the shedding of blood kills the man; for it drinks blood, and from this it is nourished and grows. In this way he now resembles the parasite. He is the one who is unable to rule by the force of men; for he has made use of three main impulses against them: pleasure, seduction, and deception, and because of this, having undermined them little by little, he overthrows them. First, indeed, he leads them into the paths of false doctrine toward destruction, which is indeed called 'sweetness,' showing the magnitude of sin at its end; then, surrounding them with the pleasure of lawlessness, which is indeed called the lust for women. Upon these is added love of money, that is, greed, which he said cannot even fill the earth with water; for such is the sandy, insatiable thing. These, then, are the passions which the evil one has discovered for the destruction of men, whom he loves and cherishes as if they were his own daughters.

The fourth method he calls the friction and habit of these; for not even one who has falsely believed, or committed fornication, or desired more, immediately fell into these passions, but having been defeated in the remainder by habit and sensation; for such people you would find buried in false doctrines, never receiving a child, but always promoting the passions, as well as inciting others to these things. Just as indeed neither water nor fire ceases at the supply of what is being poured out, nor does it say, 'It is enough,' but rather it becomes an overflowing; the water, by the pouring in of water, does not stop, but increases; which also you, he says, O child, knowing, should abstain from, so that you may not be lost in a short time, like the finest thief, plundering life through pleasure.

The tracks of a soaring eagle are the soul of the wise, which, being wise, is unable to know from itself the flights of the intellectual eagle; about which it is written: 'The great eagle and he who has long wings and is full of claws' (Job 39:26), not having a trace of the presence of the devil, although I did not know from where he flew before me; for the evil one departing from me, I did not know, because I did not have desire toward him. Such is the path of the harlot, the corrupted teaching.

The people from the Gentiles, being formerly a slave to sin and to the devil; thus: 'I greatly vex you with my fury' (Gal 5:20); and, 'O foolish one, filled with the foods of life' (Prov 9:2); and, 'Harlot woman,' which is a prostitute; for the Church from the Gentiles was a prostitute, walking after foreign gods; and a maidservant who casts out her own mistress, the Church of the Gentiles being the Synagogue as mistress; for of this, the law and the prophets are required. The literal investigation is a slave to the intellectual contemplation, which the Jews preferred as a mistress; but the Gentiles, receiving the literal as the spiritual, cast off the physical observance of the law as a mistress among them. He says the Gentiles, who have no strength, and treasure for themselves eternal life through good works. And the pig-rollers; a kind of fish, that is, the so-called hares, the oysters, the former...