The Nature and Deception of Vice

One must be careful here, lest the opponents ever recognize our thoughts being nourished through these bodily movements, since we have believed that God alone is the knower of hearts. Everyone who eats the flesh of Christ and drinks his blood acquires righteous blood, the loss of which is said to cause the rational soul to die; for he says that the soul that sins, it itself shall die (Ezekiel 36:26). And if there is righteous blood, it is clear that there is also unjust blood; which is what those who devour the given food among the Ethiopian peoples gather within themselves, being nourished by the bread of falsehood. And some, sacrificing to foreign gods, consume their own righteous blood, while others, offering themselves as a sacrifice to the only God, destroy unjust blood. But the generation of righteous blood will certainly follow the corruption of unjust blood, and the generation of unjust blood will follow the corruption of righteous blood. But this is the way it has become by nature, not from the beginning; for righteousness did not come about through the corruption of evil, just as health does not come about through the corruption of disease, since children are born after health from the beginning.

They are brothers who have the gift of adoption and have Christ as father under the same, whom the witness of injustice attempts to separate, casting disturbances and judgments upon them. The 'burning up,' I think, will be added because of the passionate thoughts, kindling the spirit toward anger and hatred, and desire toward shameful works. These very thoughts the holy Paul also named the fiery arrows of the evil one, piercing the soul and working death (Ephesians 6:16). He urges the mother to be approached, who is the wisdom that gave birth to us according to God. Yet it was necessary for him to speak of the father; for he is more suitable for being in union with the son. But since it is not possible for him to know God before the contemplation of things having happened, for this reason he urges the mother to be approached and not the father, so that through the mother the son may see the father; for if she does not give birth to him, he does not see the light, which is the knowledge of God. Because the commandment of the law is a lamp and a light (Psalm 119:105), and perhaps the old covenant is a lamp; for it was the lamp that was burning and shining, but the new covenant is light; for he says, 'I am the light' (John 8:12).

of the world. For such is the pleasure of vice, as much as a single loaf of bread. This one unbinds the fire in the belly, he who permits the unclean thought to linger in the heart to corrupt the righteous thoughts. And this one walks upon coals, he who through the energy of sin destroys his own soul.

He calls vice an adulterous woman; for the devil is her husband, begetting with her lawless children. And the Savior in the gospels to the Jews says, 'You are of your father the devil' (John 8:44). But if one is caught by true knowledge, he will cast away all false knowledge, he who formerly through deficiency of knowledge was stealing from the foolishness of our Savior's wisdom. Everyone who has shared in vice is an adulterer of the devil, he who first rejoiced in vice and from the beginning became a murderer.

Here he shows that we have the devil as an accuser of the things done to us on the day of judgment; and this is also what the holy Paul says: 'If the adversary falls into temptation, having nothing trivial to say about us' (2 Cor 4:4). If through the transgression of the law someone dishonors God, by doing so making it manifest that he honors God. Wisdom is our sister, because he who made the incorporeal nature is a father and has made this; but here he calls wisdom not the Son of God, but the contemplation of bodies and incorporeal things and the judgment and providence in them; the vision of which is also prudence and knowledge, and instruction and understanding.

Words that are thrown into one's mind for the sake of pleasure are passionate thoughts. He now calls the flesh of man a door; for through this the evil one works his snares for men, those who wish to walk the broad way and wide, leading toward destruction (Matt 7:13). But here one must pay attention to what Solomon says concerning vice, that it is not this vice that leads man in the beginning toward evil, nor does it compel him to go through the passages of her house, or to approach a corner, or to speak in the evening darkness; but if he sees someone giving himself over to pleasures, immediately he encounters it, having the appearance of a prostitute, which causes the hearts of the young to be deceived. He names the nocturnal silence and the dark state of the soul as unclean, through which sin is unfolded through the body.