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255 (Jb 1,20)
When the house fell and the children were killed, Job rose up: for when Judea was lost to infidelity, and its preachers fell away in fear of death, the Redeemer of the human race showed the sort of judgment he left his persecutors to face; for him to rise is for him to show to what punishment he abandoned sinners; he rose when he extended the judgment of justice against the reprobate. So it is right that he is said to have torn his garments. What was the garment of the Lord if not the Synagogue that clung, at the prophets' foretelling, to the hope of his incarnation? Just as now he is clothed in those who love him, as Paul says, "That he might display a glorious church having no sport nor wrinkle." The church is said to have neither spot nor wrinkle: it is a garment of the mind, pure in action and smooth in hope. When Judea believed in his coming incarnation, it was to no less an extent his garment for the way it clung to him.
256 But because he came when he was expected, then in his coming he taught new doctrines, and in his teaching he worked miracles, and in his working of miracles he endured evil. He rent the garment he had worn when he took some of those in Judea away from infidelity and abandoned others to their infidelity. The torn garment is Judea split by contrary opinions. If the garment had not been torn, the evangelist would not have said that a contention arose in the people when the Lord preached: "As some said, he is good; but others: No, but he seduces the crowds." This torn garment of his, divided in opinion, lost therefore the unity of concord.
257 (Jb 1,20)
What are the hairs he shaves away if not the sacraments in all their subtlety? What does the head represent if not the height of priesthood? So it was said to Ezechiel the prophet: "You, son of man, take your sharpened sword, shaving your hair, and take your sword and lead it through your hair and beard." The deed of the prophet expressed the judgment of the Redeemer who appeared in the flesh (i.e., shaving his head), because he took the sacraments of his commandments away from the priesthood of the Jews; he shaved the beard because he abandoned the Israelite kingdom and cut off the outer appearance of its strength. What does "earth" stand for here if not man who is a sinner? To the first man who sinned it was said, "Earth thou art, and unto earth thou shalt return." By the name "earth" the sinful pagans are represented. When Judea believed itself just, it is clear what it thought of reprobate pagans, as Paul says, "We are Jews by nature and not sinners of the pagans." Our Mediator fell to the earth with shaven head when he let go of the Jews, took his sacraments away from their priesthood, and came to the attention of the nations. He shaved the hair from his head because he took the sacraments of the Law away from their first priesthood; and he fell to earth because he gave himself to the sinners he would save; and when he abandoned those who thought they were just, he took up those who knew and confessed they were sinners. Hence he says himself in the gospel, "I have come for judgment to this world, so that those who do not see shall see and so that those who do see should become blind." Thus the column of cloud that went before the people in the desert shone with the splendor of fire not by day but by night, because our Redeemer, by the example of his life, offered leadership to those who followed, but shone before the confident of their own righteousness with no light at all; yet for those who recognized the shadows of their sins, he poured out the fire of his love. Nor should it be thought inappropriate to refer this passage to our Redeemer because Job is said to have fallen to the ground; for it is written, "The Lord sent the word to Jacob and it fell upon Israel." Jacob means "usurper," but Israel means "seeing God." Jacob stands for the Jew, Israel for the pagan people. The one whose place Jacob thought to take through the death of the flesh is the one in whom gentility first saw God through the eyes of faith. The word was sent to Jacob, but came to Israel because the Jew rejected the word he saw coming, but the pagan people confessed it suddenly and found it. Of the holy spirit it is said, "The spirit of the Lord fell upon them."
58 It is said in scripture of the word or the spirit of God that it "fell" when it means that its coming was unexpected. What rushes or falls is what comes to the lowest spot suddenly. For the mediator to have fallen to earth is for him to have come to the nations unexpectedly with no prophetic signs beforehand. It is well put when it says that he fell to earth in adoration because when he took on the humility of the flesh, he poured prayers of humility into the hearts of those believing in him. His doing was in his teaching that it should be done, just as it is said of his spirit: "The spirit himself intervenes for us with unutterable groans." The one who is equal does not make petition but is said to ask because he makes askers of those whom he fills; our Redeemer showed this in himself as well by praying to the Father as his passion drew near. What wonder is it if while in the "form of a servant" he subjected himself to the father in prayer, when in that form he tolerated the power of sinners even to the extremity of death?
259 (Jb 1,21)
The synagogue stands as the Redeemer's mother according to the flesh: from the Jewish nation he came to us visibly in the flesh. But the synagogue kept its Redeemer covered up with the veil of a scripture taken literally by failing to open the eyes of the mind to the spiritual meaning of his coming. When it refused to see God covered by the flesh of a human body, it was refusing to contemplate him laid bare in his divinity. But he came forth naked from the womb of his mother because he emerged from the flesh of the synagogue and came openly to the pagans.
Joseph's flight, leaving his cloak behind, is a good symbol for this: when the adulterous woman wanted to use him ill, he fled outside and left his cloak behind, because the synagogue, believing the Lord to be merely a man, was, so to speak, trying to hold him in an adulterous embrace, but he left the veil of the letter on their eyes and offered himself visibly to the nations who could behold the power of his divinity. So Paul says, "Until today, when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts," because the adulterous woman kept the cloak for herself and lost the one who escaped naked from her evil clutches.
Because he came from the synagogue and appeared visibly to the faith of the pagans, he is said to have come forth naked from his mother's womb. But did he abandon her altogether? And where is the fulfillment of what the prophet said, "If the number of the sons of Israel is like the sands of the sea, shall the remnants be saved"? Or of what is written, "Until the fulness of the nations shall enter and then so shall all Israel be saved"? There will be a time, therefore, when he will be visible even to the synagogue. There will doubtless be a time at the end of the world when he shall make himself known to the remnants of his nation just as he is, as God. So it is well said here, "naked shall I return there." He returns naked to the womb of his mother when at the end of the world the one who, made man in this world, was despised is declared in the eyes of the synagogue to have been God before all ages.
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as it has pleased the Lord, so it has been done. Blessed be the name of the Lord. (Jb 1,21)
Insofar as our Redeemer is God, together with God he gives all things. Insofar as he is man, he receives from God as one among others. He could say therefore of Judea, since it believed in the coming mystery of his incarnation, "The Lord has given." But he could say of Judea when it spurned the longed-for presence of his incarnation, "The Lord has taken away." It was "given" to Judea when it believed in the future through the prophets; but as the just deserts of its blindness, it was "taken away" from Judea when it refused to venerate that which had been believed through the prophets.
261 Christ would teach those who believe in him
that they should know to bless the Lord in the midst of trials when he adds, "as it has pleased the Lord, so it has been done. Blessed be the name of the Lord." So also he is said in the Gospel, when the passion was drawing near, to have taken bread and given thanks. And so he gave thanks when he was about to bear the whips of others' iniquity. The one who offered no pretext for being smitten humbly blessed the Lord under a hail of blows: to show how each one should act when punished for his own sins if he could bear calmly the punishment due to others' wickedness; to show what each one subjected to punishment should do if he, placed under the whip, gave thanks to the Father as an equal.
262 (Jb 1,22)
As we have already indicated, Peter gives explicit conformation of what is said here, that he neither sinned nor uttered any folly: "Who committed no sin nor was there found deceit on his lips." Among men, deceit on the lips is thought clever, but how foolish it is before God, as Paul says: "The wisdom of this world is foolishness before God." Because there was no deceit on his lips, surely he uttered no folly. The priests and leaders thought he had spoken foolishly against God when they interrogated him in the time of his passion and he confessed himself the son of God. So they complained and said, "What do we need of witnesses? Behold, we have heard his blasphemies ourselves." But he uttered no folly against God because he spoke the truth: he proved this on the brink of death even to the infidels, what he would show later to all the redeemed by his resurrection.
263 We have run over briefly these ideas about the meaning of this text for the head of our body.
Now we will repeat our treatment, morally, for the edification of the body, so that what is reported to have been done outwardly in deed may be a model for how we should act inwardly in thought. When the sons of God are present before the Lord, Satan is with them, because the old adversary regularly intrudes cleverly into our best thoughts (the ones that are planted in our heart by the agency of the holy spirit), and so troubles and torments our good ideas. But the God who creates us never abandons us in temptation, for he renders our enemy, who conceals himself in ambush against us, visible by shining his light for us. So he quickly says,
264 (Jb 1,7)
To make inquiry of the clever enemy is to reveal his plots to us so that when we see him sneaking up on our heart we can be wary against him with alertness and strength.
265 (Jb 1,7)
Satan circles the earth when he looks into the hearts of the flesh and seeks out an opportunity to accuse us. He went around the earth because he went around human hearts, looking to take away the good and insert evil into our minds, to heap up the inserted evil and bring it to completion, to win perfect allies
in iniquity to share his punishment. Note that he did not fly over the earth but passed through it to and fro, for he does not desert the one he tempts any too swiftly. When he finds a malleable heart, he places his foot (by his pitiful persuasion), lingering to leave behind the footprints of depraved deeds and render whom he can reprobate by resemblance to his iniquity. But against him, Job is mentioned and praised:
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For there is none like him on the earth, innocent and upright, who fears God and draws back from all evil-doing.' (Jb 1,8)
When divine inspiration praises someone for the devil to hear, it really strengthens him against the devil. God's praise consists of first giving that which is good and then protecting what he has given. But the ancient enemy rages the worse against good people the more he sees them surrounded by the fortifications of divine aid. So he adds:
267
Haven't you built walls around him, and his house, and all around his possessions? Haven't you blessed the work of his hands? His wealth has grown and grown.' (Jb 1,9-10)
This is as if the devil said, 'Why do you praise the man you protect and strengthen? Despise me, but this man would be worthy of your praise if he turned against me and stood by his own strength.' So he soon demands in his malice what the protector of Job would grant out of kindness, for it is added:
268 (Jb 1,11)
It often happens, when we bring forth abundant fruits of our virtues and thrive on constant prosperity, little by little the mind rears up and begins to think that the good things it has come from itself. So the old adversary naturally tries to put his malicious hands on those things, but it is only in kindness that God permits this trial, so that the mind, under temptation's blows, smitten for the very good things in which it was recently exulting, should recognize the weakness of its helplessness and so be strengthened all the more in hope for divine aid. So it happens wonderfully by the arrangement of divine pity that what the wicked enemy uses to tempt the heart to destroy it becomes the thing from which the merciful creator brings forth instruction and life. So it is fittingly added,
269 (Jb 1,12)
This is as if to say, 'I will hand over the worldly goods of every one of the elect to you, so that you might know that I preserve the one clinging to me with all his mind.'
270
(Jb 1,12)
Because the devil is not permitted at all to prevail to the point where the heart fails, he is shut out from what is within and must wander abroad. Even if he troubles the mind in its virtues greatly, he is still outside, for God resists and does not allow him to wound the hearts of the just unto ruin. He allows him to rage against them just insofar as it is needed to strengthen them with the experience of temptation, lest they should attribute their good deeds to their own strength, lest they should lose themselves in the torpor of ease and dissipate the strength preserved in the face of fear. It is done so that they might guard their advance the more carefully, the more they see that the enemy stands opposite them on the battlefield of temptation at all times.
271 and drinking wine at the house of the first-born son, a messenger came to Job who said, 'Your cattle were plowing and the she-asses were grazing nearby; and the Sabaeans swept down and drove them away and put all the shepherd boys to the sword.' (Jb 1,13-15)
Wisdom is born in the hearts of the elect before the other virtues, and this is the firstborn offspring of the gifts of the spirit. This wisdom is our faith, as the prophet witnesses when he says, "Unless you believe, you shall not understand." We are wise and truly on the path of understanding if we give our faith and trust to everything our creator says. There is feasting therefore at the house of the first-born son when the other virtues are nourished by faith. If faith is not first nurtured in our heart, nothing else can be good (not even that which seems good). There is feasting then at the house of the firstborn son when our virtues are filled with the food that is holy scripture, in the dwelling-place of faith. It is written, "Without faith it is impossible to please God." Our virtues feed on the authentic banquets of life when they begin to be nourished by the sacraments of faith. There is feasting therefore at the home of the firstborn son, for unless the other virtues are filled with the food of wisdom and act prudently in all that they seek, they cannot be virtues at all.
272 But see how, while our good works are nourished by wisdom and faith,
our enemy drives away the cattle as they plow and the she-asses as they graze and puts the shepherd boys to the sword. How shall we interpret the cattle that plow except as our weightier thoughts? When they edify the heart with diligence and discipline, they bring forth abundant fruits. What then are the she-asses that graze except the simple emotions of the heart? When we restrain them carefully from the error of duplicity, we are feeding them in the pasture of freedom and purity. But often
the cunning enemy sees the weighty thoughts of the heart and corrupts them with the suggested delights of pleasure; when he sees the simple emotions of the heart, he shows it subtle and clever novelties, so it might seek praise for subtlety and lose the purity of simplicity. If he cannot lead the heart astray even to perform wickedness, still his temptation does hidden damage to the thoughts of good people. When he is seen to have troubled the goodness of the mind, he might seem to have taken it away completely.
The cattle that plow can also be taken as the thoughts of charity. We try to use those thoughts to our neighbors' advantage, plowing up the hard surface of the heart with our preaching. The she-asses, who never resist with madness and rage those who would burden them, can represent gentleness and patience. Often the old enemy, when he sees us seeking to be of use to others with our words, plunges the mind into idleness and torpor, so that we will be less likely to look after others even when we are neglecting ourselves. He carries off the cattle that plow when he breaks down the mind's thoughts that are bent on serving our brethren by burdening us with idle negligence. Even though the hearts of the elect watch over their secret thoughts with care and overbalance to the good whatever harm they sustain from the tempter, the spiteful enemy rejoices the more in a victory when he prevails over the thoughts of good people even for a moment.
273 But often when he sees a mind braced for endurance,
he finds out what it loves the most and there he plants his snares to trip us up. (The more something is loved, the more readily it can be used to weaken our patience. Indeed the hearts of the elect are quick to recover themselves and to reproach themselves severely even for slight movements off the path. By being moved they learn how they should have stayed firm and sometimes stand then the more staunchly for having been battered around. But the old enemy, when he has stirred up our patient thoughts even for a moment, rejoices to have driven off the she-asses from the fields of the heart.
In the things we arrange to do we consider with care what goes with what, all under the watchful eye of reason. But often the enemy comes upon us with a sudden rush of temptation, unexpectedly outrunning the precautions of the heart: so he puts all the shepherd boys to the sword as they guard the flock. One of them still manages to escape and report that the rest have perished, for whatever the mind suffers at the hands of the enemy, the discernment exercised by reason always returns and, mulling over fearlessly what has been suffered, reminds us that it alone has escaped. So when the others perish, one returns home when in the midst of turbulence and temptation the conscience recovers its discernment: the distracted mind recognizes what it has lost to sudden assaults, and, pained by sharp compunction, makes good its losses.
274
from heaven and laid waste sheep and shepherds. I alone have escaped to tell you.' (Jb 1,16)
What is meant by sheep but the innocence of thought, but the purity of good hearts? We said a little earlier that "heaven" can stand for the realm of air (so we speak of the "birds of heaven"). We know that the unclean spirits who have fallen from the ethereal heaven wander in the air, halfway between heaven and earth. They envy men whose hearts rise towards the heavens, the moreso because they have seen themselves cast forth from heaven for the defilement that comes from pride. Because, therefore, the flame of jealousy sent by the powers of the air rushes down against the purity of our thoughts, we say fire from heaven came down upon the sheep: for often they inflame the pure thoughts of our minds with the fire of lust. Just as they devour the sheep with fire, so they unsettle the chaste habits of the soul with the temptations of wanton indulgence. It is said to be God's fire because it comes about not by an act of God, but at least with his permission. And because the evil spirits sometimes overwhelm the mind's inner watchfulness in a sudden attack, so it is said that they slay the shepherd guards with the sword. But one of them still escapes safely, for our discernment stubbornly and carefully watches over all that the mind suffers. It alone escapes the danger of death. Even when the thoughts are troubled, discernment does not succumb, but reminds the soul of its losses and thus summons its master to lamentation.
275
three robber bands, attacked the camels, and drove them away, and put those herdsmen to the sword: and I alone have escaped to tell you.' (Jb 1,17)
The camels are pure in part, for they chew their cud, and impure in part, for they have uncloven hooves: we have already said that they stand for the good ordering of temporal affairs, in which we are more distracted by cares and thus more variously subjected to the enemy's temptations. Everyone who is responsible for looking after temporal matters is vulnerable to the weapons of the unseen enemy. Some things he may try to do cautiously and, while he cleverly foresees future dangers, carelessly fails to see at all the harm being done in the present. But then often when he keeps watch on present concerns, he is caught sleeping by onrushing events he should have foreseen; often he does a few things carelessly, neglecting others that should be carried out alertly; and often excess of zeal in actions gives rise to recklessness and does more harm than good to the things he touches.
Sometimes he tries to place restraints on his tongue but under press of business is prevented from silence. Sometimes he criticizes himself too severely and keeps silent when he should speak. Sometimes he lets himself go in saying what is necessary and ends by saying things that should not have been said. Often he is caught in such complications of thought that he can
scarcely keep track of all that he considers within; and doing nothing, he is exhausted bearing this great burden in his heart. Because the things he endures within are grievous, he remains quiet and idle on the outside, but is exhausted nevertheless.
Then often the mind catches sight of the future and turns its whole attention in that direction. A great uproar seizes it, sleep flees, night turns into day. While the bed holds the limbs outwardly at rest, within the debate goes on at full volume in the forum of the heart. And then it often happens that none of the things foreseen come to pass and all that anxious thought, carefully worked out with concentrated attention over a long time, suddenly ceases, leaving empty silence behind. The mind thus neglects what is necessary all the more when it is taken up more fully by empty cares.
Because therefore the unclean spirits beset our busy cares alternately with action and inaction, because they baffle them now with inarticulate speech and now with confusing loquacity, and because they are almost always weighing down those cares with great burdens of useless thought, we say that the Chaldaeans in three bands carry off the camels. To make up three bands against the camels is nothing less than to thwart all our attempts to look after temporal affairs with misdirected action, with needless speech, and with disordered thought. While the mind struggles to exercise itself effectively in looking after what is without, it is cut off from care for itself and is all the more unaware of the injuries it suffers because it is busy with other business too diligently pursued.
When the mind takes on worldly cares, it is only right for it to pay attention to what it owes itself, to what it owes its neighbors. It neither neglects its own cares through too much attention to other peoples' business, nor does it fail entirely to care for others through self-centered preoccupation. Even so, it very often happens that when the mind is looking after both concerns with care, while it takes great precautions for itself and for those with whose care it has been entrusted, still it is shaken by some sudden emergency and is so carried away headlong that all its precautions go for naught in the crisis. So it says that the Chaldaeans smote the herdsmen watching the camels with the sword. But one of them still returns, because in the midst of all this the discernment that springs from reason comes to mind and the troubled spirit recognizes what it loses by the sudden attack of temptation within.
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and drinking wine at the house of your first-born son, suddenly a violent wind blew up from the desert and smashed into the four corners of the house, which collapsed and crushed your children, and they were killed. I alone have escaped to tell you.' (Jb 1,18-19)
As we said above, the desert is the cast-off band of impure spirits, which desert the blessedness of their creator and thus lose, so to speak, the farmer's cultivating hand. A violent wind came from the desert and overwhelmed the house: because strong temptation was brought by those impure spirits and it uprooted the conscience from its former tranquility. This house rested on four corners because prudence, temperance, fortitude and justice support the solid edifice of our mind. This house stands on its four cornerposts because every good work builds on these four virtues. So also the four rivers of paradise water the land because the heart is filled with these four virtues and thus cooled from the heat of carnal desires.
But sometimes when laziness comes upon the mind, prudence grows cold; for when it wearies and flags, it fails to foresee the future. Sometimes when a certain pleasure comes upon the mind, our temperance wastes away: to the extent that we are led to delight in the things we have, the less we restrain ourselves from what is illicit. Sometimes when fear works its way into our heart, it confounds the strength of our fortitude; our ability to face adversity is reduced by our fear of losing something we love too well. Sometimes self-love plants itself in the mind and turns it silently aside from the rectitude of justice; by failing to hand itself over to its creator totally, the mind is speaking against legitimate justice.
And so it says that a violent wind smashed into the four corners of the house, when strong temptation shakes the four cardinal virtues by its hidden workings; the house, so to speak, collapses from the four corners when the conscience is troubled and the virtues are battered.
277 The sons make feasting inside the four corners of the house, because the other virtues (the heart's children) offer food for one another in the private places of the mind (which is supported to the height of rectitude principally by these four virtues). The gift of the spirit firsts forms the mind with prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice, then teaches the mind to resist particular temptations with the seven virtues of its gift: it imparts wisdom to counter foolishness; understanding to counter obtuseness; counsel to counter rash action; strength against fear; knowledge against ignorance; pity against hardness of heart; and fear against pride.
278 But sometimes, when the mind is secure in the fulness and richness of these gifts and when it has known continuous freedom from care with these gifts, it forgets whence they came to it and begins to think that it owns them as if by right (since they have never been absent). So it happens that sometimes this grace takes itself away for our benefit and shows the presumptuous mind just how weak it is when left on its own. We truly know where our good gifts come from when we realize that we have not the strength to keep them if it seems we are losing them. In the course of this instruction in humility it often happens that at the hour of onrushing temptation, so much foolishness assaults our wisdom that the mind in its confusion does not know how to face the threatening evils or how to prepare itself to oppose temptation. But the heart is prudently instructed by this very foolishness, for it partakes of wisdom all the more truly and humbly afterwards if it has given way to foolishness for a moment; and wisdom is then possessed the more surely for having been almost lost for a moment.
Sometimes the mind is elated with itself in understanding of lofty things and grows so obtuse in ordinary matters that it suddenly finds itself unable to understand even the simplest things, when it had been nimbly reaching the heights a moment before. But this failure to understand gives birth to the very understanding it seems to take away, for it humbles the heart for a moment and strengthens it all the more for the task of comprehending lofty things.
Sometimes we take pleasure in doing all things in accord with prudent counsel, but then we are snatched up by rash precipitation in a pressing moment of emergency. We thought we had been living at all times in an orderly way and are laid low by the sudden turmoil within. But we learn from that lesson of turmoil that we should not attribute our prudent counsels to our own strength; and then we return to gravity and maturity all the more for having lost it too for a moment.
Sometimes the mind strongly despises adversity, but again at once powerful fear staggers us at a time of sudden adversity. But shaken in this way, the mind learns to whom to attribute the strength by which it stood in earlier trials. It clings to its strength afterwards the more tenaciously for having seen it slip away in the face of sudden terror.
Sometimes we rejoice that we know great things, then suddenly find ourselves plunged into helpless ignorance and blindness. But when the eye of the mind is clouded for a moment by ignorance, it is then opened truly to knowledge, and knows now whence it takes its knowledge, tested in the hard school of its own blindness.
Sometimes we manage our affairs scrupulously and congratulate ourselves for having a truly pitying heart: then hardiness of heart comes upon us suddenly. But when we are thus hardened, we learn where our pity had come from and recover it in truth, loving it the more for having been lost.
Sometimes the mind rejoices at having subjected itself to fear of the Lord, then stiffens as pride offers its temptations. But soon again it fears very much for not having feared and turns itself hastily back towards humility, and receives the gift back again the more securely for having understood its worth in losing it.
279 When the house is demolished, the sons die: for the virtues that are born in the heart are overwhelmed in a moment when our conscience (which leads to proper knowledge of self) is put in disarray by temptation. These sons go on living within, through the spirit, even while they perish without, in the flesh, for though our virtues, upset in time of temptation, fall away from their original state of integrity, nevertheless they have planted roots in the mind and continue at least to exist as we persevere in our intention.
The three sisters perish along with the sons because sometimes under temptation's whip charity is shaken from the heart, hope is battered by fear, and faith is shaken by doubts. often we grow feeble in our love of the creator when we think we are being wearied by the lash beyond our limits. Often the mind fears more than it need to and weakens the confidence of its hope. Often the mind is strained by great questions and faith is shaken and weakens as if to fail. But the daughters go on living even while they perish within the ruined house, for even if our confusion reveals that faith and hope and charity have almost vanished in the conscience, the persistence of right intention keeps them alive in the eyes of God. So the servant boy who reports these things escapes alone because the mind in its discernment remains intact in the midst of temptation. The messenger brings it about that Job should get back his sons by weeping, just as our discernment brings us to our senses and brings the mind to recover in repentance the strength it had begun to lose.
It is thus providential that our mind should be smitten sometimes with the pangs of guilt, for man would believe himself to be a strong and mighty creature if he did not ever sense some failing of that strength in the private places of the mind. But when the mind is shaken by temptation and wearied beyond its capacity in the face of temptation's assault, the power of humility against the snares of the enemy is revealed and, just as the mind fears total collapse, it receives again the power to stand firm. The one who has been tempted learns not only whence its strength comes but how much vigilance is required to maintain that strength.
Often if temptation does not gain the upper hand, carelessness and confidence will lay us low the worse. We give ourselves over to rest when we are weary then, and we offer an unguarded mind to the one who would corrupt it; so if the tempter brings, by the permission of divine compassion, a temptation that is not sudden, violent, onrushing, but that taps gently and quietly, the mind must all the more watch out against his snares and gird itself up for the contest against the enemy. So it is well added:
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