The Enemy and the Disturbance of the Soul

Presenting a meditation to you decorously and priestly, listen to the words which I send from a pure conscience.

The same enemy can be to the sinner, differing only in the lack of distinction. When the sinner is distressed by those through whom he acts wickedly, and when the enemy speaks the truth, 'I was grieved in my iniquity and was troubled' (Psalm 55:2). Here iniquity signifies prayer, as also in the first of the Kingdoms, Anna says, 'Out of the multitude of my iniquity I have stretched out to you until now'; for concerning prayer itself she says this. The saint says: seeing the enemy speaking proudly and seeing the sinner distressed, he was grieved toward God through a prayer of iniquity; seeing those of the same kind and of the same race fallen into the depth of wickedness, he was also troubled by the instability of nature, lest even I should undergo this same turn. Perhaps he is also most caretaking-ly grieved and troubled seeing the wicked going astray, just as a father grieves for a son who remains behind. For some say that this psalm is reported to have been spoken from the face of Christ according to the human nature, and it is fitting to be grieved concerning those being harmed.

Every serious person understands that to sin in thoughts is neither tolerable nor so, and in deed and word it is both dangerous and heavy. Therefore, if it ever happens in thoughts to cause a stumbling block and harm, guarding these within oneself and not uttering a word, according to the sin committed in secret, and not acting effectively, knowing that the thought is both healing and yet incurable; therefore he says, 'My heart was troubled within me' (Psalm 55:4). For I did not interpret the trouble as having done something through it, but also, as the fear of death was falling upon me following the sin, I seized it within myself. For it happens that fear appears from the outside and becomes a stumbling block to others for the one who has been revealed. Fear and trembling came (Psalm 55:5).

Human nature has inherent the passive, which some also call the irascible and the desiring.

And even if one progresses in virtue, since the passive is not destroyed, it happens to be in what is called pre-passion.

Indeed, then, also the person set before us, pushed by the voices of the enemy and the affliction of the sinner, had the inherent passive stirred up, so as to fear and fall under trembling and be covered by the darkness of perplexity;

for the word 'darkness' here signifies dizziness.

And since many afflicting things surround him, he prays that there be given to him the upliftings and raisings of the Spirit, more allegorically called the wings of a dove.

These wings make him fly to a height, so that the one who has flown up, resting there, may henceforth live free from care, keeping the delicate and blessed sabbaths of God.

Ps 54:8: The word 'putting to flight' signifies pursuing and turning to flight those being driven.

For the one saying the psalm says: 'Behold, I went far away'—that is, putting the enemy and the sinner to flight for a long time, so that, with those driven away, I may lodge in the desert, that is, rest in a peaceful condition.

But if 'putting to flight' here properly signifies fleeing, the righteous one will say, fleeing and going far from those of the circumcision on account of the arrogance present in them: 'And I lodged in the desert'—the church of the law and the prophets.

And these things fit especially Christ according to the economy.

For doing these things symbolically, he was recorded in the Gospels: 'For having heard, he says, that John was handed over, he withdrew from there into a desert place' (Matt 14:13).

Concerning this desert are also the 'Rejoice, thirsty desert' (Isa 35:1) and the 'Voice of one crying in the desert' (Isa 40:3).

Ps 54:10a: Agreement for evil is terrible, and on the contrary the dissolution of those who agreed for evil is a great good.

And those who agreed, then, upon the [...].