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THESE are the seven nations whose lands the Lord promised to give to
the children of Israel when they came out of Egypt. And everything which,
as the Apostle says, happened to them "in a figure" we ought to take as
written for our correction. For so we read: "When the Lord thy God shall
have brought thee into the land, which thou art going in to possess, and
shall have destroyed many nations before thee, the Hittite, and the
Girgashites, and the Amorite, the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, and the
Hivite, and the Jebusite, seven nations much more numerous than thou art
and much stronger than thou: and the Lord thy God shall have delivered them
to thee, thou shalt utterly destroy them." And the reason that they are
said to be much more numerous, is that faults are many more in number than
virtues and so in the list of them the nations are reckoned as seven in
number, but when the attack upon them is spoken of they are set down
without their number being given, for thus we read "And shall have
destroyed many nations before thee." For the race of carnal passions which
springs from this sevenfold incentive and root of sin, is more numerous
than that of Israel. For thence spring up murders, strifes, heresies,
thefts, false witness, blasphemy, surfeiting, drunkenness, back-biting,
buffoonery, filthy conversation, lies, perjury, foolish talking,
scurrility, restlessness, greediness, bitterness, clamour, wrath, contempt,
murmuring, temptation, despair, and many other faults, which it would take
too long to describe. And if we are inclined to think these small matters,
let us hear what the Apostle thought about them, and what was his opinion
of them: "Neither murmur ye," says he, "as some of them murmured, and were
destroyed of the destroyer:" and of temptation: "Neither let us tempt
Christ as some of them tempted and perished by the serpents." Of
backbiting: "Love not backbiting lest thou be rooted out." And of
despair: "Who despairing have given themselves up to lasciviousness unto
the working of all error, in uncleanness." And that clamour is
condemned as well as anger and indignation and blasphemy, the words of the
same Apostle teach us as clearly as possible when he thus charges us: "Let
all bitterness, and anger, and indignation, and clamour, and blasphemy be
put away from you with all malice," and many more things like these.
And though these are far more numerous than the virtues are, yet if those
eight principal sins, from which we know that these naturally proceed, are
first overcome, all these at once sink down, and are destroyed together
with them with a lasting destruction. For from gluttony proceed surfeiting
and drunkenness. From fornication filthy conversation, scurrility,
buffoonery and foolish talking. From covetousness, lying, deceit, theft,
perjury, the desire of filthy lucre, false witness, violence, inhumanity,
and greed. From anger, murders, clamour and indignation. From dejection,
rancor, cowardice, bitterness, despair. From accidie, laziness, sleepiness,
rudeness, restlessness, wandering about, instability both of mind and body,
chattering, inquisitiveness. From vainglory, contention, heresies, boasting
and confidence in novelties. From pride, contempt, envy, disobedience,
blasphemy, murmuring, backbiting. And that all these plagues are stronger
than we, we can tell very plainly from the way in which they attack us. For
the delight in carnal passions wars more powerfully in our members than
does the desire for virtue, which is only gained with the greatest
contrition of heart and body. But if you will only gaze with the eyes of
the spirit on those countless hosts of our foes, which the Apostle
enumerates where he says: "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but
against principalities, against powers, against the world-rulers of this
darkness, against spiritual wickedness in heavenly places," and this
which we find of the righteous man in the nineteenth Psalm: "A thousand
shall fall beside thee and ten thousand at thy right hand," then you
will clearly see that they are far more numerous and more powerful than are
we, carnal and earthly creatures as we are, while to them is given a
substance which is spiritual and incorporeal.
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