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| Chapter XVI. Of the meaning of the seven nations of whose lands Israel took possession, and the reason why they are sometimes spoken of as “seven,” and sometimes as “many.”
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Chapter XVI.
Of the meaning of the seven nations of whose lands
Israel took possession, and the reason why they are sometimes spoken of
as “seven,” and sometimes as “many.”
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”1344
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.”1345
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.”1346
Of
backbiting: “Love not backbiting lest thou be rooted
out.”1347
And of
despair: “Who despairing have given themselves up to
lasciviousness unto the working of all error, in
uncleanness.”1348
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,”1349
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,”1350
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,”1351
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.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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