Chapter XVI.—Evil Arises Not from
a Substance, But from the Perversion of the Will.
22. And I discerned and found it no marvel,
that bread which is distasteful to an unhealthy palate is pleasant
to a healthy one; and that the light, which is painful to sore
eyes, is delightful to sound ones. And Thy righteousness
displeaseth the wicked; much more the viper and little worm, which
Thou hast created good, fitting in with inferior parts of Thy
creation; with which the wicked themselves also fit in, the more in
proportion as they are unlike Thee, but with the superior
creatures, in proportion as they become like to Thee.
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And I
inquired what iniquity was, and ascertained it not to be a
substance, but a perversion of the will, bent aside from Thee, O
God, the Supreme Substance, towards these lower things, and casting
out its bowels,
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and swelling
outwardly.
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See v. sec. 2, note 1, above.
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Ecclus x. 9
. Commenting on this passage of
the Apocrypha (
De Mus
. vi. 40), he says, that while the
soul’s happiness and life is in God, “what is to go into outer
things, but to cast out its
inward parts
, that is, to place
itself far from God—not by distance of place, but by the
affection of the mind?”