404 Saints hear not the demands of the devil or the belly. Job 39, he suggests. But when he scorns to do perversely, it is — '- — rightly said, He heareth not the cry of the exactor. 58. But some persons in this place wish the belly to be understood by the exactor. For it exacts from us a kind of debt ; because it requires even by nature the daily fruit of human labour to be spent on it. Whilst abstinent men, then, who in this place are typified by the word ' wild ass,' repress by force the desires of the appetite, they contemn, as it were, the words of the clamouring exactor. But since many contests of virtues against innumerable vices befal the continent man, why, in speaking of the cry of the exactor being despised, is it said of the belly alone, that he restrains its impulse and assault, except that no one gains the palm of the spiritual contest, unless he has first con- quered the incentives of the flesh, by afflicting the concu- piscence of the belly ? For we cannot stand up to the conflict of the spiritual contest, unless the enemy who is posted within, that is to say, the appetite of gluttony, is first conquered; because if we overthrow not those evils which are nearer to us, we doubtless proceed in vain to attack those which are further off". For war is in vain waged in the plain against outward foes, if a treacherous citizen is retained within the very walls of the city. The mind also of the combatant is itself kept back, by the grievous disgrace of confusion, from engaging in the spiritual contest, when, feeble in its battle with the flesh, it is wounded and over- come by the swords of gluttony. For when it sees itself defeated by trifles, it is ashamed to engage in greater dangers. 59 But some, ignorant of the order of the contest, neglect to tame their appetite, and proceed at once to spiritual battles And though they sometimes display many acts of great bravery, yet from the sin of gluttony ruling over them, they lose, by the allurement of the flesh, all that they have done boldly ; and, while the belly is not restrained, all their virtues are overwhelmed at once by the lust of the flesh. 2 Kings Whence it is written also of the victory of Nabuchodonosor, j^' ^52 ^'^ chiefofthe cooks destroyed the walls ofJerusalem. For 12. Oxf. what does Scripture signify and express by the walls of /^jg^"'"* Jerusalem, but the virtues of a soul which is tending to the