41. See Mk 4:18-19.
Book II 91 taken up with thejoys of the flesh, wishes to overcome some bad habit, it experi ences difficulty and pain, and in this way brings forth a good habit; and that this now makes it all the more careful and eager to submit to the reason as to its husband; and that now, as though taught a lesson by the pains themselves, it turns around to the reason, and willingly follows its instructions, to avoid again trickling away into some destructive habit? So then, what seem to be curses here are in fact commandments, if we take care not to read what is spiritual in a carnal manner; for the law, you see, is spiritual (Rom 7:14).
The penalty paid by the man
20. 30. Then again, what are we to say about this sentence passed on the man himself? Are the wealthy by any chance, who get their living in the easiest way imaginable without ever working on the land, to be thought of as having escaped this punishment? This after all is how it is described: Accursed shall the earth be to you in allyour works, and in your sadness and groaning shall you eat ofit all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles shall it sproutforyou, andyou shall eat the fodder of yourfield. ln the sweat of your countenance shall you eat your bread, until you turn back into the earth from which you were taken, because earth you are and into earth you shall go (Gn 3:17-19).
But if anything is certain, it is that nobody may escape this sentence. The very fact, after all, that everyone born in this life finds the search for truth impeded by the perishable body40 is what is meant by the toil and grief which the man gets from the earth; and the thorns and thistles are the pricks and scratches of tortuous, intractable problems, or else the anxious thoughts about providing for this life, which frequently choke the word and stop it bearing any fruit in a man, unless they are uprooted and thrown out of God's field, as the Lord says in the gospel.41
And then it is through these eyes and these ears that we are instructed about the truth itself, and there is the difficulty of withstanding the fancies and notions which enter the soul through these same senses, although it is also through them that instruction about the truth enters in; so in this perplexity, whose counte nance will not be sweating so that he may munch his bread?42 All this we are going to suffer all the days of our life—of this life, that is, which is going to pass away. And what that man was told, who would soon be cultivating his own field, was that he was to endure all this until he turned back into the earth from which he was taken, that is, until he finished this life. Those of us, you see, who culti
40. Solomon says, you see: "The body that is perishing weighs down the soul, and the dwelling made of earth oppresses the mind as it thinks about many things" (Wis 9: 1 5). 41. See Mk 4:18-19. 42. That is, in figurative terms, feed upon the truth.