The Seven Nations and Their Many Offspring

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 that, as the apostle says, happened to them “as a figure,” we ought to take as written for our correction. For this is what we read: “When the Lord your God has brought you into the land which you are going in to possess, and has destroyed many nations before you, the Hittite and the Girgashite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, seven nations far more numerous than you and far stronger than you, and the Lord your God has handed them over to you, you shall utterly destroy them.” They are said to be far more numerous because faults are many more in number than virtues. So in the list the nations are counted as seven, but when the attack on them is spoken of, they are set down without their number being given, for we read, “and has destroyed many nations before you.” For the brood of the passions of the flesh that springs from this sevenfold incentive and root of sin is more numerous than Israel. From there spring murders, quarrels, heresies, thefts, false witness, blasphemy, overeating, drunkenness, backbiting, clowning, filthy talk, lies, perjury, foolish talk, coarse joking, restlessness, greed, bitterness, clamor, wrath, contempt, grumbling, temptation, despair, and many other faults that would take too long to describe. [a]

And if we are inclined to think these are small matters, let us hear what the apostle thought about them, and what his opinion of them was. “Do not grumble,” he says, “as some of them grumbled and were destroyed by the destroyer.” And of temptation: “Let us not tempt Christ, as some of them tempted him and perished by the serpents.” Of backbiting: “Do not love backbiting, lest you be rooted out.” And of despair: “Who in despair have given themselves up to sensuality, to work every kind of error in uncleanness.” And that clamor is condemned along with anger and indignation and blasphemy, the words of the same apostle teach us as clearly as possible when he charges us: “Let all bitterness and anger and indignation and clamor and blasphemy be put away from you, with all malice.” And there are many more things like these. Though these are far more numerous than the virtues, yet if those eight principal sins, from which we know they naturally come, are overcome first, all of these at once sink down and are destroyed together with them in a lasting destruction. For from gluttony come overeating and drunkenness. From sexual immorality come filthy talk, coarse joking, clowning and foolish talk. From greed come lying, deceit, theft, perjury, the desire for shameful gain, false witness, violence, inhumanity and greed. From anger come murders, clamor and indignation. From dejection come rancor, cowardice, bitterness and despair. From acedia come laziness, sleepiness, rudeness, restlessness, wandering about, instability of both mind and body, chattering and curiosity. From empty glory come contention, heresies, boasting and confidence in novelties. From pride come contempt, envy, disobedience, blasphemy, grumbling and backbiting.

That all these plagues are stronger than we are, we can tell very plainly from the way they attack us. For the delight in the passions of the flesh wages war in our members more powerfully than the desire for virtue does, and virtue is gained only with the greatest crushing of heart and body. But if you will only look with the eyes of the spirit at the countless hosts of our foes, which the apostle lists 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 the heavenly places,” and at what we find said of the righteous man in the ninetieth Psalm, “A thousand will fall beside you, and ten thousand at your right hand,” then you will see clearly that they are far more numerous and more powerful than we are. For we are creatures of flesh and earth, while to them is given a substance that is spiritual and without a body.