My son, if you come to serve the Lord, prepare your soul for temptation.
All Commentaries on Wisdom of Sirach 2:1 Go To Wisdom of Sirach 2
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
As soon as the soul starts to love the heavenly realities, as soon as it concentrates with full intensity in view of that intimate peace, then that ancient adversary that was hurled down from heaven senses envy and begins to multiply the pitfalls. He advances temptations more relentless than normally, so that most of all he tempts the soul that resists, as he had never tempted it before when he possessed it. Therefore it is written: "My son, if you present yourself to serve the Lord, stand firm in justice and in fear, and prepare yourself for temptations." And so also the possessed, who is cured by the Lord, is strongly shaken by the demon that leaves him, as it is written: "Screaming and shaking strongly, he leaves." What does it mean that when the old enemy leaves, he strongly shakes the possessed who before had not shaken when he possessed him, if not that when he is expelled from the heart, he provokes in him temptations that are much more relentless than before when he possessed him peacefully? Therefore also the Israelites say to Moses and to Aaron: "The Lord proceeds against you and judges you, because you have raised us abhorrent in the eyes of Pharaoh and in the eyes of his ministers, giving them the sword in their hand to kill us." Moses and Aaron represented the Law and the Prophets. And often the bad soul mutters within itself against the divine oracles, because after having begun to listen to and follow the heavenly words, the opposition of the king of Egypt, that is to say, the temptation of the malign spirit, grows.
