Surely the serpent will bite without enchantment; and a babbler is no better.
Read Chapter 10
Didymus the Blind
AD 398
The snake is powerful, when it spreads its poison secretly. In the one who is tricked, an impression is created that he has received something good which in reality is not good. The teacher who charms should not do so in a superflous way but in a way that accomplishes something. Then he shows his [student] the error, the guile of his seducer.
Silence. Protestants, "without enchantment, and a babbler is no better. "(Haydock)
But he compares the detractor to a serpent, (Calmet) as he infuses the poison into all who pay attention to him. (St. Jerome; St. Bernard)
These silent bites are alone in fending off the medicine of the wise people. This deadly menace is so utterly incurable that it is worsened by soothings, inflamed by serious treatment, and irritated by gifts.
“If a snake bites without hissing,” it says, “there is no abundance for the charmer,” indicating that the bite of a silent snake is dangerous. This means that if a diabolical suggestion or thought has not been disclosed by confessing it to the charmer (namely, to a spiritual man, who by the songs of Scripture can heal a wound immediately and draw the snake’s harmful venom out of a person’s heart), he will not be able to help the one who is in danger and about to perish.
