He wanders abroad for bread, saying, Where is it? he knows that the day of darkness is ready at his hand.
Read Chapter 15
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
46. For ‘bread’ is the wages of the present life, and ‘the day of darkness’ is taken for the time of vengeance. And so in the course of his conduct, the wicked man at times weighs well the present wrath of the Judge Above, but he is not diverted from wickedness, so that it too should be itself diverted from his destruction. But his conscience accusing him, he fears to be smitten, yet be is ever increasing that whereby he should be smitten. He makes slight of his return, he despairs of pardon, he carries himself high in sin, yet he has fear within, a witness of his wickedness. And though he seem outwardly to be doing wicked things with a bold front, yet for these in his own heart he is untrained to tremble. Whence it is written; For whereas wickedness is timorous, she gives witness to condemnation. [Wisd. 17, 11] For when a man does unlawful things, he is in dread of the thing that he does; and the open witness for his condemning is the very fearfulness of wickedness itself, in that both the thing that is done is feared, and yet the evil that is feared is not overcome.
