50. What does this mean, that he said to corruption, Thou art my father; saving that every man descends from an already corrupted origin? and hence it is added, And to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister; in this way, viz. that we come into this world once from corruption itself, and along with corruption itself. For as regards the matter of corruptible flesh, the worm is our ‘mother and sister,’ in that we both come forth out of corruption, and come with corruption which we carry about us. And if we may understand it in a spiritual sense, nature is not unappropriately called our ‘mother,’ and habit too a ‘sister,’ in that we are from the one, and along with the other; which same ‘mother and sister’ are ‘worms,’ in that in virtue of a corrupt nature and evil habit we are necessitated, as by a kind of ‘worms,’ so by disquieting thoughts to be gnawed in the mind. For the corrupted nature of the flesh, and bad habit, in that they generate numberless cares in the heart of our f...
