Am I a sea, or a sea monster, that you set a watch over me?
Read Chapter 7
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Sea. Ungovernable and malicious. Some of the ancients looked upon the sea as a huge animal, whose breathing caused the tides. (Strabo i.; Solin xxxii.)
They represented its fury as proverbial. "Fire, the sea, and woman are three evils "and they call the most savage people sons of Neptune. (Agel. xv. 21.)
Am I so violent as to require such barriers? Am I capacious, or strong enough to bear such treatment? (Calmet)
39. Man is ‘compassed about with a prison,’ in that he very often both strives to mount on high by the strides of virtuous attainments, and yet is impeded by the corruption of his fleshly part. Of which same the Psalmist rightly prays that he might be divested, saying, Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise Thy Name. [Ps. 142, 7] But what have we set forth by the designation of ‘the sea,’ saving the hearts of carnal men tossed with swelling thoughts? and what by the name of ‘a whale,’ except our old enemy? who when in taking possession of the hearts of the children of this world he makes his way into them, does in a certain sort swim about in their slippery thoughts. But the whale is made fast in prison, in that the evil Spirit, being cast down below, is kept under by the weight of his own punishment, that he should have no power to fly up to the heavenly realms, as Peter testifies, who saith, God spared not the Angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivere...
