Therefore by the like were they punished worthily, and by the multitude of beasts tormented.
Read Chapter 16
Rabanus Maurus
AD 856
These words refer to the Egyptians who, being idolaters and given over to various kinds of errors, also unjustly persecuted the people of God. And the Lord punished them with ten plagues, because they did not want to free his people. They thus experienced the cruelty of the beasts: it is described how flies of various types and grasshoppers ravaged them. And also frogs and poisonous toads and other animals that covered the earth, of which it is said in the psalm, "He sent horseflies to ravage them and frogs to molest them. He gave their harvests to the flames and the fruit of their labor to locusts." One understands further that heretics and schismatics are torn to pieces, scattered and destroyed by the beasts (that is, by evil spirits). The former in fact are subject to the will of the latter (and thus also to the righteous judgment of God) and are tormented and scattered by them. - "On Ecclesiasticus 3.6"
