Wisdom

Judgment of Darkness

How great are Your purposes, and how difficult to explain! People who have not understood them have gone astray.

While the godless thought they controlled the holy nation, they themselves were prisoners, captives of a long night, shut in under their own roofs, banished from eternal providence.

Although they believed their sins remained hidden behind a veil of forgetfulness, they were scattered, dismayed, and terrified by visions.

The dark places they sheltered in could not protect them from fear; they heard terrifying noises and faced ghastly, mournful apparitions.

No fire could give them light, and the sparkling radiance of the stars refused to shine on that dreadful night.

All they saw was an unquenchable and terrifying fire, and in their terror, when this vision ended, they believed their situation was worse than it was.

Their magic arts failed, and their alleged wisdom was utterly confounded;

those claiming to remove the fear and disturbance of the disturbed mind were themselves overwhelmed with ridiculous fear.

Despite there being nothing to cause this fear, they were terrified by the buzzing of insects and the hiss of snakes;

they died convulsed with fear, refusing even to look at the air from which no one can escape.

Wickedness is cowardly and condemned by itself; pursued by conscience, it always assumes the worst.

For fear is nothing but surrendering the help that reason can provide.

Because this help is absent internally, the unknown cause of one’s torment seems greater.

Throughout that night, a night drawn from the powerless netherworld seized them as they slept, rendering everyone helpless.

They were either chased by monstrous ghosts or frozen by sudden, unexpected fear.

Those who had fallen lay there, trapped in a prison not built of iron.

Whether plowman, shepherd, or someone working alone, they had to accept an inevitable fate;

all were chained by the darkness. Everything around them kept them paralyzed by fear: the sighing wind, the melodious songs of birds in the spreading branches, the constant rush of water,

the terrible crash of falling rocks, the quick, unseen movement of animals, the terrifying roars of wild beasts, and the echoes bouncing off the mountains—all instilled fear.

The entire world shone brightly and continued its work unimpeded;

they alone were shrouded in the darkness of night, the image of the night that would be theirs. Yet even heavier than the darkness was the burden they carried within themselves.