In the Hebrew three words are read, which, if you regard the [verbal] form, are indeed future [tense]. But if [you regard] the Hebrew
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phrase and particle — “Primò, Ve” [the waw-consecutive], which is called transitive — [it has] the force of the past [tense], and they can be rendered thus: “I saw, I coveted, I took away.” And of these three, the first two demonstrate what is sought — the manner by which Achan was driven headlong to these thefts. For the sight of the things toward which our concupiscence is prone is the first step to the fall. For by it [concupiscence], as if asleep, is roused, kindled, [and] enticed; and it seeks every manner and way by which it may obtain that which it has coveted by sight. “Of a thing unknown there is no desire”; and, as the Greeks say, ἐκ τοῦ ὁρᾶν τὸ ἐρᾶν [ek tou horan to eran] — “from the very seeing is loving.” And this example of Achan is discerned in avarice, and in the excessive desire of having the fleeting riches of this world; but in other kinds of sins too, how great [is] the allurement of sight? — yet most of all in the concupiscence and lust of the flesh:
“…and a woman burns [the beholder] by being seen,” [Virgil, Georgics 3.215]
said a certain [poet]; and again:
“How I saw, how I perished, how an evil error carried me away!” [Virgil, Eclogues 8.41]
Poetry is almost wholly full of ruins of this kind, and not rarely [is] history, both old and recent. But, omitting all others, that we may become cautious by another’s peril, let us recount our own [examples]. Whence [was] the first destruction, as it were, of the human race? whence, as it were, the first fount and origin of the evils by which we wretches are continually afflicted? Genesis answers (ch. 3:6): “The woman saw that the tree was good to eat, and fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold: and she took of its fruit, and ate.” But whence [came] that most sorrowful inundation of the waters above the peaks of all mountains, and the pitiable submersion of the whole world, eight men excepted? “The sons of God, seeing the daughters of men, that they were fair,” says the same book (ch. 6:2), “took to themselves wives from all whom they had chosen.” Whence [came] the slaughter of the Shechemites, and the most deadly destruction of all together? “When Shechem, son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of that land, had seen Dinah the daughter of Jacob,” says the same book (ch. 34:2), “he loved her, and seized her, and lay with her, oppressing the virgin by force.” What was the cause that the Egyptian wife of Potiphar the Prince most lyingly calumniated the most chaste and most innocent Joseph — [and] took care that he be cast out of the house with disgrace and infamy, [and] most wickedly thrust into a most foul prison with great torment? It was — as the same book relates (ch. 39:6) — [that] “Joseph [was] of a fair face, and comely in aspect. After many days, therefore, the Mistress cast her eyes upon Joseph: [saying,] Lie with me.” But David the King and Prophet — what thing impelled him, [down] from so great a summit of sanctity and of the divine charisms, to [his] fall? What most unworthily and most foully cast down his virtue, constancy, [and] gravity? “It happened,” says the 2nd book of Kings [2 Sam.] (ch. 11:2), “that he arose from his bed after midday, and walked on the roof of the royal house, and saw a woman washing herself opposite, upon her roof; and the woman was very beautiful. The King therefore sent, and inquired who the woman was. And it was told him that it was Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite. David therefore, sending messengers, took her; and when she had come in to him, he lay with her.” But how many and how great other sins thereafter? how many and how great disasters? how great an Iliad of the greatest calamities! Hence afterward he watered his bed with tears. Hence he cried to the Lord: “Turn away my eyes, that they may not see vanity” (Ps. 118:37 [Heb. 119]). “And my eyes [are] ever toward the Lord” (Ps. 24[25]:15). Hence his most wise son [Solomon] admonished [it] (Prov. 4:25): “Let thine eyes look straight, and let thine eyelids go before thy steps.” And afterward (ch. 23:31): “Look not on the wine, when it grows yellow, when its color shines in the glass. Why so? Thine eyes shall see strange women, and thy heart shall speak perverse things.” And the eternal Wisdom [Christ] (Matt. 5:28): “You have heard that it was said to the ancients, Thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say to you, that everyone who shall look upon a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart. But if thy right eye scandalize thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee. For it is expedient for thee that one of thy members perish, rather than that thy whole body be cast into Gehenna.” Whoever, therefore, wishes to have a breast fortified and closed against the darts of lusts and the flames of earthly things — to stand firm and unmoved in the step of virtue, [and] to set all things before the precepts of God the Best and Greatest — let him, first of all, take care of his own eyes: let him keep them closed; let him never apply them to any [beautiful] shapes. There is a proverb of the Hebrews: “The eye and the heart are the brokers [proxeneta] of sin” — as Elias Levita relates in Hebrew, in the Tishbi, under the word Sarsour [סרסור, “broker, pander”], and in Chaldee [Aramaic] on Psalm 100, Radak. Beautiful is the comparison of Socrates, in Xenophon (bk. 1 of the Memorabilia), of bodily and beautiful things with “phalangia” [venomous spiders]. These are little creatures, not even of half-an-obol’s size; yet if it happen that they put their mouth to men, they afflict them with incredible pain, cast them from their state of mind, [and] make them die — as Alexander ab Alexandro [notes] (bk. 2, ch. 17), and Muretus notes in [his] Various Readings (bk. 14, ch. 6). But the same — and much more perniciously, more covertly, and more quickly — do the beheld shapes of certain men, the glitter of gold and silver, the magnificence of garments and other such things. Take his [Socrates’s] words: “Do you not know,” he says, “that this very creature which they call ‘beautiful and shapely’ is, by this very name, more terrible than [ordinary] phalangia — because these [harm] only by touch, but that [beautiful thing], even if it does not touch, yet if anyone merely looks at it, sends forth from afar something of the kind that can stir up madness? Perhaps too the Cupids are for this reason called ‘archers,’ because the beautiful wound even from afar. Therefore I counsel you, O Xenophon, that when you see anyone beautiful, you flee as much as you can, so as not even to look back.” Thus he [Socrates]. And from this same [Socrates] whom Socrates thus admonished, Plutarch (in the book On Love) cites these things: τὸ μὲν πῦρ τοὺς ἁψαμένους καίει μόνον, οἱ δὲ καλοὶ καὶ τοὺς μακρὰν ἐρῶντας ὑφάπτουσιν. Ἡ γὰρ ὄψις [λαβὴ τοῦ πάθους] [to men pyr tous hapsamenous kaiei monon, hoi de kaloi kai tous makran erōntas hyphaptousin. Hē gar opsis…] — that is: “Fire indeed scorches only those who have touched it; but the beautiful set aflame even those who have stood far off.” For the sight is the handle [ansa] of this perturbation — namely, of love. And it is commonly said by the Philosophers, “objects move the faculties”; and by others, “occasion makes the thief.” Yet if by chance, or by some necessity, anyone has seen things of this kind, the next [best thing] is that he bridle concupiscence. “The root of all evils is cupidity” (1 Tim. 6[:10]) — where this very cupidity, which deceived Achan, is set [down as] ἡ φιλαργυρία [hē philargyria, “the love of money”]. Cassiodorus (bk. 12, fol. 261): “Flee avarice, the queen of insolent vices.” The sight itself indeed brings the greatest force to coveting; yet it cannot compel. How many behold many men and many women — by the sight of whom others go mad — and yet do not desire [them]? How many things do they themselves [behold], by the sight of which they either rejoice and exult, or shudder,
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and [at whose sight] the beasts flee, we despise? There is, besides the bare sight, something [else] which allures a man — another [thing], especially in the desire and love of riches. There is in the minds of men a certain instilled precept, and an opinion drawn from elsewhere, that the possession of gold, silver, garments, houses, fields, and very many similar things is exceedingly excellent and useful. Take away this opinion. If you should see silver or gold, what [reason] is there why you should make [more] of it than of many other things which lie open to all? Zeuxis’s Helen [i.e. his painting] seemed to very many most artful, most elegant, most beautiful — and especially to Nicomachus, a lover and connoisseur of such paintings. On the contrary, a certain [other] spectator said to himself that she seemed not beautiful. To him, indeed, Nicomachus [replied] — as it is, in Plutarch, in the cited book: “Take my eyes for yourself, and she will seem to you a Goddess.” And there is a common verse: “Whoever loves a frog, thinks the frog to be a Diana.” Doubtless human minds are steeped with these and those opinions, and so, the things which fall upon their eyes, they either desire or set aside. Among some nations the price of gold and silver is either none, or very small. The like reasoning [holds] of gems, houses, fields, vineyards, and the like. Among us [there is] an insane love of all these, because we reckon it beautiful to excel in these. Achan saw the garment, the gold, and the silver (of which above), and straightway coveted [them]. How many thousands of Israelites had seen more of garments, and of silver, and of gold, and yet did not covet [them]? It was fixed in the minds of these that God’s Law about the anathema was to be obeyed; that it was to be violated by them by no compact; that it was better to have no riches at all than to have God angry; [and] that spoils would still be enough, if they retained his benevolence and favor. But Achan had no care of these things; he judged it advantageous to gather up something of riches, [and] to let slip no occasion of them. Josephus adds that he judged [it] a hard and bitter [thing], that one who had undergone dangers should withdraw what he had found from his own use, and give [it] to God — and to Him, indeed, [who is] in no way needy. For Josephus is thus to be understood, not as Rufinus renders [it], “to give to God, and not to one more needy.” For [Josephus] does not speak of the needy, as Judas [does] at John 12:4[–6]; so neither [does] Achan. And in Greek it is [read] Τῷ Θεῷ καὶ μὴ δεομένῳ [tō Theō kai mē deomenō, “to God, and to [Him] not being in need”]. Masius (fol. 131) thinks that Achan had persuaded himself that this theft was divinely granted to him, because Scripture says (Deut. 20:14) that from captured cities the plunder is to be taken. Steeped, therefore, and maddened with these depraved and false thoughts, was Achan. And so, as soon as he saw these things, he coveted [them]; as soon as he coveted, he took [them] away. This, then, is to be done by us: that from the very first milk we form the mind with good and true knowledge; that we learn sayings consonant with the divine truth; that, finally, we instruct ourselves with those precepts which set God’s will, deity, and glory before absolutely all things — which subject the pleasures of the body to reason — [and] which count all fleeting and fugitive things of little worth. So it will come to pass that we bear off a far nobler and more generous triumph — by saying, “I did not see, I did not covet, I did not take away” — than he who said “I came, I saw, I conquered” [veni, vidi, vici]: [namely,] surely the victory by which we may escape the punishments set before those who, with that unhappy Achan himself, say: “I saw, I coveted, I took away.”