Chapter 16

¹ But the fact that they watched her eagerly, walking day by day in the garden after Susanna—this signifies that even until now both those of the Gentiles and the Jews of the circumcision watch and pry into the things done in the Church, wishing to bring false testimonies against us, as the Apostle says: “but on account of the false brethren brought in secretly, who slipped in to spy out our freedom which we have in Christ Jesus.”

² So in this way those men too watched eagerly, it says, to see her day by day, and they perverted their own mind and turned aside their eyes, so as not to look toward heaven nor to remember righteous judgments.

³ For those who have become plotters against and corrupters of the Church—how can they judge righteously or look up to heaven with a pure heart, enslaved as they are to the ruler of this age?

⁴ “And both of them were pierced with desire for her, and they did not declare to one another their anguish, because they were ashamed to declare their desire, that they wished to lie with her.” And indeed it is truly possible to grasp what is said: that always the two peoples, pierced by the Satan who works in them, plot to stir up persecutions and afflictions against the Church, striving eagerly to destroy it, though they do not themselves agree with one another.

⁵ “And one said to the other: Let us go indeed to the house, for it is the hour of the midday meal. And going out they parted from one another. And turning back they came to the same place.” Now their parting from one another at the hour of the meal and turning back to the same place signifies this: that in earthly foods the Jews do not agree with the Gentiles, but in the public spectacles and in every worldly affair they join with them and have fellowship.

⁶ The Scripture therefore says: “And questioning one another about the cause, they confessed their desire”—thereby prophesying against themselves that they were destined to be examined by angels and to give account to God for every sin they had committed, as Solomon says: “Examination will destroy the ungodly.” For these men are caught by the examination of their wickedness.