[158] Therefore he adds “and she afflicted her” (Gen. 16:6), which means she admonished and chastised her. For the sharp spur is indeed profitable to those who live in security and ease, just as it is to unruly horses, since it is difficult to master or break them in merely with the whip or guiding hand.
[159] Or do you fail to see the rewards which await the unrebuked? They grow sleek and fat, they expand themselves, and the breath of their spirit is lusty and strong, and then to their utter sorrow and misery they win the woeful prizes of impiety, proclaimed and crowned as victors in the contest of godlessness. For because of the smooth flow of their prosperity, veneered as they are with gold and silver, like base coin, they fancy themselves to be gods, forgetting Him who is the true coin, the really Existent.
[160] I have Moses’ testimony when he says, “He waxed fat, grew thick, was widened, and abandoned the God who made him” (Deut. 32:15). It follows that if increased laxity is the parent of that greatest of ills, impiety, contrary wise affliction, regulated by law, breeds a perfect good, that most admirable thing, admonition.
[161] On this same principle he calls the unleavened bread, the symbol of the first feast, “bread of affliction.” And yet we all know that feasts and highdays produce cheerfulness and gladness, not affliction.
[162] Clearly he is extending the meaning of the word as a name for the chastener, toil, for the most numerous and most important of goods are wont to result from repeated strenuous contention and keen toiling, and the soul’s feast is ardour for the best, and the consummation of toil. That is why we also have the command to “eat the unleavened bread with bitter herbs” (Ex. 12:8), not as a relish, but because the mass of men hold that when they no longer swell and boil with desires, but are confined and compressed, they are in a state of discomfort; and they think that the unlearning of passion is a bitterness, though to a mind that welcomes effort that same is a joy and a feast.