As we have said, the adversary’s attack rises along with the ascent of virtue, always finding a fitting opportunity to turn each advance toward evil. When the people had grown stronger in their life with God, the adversary therefore tried another kind of attack. Skilled commanders do the same in war: when they see that an enemy stronger than themselves cannot easily be defeated in a frontal battle, they overcome him by ambushes and traps. In the same way, the army of evil no longer brings its strength openly against those made strong by law and virtue, but attacks them secretly through hidden ambushes.
So the adversary calls sorcery to his aid against the people he is attacking. The story says that a certain seer and interpreter of omens had, through some demonic activity, a power that could harm his enemies. The ruler of the Midianites hired him to curse those who lived for God, but he turned the curse into a blessing. Following the interpretation already developed, we understand that sorcery has no power against those who live in virtue; those made secure by divine help are stronger than every such attack.
The story itself testifies that this man practiced divination by omens. It says that he carried with him the things used for divination and sought advice from birds. Even before this, he was taught about the task before him through the braying of his donkey. Because he was accustomed, through demonic influence, to seek guidance from animal cries, Scripture describes the donkey’s sound as though it were human speech. In this way Scripture shows how far people deceived by demons can go: they can treat the sounds of animals, interpreted through their observations, as though they were meaningful words. By attending to this very sign, Balaam learned through the things that had deceived him that the people he had been hired to oppose could not be defeated.
Something similar appears in the Gospel story. The company of demons called “Legion” prepared to resist the Lord’s authority. But when the One who has power over all things approached, the demons cried out because they recognized His greater power. They did not hide the truth: the One before them is divine and, at the proper time, will punish those who have sinned. For the demons say, “We know who You are, the Holy One of God, and that You have come before the time to torment us.” The same thing happened in Balaam’s case. The demonic power that accompanied the seer taught him that the people were too strong to be overcome or resisted.
Applying the story to what we have already examined, we say that the man who wanted to curse those living in virtue could bring no damaging or disgraceful accusation against them. Instead, he turned his curse into a blessing. The meaning is this: blame and slander cannot take hold of those who live in virtue.
How can someone who owns nothing be accused of greed? How can anyone accuse someone who has withdrawn to live alone of a life of excess, or accuse the gentle person of anger, or the humble person of pride? How can any other accusation fit people known for the opposite virtue? Their aim is to make their lives beyond the reach of blame, so that, as the Apostle says, the opponent may be put to shame because he has nothing to say. This is why the man hired to curse says, “How can I curse the one whom the Lord does not curse?” That is: how can I slander someone who has supplied no material for slander? Because he looks toward God, his life gives evil no opening.
But because the inventor of evil failed in this attempt, he did not stop plotting against the people. He turned again to his own familiar method, using pleasure as bait to draw human nature toward evil. Pleasure truly is like bait for every evil: when it is set before them, souls greedy for pleasure are easily drawn onto the hook of destruction. Human nature is especially likely to be swept into evil through unrestrained sexual pleasure.
That is what happened then. The men who had proved stronger than weapons, shown every iron attack weaker than their own strength, and completely defeated the enemy battle line were wounded by the arrows of women through pleasure. They had been stronger than men but became weaker than women. As soon as the women appeared before them, using their appearance in place of weapons, the men immediately forgot the strength of their courage and let their fighting spirit dissolve into pleasure.
They then gave themselves to the kind of behavior one would expect from people driven mad by unlawful unions with foreign women. By joining themselves to evil, they broke their alliance with the Good, and God immediately became hostile to them. But zealous Phinehas did not wait for sin to be purified by a judgment from above. He himself became both judge and executioner.
Moved to anger against those driven mad by passion, Phinehas carried out the work of the priest and purified the sin with blood. But the blood was not that of an innocent animal untouched by the stain of their lack of self-control. It was the blood of the two people joined together in evil. The spear passed through both bodies and appeased God’s justice, mixing their pleasure with the death of those who had sinned.
It seems to me that the story gives us advice for the good of the soul. Many passions attack the human mind, but none has as much power over us as the sickness of pleasure. The Israelites had proved stronger than the cavalry of Egypt, overcome the Amalekites, terrified the nation that came after them, and then defeated the army of the Midianites. Yet the moment they saw the foreign women, they were enslaved by this sickness. As we have said, this shows that pleasure is one of our hardest enemies to fight and overcome.
Pleasure conquered men whom weapons had not defeated and raised over them a trophy of disgrace, exposing their shame openly in the light. Their beastlike, irrational rush toward sexual excess made them forget their human nature. They did not even hide their disgrace. Instead they paraded the shame of their passion and took pride in its stain, rolling openly like pigs in the filth of impurity before one another’s eyes.
What, then, does the story teach us? Once we have learned how powerful the sickness of pleasure is in drawing us toward evil, we should keep our lives as far away from it as possible, so that the disease finds no way in. Like fire, the passion flares up when we draw near to it. Solomon teaches this in Wisdom when he tells us not to touch a coal with a bare foot or put fire in our lap. We can remain free from the passion while we stay far from what kindles it. But if we come close enough to touch that burning heat, the fire of desire will enter within us. Then the foot will be burned, and the fire held close to the body will bring ruin.
In the Gospel the Lord Himself teaches us how to remain far from this evil by cutting off the passion at its root: the desire that enters through sight. He teaches that anyone who admits the passion through the eyes opens a road for the disease to enter him. Evil passions are like a plague: once they gain control of the vital parts, only death brings them to an end.