Can you put a ring in its nose? As stratagems are signified by nostrils, so by a ring is designated the omnipotence of divine power. For when it keeps us from being seized by temptations, it encircles around and holds firm in wondrous ways the snares of the ancient enemy. A ring is therefore put into its nostrils when by the strength of heavenly protection drawn around us, its cunning is restrained so as not to prevail against the weakness of humanity, as far as it secretly searches out its fatal arguments. . . . Or can you pierce its jaw with a bracelet?. . . The Lord therefore bores through the jaw of this Leviathan with a bracelet, because by the ineffable power of his mercy he so thwarts the malice of the ancient enemy that he sometimes loses even those whom it has seized, and they, as it were, fall from its mouth, who, after the commission of sin, return to innocence. Who, once seized by its mouth, would escape his jaw, if it were not bored through? Did it not seize Peter in his mouth when he denied? Did it not seize David in its mouth when he plunged himself into such a gulf of lust? But when they returned, each of them through penitence to life, this Leviathan let them escape, as it were, through the holes of his jaws. Those therefore are withdrawn from its mouth through the hole of its jaw who after the perpetration of such great wickedness have come back with penitence.

He said this because the demons asked the Lord not to cast them into the abyss,^[1] or because Satan said to Christ, I will give you all these things.^[2] Will he now, he says, implore you with a soft speech? Will he make a covenant with you, and will he stop fighting his war against you?

Why is our enemy first called Behemoth, then Leviathan and finally is compared to a bird that God plays with in order to destroy it? Behemoth, as we have said, means a huge beast, a quadruped that eats grass like an ox. The Leviathan appears to be a serpent of the sea, because it is caught by hook. But now it takes on the guise of a bird, when God says, Will you play with it as with a bird? Let us see why it is called huge beast, dragon and bird. We can immediately understand the meaning of these names by examining the malice of his schemes. From heaven he descended on earth and cannot rise anymore on high as he has no aspiration to the hope of getting heavenly goods. Therefore, it is a quadruped deprived of reason because of the foolishness of its impure behavior, a dragon because of the malice through which it causes harm, a bird because of the agility of its spiritual nature.

Will you fill nets with its skin and the cabin of fish with its head? What is designated by nets or a cabin of fish except the churches of the faithful that make one universal church? Hence it is written in the Gospel, The kingdom of heaven is like a net cast into the sea and gathering of every kind of fish.^[1] Will you fill nets with its skin and the cabin of fish with its head? What is designated by nets or a cabin of fish except the churches of the faithful that make one universal church? Hence it is written in the Gospel, The kingdom of heaven is like a net cast into the sea and gathering of every kind of fish.^[2] The church is in truth called the kingdom of heaven, for while the Lord exalts its conduct to things above, it already reigns herself in toward the Lord by heavenly conversation. And the church is also rightly compared with a net cast into the sea, gathering every kind of fish, because when cast into this Gentile world, it rejected no one but caught the wicked with the good, the proud with the humble, the angry with the gentle and the foolish with the wise. By the skin of this Leviathan, we understand the foolish, and by its head, the wise ones of its body. Or certainly by the skin, which is outermost, are designated those who serve it as inferiors in these lowest offices, but by the head those placed over them. And the Lord observing the proper order rightly declares that he will fill these nets or cabin of fish, that is, his church, and the wishes of the faithful with its skin first and then with its head.

[And all the ships come together would not be able to bear the mere skin of his tail.] All the ships come together are not capable to mortify the extreme and main parts of the dragon. People using bodies or ships cannot by themselves lift a single piece of the skin of his tail. But with the favor of divine virtue, they can bear not only a piece of the skin of his tail but also his entire body, and [they can] mortify it. Each of us mortifies what is in him, that is, the devil, according to the words of the apostle, Then God will soon crush Satan under your feet.^[1]

He alludes through these words to the afflictions that befell Job and to the glory that he obtains through his afflictions, and he forces the devil to liquidate his debt with humankind.

He will fall down before everybody’s eyes, because, when the Judge appears in his awesome aspect, before the eyes of the angelic legions, before the eyes of the entire court of the heavenly powers and before the eyes of all the elect summoned to this spectacle, this cruel and strong beast will be brought among them in chains, and together with its body, that is, all the wicked, will be condemned to the eternal fire of Gehenna.

All that is under heaven belongs to me. And I will not be silent. These words indicate the devil, whose prodigious nature is described in these two beasts, who is destined to be conquered by the power of Christ when the fullness of time will come.

Who will uncover the face of its garment? This Leviathan tempts in one way the minds of people who are religious, and in another those who are devoted to this world. It presents openly to the wicked the evil things they desire, but it secretly lays snares for the good and deceives them under a show of sanctity. It presents itself to the one as more manifestly wicked, as though they were its friends, but to the others it covers itself, as it were, with a cloak of comeliness, as if they were strangers, in order to introduce secretly, concealed beneath the cover of a good action, the evil that it cannot actually accomplish. Hence its members, when they are unable to injure by open wickedness, often assume the guise of a good action and display themselves to be wicked in conduct, but yet they deceive by their appearance of sanctity. For if the wicked were openly evil, they would not be received at all by the good. But they assume something of the look of good, in order that while good people receive in them the appearance that they love, they may also take the poison blended with it that they avoid. . . .

And who will enter into the midst of its mouth? You only listen to me, who, by the discreet minds of the elect, examine the words of its suggestions and prove that they are not such as they sound. For they seem to promise what is good, but they lead to a fatal end. To enter, therefore, into the middle of his mouth is so to penetrate its words of cunning, as to consider not their sound but their meaning.

Why did he not say, Who can disclose his face? What is the purpose of these doors? Who can open, he says, the doors of his face? In order to understand what is said here, let us take the example of the actors, who wear masks not in order to show what they are but in order to show what they want to look like. Indeed, those who play a certain character on the scene wear masks, so that they sometimes play the role of a general or a king, and often of a woman. Therefore, their real face is concealed, and they do not show what they are, while only what they want to look like is seen. The dragon acts in the same way. He never shows his face, but by assuming a mask in order to deceive humankind, he takes advantage of it. The enemy has many masks and wears a mask of virtue for any vice. And who can detect the mask that he wears? Who can disclose and show how the dragon is inside? Such are also his other followers, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.^[1]

This is not the fear of God but the fear that is all around [the Leviathan’s] teeth. But if you have Christ in you, you must not be worried by this fear. Indeed, you will fear the Lord God and will fear no one else.

These scales of sinners are both hardened and joined together, so as not to be penetrated by any breath of life from the mouth of preachers. For those whom a similar guilt associates with one another, the same perverse defensiveness crowds them together in obstinate agreement, in order that they may protect each other with mutual defense for their sins. For everyone fears for himself when he beholds another admonished or corrected. Therefore, he arises with similar defensiveness against the words of those who reprove, because, in protecting another, he protects himself. It is thus well said, One is so near to another that no air can come between them, because while they mutually shield each other in their iniquities by their proud defense, they do not permit the breath of holy exhortation to reach them in any way. He added more plainly to their deadly agreement by saying, They are joined one to another; they clasp each other and cannot be separated. For they who might be corrected if divided, persevere when united in the obstinacy of their iniquity. They are day by day the more easily separable from the knowledge of righteousness, the more they are not mutually separated from each other by any reproach.

Others believe that here he alludes to the fact that sneezing has the power to purify the brain; therefore, [the devil] transfigures himself into light, and even pretends to be able to purify. So [faithless] Gentiles and wizards use the devil’s power in certain rites of purification, pretending that they have the power of the light, whereas they are entirely full of filth.

I believe that all the impious teachers of immoral doctrines are properly the limbs of the dragon. What are the names, if you want to listen, of the limbs of the dragon? The mouth of the dragon can be metaphorically interpreted as the main limb, because all the dangerous speeches come from it. From his mouth go flaming torches. From it you hear the insulting speech under the guise of Christianity, the speech vilifying the Creator, or on the other hand that openly supports the theories of Marcion, Basilides and Valentinus.^[1] Whenever they speak about the Founder of heaven and earth, whenever they assert that he does not exist and has no spiritual essence—there you will see flaming torches coming out of their mouths and sparks of fire leaping up. Therefore, let us preserve ourselves without deliberating those impious theories, so that those flaming torches may never burn us and sparks of fire may never touch us.

In its neck means in arrogant self-estimation; its strength abides, because it does not stand still but always overestimates itself. The souls that advance with a high neck (as is confirmed by Isaiah)^[1] are [like the devil’s] neck, because they have the power to deceive. But such a power is vain; indeed, the weakness that my Savior and Lord assumed for me, which is called the weakness of God, completely defeated that power.

When it is taken away, the angels will fear and, being frightened, will be purified. These words can be interpreted as a reference to the time of the beginning of the world. Already at that time, the angels could know how great was the evilness of pride, when the usurper, who tried to establish a tyranny in heaven, was cast out of his fortress, and the angels stayed in the truth, where the devil did not stay. . . . Concerning the words when the [devil] is taken away, the angels will fear and, being frightened, will be purified—they must not be interpreted in the sense that the angels, by keeping away from the sin of pride, will become purer. . . but I think that they must refer to people, who will come into the society of angels as new angels, and after the condemnation of the devil will be purified.

The spiritual weapons [of humans], he says, are unable to kill him, and [the devil] considers as straw and rotten wood those weapons that cannot inflict a lethal wound on him.

We infer that this sea is our world, according to an allegorical interpretation, because it is dark due to its obscurity and the excessive blindness of its foolishness. The devil inflames [the world] with carnal concupiscence, so that it may boil in its love of earthly pleasures.

It will esteem the deep as growing old.. . . This Leviathan, therefore, will look on the deep as growing old [white-haired], because it so infatuates the hearts of the reprobate as to infuse in them a suspicion that the approaching [eternal] judgment may come to an end. For it imagines that the abyss is growing old in thinking that the heavenly infliction of punishment will ever be brought to a close. This ancient deceiver, therefore, in the minds of the wicked that it binds up, makes light of future punishments, as if they were bound by a terminal limit. This only prolongs their faults without any limit from reproof, and that they may not put here an end to their sins the more they imagine the punishments of sins will be there brought to a close. . . .

[In these ways] there is no power on earth that can be compared with it.. . . For though it has lost the happiness of eternal felicity, yet it has not lost the greatness of its nature. By this strength it still surpasses all human things, though it is inferior to holy people, by the baseness of its deserts. Hence the meritorious recompense of the saints, who are contending against [the devil], is the more increased, the more it is defeated by [the saints] when it boasts that by the power of its nature, it has a right to rule over people. It follows, Which was made to fear no one [a creature without fear]. The Leviathan was so indeed made by nature as to be bound to feel a chaste fear for its Creator; that is to say, with a subdued and fearless fear, not with the fear that love casts out, but with fear that remains for ever and ever. . . . Even the Leviathan had thus been so created, as with joyful dread to fear its Maker with love and to love him with fear. But by its own perversity, [the Leviathan] was made such as to fear no creature.

This is the true description of the beast according to the faithful [understanding] of the story. There must be no doubt about their great size because of the power of the Creator. However, [these words] are also addressed to a plane of higher intellect, so that we may believe through them that something else is signified as well, and therefore the strength of spiritual iniquity may be perceived more easily in the image of the bodies. As these [beasts] are deadly for the body, so they are for human morality, and as the sin of pride must be imputed to them, so it must be punished.