The magicians of Egypt as an example of fear

 Wisdom 17: 1 - 11

IECOT edition (2019, Kohlhammer, Stuttgart)

editor Luca Mazzinghi translator Michael Tait

Indeed, great are your

judgements and difficult

to understand!  Therefore,

uninstructed souls [Greek

psyche ] have been

deceived.  For the

lawless, having boasted of

being able to oppress a 

holy people, prisoners of

darkness and enchained by

a long night, they lay, shut

up under their roofs, in

flight from eternal Providence.

Thinking also that they could 

remain hidden, with regard to 

their sins committed in secret,

covered by the dull veil of

forgetfulness, they were

scattered, terribly scared

and beside themselves on

account of their hallucinations.

For the cavern that enclosed them 

did not protect them from fear,

but noises which reverberated

rang out around them

and there appeared dismal

spectres with gloomy faces.

The power of no fire was able

to give light, nor did the splendor

of the brightest stars succeed in 

lighting up that infernal [Greek

stychos ]  night.

They were left with only the

glimpse of a funeral pyre, as if

kindled by itself, full of fear.

Terrified by a sight which they

did not understand, they regarded

as worse the real things put before

their sight. 

The childish games of their magic art

showed themselves powerless and 

the charge made against their

boasted claim of intelligence,

shameful.  Those who claimed

to banish fears [Greek deima ]

and worries from a sick soul, 

were precisely the

ones stricken by a ridiculous anxiety.

And even if nothing that could trouble

them scared them, made to flee from

the passing of beasts and from the

hissing of serpents, they died,

trembling with fear, and refused

to look even at the air which

cannot be escaped anywhere.

For wickedness is something

particularly vile when it is condemned

by its own testimony; it always

multiplies difficulties, oppressed

by conscience.

___________________________

Here we find here the first biblical mention of the 

syneideis  - conscience [mentioned Ecclesiastes

10:20 LXX translation and Ben Sira 42:185].  Such

a term is implicit in the metaphor of "heart". . .

This will prepare closely for the Apostle Paul's use

of an interior witness that makes the wicked aware

of one's own evil actions (as a term in Epistle to

Romans 2:15).