Ascent of Mount Carmel

^7. And if unmortified desires could do so much in this man who knew so well the distance that lies between good and evil, what will they not be capable of accomplishing by working upon our ignorance? For we, as God said to the prophet Jonas concerning the Ninivites, cannot discern between¹⁵¹ our right hand and our left.¹⁵² At every step we hold evil to be good, and good, evil, and this arises from our own nature. What, then, will come to pass if to our natural darkness is added the hindrance of desire?¹⁵³ Naught but that which Isaias describes thus: Palpavimus, sicut caeci parietem, et quasi absque oculis adtrectavimus: impegimus meridie, quasi in tenebris.¹⁵⁴ The prophet is speaking with those who love to follow these their desires. It is as if he had said: We have groped for the wall as though we were blind, and we have been groping as though we had no eyes, and our blindness has attained to such a point that we have stumbled at midday as though it were in the darkness. For he that is blinded by desire has this property, that, when he is set in the midst of truth and of that which is good for him, he can no more see them than if he were in darkness.

151. [Lit., ‘we... know not what there is between.’]

152. Jonas iv, 11.

153. [Lit., ‘is added desire.’]

154. Isaias lix, 10.