Verse 10. — 'He has destroyed me on every side, and I perish, and He has taken away my hope like an uprooted tree.' 44. When those set in authority fall, the weak fall. — For the Church is, as it were, destroyed on every side, and perishes in her weak members, when those very things that seemed strong collapse, when the crown is drawn away from the head — that is, when the eternal rewards are neglected even by those set in authority. But it is well added concerning the weak who fall: 'And He has taken away my hope like an uprooted tree.' For the tree is driven by the wind that it may fall. And he whom threats terrify, so that he falls into unrighteousness, what else has he done but that a tree has borne the blast of the wind and lost the state of its own uprightness?
For, as it were, by the wind he lost his hope, who, overcome by the threats and persuasions of the wicked, forsook the eternal rewards he had hoped for. And because it often happens that one, fearing punishments, forsakes righteousness, it comes to pass, God so judging, that even in forsaking righteousness he does not escape the punishments he feared; and he who by no means feared the destruction of his mind endures also the evils of the flesh which he dreaded. Whence it is further added: