Shipwrecks and the World

Omnis etenim anima infidelis, in saeculi hujus tamquam maris profundo naufraga, incerto motu vagoque differtur, et diversarum cupiditatem aestu mobilis fluctuat potestate diaboli saeculum incolentis illusa, et nulla ad resistendum onbitendumque ei subjectae soliditatis firmitate consistit: ex quo facile est, incentivis circumagentium cupiditatem pendulam vagamque jactari. Quod autem saeculi hujus motus atque fluctus undantis maris sit aestibus comparatus, qui dominantis sit diaboli incolatus, secundum propheticam et allegoricam intelligentiam, psalmus centesimus et tertius sub corporali tamen creaturarum significatione demonstrat: Hoc mare magnum et spatiosum, illic serpentes quorum non est numerus. Animalia pusilla et magna: illic naves pertransibunt. Draco iste quem formasti ad illudendum ei. Et rursum in sexagesimo octavo psalmo: Veni in altitudinem maris, et tempestas demersit me. Unigenitus itaque Dei filius, et Dei Verbum, et Deus verbum ad eruendos nos ex profundo saeculi hujus naufragio descendit, doctrinae suae reti, cui regnum coelorum simile est, haec universa piscium genera extracturus. Ab impio populo proditur et inhonoratur: seseque populus conformatus ad illudendum, draconi socium ipse demergit, et in hoc se profundum ad incolatus ejus consortium praecipit. Sic et incredulus Moysi Aegyptiorum populus praecipitari demergique meruit, et impiam gentem refusi in se maris fluctus absorbuit. Sanctus Hilarius Pictaviensis,Tractatus super Psalmos, Tractatus in Psalmum LI

Every unfaithful soul in this age is like a shipwreck in a deep sea, dispersed with uncertain and vague motion and amid the waves of many desires he shifts easily, a plaything of the devil dwelling in this age, and he may not offer any resistance nor struggle against him, for he has no firmness of solidity in him, by which he is easily tossed about by the billowing and wandering desires that surround him. For the shifts and changes of the world may be compared to the undulations of the waves of the sea, where he dwells who is under the dominion of the devil, according to the prophetical and allegorical understanding, and the hundred and third Psalm shows this under the figure of corporeal creatures: 'This great and wide sea, from there serpents without number, animals great and small, whence the ships shall pass. The dragon which you formed to play with him.' 1 And again in the sixty eighth Psalm: 'I have come into the depths of the sea, and the storm has drowned me.' 2 Thus the only begotten Son of God, and the Word of God, and God's word descends to take us from the shipwreck of the depths of this age, and His teachings are nets, to which the kingdom of heaven is compared, 3 extracting every type of fish. By the impious He is betrayed and dishonored, and the same people are shaped to be a plaything, and drowned to be associates of the dragon, and to a dwelling in the deep He commands them. So even the people of Egypt who did not believe in Moses merited to be cast down and drowned, an impious nation absorbed in the waves of the gleaming sea. Saint Hilary of Poitiers, Homilies on the Psalms, from Psalm 51 1 Ps 103.25-26 2 Ps 68.3 3 Mt 19.47