The Serpent’s Bite

Qui fodit foveam, in ipsam incidet, et qui dissipat sepem, mordebit eum serpens. Ex parte simplex et ex parte mysticus intellectus est. Siquidem et alibi ipse Salomon ait: Qui statuet laqueum, capietur in illo. Et in psalmo septimo: Lacum aperuit, et effodit eum, et incidit in foveam quam fecit. Sepis autem maceriaeque convulsio, ecclesiastica dogmata sunt, et institutio ab apostolis pophetisque fundata, quae qui dissolverit, et voluerit praeterire, in eo ipso quo negligit, a serpente percutitur. De quo serpente et in Amos scriptum est: Si descenderit in infernum, mandabo serpenti, et mordebit eos. Sanctus Hieronymous, Commentarius Ecclesiasten, Cap X Source: Migne PL 23.1094a-b

He who digs a pit shall fall into it, and he who breaks down a wall the serpent shall bite. 1 This is able to be understood in a simple and a spiritual manner. Firstly, as elsewhere Solomon said: 'He who sets a trap shall be caught in it.' 2 And in the seventieth Psalm: 'He opens up a pit, and he digs it, and he falls into it who made it.' Yet, also, the fences and the enclosures broken down are the teachings of the Church and the Apostolic canons and the Prophetic foundations, which he who would ruin or would wish gone, on account of which he has no care for them, is struck by the serpent. Concerning which serpent it is written in Amos: 'If they descend into hell, I shall command the serpent and it shall bite them.' 3 Saint Jerome, Commentary on Ecclesiastes, Chap 10 1 Eccle 10.8 2 Sirach 27.26 3 Amos 9.3