A Trackless Place

Pauci facti sunt, et vexati sunt a tribulatione malorum et dolore. Et effusa est contentio super principes eorum: et seduxerunt eos vana eorum, et seduxit eos in invio, et non in via. In his duobus versibus illos describit qui haeretica pravitate decepti, Ecclesiam Domini derelinquunt; de quibus Ioannes Apostolus dicit: A nobis exierunt, sed non erant ex nobis; nam si essent ex nobis, mansissent utique nobiscum. Isti ergo pauci sunt, quamvis multi sibi esse videantur; nam ad illam universalem Ecclesiam comparati, omnimodis probantur exigui. Hi vexati sunt a tribulatione malorum et dolore; vexati utique, quando eos diabolicae insidiae perculerunt. Necesse est enim hos dolor et tribulatio subsequatur, qui auctorem salutis reliquisse noscuntur. Sequitur, et effusa est contentio super principes eorum. Breviter sacerdotes haereticorum designati atque notati sunt, a quibus merito dicitur effusa contentio; quia non salutari doctrina, sed tantum mortifera loquacitate contendunt; quippe qui Scripturas divinas locis aliquibus suscipiunt, et pro parte maxima derelinquunt. Hi quoniam sua vanitate seducti sunt, per invia labuntur erroris: quippe qui viam salutis deserunt, et tortuosis semitis immorantur. Audiant ergo ubi ambulant, et quo possint pervenire cognoscant. Cassiodorus, Expositio In Psalterium, Psalmus CVI Source: Migne PG 70.775d-776a

They were made few, and they were vexed by the tribulations of evil and sorrow. And contention was poured out on their princes, and their vanities seduced them, and He seduced them into a trackless place and not in the way. 1 In these two verses he describes those who are deceived by the depravity of heretics and led to abandon the Lord's Church. The Apostle John says of them: 'They went out from us, but they were not of us, for if they had been of us they would have remained with us.' 2 Though they regard themselves as many, they are in truth few, for when compared with the universal Church their numbers are found to be very small. They were 'vexed by the tribulations of evil and sorrow;' that is, they were particularly afflicted because they were snared by the wiles of the devil. Inevitably those known to have abandoned the author of salvation are attended by trouble and sorrow. Next comes: 'And contention was poured out on their princes.' The priests of the heretics are briefly indicated and censured here, and it is rightly said that contention is poured out, because they do not exert themselves in the teaching which brings salvation, but merely in the loquacity which brings death, since they receive the Divine Scriptures in some passages, but for the most part they abandon them. Since they have been led away by their own vanity, they slip down into trackless errors, for they abandon the road of salvation, and perish on crooked paths. So let them attend to where there are walking, and let them be aware of where they are going. Cassiodorus, Commentary On The Psalms, Psalm 106 1 Ps 106.37-38 2 1 Jn 2.19