[Meaning] to shake, to sift, to disturb, to stir up, to tempt.[1]
Christ to Peter: "Satan sought you to sift you like wheat; but I prayed on your behalf, lest your faith fail you."[2] Jesus has not prayed on behalf of Peter only, but concerning all those who have Peter's faith. With this "sieve" he riddles [about] nothing other than the whole wide world, which has been made full of delights and sufferings, through which as through holes worldly people fall from the nourishing grain towards Hades, just as from the little holes that separate in a sieve: some flowing through as through the hole of their gluttony, [those] whose God is their belly; others flowing through on account of fondness for pleasure; about whom the prophets say: "they wander about in the spirit of fornication";[3] and some flowing through on account of their love of money; and others [flowing through] on account of their natural impulse; and still others [flowing through] on account of their temper; and yet others [flowing through] on account of other passions.[4]