Commentary on Job 1 part 10/15

Just as a garment defiled with blood shall not be clean, so neither shall you be clean. By its being defiled with blood the magnitude of the wickedness is displayed.

One must not be surprised if the blessed man says one thing to his friends and another to God.

For then there would be a contradiction, if, in speaking to the same one, he called himself both righteous and a sinner.

With moderation, then, toward God and in relation to his purity, he says that he has been dipped in filth; but toward men he discourses otherwise, saying:

I know that I shall be shown to be righteous. That the saints employ this kind of speech, one may learn also from the writings of Paul, who says:

(seven lines are lacking) ... Enduring, then, many things according to the soul, the saints do indeed suffer at the hands of the opposing power, inasmuch as they partake of human nature; yet they do not fall away from the divine purpose.

And David at least, being in such a warfare, sings in the psalm:

I was troubled and did not speak; and again:

Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why do you trouble me? And as to his own mind when it is shaken, he brings comfort, saying:

Hope in God, for I will give thanks to him. So too the blessed Job, with a right disposition, says the things set forth to God, making manifest the guilelessness of his own mind.

For you are not a man like me, with whom I might contend in judgment.

The passage, when thus smoothed out, follows consistently:

I indeed understand the things concerning myself.

But since the friends, moved not by right reasoning but by the surrounding afflictions, suppose that I have suffered on account of sin, I am content with your testing.

Then for their sake, in a certain way instructing them again that the things concerning him are not human, he says:

You are not a man like me, with whom I might contend in judgment—as one who understands all his own affairs and on account of this endures, because he follows the judgment of God; so that the friends too might imitate him, reckoning that the account concerning him is ineffable, and thus might depart from their single supposition.

That we might come together with one accord into judgment.

As has been said before, he instructs the friends to perceive that he has a conscience full of confidence and ready for judgment.

Conscious to himself, he does not refuse to come into judgment.

And he says these things not out of arrogance toward God—he who is testified to by God on the ground of righteousness—but that he might teach, as has been said, the friends that he does not dread a scrutiny.

For he had nothing worthy of reproof.

Partaking of this same boldness, David sang in the psalm:

My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready. Would that there were our mediator, one who both convicts and adjudicates between us both.

These things too are again spoken in common, in the same manner in which the former things were said, being a most clear proof of the freedom of his soul.

He prays, then, that there might be some examiner who would show the friends that he suffers these things not on account of sin, but for the sake of a contest.

And the holy man desired these things not out of boastfulness, but first, that the friends might have right conceptions concerning the matters; and next, that they might not sin against God by being cast into despair—as often happens, when such things come about either in themselves or in others, and they find no sin, nor are conscious to themselves of any transgression.

But since the naming of the mediator has once been set forth, it is worthwhile to consider how the Savior is called mediator of God and men.

Man, then—and why do I say 'man'?—the creature stands far removed from the Creator.

And you find in the nature of things that, when things very widely separated are brought together into one, they have something in the middle.

And by way of a ready example: the shell of the egg is hard, and the nourishing part is watery, while the membrane lies between, being thinner than the shell but drier than the liquid, and thus they are joined together.

And this you may observe also in nuts and pomegranates.

Since, then, God stands far removed from man, the Son, who is consubstantial with God, took the human in himself, so that by his kinship with men and his consubstantiality with God he might join the two together and break down the middle wall of partition, the enmity, in his flesh, taking up the rank of high priest.

And the high priest is in the middle between God and those who are consecrated, bearing the things of God to men and the things of men to God:

he offers up the prayers and the supplications to God as sacrifices, and provides the knowledge of him to men.

He sends up a prayer, at any rate, saying:

As I and you are one, that these also may be one in us. And this will be then, when God becomes all in all, so that thenceforth they may be joined to God without a mediator, becoming one spirit with him.

And that the blessed Job also foresaw this mediator with the divine eye is clear from the phrase 'the one who is about to master the great sea-monster,' and from 'like one walking as upon a floor, upon the sea.'

For, since God made it manifest to him, there is no doubting that he had been fully assured concerning the whole economy of salvation.

Let him remove his rod from me, and let not the fear of him confound me.

The painful mode of life is signified by the name of the rod, and especially in the case of punishment, when it is so spoken of.

It has been said, at any rate, concerning the sons of David:

If his sons forsake my law and do not walk in my judgments, I will visit their sins with a rod and their iniquities with scourges. But this punishment, and every punishment from God, does not harm the one being punished, but instructs him.

And that this is so, Paul writes to the Corinthians:

'What will you? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in love?' That is to say:

Shall I come to you as to beloved ones, or as to those needing correction? For in a certain manner he who corrects some by painful means seems on that account not to love the one he corrects.

And a word of understanding is also called a rod;

for it is written, 'He who brings forth wisdom from his lips strikes with a rod the man without heart' — the discourse there calling the reproof and the rebuking word a rod.

And that this is profitable, the divine word makes plain when it says:

'He who spares his staff hates his own son' — and yet according to men he would be reckoned to love his son by not striking him.

'And I will not be afraid, but I will speak.'

'For I am not thus conscious to myself, being weary in soul.'

'Groaning, I will pour out my words against him.'

'I will speak, being held fast by bitterness of soul.'

He wishes to instruct them not to be burdensome, nor to press upon those who are weary, and to consider that even while he is in afflictions he answers with a sound understanding.

He says therefore that, if there were a mediator and I had been delivered

from the painful things which you suppose have been brought upon me because of sin — if, as you hold, I had been enslaved to them — I would have spoken without fear, being freed from them;

but I cannot so reason, being worn out by my pains;

yet if indeed, as you say, these came because of sin, I would have spoken groaning, and being constrained by bitterness I would have uttered my words, seeking to demonstrate and display the purity of my conscience.

'Do not teach me to be impious, and why have you judged me thus?' — I would have said this to the Lord, if the only cause, according to you, were the punishments that come because of sin;

'Do not teach me to be impious.' For if even he who has sinned in nothing is punished because of sin, then to sin would be the more preferable.

Besides, the one who is not such is taught to sin, if there is but one single cause of suffering.

'And I would have said, why have you judged me thus, you who know the hearts,' if I did not know that it is because of the one who begged for these things that I endure them.

He says these things in effect, instilling in them a longing to ask, so that his answer concerning his own purity might seem to come from their own prompting, and not from his own initiative — which would have seemed boastful.

'Is it good for you, if I do wrong, that you should reject the works of your hands?' And this too I would have said, if, as you are disposed, the sufferings came because of sin;

'Is it good for you, if I do wrong, that you should reject me who have sinned in nothing, being the work of your hands?' For if the diligent man is punished in the same way as the base, as though he were base, then, according to you, the whole occasion is superfluous.

'And have you taken heed to the counsel of the impious?'

'Or do you see as a mortal sees, or is your life the life of man, or your years the years of a man?'

It is possible for him to say, 'You have taken heed to the one who begged for these things,' hinting at the truth that he does not suffer according to the primary principle — I mean, because of sin.

It is also possible to number these men among the counsel of the impious;

for they do not speak piously, taking affliction in a single manner, as though everyone who is afflicted is afflicted because of sin.

'And I would have said also, do you see as a mortal sees,' if, as you are disposed, there were one cause of afflictions, 'and is your life the life of man, or your years the years of a man?'

All these things I would have said, if I shared your opinion;

but knowing that there is not one cause of the things brought upon me, but one that comes also for the sake of a contest, I know that God is not as a man, considering only the things that appear, but that he enters into the depth of the soul and thus tests each thing justly.

It should be noted, as elsewhere too, that 'life' (bios) is a word of many meanings.

For it signifies riches, as it is said in the Song of Songs:

'If a man gives all his substance (bios) in love, they will utterly despise him.' And 'life' also signifies possessions, as when John says:

'Whoever has the world's goods (bios) and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him.' And the upright manner of life, and the base one, are also called 'life' (bios), as when we say:

'He has an active life,' or that 'so-and-so has a base life.'

But here he called man's sojourn in this age his 'life' (bios).

He says therefore: if you had so great a life — meaning a circumscribed span of time — as a man, I would have contended with you as with one who is ignorant.

'For you are the same, and your years shall not fail.' And again:

'Your years are throughout all generations.' The existence of God is boundless;

wherefore you are ignorant of nothing concerning me, Job would say —

'that you have sought out my iniquity and searched out my sins.'

Again reproving those men, he says this: that the calamity concerning me belongs to men who have sinned greatly.

This was their reasoning; he shows them gently that it is not so, by saying, 'Your years, O God, are not those of a man, since you have sought out my iniquity.'

For according to their reasoning, you pursue me as one who has sinned, and you seek out our iniquities or sins by means of these afflictions, according to those who are so disposed.

'For you know that I have not been impious.'

He uncovers to them the knowledge of the matter, saying to God:

'You know that I have not been impious.' But these men suppose that the things brought upon me were brought as against an impious man.

'But who is he that delivers out of your hands?' Again he suggests the thought that it is possible even for one who has not sinned to fall into painful things;

for God indeed knows that Job was not impious.

He adds, 'But who is he that is delivered out of your hands?', instructing his friends to understand that even one who has not sinned nor been impious comes under the hand of God amid painful things, for the sake of a contest and the display of endurance.

At any rate, those who are afflicted, yet do not fall on account of their afflictions, say:

'We are afflicted in every way, but not distressed.' And again it is said:

'Many are the afflictions of the righteous, and out of them all he will deliver them.' Now to be delivered from afflictions is not by any means to be free from being afflicted at all, but not to be primarily overcome by them, not to be ensnared by those who cast the nets of afflictions.

'Your hands made me and formed me.'

And this too he added fittingly;

for lest anyone suppose that he calls God cruel and inexorable by saying, 'But who is he that is delivered out of your hands?', he adds, 'Your hands made me and formed me,' saying that even if he brings afflictions, yet he spares his own works;

'You spare all, for they are yours, O Master, lover of souls.' And it is well said, 'Your hands made me and formed me,' so that 'made' may be taken of the soul, and 'formed' of the body;

for 'formed me' signifies a firm support, which is proper to the body.

And in Genesis too it is said:

'God made man, in the image of God he made him' — for it is not the body that is in the image, but the soul;

for God is not of human form.

'God formed man,' taking the body as dust from the earth, so that, as we said, we may understand the 'making' of the soul, and the 'forming' of the flesh.

But if 'making' is also applied to the flesh, it need not be thought strange;

for 'to form' belongs, generically, to 'to make'.

Someone will object, saying that 'to have been formed' is applied also to the soul, and that this is signified from the verse:

'He who forms the hearts of them, one by one.' In relation to which the things concerning the hands of God must also be understood wisely;

and one man says more simply that 'hands', whether spoken in the plural or the dual, signify the effectual power of God;

but it is also possible to take 'hand' more precisely as the Son — for it is said:

'My hand made all these things' — and 'the Spirit', according to what is said:

By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the breath of his mouth all their power. And it is also said:

The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you; therefore the holy thing that is begotten in you shall be called the Son of God. For in order that the temple of the Saviour might be composed, there came both the coming of the Holy Spirit and of the power of the Most High, which is the Son.

After these things you transformed me and struck me.

He sets forth by these words both the creative and the providential act of God: by the phrase 'your hands made me' the creative act, and by 'after these things you transformed me and struck me' the providential.

For this too is a work of God's providence, to encompass the valiant man with afflictions for the sake of the contest, so that he may set up for men a pattern and a goal, looking to which they may become imitators.

The word 'transformed' is to be understood as meaning 'having wrought a change concerning me in the body.'

For he was drawn out and grievously mangled when absolutely all the things about him had been altered.

Remember that you fashioned me as clay, and you turn me again to earth.

Knowing him to be the author and lord of creation and of providence, he turns his speech to prayer, saying:

Even though you brought upon me painful things as one having authority, yet remember that I am weak and have my composition from clay — this is to be understood with respect to the body — and having fashioned me you turn me again to earth.

And it is clear from this that he is speaking about the body.

For the soul is not turned back into earth.

He goes through the matters concerning the weakness of human nature, exhorting his friends also to endurance and to the recognition of his virtue and his patience.

And now too he joined 'to fashion' to the body as proper to it;

for fashioning is proper to what is resistant matter.

For indeed concerning the angels it is not said:

'He who fashioned the angels,' but 'He who makes his angels spirits.' And concerning the earth it is said, as of a dense body:

And his hands fashioned the dry land. And these things are said, not that God fashions with hands after the manner of men, but because the divine instruction applies to each thing its proper name: fashioning, as we said, to the body, but making to the soul.

Similar to 'you turn me again to earth' is what was said to Adam:

You are earth, and to earth you shall return. It must be observed that, if something is said concerning a composite thing, it is not necessary to understand it of every part of it.

And 'David was meeker than Moses' — we do not understand this concerning his body.

And 'David was ruddy, with beautiful eyes' — we understand this concerning the body, not concerning the soul.

'You turn me again to earth' — one must not reckon that this is said concerning the soul.

Did you not milk me out like milk, and curdle me like cheese? The seed, out of which the living being is composed, he speaks of as milk that has been milked out;

and just as milk, when it is congealed, becomes cheese, so also the seed, when it has been congealed, becomes a nature;

and this is a state prior to the embryo;

for the seed that is cast down into the furrows of the womb, when it has congealed like cheese, becomes a nature;

which is thereafter fashioned, or, as the Scripture says, is formed into an image and receives, as it were, distinctive impressions.

And when the limbs have become distinct, and each has come to be by itself, and thereafter moves like the hand or foot of a living being, then the birth of the embryo brings the living being forth into the open.

All these things, then, he comprises: by 'remember that you fashioned me as clay' signifying the original creation of Adam, and by 'did you not milk me out like milk' signifying the generations that are constituted by succession.

All these things, then, he recounts, pointing out the workmanship of God, so that from this, or through prayer, he may call forth [God] to mercy.

So he says 'you milked me out' to God, showing that by his working the genuine deposit of the seeds comes about.

You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews.

This text is used by those who wish to show that the garments of skin with which God clothed [them] are these dense bodies.

For indeed in Genesis it is said:

And God made for Adam and his wife garments of skin, and clothed them. But he made [them] for Adam and his wife, in order to show that he made a garment suited to male and female.

It is clear that here he calls the body 'skin and flesh';

for he joins next the things that hold it together, saying:

And you knit me together with bones and sinews. So he declares the whole course and framework of the constitution of the body, both by the things before these and by these very words that are laid down.

It should be noted that these words appear to be [words] of the soul;

for it is she who has been clothed with the skin and the flesh, and knit in with bones and sinews;

which signifies that she is prior to the garments and to the being clothed.

You granted me life and mercy from yourself, and your visitation has guarded my spirit.

And by 'having granted life' he signifies what is proper to the creative act, but by 'mercy' the providential grace.

For since it happens that such a life also undergoes plotting against it, there is need of mercy, on account of which it was said:

You granted me life and mercy from yourself. For God creates not out of obligation, but out of mercy and goodness;

for to bestow life upon susceptible matter came about by mercy rather than by anything else.

And still more clearly what follows makes plain the matters concerning his providence and care, when it says:

And your visitation has guarded my spirit — calling the soul 'spirit.'

For even though 'spirit' signifies many things, yet here it indicates the soul;

just as the body without spirit is dead, and Stephen also, when interceding with God and saying:

Lord, receive my spirit — signifies the soul.

Having these things in yourself, I know that you can do all things;

God does not have from without the things he is said to have;

for everything that he is, he is by being simple and being uncompounded, not taking on anything from without;

for indeed creator and good and light and all things — whatever is rightly predicated of God in theology — belong to him according to his essence.

But 'you can do all things' must be heard faithfully and prudently, lest we fall into the folly of the Docetists.

And what is said becomes clear if we make use of a distinction in this way:

of powers, some are active, others passive.

And active are those according to which we act, but passive those according to which we are acted upon, which also [tend] toward the activities.

If, then, God is said to be able to do all things, one must not attribute to him also the passive powers;

for it is not possible to say that he can become anything else — for there do not belong to him the powers of susceptibility — nor must it be said that he can lie, or be changed, or deny himself.

Therefore the things that befit God, these I call possible for him.

For certain people sophistically argue, among whom is Porphyry and those like him, that if all things are possible for God, then also lying is; and if all things are possible for the believer, he can also make a couch and make a man.

But this is not what is signified; rather, just as, if it is said that all things are possible for the physician, I speak concerning medicine, and all things are possible for the pilot, I mean the things befitting his art — so if I say all things are possible for God or for the believer, I mean this: that the things befitting God are possible for God, and the things befitting the believer the believer can do.

And these are the things accomplished through faith.

And that the Scripture also knows this, it says concerning God:

If we deny [him], he remains faithful;

for he cannot deny himself. And again:

in which it is impossible for God to lie. And likewise, with understanding, the phrase 'nothing is impossible for you' must be taken, which it is possible to understand in parallel with the one preceding it, according to what is said in the Gospel:

'All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made.' But consider whether it is also fitting to understand it in this way:

Evil is a non-being; at any rate, those who partake of it are said to be 'those who are not.'

'For do not hand over your sceptre to those who are not.' It is also said:

'He who calls the things that are not as though they were, that he might bring to nought the things that are'—as though to say this:

'Non-being and evil are powerless against you.'

For to sin is proper to that which is subject to change.

'For if I sin, you will watch over me.'

'And from lawlessness you have not made me guiltless.'

For since he knows him to be the Creator and Providence of himself and of all things, he consequently teaches also concerning his long-suffering.

For he too, like the blessed David, knows that God does not bring wrath every day. Now God watches over the sinner, not willing that he should sin—for he does not will the death of the sinner so much as his repentance—but in order that, by giving a law that forbids sinning, he who works evil might come to hate wickedness.

And gently he also rebukes his friends, who suppose that he suffers on account of sin, teaching them that God does not requite at the very moment of sinning, so that they too might reckon this from their own experience.

'From lawlessness you have not made me guiltless'—at the same time both offering a proof of his humility and pointing to the sin that comes by succession from Adam, which is common to all men.

But we do not say this, that the saints are subject to transgression by deliberate choice, but by succession, as has been said.

For just as the infant born to an idolater, being a babe, has no sin, yet has this very thing as a kind of defilement—to have been born among such people, the upbringing being blameworthy—so also concerning the saints one must think of an involuntary fault.

And we say that the faults of the saints are a road to virtue.

And just as, if someone learning to write, since he cannot at once write well, stumbles in the learning—his stumble not being so blameworthy as if one deliberately wrote badly out of ill will—so also he who sets out toward virtue, if at first he errs through ignorance, is not to be punished.

'For if I be ungodly, woe is me;'

'And if I be righteous, I cannot lift up my head.'

He would be saying that, whether I sin by deliberate choice—woe is me—or whether, as we have already explained, I have only that which comes by succession from Adam, even so I shall not be able to lift up my head as one freed from every stain.

For of sins, some arise wickedly from our own deliberate choice, and others as has been said before;

and upon those from deliberate choice punishment follows, while to those from ignorance purification is owed.

And he is able to say that, even if I am righteous, yet I am not high-minded, knowing that the outcome is uncertain.

For many who have boasted of themselves have in fact fallen.

And note indeed the Pharisee speaking before God—was he perhaps not speaking truly? Yet because his words were self-glorifying, they found no acceptance.

Indeed, concerning the humble one it is said that 'this man went down justified rather than that one.' 'But I am full of dishonour.'

This signifies the frailty of human weakness; for man is full of dishonour by being clothed with such a body, concerning which Paul says:

'It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory.' 'And I am hunted like a lion unto the slaughter.'

The enemy, supposing that I am full of dishonour according to the aforementioned sense, thinks to cast me down through those who surround me, as though seeking to encompass me with dogs and nets.

Now the lion is a great beast.

'A lion is stronger than the beasts.' For 'the righteous is bold as a lion.' Nevertheless, he who is arrayed against an adversary knows that someone seeks to hunt him;

and this is the adversary, the devil.

And by 'slaughter' he here means the falling into sin;

for 'slaughter' is also often used with reference to punishment.

He indicates the greatness of the surpassing plot against himself by saying that 'thus I am hunted like a lion,' the enemy setting snares for him as for a lion and leaving nothing undone for temptation.

And this is said not in arrogance, but to make manifest the plot.

'For again, turning about, you dreadfully destroy me.'

He shows that, even if I am hunted like a lion with so many things surrounding me, yet they themselves have no authority over the assault;

'for the permission is yours.'

For unless God had permitted it, the hunter would have had no authority.

And the phrase 'turning about' must be heard in an active sense, as the change concerning Job came about—from wealth to poverty and from being healthy to being sick, ... great ...

'Renewing against me my ordeal.'

It signifies the successive intensification of his afflictions.

For just as an enemy, being repulsed, again prepares himself from the opposite side to wage war, in the same way he who received the authority, ever devising new pains as against a valiant man, raised the affliction to a great magnitude.

'While this one was yet speaking, another messenger came;' for the sorrows became frequent and one upon another.

'And you have used great wrath against me;'

'And you have brought trials upon me.'

It is a matter of sin, if they should attribute his life to it.

And 'wrath' here must not be taken as a passion, but as the toilsome discipline, just as Moses too says to God:

'You sent forth wrath, and it consumed them like stubble,' ... some indeed on account of sin;

and he indicates here through the words 'and you have brought trials upon me' that it was not on account of sin;

for those who are punished in this manner are not said to be undergoing trials.

And thus one must understand the trials to have been brought upon him—not so that he should fall under them.

And this also comes to pass, which the disciples were taught to say in prayer that it might not come to pass:

'Lead us not into temptation.' 'Why then did you bring me forth from the womb, and I did not die? And no eye saw me, and I became as though I had not been.'

Someone might suppose this to arise from despair, but it is refuted by what was said by God:

'Do you think that I have dealt with you otherwise than that you might be shown to be righteous?' So he does not say this out of contradiction, he who a little before said:

'For if I be ungodly, woe is me,' but wishing to show forth the bitterness of life, which a wicked man would not do;

for he takes delight in this life of his.

Moreover, he also wishes the reason to be shown plainly even to his friends, on account of which he did not die at the very moment of coming forth from the womb;

and it is clear that it was on account of his being destined to be a model of courage.

And in another way too the life in the flesh is intimated, concerning which Paul writes:

'If in this life only we have hope, we are of all men most to be pitied.' And he perceives both the pleasant things of life and the bitter.

For no one released from the flesh takes delight in wealth or in dissipation, nor is grieved at things distressing.

Having therefore made trial of this life and of the pleasant things in it—for he had become blessed with good children and many children and wealthy, and had health of body—when his circumstances changed into their opposites and he came to have experience of these as well, and by the very deeds knew their vanity, he instructs us also not to have longing toward them, by saying: