Moralia in Job 1014

1. To guard against despair, it is right to recall the good one has done. That which has already often been said by me, it is no burden for me to repeat frequently, since the eminent preacher also says: 'To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not irksome, but for you it is necessary' (Phil. 3:1). Blessed Job therefore recounts the virtues he had wrought, because, caught amid words of rebuke and the blows of the scourge, he perceives his mind being shaken from the confidence of hope.

For he had heard from his rebuking friends that he had done many evils, and lest his mind, pressed alike by words and scourges, should collapse into despair, he reforms it to hope through the memory of his virtues, that he might by no means cast himself down in calamity—he who remembered that in the time of his tranquillity he had wrought things so sublime. Since therefore we have stated the cause of his intent, it remains that we should subtly weigh the virtues we have heard of. 2. One virtue without the others is either nothing, or very little. And this first is to be known, that whoever is believed to excel in some virtue then truly excels when he does not on another side lie subject to vices. For if on another side he is subject to vices, neither is that solid where it was thought to stand.

For each single virtue is by so much the less, the more the others are lacking. For often it has befallen us to have seen some men chaste indeed, but not humble; some as it were humble, but not merciful; some as it were merciful, but by no means just; some as it were just, but trusting in themselves rather than in the Lord. And it is certain that not even chastity is true in his heart who lacks humility; for indeed by pride corrupting us within we commit fornication, if a man, loving himself, withdraws from divine love. Nor is humility true to which mercy is not joined, for it ought not even to be called humility which knows not to bow to compassion for a brother's misery.

Nor is mercy true which stands aloof from the rectitude of justice, for she who can be defiled by injustice knows not, without doubt, how to have mercy on her own self. Nor is justice true which places its confidence not in the Creator of all, but perhaps in itself, or in created things; for while it withdraws hope from the Creator, it perverts for itself the very order of principal justice. And so one virtue without the others is either altogether nothing, or imperfect. For, to speak—as it has seemed good to some—of the four principal virtues, prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice: each is perfect by so much the more as they are mutually joined to one another.

But separated, they can by no means be perfect; for neither is prudence true which is not just, temperate, and brave, nor is temperance perfect which is not brave, just, and prudent, nor is fortitude whole which is not prudent, temperate, and just, nor is justice true which is not prudent, brave, and temperate. 3. All these met together in Job. Blessed Job therefore, in that he had in himself the virtues not one without another but conjoined, makes it known by enumerating them one by one. For, intimating the good of chastity, he says: 'If my heart has been deceived over a woman' (chap. 31:9). And, to show that the grace of humility was in no way lacking to that same chastity, after other things he adds: 'If I have despised to undergo judgment with my servant' (verse 13).

Who, to show that mercy was joined to his humility, a little after says: 'If I denied to the poor what they wished' (verse 16). And to show that his mercy descended from the root of justice, a little before he had premised, saying: 'If I have walked in vanity, and my foot has hastened in deceit' (verse 5). And to show how fearful he was toward all things, and circumspect toward everything, he asserts below, saying: 'For I ever feared the Lord as waves swelling over me' (verse 25). Who, indeed, placed in prosperity and upheld by abundance of goods, if he had placed his hope either in his own acts or in the flowing riches, would assuredly not have been just.

But when did this holy man place hope in himself, who openly says: 'Behold, there is no help for the mute in me' (Job 6:13)? What then now remains, save that it should be made known with what mind he possessed those very riches? For he says: Chapter 31, verse 24: 'If I have thought gold my strength, and to pure gold have said, my confidence.'