Moralia in Job 1019

11. They do not exult at the splendor of their good works. The debtor is not acquitted who repays much, but who repays all. For the sun in its splendor is the good work in manifestation. For it is written: 'Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven' (Matt. 5:16). And again: 'Let your loins be girded, and lamps burning' (Luke 12:35). For what is here designated by the shining sun is designated in the Gospel by burning lamps. For the good work, when it shines in the midst of the faithless, is a lamp burning in the night; but when it is resplendent in the Church, it is the sun shining in the day. The good work, if it is still such that only the wicked marvel at it, is indeed a lamp in the night;

but if it so advances that it can be marveled at by the good and more perfect, it is surely the sun in the day. The good work, when it shines through the active life of the body, resplends as it were after the manner of a lamp, a light from an earthen shell. But when through the sole virtue of the mind it is lifted up in contemplation, it is seen as it were after the manner of the sun, a light coming from heaven. Since therefore blessed Job had recounted many good things of hospitality and mercy concerning himself, which indeed were the more slight, the more he knew them to have been wrought bodily, recalling his mind's eye to the height of spiritual virtues, he remembers his perfection, and the light of examples which he bestows on others from himself, he calls the sun.

But there are some who, when they do any good things, straightway forget their own iniquities, and fix the eye of the heart on the consideration of the good works which they exhibit; and thereby they already esteem themselves holy, in that amid the good things they do they turn away the memory of their evils, in which perhaps they are still entangled. Who indeed, if they watchfully attended to the strictness of the Judge, would fear more concerning their evils than they would exult over their imperfect good things; they would look more at what they are held debtors for concerning those things which are still to be done by them, than that, by working certain things, they now pay part of the debt. For the debtor is not acquitted who repays much, but who repays all;

Nor does he reach the prize of victory who runs swiftly through a great part of the course, if, coming near the goal, he fails in what remains. Nor, for those journeying to some appointed place, does it profit to set out and traverse a long road by beginning it, if they cannot also complete the whole. We therefore who seek eternal life, what else are we doing but treading certain roads by which we hasten to the Fatherland? But what does it profit that we cover so much, if we neglect the rest of what remains to reach the end?

Let us not consider what part of the journey has already been accomplished, but what remains to be traversed. After the manner of travellers, then, we ought by no means to look at how much of the road we have already gone, but at how much remains for us to complete, so that what is still being awaited as future, ceaselessly and fearfully, may little by little become past. We ought, then, to look more upon the good things we have not yet done than upon those which we rejoice to have already done. But human weakness has this as its own property, that it delights more to gaze upon what pleases it in itself than upon what displeases it in itself. For the sick eye of the heart, while it fears to labour in its own reflection, seeks as it were a certain bed of delight in the soul, where it may lie softly.

And therefore it understands what advantages it has gained from the good things accomplished, but does not know what losses it suffers from those neglected. For very often even the elect are tempted by this fault. Very often it is suggested to their heart that they recall to mind whatever good things they have done, and exult already in the joy of security. But if they are truly elect, they turn away the eyes of the mind from that in which they please themselves; they suppress all joy in themselves over the good things accomplished, and they seek out sorrow over those which they perceive they have done too little; they esteem themselves unworthy, and almost alone do not see their own good deeds, which they set forth in themselves as an example to be beheld by all.

Hence it is that Paul, while he set behind him the good things fulfilled in himself, and thought only of those things still remaining which were to be fulfilled, said: I do not reckon myself to have laid hold (Phil. III, 13). Hence it is that, in order that he might humble himself concerning the good things he was doing, he strove to bring back to mind his past evils, saying: I who was formerly a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and insolent (1 Tim. I, 13). And though he once said: I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith (2 Tim. IV, 7), it is above all to be observed that he uttered this at that time when he already knew that he was to depart from the body. For there he had premised, saying:

For I am now being poured out as a libation, and the time of my dissolution is at hand (Ibid., 6). Then, therefore, he brought back to memory the perfection of his work, when he now foresaw that there remained scarcely any time for the exercise of good works. For just as, while we live, we ought to drive our good deeds from memory, lest they exalt us, so, as our departure draws near, we very often recall them again to memory, so that they may afford confidence and press down despairing fear. And even if he narrated his own good deeds to the Corinthians by enumerating them, he was eager to strengthen them, not to show off himself. For because he was not regarding those same good deeds in himself, he taught it by the disclosed tribulation of his own testing, to which, thus expressed, he added: Wherefore I am pleased with myself in my weaknesses (2 Cor. XII, 10).

In order, then, to instruct his disciples, he related the highest things about himself; but in order to keep himself in humility, he had fixed the eye of consideration not upon his virtues, but upon his weaknesses. Holy men therefore have this as their own property, that they indeed see the good things they do; and yet, when they have accomplished them, they turn away the eyes from the memory of them. Whence it is rightly said through blessed Job: If I have beheld the sun when it shone. As if he plainly said: My work, even when it afforded to others the light of examples, I did not regard for the favour of presumption, because, while I feared to be exalted on account of it, I turned my eyes away from beholding it. There follows: