Moralia in Job 1036

55. When prelates misuse their authority, there springs up a thistle instead of wheat, and a thorn instead of barley. — As if he plainly said: If I have done anything unjust toward my subjects, if I have exacted what was owed to me and have not myself rendered what I owed, if I have begrudged others the exercise of good works, then in the judgment let evils that sting be repaid to me in place of the good things that refresh unto eternity. For a thistle springs up instead of wheat, and a thorn instead of barley, when in the final recompense — from which the reward of labor is sought — the piercing of grief is found instead. And it must be noted that just as barley differs from wheat, though both give nourishment, so a thorn differs from a thistle, though both prick; for the thistle is softer, while the thorn is always harder for pricking. He says therefore:

Let a thistle spring up for me instead of wheat, and a thorn instead of barley. As if he openly said: I know indeed that I have done good things, both great and least; but if it is not so, then let least evils answer to me in place of great goods, and greater evils in place of least goods. Yet this can also be understood otherwise. For by wheat is figured the spiritual work that refreshes the mind, but by barley the dispensing of earthly affairs. In this dispensing, while we are often compelled to serve the weak and the carnal, we, as it were, prepare their proper fodder for beasts of burden; and the very use of our works has, after the manner of barley, something of an admixture of chaff. And it very often happens that a ruler who presides, while he practices unjust things against his subjects, while he cherishes the good with no gentle

nourishment refreshes them, while — what is more grievous — he afflicts out of envy those who do well, may nevertheless sometimes do certain good things, as though he sowed wheat; and while dispensing earthly affairs he sometimes engages in them not out of zeal for avarice but for the benefit of the carnal, and thus awaits the fruit of that same labor as a harvest of barley. But those who are subject, because they are burdened in the greatest matters, cannot rejoice in his least good deeds; for neither does that work please before God which the injustice of another work defiles, nor is that very dispensing of earthly affairs believed to be undertaken for the benefit of the subjects, when he who presides is seen to be panting through avarice.

Whence it comes about that even for those few good deeds which they consider to be done amid no evils, they render not praises but groans; and being made weak they murmur, while they weigh that what they see is not of pure work. He says therefore: If my land cries out against me, and its furrows weep with it; if I have eaten its fruits without money, and have afflicted the soul of its husbandmen; let a thistle spring up for me instead of wheat, and a thorn instead of barley. As if he plainly said: If I have not carefully done the great things I owed, I shall receive from my subjects the prickings of murmuring, even for the good that I have done. If I have neglected to furnish what would cherish them, justly may their tongue prick me, breaking forth into complaint. 56. Let prelates beware of setting bad examples, and subjects of rash judgments.

— In which matter it must always be weighed with anxious consideration, lest either those who preside set examples of evil work before their subjects and extinguish their life with the sword of their own depravity; or those who are subject to another's rule dare easily to judge the deeds of their rulers, and through this — that they murmur about those who are set over them — contradict not a human but a divine order, namely His who disposes all things. For to those it is said: My sheep were fed with that which had been trodden by your feet, and drank that which your feet had disturbed (Ezek. 34:19). For the sheep drink what has been disturbed by the feet when subjects seek after, as an example of living, those things which the prelates pervert by their depraved work. But on the contrary, from the prelates these hear:

For what are we? Nor is your murmuring against us, but against the Lord (Exod. 16:8). For whoever murmurs against the power set over him plainly reproves Him who gave that same power to man. At last, by God's bounty, we have set forth the sayings of blessed Job, full of mystical virtue, in which he answered against the words of his friends; now it remains to come to the words of Elihu, which must be weighed with all the graver circumspection inasmuch as they are uttered, through the boldness of youth, with a more fervent spirit.