Moralia in Job 1058

CHAPTER 33, VERSES 23-24. 'If there be an angel speaking for him, one among thousands, to declare the man's uprightness, He shall have mercy on him.' 2. Christ, God and man, intercedes with God for men. The economy of the Incarnation. For who is this angel, but He who is called through the prophet: 'The Angel of great counsel' (Isaiah 9:6, according to the Septuagint)? For since in the Greek tongue 'to evangelize' means 'to announce,' the Lord, announcing Himself to us, is called an angel. And well does it say: 'If there be an angel speaking for him,' since, as the Apostle says, He also 'intercedes for us' (Romans 8:34). But let us hear what He speaks for us: 'One among thousands.'

It is the custom of medicine that sometimes it cures like by like, sometimes contraries by contraries. For often it has been wont to heal hot things by hot, cold by cold; and often, on the other hand, cold by hot, hot by cold. Coming, therefore, to us from above, our Physician, and finding us pressed by so many maladies, applied to us something like, and something contrary. For as man He came to men, but as just to sinners. He agreed with us in the truth of nature, but differed from us in the vigour of righteousness. For vicious man could not be corrected save through God. Yet He who corrected had to be seen, that by offering a pattern for imitation men might change the life of their former malice. But God could not be seen by man;

therefore He was made man, that He might be able to be seen. The just and invisible God, therefore, appeared as a visible man like unto us, so that while He is seen from that in which He is like us, He might heal from that in which He is just; and while He agrees with our condition by the truth of His kind, He might meet our sickness by the power of His art. 3. The Lord, coming in the flesh, took upon Himself neither fault from vice nor punishment from necessity.

Since, therefore, the Lord, coming in the flesh, took upon Himself neither our fault from vice nor punishment from necessity (for defiled by no stain of sin, He could not be held by the condition of our guilt, and therefore, having trampled upon every necessity of our death, He took it up of His own accord when He willed), it is rightly said that for tempted man this angel speaks 'one among thousands,' because He was neither born as the rest, nor so died, nor so was raised again. For He was conceived not by the cooperation of intercourse, but by the coming of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35). And being born, He both exhibited and preserved incorrupt His mother's womb, made fruitful. Again, we all die when we are unwilling, because we are constrained by the condition of our fault to the payment of the debt of penalty to be discharged;

but He, because He was mingled with no fault, succumbed to no penalty by necessity. Yet because by lordship He subjected our fault, in mercy He took up our penalty, as He Himself says: 'I have power to lay down my soul, and I have power to take it up again' (John 10:18). Who also premised: 'No one taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself.' Again, He was not raised as the rest, because our resurrection is deferred to the end of the world, but His was celebrated on the third day. And we indeed rise again through Him, for He of Himself. For He who was God did not, like us, need to be raised by another. In this, therefore, His resurrection differs from ours, that we do not rise again through ourselves, as He did.

For inasmuch as we are simply men, we need help from on high in order that we may be able to rise. But He, as God, exhibited together with the Father and the Holy Spirit that same power of resurrection which nevertheless He alone received in His humanity. Since, therefore, the Lord was truly born, truly dead, truly raised, yet in all things differs from us by the greatness of His power, and agrees with us only in the truth of His nature, it is well said that for us this angel speaks 'one among thousands.' For while in all His operations He transcends us by immeasurable power, in one thing nevertheless He differs not from us, that is, in the truth of His form. 4. He speaks to the Father for us, when He shows Himself like unto us.

By this He speaks to the Father for us, in that He shows Himself like unto us. For His speaking, or interceding, is to show Himself man for men. And well, when He had said, 'He speaks one among thousands,' He straightway added: 'That he may declare the man's uprightness.' For unless He became like unto men, an upright man would not appear before God. For thence He announces our uprightness, whence He deigned to take up our weakness. For that enemy's persuasion had polluted us all in the contagion of fault from the very root (Genesis 3:5), and there was none who, pleading before God for sinners, might appear clean of sin, since one and the same guilt had equally enwrapped all brought forth from the same mass (Romans

5:12). Therefore the Only-Begotten of the Father came to us, took from us our nature, not perpetrating fault. For He had to be without sin who could intercede for sinners, since assuredly He would not wipe away the contagions of another's pollution, if He bore His own. Well, therefore, is it said that in that He appeared like unto us, He announced uprightness to men. For interceding for sinners, He showed Himself a just man who might merit indulgence for others. There follows: