Moralia in Job 1060

VERSE 25. 'His flesh is consumed with torments; let him return to the days of his youth.' 7. Departing from God, we found nothing save that whereby we should be afflicted. For in that first man departing from God, cast out from the joys of paradise, we fell into this hardship of mortal life, and the grievous fault which we committed by the serpent's persuasion (Genesis 3:23), we now feel as the penalty of our vengeance. For having fallen hither, we found nothing outside God, save that whereby we should be afflicted. And because through the sight of the eyes we followed the flesh, from that same flesh, which we set before God's precepts, we are scourged.

For in that same flesh daily we suffer groaning, in it torment, in it destruction, so that by a marvellous disposition the Lord turned that into a punishment for us through which we committed the fault; nor should there be meanwhile any exaction of chastisement save whence had been the cause of sin, so that by the bitterness of that flesh man might be instructed unto life, by whose delight he in pride came unto death. 8. From the torments of carnal life Christ has rescued us, and renewed us. Since, therefore, the human race was pressed by innumerable torments of carnal life, but at the coming of our Redeemer both the vices of our corruption and its torments were destroyed, let it be said of redeemed man: 'His flesh is consumed with torments; let him return to the days of his youth.'

As if it said: By the penalty of his mortality he was cast down into a certain old age of his decay; let him return to the days of his youth, that is, let him be renewed in the integrity of his former life, that he may not remain in that into which he fell, but, redeemed, may return to that for the receiving of which he was created. For Holy Scripture is often wont to put youth for newness of life. Whence to the coming Bridegroom it is said: 'The maidens have loved thee' (Song of Songs 1:3), that is, the souls of the elect renewed by the grace of baptism, which do not fail in the use of the old life, but are adorned by the conversation of the new man. For the old age of the old man, wasting away amid vices, he bewailed who said: 'I have grown old among all mine enemies' (Psalm 6:8).

On the contrary, another, admonishing to rejoice in virtues, says: 'Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth' (Ecclesiastes 11:9). As if it said: Let each strong one rejoice in his renewal; that is, let him place his gladness not in the pleasure of the old life, but in the virtue of the new conversation. But because we are recalled to this strength of newness not by our own powers, but by the intervening of the Redeemer, for this scourged man the angel praying says: 'Let him return to the days of his youth.' And because, while our Redeemer intercedes with the Father for us, we too, having shaken off the torpor of our former life, are kindled to a thirst for prayer, fittingly of this redeemed man it is subjoined: