Moralia in Job 1088

Verse 23. — 'For it is no longer in man's power that he should come to God in judgement.' We ought to forestall God's judgement by judging ourselves. — This verse requires a discussion the greater in proportion as what it says, if neglected, grieves the more sharply. Here surely is designated not that judgement which punishes by eternal recompense, but that which, conceived in the mind, washes away by conversion. For to that former judgement no one desires to come who fears to be condemned by it. When, therefore, it is said, 'For it is no longer in man's power that he should come to God in judgement,' assuredly it is shown that there is a certain judgement which is at some time desired even by the damned and reprobate.

And what is that, but this, of which the apostle Paul says: 'If we judged ourselves, we should not indeed be judged' (1 Cor. 11:31)? and of which it is said through the prophet: 'There is no judgement in their steps' (Isa. 59:8); and of which David says: 'The king's honour loveth judgement' (Ps. 98:4)—namely, let him who already honours God out of faith carefully judge what he owes him in his conduct. Whence again it is written: 'Judge before the Lord, and wait for him' (Job 35:14). For he is judged 'before the Lord' who beholds the Lord with his heart, and discerns his own acts under his presence with careful inquiry. And him each one awaits the more securely, the more he daily examines his own life with suspicion.

For he who comes to his final judgement is now judged not 'before him,' but 'by him.' Of this judgement of the mind also the Lord says to the forgetful soul through the prophet: 'Bring me into remembrance, that we may be judged together; tell if thou hast anything, that thou mayest be justified' (Isa. 43:26). The order of this judgement. Conscience accuses, reason judges, fear binds, grief tortures. — For the mind of each one ought, with careful inquiry, to sift both his own causes before the Lord, and the Lord's causes against himself; it ought cautiously to weigh both what good things it has received from him, and what evils it has returned to his good things by living perversely. This indeed the elect wholly cease not to do daily. Whence Solomon well says:

'The thoughts of the just are judgements' (Prov. 12:5). For they approach the judge's council-chamber within the bosom of the heart: they consider how strictly he sometimes strikes who long patiently waits; they fear in those things which they remember having done, and they punish by weeping what they understand themselves to have perpetrated; they dread his subtle judgements even concerning those things which perhaps they cannot understand in themselves. For they see that things are seen by God which they themselves in their humanity do not see in themselves; they behold the strict Judge, who the more slowly he comes, the more severely he strikes.

They also contemplate the assembly of the holy fathers sitting together with him, and they reprove themselves for having despised either their examples or their words, and in this secret of the inner judgement, constrained by the very execution of their own mind, they strike by penitence what they committed by pride. For there each one enumerates against himself whatever assails him: there before his own eyes he heaps up all that he must bewail: there he beholds whatever can be decreed by the wrath of the strict Judge: there he suffers as many torments as he fears to suffer; nor is there lacking in this judgement conceived in the mind any ministry that ought more fully to punish its guilty ones. For conscience accuses, reason judges, fear binds, grief torments.

Which judgement punishes the more surely the more inwardly it rages, because plainly it does not come from things without. For each one, when he has begun to undertake the cause of this examination against himself, is himself the plaintiff who prosecutes, himself the accused who is arraigned; he hates himself such as he remembers himself to have been, and he who now is, pursues through himself that one who was, and from the very man there arises against himself a certain strife in the soul, giving birth to peace with God. This strife of the heart the Lord was requiring, when he said through the prophet: 'I attended and hearkened; no one speaketh what is good, there is none that doeth penance for his sin, saying, What have I done?' (Jer. 8:6).

By this strife of the human heart he was appeased, when he spoke to his prophet concerning King Ahab reproving himself, saying: 'Hast thou seen Ahab humbled before me? Because therefore he is humbled for my sake, I will not bring the evil in his days' (1 Kings 21:29). How profitably we should undergo this judgement which the wicked shun but the just ever exercise. Thus are we renewed from the old age of sin. — Since, then, it is now in our power to undergo the inner judgement of our mind against ourselves, let us by acknowledging accuse ourselves, and by repenting torment ourselves such as we have been; let us not cease, while it is allowed, to judge what we have done; let us hearken cautiously to what is said: 'For it is no longer in man's power that he should come to God in judgement.'

For it is wont to be proper to the reprobate ever to do wicked things, and never to review what they have done. For all that they do they pass through with blind mind, and they do not acknowledge their deed unless when they have been punished. But, on the contrary, it belongs to the elect to sift their acts daily from the very fountain of thought, and to dry up from their inmost parts all that flows forth turbid.

For just as we do not perceive how the limbs grow, the body advances, the appearance changes, the blackness of the hair whitens into grey hairs (for all these things are wrought in us without our knowing), so our mind is transmuted from itself moment by moment through the very habit of living amid cares, and we do not recognize it, unless, sitting with watchful guard over our inner parts, we daily weigh our advances and defects. For this very thing, to subsist in this mortal life, is, as it were, to go toward old age; and when the mind is left unexamined, it is lulled asleep in a certain senility of torpor, because, negligent of itself, imperceptibly losing its intended vigour, it grows old, while it knows it not, away from the form of its former strength. Whence also it is said through the prophet under the figure of Ephraim:

'Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knew it not; yea, grey hairs also are spread upon him, and he was ignorant of it' (Hos. 7:9). But when it seeks itself, and subtly sifts itself by repenting, from this its very old age, washed with tears and kindled with sorrow, it is renewed, and what had already grown almost stale grows warm anew through the pursuits of inner love administered to it. Whence the apostle Paul admonishes the disciples grown old through the habit of mortal life, saying: 'Be renewed in the spirit of your mind' (Eph. 4:23). That we may do this, the examples of the holy fathers and the divine precepts admonish us. — But to do these things, the examples of the fathers and the precepts of sacred eloquence greatly help us.

For if we inspect the works of the saints, and lend our ear to the divine commands, some things contemplated, other things heard, inflame us, and our heart is not constrained by torpor while it is provoked by imitation. Whence it is well said to Moses: 'The fire on the altar shall always burn, which the priest shall feed, putting wood under it in the morning every day' (Lev. 6:12). For the altar of God is our heart, in which the fire is commanded always to burn, because it is necessary that from it the flame of charity ascend unceasingly to the Lord. Upon which the priest is to put wood every day, lest it be extinguished. For everyone endowed with the faith of Christ is made a member of the highest priest, as Peter the apostle says to all the faithful:

'But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood' (1 Pet. 2:9). And as John the apostle says: 'Thou hast made us to our God a kingdom and priests' (Rev. 5:10). The priest, therefore, feeding the fire upon the altar, is daily to put wood under it, that is, let each faithful one, lest the flame of charity fail in him, not cease to heap up in his heart both the examples of those who went before and the testimonies of sacred Scripture. For to give, as it were, certain kindlings to the fire is to administer, in the enkindling of charity, either the examples of the fathers or the commands of the Lord.

For because our inner newness itself grows old daily by this very conversation of this life, this fire is to be fed with the applied wood, so that, while it wears itself thin through the habit of our old age, it may revive through the testimonies and examples of the fathers. And it is well commanded there that in the morning the wood be heaped up every day. For these things indeed are not done except when the night of blindness is extinguished. Or certainly, because the morning is the first part of the day, laying aside the thoughts of the present life, let each of the faithful think of this in the first place, that what in himself is even now, as it were, failing, he may with whatever efforts he can inflame with the zeal of charity.

For this fire on the altar of the Lord, that is, in our heart, is the more quickly extinguished unless it be repaired by the skilful application of the examples of the fathers and the testimonies of the Lord. So, kindled with the fire of charity, we are a holocaust to God. And it is well subjoined there: 'And when the holocaust is laid on top, he shall burn the fat of the peace-offerings' (Lev. 6:12). For whoever kindles this fire of charity in himself, assuredly lays himself as a holocaust on top, because he burns up every vice which was living wickedly in himself. For when he considers the inward things of his thoughts, and slays his reprobate life by the sword of change, he has laid himself on the altar of his own heart, and set himself afire with the fire of charity.

From which victim the fat of the peace-offerings gives forth its fragrance, because the inward enriching of the new charity, making peace between us and God, renders from us a most sweet odour. But because that same charity remains inextinguishable in the hearts of the elect, it is fitly subjoined there: 'This is the perpetual fire, which shall never fail from the altar' (ibid., v. 13). Never assuredly shall this fire fail from the altar, because even after this life the fervour of charity increases in their minds. For it comes to pass through eternal contemplation that almighty God is loved the more abundantly the more he has been seen. That, aided by the divine precepts and the examples of the saints, we obtain liberty.

— But that, aided by the divine admonitions and the examples of our predecessors, we are freed from the depth of this life, is well signified also by the prophet Jeremiah cast into the pit, who, that he might be lifted out of the pit, has ropes and old rags let down to him (Jer. 38:11). For what is figured by the ropes but the commands of the Lord? Which, because they both convict us placed in evil work and rescue us, as it were bind and draw, constrain and lift. But lest, bound by these ropes, he be cut while he is drawn, at the same time old rags too are let down, because, lest the divine precepts terrify us, the examples of the ancient fathers strengthen us, and from comparison with them we presume that we can do what from our own weakness we dread.

If, therefore, we hasten to be lifted from this depth, let us be bound with ropes, that is, let us be bound fast by the commands of the Lord. Let old rags too be present, with which the ropes are better held; that is, let us be strengthened by the examples of our predecessors, lest the subtle precepts wound us weak and timid while they lift us. As, it were, certain old rags the apostle Paul subjoined, when to his disciples to be lifted by spiritual precepts he supplied the examples of the ancients, saying: 'The just experienced mockeries and stripes, moreover also bonds and prisons: they were stoned, they were cut asunder, they were tempted, they died by the slaughter of the sword' (Heb. 11:36-37). And a little after:

'Having therefore so great a cloud of witnesses set over us, laying aside every weight, and the sin that surrounds us, let us run by patience to the combat set before us' (Heb. 12:1). And again: 'Remember your prelates, who have spoken to you the word of God; whose end of conversation beholding, imitate their faith' (Heb. 13:7). Above, plainly, while he was speaking of the spiritual precepts, he had, as it were, let down ropes; but afterward, recalling the examples of the elders, he applied, as it were, old rags. That from external things we must return to the heart.

— Aroused therefore by so many voices of precepts, aided by so many comparisons of examples, let us return to our hearts, let us sift all that we do, and whatever in us offends the rule of divine rectitude, let us accuse, that before the strict Judge that very accusation may excuse us. For in this judgement of our mind we are absolved the more quickly the more strictly we hold ourselves guilty. Nor are the times to be passed over in which one has leisure for these things to be done, because after the times of this life there is no leisure for doing these things. For it is not idly said: 'For it is no longer in man's power that he should come to God in judgement.' For this reason indeed we are reminded of what we then cannot do, lest we neglect now what we can.

But behold, businesses occupy us which, incessantly set before us, turn aside the eye of our mind from considering ourselves. For among these visible things which our heart borrows, it is scattered outside itself, and forgets what is being done within concerning itself while it is occupied without. But the divine voice, with its terrible sentences, as with certain nails pricks it that it may awake, that man, at least struck by terror, may dread the hidden judgements over him which, weighed down by torpor, he disregards. For, as we said above, by the very habit of the old life the ill-accustomed mind is depressed, and, as though sleeping, is lulled into these things which it beholds outwardly:

which, after it has once poured itself out to desire visible things, has vanished inwardly from contemplating invisible things. Whence now it is necessary that what is scattered through visible things be stricken concerning invisible judgements; and because it has prostrated itself ill-delighted in these outward things, that at least, stricken, it may seek again what it deserted. But behold, sacred Scripture with a certain terror transfixes torpid hearts, lest we cleave to these things which flow away outwardly, but to those which have inwardly lost the eternal things. It indicates what is decreed by hidden sentence, lest these public things be thought upon by us immoderately. It tells what is done concerning us over us, that from this public sphere of temporality we may gather the eye of the heart to the secret of the inner disposition.

For after many things have been told concerning the punishment of the wicked, suddenly there is brought in the hidden judgement, which is piously and justly disposed over us—how some lose what they seemed to hold, and others receive what others by their deserts lose. For he says: