Moralia in Job 1093

Same verse. — And they were unwilling to understand all His ways. How grievously they offend who, by their ignorance, seek impunity for sinning. It is one thing not to have known, another to have been unwilling to know. — For he does not say: By infirmity they do not understand, but, they were unwilling to understand, because often the things they scorn to do, they also scorn to know. For because it is written: The servant who, not knowing the will of his lord, does things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes; and the servant who, knowing the will of his lord, and not doing according to it, shall be beaten with many stripes (Luke 12:47–48); they reckon the impunity of sinning to be a remedy of not knowing. These men, namely, grow dark with the sole fog of pride, and therefore do not discern that it is one thing not to have known, another to have been unwilling to know.

For not to know is ignorance; to have been unwilling to know is pride. And they are so much the less able to have any excuse for not knowing, the more forcibly there is set before them, even against their will, that which they might come to recognize. Whence it is said through Solomon: 'Does not wisdom cry aloud, and prudence put forth her voice, standing on the loftiest and highest summits, above the way, in the midst of the paths?' (Prov. viii, 1). Perhaps we might have passed along the way of this temporal life with ignorance of it, had this same wisdom taken its stand in some corner off the path. In place of the divine wisdom, through the Incarnation it lies open to all. What it is to understand the ways of God. Humility opens the light of the understanding, pride shuts it. It would have had to be sought out, had it willed to be hidden.

But after He openly manifested the mysteries of His Incarnation, after He set forth examples of humility to the proud, He placed Himself before us as it were in the midst of the paths for those passing by, so that we might indeed stumble upon that which we are unwilling to seek; and that we, who as we pass by neglect to see, might touch it in striking against it. Let it therefore be said: 'And they were unwilling to understand all His ways.' For the way of the Incarnate Wisdom is every action which He performed in time. His ways are the orders of living which He laid down for those coming to Him. He therefore offered as many ways to those coming to Him as He showed examples of living well. The Prophet had looked upon the ways of His humility when he sighed, saying: 'I will exercise myself in Thy commandments, and I will consider Thy ways' (Ps.).

(Ps. cxviii, 15). Hence again it is said of every just man who takes care to walk according to the Lord's examples: 'The steps of a man are directed by the Lord, and he greatly desires His way' (Ps. xxxvi, 23) [Vet. XVII]. Because therefore all the proud despise the deeds of the Lord's humility, it is rightly said: 'They were unwilling to understand His ways.' For these ways are to be despised in the seeing, but to be revered in the understanding. For one thing is that which is beheld in them, another that which is awaited. For what in this life did He show to the eyes of beholders other than abjection, spittle, mockeries, and death? But through these lowly things there is a passage to the highest, and through these disgraces which go before, eternal and glorious things are promised to us.

The proud therefore saw the ways of God, but were unwilling to understand them, because while they despise the abject things which those ways display in themselves, they lost the sublime things which those ways promise. To understand the ways of God, then, is both humbly to endure things transitory and perseveringly to await things that abide, so that after the Lord's example the coeternal glory may be sought, weighed against temporal reproaches, and each man may fix his gaze not on what he here endures, but on that which he awaits. Toward these things, therefore, the proud kept their eyes closed, because while they are proud in the glory of the present life, they did not see the loftiness of the Lord's humility. For humility opens the light of understanding, pride hides it.

For there is a certain secret of godliness, and the mind attains to it so much the less, the more it swells with pride, because by the very thing by which it is more madly loved, it is thereby driven outside. There follows: