Moralia in Job 1130

V. 16.—Therefore he shall save thee from the narrow mouth most widely. 65. The habit of sin is a most narrow pit, out of which grace alone can lead us. —Everyone who, forsaking the way of life, casts himself into the darkness of sins, plunges himself as it were into a pit or a ditch. But if by long perpetration he is oppressed also by the habit of iniquity, so that he can no longer rise up to the higher things, he is constrained as it were by the narrow mouth of the pit. Whence David the prophet, under the person of sinners, beseeches, saying: 'Let not the tempest of water drown me, nor the deep swallow me up, nor the pit shut her mouth upon me' (Ps. 69:16). For him whom the iniquity of an evil work has moved from good stability, the tempest of water as it were has snatched away;

but if it has not yet prevailed by long habit, it has not drowned him. He has already fallen into the pit who has perpetrated that which the divine law forbids. But if long habit does not yet press him down, the pit has by no means narrowed its mouth upon him. He goes out the more easily, in proportion as he is constrained by the lesser habit. Whence Jeremiah the prophet, when he beheld Judea to have been overwhelmed by iniquities through long habit, in his lamentations, under her person, bewails his own self, saying: 'My life is slipped into the pit, and they have laid a stone over me' (Lam. 3:53). For life slips into the pit when it is defiled with the stain of iniquity.

But a stone is laid over it when the mind is also devoured in sin by hard habit, so that even if it wishes to rise, it can no longer by any means, because the mass of evil habit presses down from above. But because it lies under the divine power, and after the narrowness of depraved habit is recalled to the breadth of good action, therefore it is said: He shall save thee from the narrow mouth most widely. For he is saved most widely from the narrow mouth who, even after the yoke of iniquity, is led back by repentance to the liberty of good work. 66. How great is the straitness, to wish to rise up from the oppressing evil habit and not be able. —For there is a certain straitness, as it were, of a shut mouth, to wish to rise up from the oppressing evil habit, and not be able;

already indeed by desire to tend toward the supernal things, but still by act to remain in the lowest; to go before in heart, yet not to follow in work, and in one's own self to suffer contradiction against one's own self. But when the soul, thus striving, is helped by the hand of exalting grace, it comes from the narrow mouth to breadth, because, the difficulties being overcome, it accomplishes the good works which it desires. David the prophet had beheld the enclosure of a narrow mouth, when he said: 'Thou hast saved my soul out of distresses, nor hast thou shut me up in the hands of the enemy' (Ps. 31:8-9). But he knew himself to have been saved most widely, when he added, saying:

Thou hast set my feet in a spacious place (Ibid.). For the feet are established in a spacious place when we both tend toward becoming goods, and are hindered by no difficulty. For as it were through a broad place we proceed whither we will, because we are straitened by no interposed difficulties. 67. Job is believed, without cause, to have fallen into this pit.—But Elihu would rightly say these things, if his sentence suited blessed Job. For he believed him scourged for guilt, and therefore judged him to have fallen into the narrow mouth. For in proportion as he saw him afflicted with stronger blows, he believed him weighed down by the worse iniquities, being surely ignorant that his scourges were the increase of merit, not the penalty of sin.

But while he confesses that he has fallen into the narrow mouth, he still, as it were more broadly, pursues in how great a depth Job is held, saying: