Moralia in Job 1189

VERSE 3. — 'Gird up thy loins like a man.' 12. Not only the lust of the flesh but also the lust of an exalted heart must be curbed. — Holy Scripture is accustomed to call those men who indeed follow the ways of the Lord with strong and not slack steps. Whence it is said through the Psalmist: 'Do manfully, and let your heart be strengthened' (Ps. XXX, 25). Whence Paul says: 'Lift up the hands which hang down, and the loosened knees' (Heb. XII, 12). Whence also Wisdom in the Proverbs: 'O ye men, to you I call' (Prov. VIII, 4). As if he plainly said: I speak not to women, but to men, because those who are of a fluid mind can by no means receive my words. But to gird the loins is to restrain lust either in deed or in thought.

For the delight of the flesh is in the loins. Whence also it is said to holy preachers: 'Let your loins be girded, and lamps burning in your hands' (Luke XII, 35). For by the loins is lust designated, but by the lamps the brightness of good works. They are commanded therefore to gird their loins and to hold lamps. As if they plainly heard: First restrain lust in your very selves, and then show to others the examples of good works from yourselves. But since we know blessed Job to have been endowed with such great chastity, why is it said to him after so many scourgings: 'Gird up thy loins like a man,' that is, like a strong man restrain lust, unless because one is the lust of the flesh by which we corrupt chastity, and another indeed is the lust of the heart by which we glory over our chastity?

It is said to him therefore: 'Gird up thy loins like a man,' so that he who first had overcome the lust of corruption might now restrain the lust of exaltation, lest, growing proud over his patience or chastity, he should be so much the worse a lustful man within before the eyes of God, by however much he appeared before the eyes of men both patient and chaste. Whence it is well said through Moses: 'Circumcise the foreskin of your heart' (Deut. X, 16), that is, after you extinguish lust from the flesh, cut away also the superfluities of your thoughts. There follows: