Moralia in Job 1212

9. The proud observance of the law is reproved.—For 'the high arm is broken,' when, the grace of faith being preached, the proud working of the law is reproved, as it is said: 'By the works of the law shall no flesh be justified' (Rom. 3:20). 10. How God both holds and shakes the ends of the Church.—Yet all these things can also be understood otherwise. For Sacred Scripture is accustomed to call the Church the earth. The Lord therefore holds and shakes the ends of the earth, because He permits the last parts of His Church to be troubled by a most savage persecution through the coming of Antichrist, and yet in permitting it He does not forsake it. This earth the Lord sometimes holds and does not shake;

sometimes He holds and shakes it, because at one time He possesses it in the tranquil peace of faith, at another He bids it be moved by the assault of persecution. 11. In the persecutions of the Church false Christians are shaken out like chaff.—Well, when He had said, 'Hast thou not held, shaking, the ends of the earth?', He at once added: 'And hast thou shaken the impious out of it?' For, as Paul testifies, there are many in it who 'profess that they know God, but in their works deny Him' (Titus 1:16). The Lord therefore shakes the impious out of it, because these whom now inward vices possess shall then fall into the abyss of open unbelief; and they pass into a heap of chaff, when they are moved by the wind of that temptation.

And although they now hide themselves under the appearance of faith within the bosom of the threshing-floor, they shall then surely rebound outside the heap of grain by the winnowing-fan of strict examination. [Recension IV.] 12. In them the seal of faith is turned into clay.—Whence also it is aptly subjoined: 'The seal shall be restored as clay.' As if it were openly said: These who now seem to be a seal in the bosom of the Church shall then, before the eyes of all, be restored as clay; that is, by no means do they deceive the judgments of men concerning the profession of religion, but they are shown to savour of earthly things. For Sacred Scripture is wont to call the seal 'faith,' and clay 'iniquity.' For the younger son who, when his substance was consumed, returned to his father (Luke 15:22), received a ring as a gift.

For the Gentile people, who, having lost immortality, return to God by repenting, are marked with the seal of faith. Whence also it is said by her Bridegroom to the Church: 'Set me as a seal upon thy heart' (Cant. 8:6). For a seal is set upon things for this reason, that they be not violated by the presumption of any who would plunder them. The Bridegroom therefore is set as a seal upon the heart when the mystery of faith in Him is imprinted in the keeping of our thought, so that that unfaithful servant, our adversary indeed, when he beholds hearts sealed with faith, may not presume to break into them by tempting. But by clay are shown earthly defilements, as the Psalmist testifies who says: 'Thou hast brought me out of the pit of misery, and out of the mire of dregs' (Ps. 39:3).

Since therefore many who are found in earthly defilements, being brought to the Church, are sealed with the sacrament of heavenly faith, and yet do not withdraw from their iniquitous works, and now cover themselves with the veil of faith, but when they find the time, show what they truly are, rightly is it said: 'The seal shall be restored as clay.' For those whom now we believe to be faithful, we shall then find to be the very enemies of faith; and although they appear an untempted seal, they will without doubt be tempted clay. Whence also it is rightly said, 'It shall be restored,' because whatever their conscience could have been before faith, such does a reprobate life afterward prove them to be. Concerning whom it is aptly subjoined: 'And it shall stand as a garment.' 13.

The Church is now adorned with many, as it were, garments, of which, when persecution rages, she shall be stripped.—The holy Church is now clothed with as many, as it were, garments as she is adorned by the veneration of the faithful. Whence also, the Gentiles being shown to her, it is said to her by the Lord through the prophet: 'As I live, saith the Lord, thou shalt be clothed with all these as with an ornament' (Isa. 49:18). Yet with many, as it were faithful, she is now clothed only in appearance; but when the assault of persecution strikes, she shall then be stripped and made bare of them; concerning whose lot it is here said: 'And it shall stand as a garment.' And 'to stand' is here put for 'to persist in sin.' Thence it is written: 'And he hath not stood in the way of sinners' (Ps. 1:1).

Or surely every reprobate is said to stand as a garment, so that he may be shown unable to stand; for just as a garment when put on is stretched out through the body in the beauty of its appearance, but when taken off is folded up, broken, so everyone who then withdraws from the standing of the holy Church was, while he was as it were being worn, stretched out and comely, but afterward, being taken off, shall lie broken and cast away. But if we understand 'to stand' as 'to endure,' every reprobate stands as a garment, who in this life which he loves endures but a short while. Whence also it is said through the Prophet: 'All things shall grow old as a garment, and as a vesture Thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed' (Ps. 101:28).

These things, therefore, which he brought forth rightly under the cloud of allegories, now become known in plainer words, as he subjoins: