Moralia in Job 1274

He who long raged against the Church now promulgates laws for her. — What else is understood by seed but the word of preaching? as the Truth says in the Gospel: He that soweth went forth to sow (Matt. 13:3); and as the prophet says: Blessed are ye that sow upon all waters (Isa. 32:20). What else ought the threshing-floor to be understood but the Church? of which it is said by the voice of the Forerunner: And he shall thoroughly cleanse his floor (Matt. 3:12). Who then, in the beginning of the nascent Church, would have believed—while that untamed principality of the earth raged against her with so many threats and torments—that this rhinoceros would render back seed-sowing to God, that is, would repay in works the word of preaching he received?

Who then, of the weak, could have believed that he would gather His threshing-floor? For behold, now he promulgates laws for the Church, who long ago raged against her through diverse torments. Behold, whatever nations he has been able to take, he leads them to the grace of the faith by persuading; and to those whom he holds captive he points out eternal life, and to them, though captured, he preserves the present life. Why is this? Because, namely, he now gathers the threshing-floor which once with his proud horn he scattered by tossing. Let blessed Job therefore hear what the princes of the Gentiles do, and let him by no means exalt himself within himself over the glory of so great a virtue of his own.

Let him also, a mighty king, hear with what devotion the mightier kings of this world serve God, and let him not draw his own virtue into the vice of elation as though for its singularity, seeing he has an example in others; for although the Lord then saw none like to him, yet He foresaw the many through whom He would beat back his glory. — They who, through fear of earthly princes, dare not vex the Church by open force, turn themselves to various devices of fraud. The Church cannot be without an enemy. — Therefore, because earthly princes prostrate themselves before God with great humility, wicked men, who long ago, being set in unbelief against the Church, raged with open adversity, now turn themselves to other devices of fraud.

For because they behold those men venerating religion, they themselves assume the cult of religion, and under contemptible garments they oppress the life of the good by their iniquitous morals. For they are lovers of the world, and they display in themselves that which men venerate, and they are joined to those who truly despise themselves, not in mind, but in garment. For because, loving present glory, they cannot attain it, they follow it as though despising it. And what they feel against the good they would display, if they found a time suited to their wickedness. But these devices also of the depraved contribute to the purgation of the elect.

For holy Church cannot pass the times of her pilgrimage without the labour of temptation; for even if she has no open enemies without, yet she endures feigned brethren within. For she is ever in battle-line against the vices, and has her own war even in time of peace; and perhaps she is more grievously afflicted when she is assailed not by the blows of strangers, but by the morals of her own. Whether therefore in that time or in this, she is nevertheless always in labour. For in the persecution of princes she fears lest the good lose what they are, and in the conversion of princes she endures the fact that the evil feign themselves to be good, which they are not. Whence almighty God, because He had said that this rhinoceros was bound with reins, straightway subjoined the hypocrisy of the depraved, saying: