Moralia in Job 1279

21. Neglecting the guardianship of his sons, he repels temporal losses or even lighter quarrels. What mind we have toward the things we possess, we do not know until they are lost. — 'There they trembled for fear, where there was no fear' (Ps. 13:5). For behold, by the divine voice it is commanded: 'If any man will take away your coat, and will contend with you in judgment, let him have your cloak also' (Matt. 5:40). And again: 'If any man take away what is yours, do not ask it back' (Luke 6:30). Paul the apostle also, desiring his disciples to despise outward things that they may be able to preserve inward things, admonishes, saying: 'Already indeed there is altogether a fault among you, that you have lawsuits one with another. Why do you not rather take the wrong? Why do you not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?' (1 Cor.

6:7)? And yet the hypocrite, having assumed the habit of a holy manner of life, forsakes the guardianship of his sons, and seeks to defend all temporal things even by lawsuits. By his own example he does not tremble to destroy their hearts, and he dreads to lose earthly patrimonies as if through negligence. The disciple slips into error, and yet the heart of the hypocrite is wounded by no grief. He beholds those committed to him going into the abyss of iniquity, and he passes this by as if he had never heard of it; but if he feel that some temporal loss is being lightly inflicted upon him, he suddenly blazes up from his inmost parts into the wrath of vengeance.

Soon patience is broken, soon the grief of the heart runs unbridled in outcries; for while he tolerates with equanimity the loss of souls, but hastens even with agitation of spirit to repel the loss of temporal things, he truly shows to all, with anguish as witness, what he loves. For there is a great zeal of defense where there is also a greater force of love. For the more he loves earthly things, the more vehemently he dreads to be deprived of them. But with what mind we possess anything in this world, we are not taught until we lose it. For whatever is possessed without love is lost without grief. But the things we ardently love when we have them, we sigh heavily over when they are taken away.

But who does not know that the Lord created earthly things for our uses, but created the souls of men for His own? He therefore is convicted of loving himself more than God, who, neglecting the things that are God's, guards his own. For hypocrites do not fear to lose the things that are God's, that is, the souls of men; but they fear to lose the things that are their own, namely, the things that pass away with the world, as if they were going to render accounts to a strict judge; and, as though they may find Him appeased, they keep the insensible and unsought things when the desired, that is, the rational things, are lost. We wish to possess something in this world, and behold, the Truth cries out: 'Unless a man renounce all that he possesses, he cannot be My disciple' (Luke 14:33). 22.

With what mind one should contend when necessity and charity compel litigation. — How then should the perfect Christian defend by litigation earthly things which he is not even commanded to possess? Therefore, when we lose our own goods, if we perfectly follow God, we are lightened of a great burden on the journey of this life. But when the necessity of that same journey imposes on us the care of things, some, while they seize them, are only to be tolerated; but some, charity being preserved, are to be restrained — yet not solely from the care that they may not take away what is ours, but that those who seize what is not their own may not destroy themselves. For we ought to fear for the robbers themselves more than to grasp after irrational things to be defended.

For these things, even unplundered, we lose when we die; but with those robbers, even now by the order of our condition, if they strive to be corrected, after the receiving of the gift we are one. But who does not know that we ought to love less the things we use, and more that which we are? If therefore we speak even for the robbers' own benefit, we now vindicate not only for ourselves the things that are temporal, but for them also the things that are eternal. 23. With what moderation one should litigate. — In which matter this is to be shrewdly observed: that through the fear of necessity a covetousness of things may not creep in, and that a prohibition kindled with zeal, its impulse stretched out by immoderation, may not break forth into the baseness of hateful contention.

For when, for the sake of an earthly thing, peace is cut off from the heart with a neighbor, it plainly appears that the thing is loved more than the neighbor. For if we do not have the bowels of charity even toward the robbing neighbor, we persecute ourselves worse than that very robber, and we lay ourselves waste more grievously than another could, because, spontaneously forsaking the good of love, that which we lose is from ourselves within, we who lost from him only outward things. But this form of charity the hypocrite knows not, because, loving earthly things more than heavenly, he inflames himself in his inmost parts with monstrous hatred against him who plunders temporal things. 24. That some, differing from hypocrites, defend temporal goods too sharply. With what caution these are to be reprehended.

— But it is to be known that there are some whom mother Church, nurturing them in the bosom of charity, tolerates until they arrive at the increase of spiritual age; who sometimes hold even the habit of sanctity, and are not able to fulfill the merit of perfection. For they do not at all rise up to spiritual gifts, and therefore they serve those who are joined to them for the guarding of the things that are earthly, and sometimes in wrath of that same defense they go to excess. These are by no means to be believed to fall into the number of hypocrites, because it is one thing to sin from infirmity, another from malice. For this therefore differs between these and the hypocrites: that these, conscious of their own infirmity, prefer to be reproved by all concerning their fault, than to be praised for a feigned sanctity;

but those are both certain that they act unjustly, and yet swell up before human judgments with the name of sanctity. These do not fear to displease wicked men even by a good action, provided they please the heavenly judgments alone; but those never consider what they do, but how by any action whatever they may be able to please men. These, according to the measure of their understanding, fight even in worldly affairs for the causes of God; but those, through the causes of God, serve the intention of the world, because even in those very things which they show themselves to do as holy works, they seek not the conversion of men, but the breezes of favor. 25.

Therefore, when we behold certain men of a not-to-be-despised manner of life defending earthly things wrathfully or too much, we ought to reprehend this in them through charity, yet not, by reprehending them, to despair of them; because very often in one and the same man there both are certain judgeable things that appear, and great things that lie hidden. In us, however, often great things come forth in the face, and sometimes the things that are to be reprehended are concealed. Hence therefore the elation of our mind is to be humbled, in that both their weak things are public and ours secret; and again, their strong things are secret, and ours are published abroad. Those therefore whom we reprehend for open infirmity, it remains that we venerate for the estimation of their hidden strength;

and if our mind exalts itself over their open infirmity, let it, considering its own hidden weaknesses, press itself down in humility. For often some obey many precepts and pass over a certain few, and we pass over many while we keep a few. Whence it very often happens that, because we see others pass over that which we know how to keep, our mind at once exalts itself in elation, forgetting how many things it passes over, while very few are those it keeps. It is necessary therefore that in the very matters wherein we reprehend others, we bend down the elation of our anxious thought; because if our mind beholds itself as more sublime than the rest, it, being led as it were into the precipices of singularity, falls the worse thereby.

But why the hypocrite, forsaking heavenly gains, toils for earthly ones, he added still under the name of the ostrich, saying: