Moralia in Job 1367

41. All things serve God. — But because He speaks of Leviathan, who is now no longer contained in the seat of the ethereal heaven, He asserts that all things which are under heaven are His, that He may teach even him who fell from heaven to serve His power; as if He said: This Leviathan indeed lost My blessedness, but did not escape My dominion, for even those powers which oppose Me by their depraved actions do themselves serve Me. It follows: 42. In what sense the devil is said to beseech God. — Who, unless he supposes what he knows he has by no means read, would think that the devil is going to seek pardon for his faults?

But perhaps that man, whom this Leviathan makes his own vessel at the end of the world — whom, as Paul attests, the Lord Jesus shall slay with the spirit of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming (2 Thessalonians 2:8) — terrified by the presence of so great majesty, because he cannot exert his powers, is bent to prayers. Which nevertheless can more fitly be understood of his body, that is, of all the wicked, who come late to words of petition, because now they scorn to fulfil deeds. Whence through the Gospel the Truth says: Last of all come also the other virgins, saying: Lord, Lord, open to us (Matthew 25:11). To whom it is straightway answered: Verily I say unto you, I know you not (Ibid., 12).

But when he is said to compose mighty words for beseeching, it urges the more that what we have said of his body in the future we should perceive in this present time. 43. Vain are the prayers which a holy life does not follow. To some, prayer is turned to a business of gain. True prayer is wrought by bitter groanings, not by composed words. — For there are within holy Church certain persons who have prolix prayers to the Lord, but have not the life of those who pray; for with petitions they pursue the heavenly promises, but by works they flee them. These sometimes even receive tears in prayer, but when after the times of prayer pride strikes their mind, straightway they are puffed up in the arrogance of elation;

when avarice goads them, presently they burn with the fires of greedy thought; when luxury tempts them, they straightway pant after unlawful desires; when anger persuades them, presently the flame of madness consumes the meekness of the mind. As we have said, they do receive weeping in prayer, yet when, their prayers ended, they are assailed by the suggestions of the vices, they by no means remember that they wept for the desire of the eternal kingdom. Which Balaam plainly made known, who, beholding the tabernacles of the just, said: Let my soul die the death of the just, and let my last end be like theirs (Numbers 23:10). But when the time of compunction departed, he gave counsel against the life of those to whom, even by dying, he had begged to be made like;

and when he found occasion for avarice, he straightway forgot whatever he had wished for himself of innocence. Prayer therefore has not the weight of virtue which the perseverance of continual love in no wise holds. Whereas, on the contrary, it is well recorded of Anna as she wept: And her countenance was no more changed into diverse things (1 Samuel 1:18), because indeed her mind by no means, after her prayers, by wantonly rejoicing in foolish gladness lost that which in the time of her prayer it had sought out by the rigour of groanings. But to some the labour of prayer is turned to a business of gain. Of whom in the Gospel the Truth says: They devour widows' houses under the pretext of long prayer. These shall receive the greater judgment (Mark 12:40).

Because therefore the petitions of the wicked, who are the body of this Leviathan, are in no way spared, since their prayers are destroyed by their deeds, rightly it is now said: I will not spare him, nor his mighty words framed for beseeching. And yet, by the very fact that his words are called mighty and framed for beseeching, the emptiness of his prayer is openly shown. For truly to pray is to utter bitter groanings in compunction, and not to sound forth composed words. But because the ancient enemy, the more strictly he is broken, the more wickedly he spreads himself through manifold devices, whose snares the Lord, the more subtly He considers them to be hidden, the more mercifully He manifests to us, rightly it is subjoined: