Moralia in Job 1372

49. The wicked oppose to those who reprove them the shield of excuse. — Sacred Scripture is wont to use the name of shield sometimes in a favourable sense, sometimes in an adverse one. For often the defence of a shield is put for the divine protection, but sometimes it is mentioned for human resistance. For it is put for the divine protection, as it is said by the Psalmist: Thou hast crowned us with the shield of Thy good will (Psalm 5:13). The Lord is declared to crown us with a shield, because those whom He aids by protecting, He crowns by rewarding. Again, for human resistance the shield is put by the same Prophet, as he says elsewhere: There He broke the horns of bows, the shield, the sword, and the battle (Psalm 76:4). In the horns indeed is the elation of the proud;

in the bow, the snares of those who strike from afar; in the shield, the obstinate hardness of defences; in the sword, the near stroke; in the battle, the very motion of the mind against the Lord is designated. All which indeed is broken in holy Church, when the minds of those resisting God, the yoke of humility placed upon them, are subdued. Hence again through the same Psalmist it is said: He shall break the bow, and shatter the weapons, and burn the shields with fire (Psalm 46:9). For the Lord breaks the bow, when He dissolves the hidden contrivances of those who lie in wait. He shatters the weapons, when He crushes those human patronages which had been raised up against Him.

He burns the shields with fire, when the minds of sinners, defending themselves with obstinate hardness, He kindles by the warmth of the Holy Spirit to the ardour of penitence and confession. But whereas in this place the body of this Leviathan is compared to molten shields, it is intimated to us that we must search closely, because hard indeed, yet when it falls fragile, is every vessel that is molten wont to be. If therefore shields are molten, they are strong in receiving the strokes of arrows, but fragile in falling. By the blow of those who strike they are by no means penetrated, but by their own fall they dissolve into fragments. The body therefore of this Leviathan, that is, all the wicked, because through their obstinacy they are hard, but through their life fragile, are compared to molten shields.

For when they hear the words of preaching, they permit no darts of reproof to penetrate them, because in every sin which they commit they oppose the shield of proud defence. For when any such person is accused of the guilt of his iniquity, he does not straightway consider how he may correct his fault, but what he may oppose in aid of his own defence. Therefore no arrow of truth penetrates, because he receives the words of holy reproof upon the shield of proud defence. Whence well concerning the Jews, defending themselves with proud defence against the precepts of the Lord in their minds, it is said through Jeremiah: Thou shalt render to them a recompense, O Lord, according to the works of their hands (Lamentations 3:64). And presently He subjoined the same recompense more expressly, saying: Thou shalt give them the shield of the heart, Thy labour (Ibid., 65).

For the labour of the Lord, appearing among men, was His passible humanity, which the Jews, wise in their pride, when they beheld it, despised; and they disdained to believe Him immortal, whom they saw mortal in His passible nature. And when they beheld His humility, hardened with the arrogance of pride, they contrived with the utmost care that the holy words of the preachers might not penetrate their minds. While therefore the Lord rendered them a recompense for their evil works, He gave them the shield of the heart, His own labour, because by a right judgment He thereby showed them proudly obstinate against Him, from that very source whence He Himself laboured in weakness for us. For they repelled from themselves the words of the preachers, because they disdained in the Lord the infirmities of the passions.

The labour of the Lord, therefore, against that same Lord they held as a shield of the heart, because to those wise in pride He appeared despised by that very thing whereby He was humble for their sake. 50. Adam and Eve used this shield. — This shield, as we have already said above, that first sinner held, who, when the Lord inquired why he had touched the forbidden tree, did not refer the fault to himself, but answered that he had received it from the woman whom the Lord had given (Genesis 3:12); so that he might, as it were, obliquely cast back his guilt upon the Author, who had given him the woman that would persuade such things. This shield too the woman, when questioned, held, when neither did she refer the fault to herself, but folded it back upon the persuasions of the serpent, saying:

The serpent deceived me, and I did eat (Genesis 3:13), so that she too might obliquely lead back her guilt to the Creator, who had permitted the serpent, about to persuade such things, to enter thither. But the serpent is no longer questioned, because neither was his penitence sought. But these, whose penitence was sought, brought forth the shield of most wicked defence against the words of most just reproof (Genesis 3). Whence even now it is drawn into the use of sinners, that a fault, when it is reproved, should be defended; and whence the guilt ought to be ended, thence it is heaped up. Well therefore is it said: His body is as molten shields, because all the wicked, lest the words of those who correct them should reach them, prepare as it were the shields of defences against the darts of adversaries.

Which body of his indeed He discloses to us yet more expressly, when He subjoins: