Moralia in Job 1410

7. That the acknowledgement of our fault which is not followed by repentance is itself a punishment. What is to be considered in the sackcloth and ashes of penance. — For to do penance in dust and ashes is, when the supreme Essence has been contemplated, to acknowledge oneself to be nothing other than dust and ashes. Whence also the Lord says in the Gospel to the reprobate city: If in Tyre and Sidon had been done the mighty works that have been done in you, they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes (Matt. 11:21). For in sackcloth is shown the roughness and pricking of sins, but in ashes the dust of the dead.

And therefore both are wont to be employed in penance, that in the pricking of the sackcloth we may recognize what we have done through guilt, and in the dust of the ashes we may weigh what we have become through judgement. Let therefore the pricking vices be considered in the sackcloth; let the just punishment of vices, which follows upon the sentence of death, be considered in the ashes. For since after sin the outrages of the flesh arose, let a man see in the roughness of the sackcloth what he did by being proud, let him see in the ashes how far he has come by sinning. The very pricking, too, may be signified by the sackcloth through the recollection and repentance of sorrows. For this that blessed Job says, I reprove myself, is as it were to be pricked by a certain sackcloth, while in his own mind he is chafed by the sharp goads of self-reproach.

But in the ashes he does penance, because from his first sin he carefully considers what he has been made through the just judgement, saying: I do penance in dust and ashes. As if he plainly said: Of no gift of my Maker do I take pride, since, taken from the dust, I recognize through the sentence of death imposed that I return to the dust. [Old Version III.] 8. Of God's judgement concerning Job and his friends. — All the discourses of Job, then, having been heard, and the answers of his friends also having been known, it pleases us to turn the expectation of our mind to the sentence of the inner Judge, and to say to Him: Behold, O Lord.

we have heard in Thy sight both sides of those who disputed, and we have known Job indeed in this contest to recount the deeds of his own virtue, and his friends to defend against him the glory of Thy justice. Amid these things Thou knowest what our mind feels. For we cannot reprove the words of those whom we know to serve Thy defence. But behold, the parties stand ready, they await the sentence; bring forth therefore, O Lord, from Thine invisible rule the most subtle examination of Thy discernment, and show who in this contention has spoken the more rightly. There follows: VERSE — But after the Lord had spoken these words to Job, He said to Eliphaz the Temanite:

My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends, for ye have not spoken before Me that which is right, as My servant Job. 9. He is acquitted, they are condemned. Why? — O Lord, the sentence of Thy judgement shows how greatly our blindness differs from the light of Thy rectitude. Behold, with Thee as Judge we recognize blessed Job to be the victor, whom we believed to have sinned against Thee by speaking. With Thee as Judge they are condemned, who believed themselves to surpass the merits of blessed Job by speaking for Thee. Since therefore from the divine sentence we have learned what to estimate concerning the parties, let us now weigh a little more subtly the words of that same sentence.

For how is blessed Job reproved above, if in comparison with his rectitude his friends are recorded as by no means having spoken what is right before the Lord? Or is that sentence concerning him still confirmed, by which it is said to the ancient foe: Hast thou seen My servant Job, that there is none like him upon the earth? (Job 1:8). But what is this, that he is both praised to the foe and reproved in himself: yet is reproved in himself, and nevertheless is set before his friends who are speaking, except that the holy man surpassed all others by the virtue of his merits; but by this very fact that he was a man, he could not be without reproof before the eyes of God?

For in a holy man still sojourning in this present life, the rule of the divine examination has still something to judge, although from the comparison with other men it has something to praise. Blessed Job therefore believed himself to be scourged for guilt, and not for grace; he judged that vices were being cut away in him, not that merits were being increased. And in this he is reproved, that he suspected the intention of the scourge to have been otherwise; and yet, when his friends resisted, he was preferred by the decision of the inner judgement. [Old Version IV.] Whence it is plainly gathered how great was the righteousness in that wherein he asserted the innocence of his own conduct against his friends' words, seeing that by the divine judgement he is set even before those very defenders of that same divine judgement.

But in the beginning of this book we learned that Satan had said to the Lord concerning him: Put forth Thy hand, and touch him, and see if he will not curse Thee to Thy face (Job 2:5). At which petition blessed Job is permitted to be touched with losses, bereavement, wounds, and the scandals of words, because assuredly He who had praised him stood certain that by no means, according to the assertion of the devil, would the holy man fall into the guilt of cursing. As therefore we have said above also, whoever esteems blessed Job to have sinned after the scourges in his speaking, plainly judges that the Lord lost His case in His own assertion.

And although the Lord, speaking to the devil, preferred his good qualities as present, yet did not promise his perseverance, it is nevertheless to be known that He would by no means, by permitting it, have preferred his righteousness to be tempted, if He had foreseen that he could not persist righteous in the temptation. The devil, therefore, being permitted by God in his temptation, whoever esteems that he succumbed in that temptation, accuses the ignorance of Him who permitted it. 10. God's judgements are one thing, men's another. — Let us therefore truly approve Job in his sayings, lest we wickedly accuse God in His providence. And indeed, as far as human judgements go, in their words his friends would be believed to have said many things more rightly than he; but Truth, bringing forth another rule from what is hidden, says:

Ye have not spoken before Me what is right, as My servant Job. Before Me, He says, that is, within, where often the life of many displeases which even outwardly pleases men. Whence it is very cautiously said in praise of the righteous married pair: They were both righteous before God (Luke 1:6). For it is no secure praise to appear righteous before men. For often human opinion, as it were, approves someone as great in God; but Almighty God, who is as it were approved from Himself, does not know this man. Hence it is that the Psalmist watchfully prays, saying: Direct my way in Thy sight (Ps. 5:9). Assuredly because very often in the sight of men that is believed to be a right way which is depraved from the path of truth. And it is to be noted that it is not said:

Ye have not spoken before Me what is right, as Job, but, as My servant Job, namely that by the interposition of servitude, while He commemorates him as under a certain special relation, He may show that all which he had said in his own defence, he said not with obstinate pride but with humble truth. [Old Version V.] But because God is just and merciful, He both reproved His friend through justice and mercifully converted him through mercy. For there follows: