Moralia in Job 1417

The Church shall one day receive double. — Although all these things were truly spoken according to the literal history, yet from the very gifts offered we are compelled to have recourse to the mystery of allegory. For we ought not to receive idly the fact that they offered a sheep, and one sheep; a golden earring, and one earring. And if perhaps, according to the letter, it is no marvel that a sheep was offered, why but one, it is nonetheless a great marvel that an earring was offered, and why but one. What indeed has a sheep to do with an earring, or an earring with a sheep? From the very purpose of the gifts, therefore, we are constrained to search out in the mysteries of allegory even those earlier things which, touching them only on the surface according to the bare history, we passed over.

Since therefore Christ and the Church, that is, the head and the body, are one person, we have often said that blessed Job represents now the figure of the head, now that of the body. Preserving therefore the truth of the history, let us understand under the type of holy Church that which is written: The Lord added unto Job double all that had been his. For holy Church, though she now loses many under the blow of temptation, yet at the end of this age receives double what is hers, when, the Gentiles being fully received, even Judaea will consent to run to her faith, whatever remnant shall then be found. For hence it is written: Until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in, and so all Israel should be saved (Rom. 11:25).

Hence in the Gospel too the Truth says: Elias indeed shall come, and he shall restore all things (Matt. 17:11). For now the Church has lost the Israelites whom she could not convert by preaching, but then, when Elias preaches, gathering as many as he finds, she as it were more fully recovers what she had lost. 25. Before the resurrection the saints receive single robes, after the resurrection double. — Or surely, for holy Church to receive double at her end is for each of us to rejoice both in the blessedness of the soul and in the incorruption of the flesh. For hence it is said through the prophet concerning the elect: In their own land they shall possess double (Isa. 61:7). Hence it is that John the Apostle says of the saints who await the end of the world:

There were given to them single white robes, and it was said to them that they should rest yet a little while, until the number of their fellow-servants and their brethren should be fulfilled (Rev. 6:11). For as we said much earlier (namely in the preface, ch. 10, n. 10), before the resurrection the saints receive single robes, because they enjoy the blessedness of their souls alone; but at the end of the world they are to have double, because together with the blessedness of the mind they will also possess the glory of the flesh. 26. The conversion of the Jews foretold at the end of the world. — But the things that follow are testified rather to announce the conversion of the Jewish people at the end of this age. For it is added:

And there came to him all his brethren and all his sisters, and all that had known him before, and they ate bread with him in his house. For then indeed his brethren and sisters come to Christ, when as many of the Jewish people as have been drawn are converted. For from that people He took the substance of His flesh. Then therefore brethren and sisters come to Him, when from that people which is joined to Him by kinship, whether those who are to be strong, as brethren, or the weak, as sisters, run together to Him in devout thanksgiving through the knowledge of faith.

Then they set before Him the banquet of a most solemn feast, when, no longer despising Him as though a mere man, but mindful of their kinship, they rejoice together to cleave to His divinity. Then they eat bread in His house, when, setting aside the observance of the underlying letter, they are fed in holy Church as with the very marrow of the grain of mystical utterance. And well is it added: All that had known Him before. For before they had known Him whom in His passion they despised as though unknown. For no one who has fully learned the law was ignorant of Christ who was to be born. Whence also king Herod, terrified by the coming of the Magi, took care shrewdly to inquire of the priests and chief men where they foreknew Christ was to be born;

and they immediately answered him: In Bethlehem of Judah (Matt. 2:5). Before, therefore, they had known Him whom, at the time of His passion, while they despised, they knew not. Whose former knowledge and later ignorance are well and briefly signified in the failing sight of Isaac. For while he blessed Jacob, he both foresaw what would come to pass in the future, and knew not who stood present before him (Gen. 27). For such indeed was the people of the Israelites, who received the mysteries of prophecy, yet had eyes blind to that contemplation, because they did not see Him present, concerning whom they then foresaw many things in the future. For they could in no wise discern Him set before them, whose coming's power they had long before announced.

But behold, at the end of the world they come, and they recognize Him whom they had known before. Behold, they eat bread in His house, because they are fed in holy Church with the grain of sacred utterance, and they shake off all the insensibility of their former torpor. Whence also it is added: And they wagged their head over him. For what is understood by the head, save the ruling part of the mind? as it is said by the Psalmist: Thou hast anointed my head with oil (Ps. 22:5). As if it were openly said: My mind, dry in its own thoughts, Thou hast watered with the anointing of charity. The head therefore is moved, when, touched by the fear of the truth, the mind is shaken from its insensibility.

Let the kinsfolk therefore come to the banquet, and, the torpor being shaken off, let them move their head; that is, let those who had been joined in the flesh to our Redeemer at some time receive the refreshment of the word in faith, and lay aside the hardness of their former insensibility. Whence it is well said through Habakkuk: His feet stood, and the earth was moved (Hab. 3:6). For while the Lord stands, the earth is doubtless moved, because when He imprints on our heart the traces of His fear, every earthly thought within us trembles. In this place, therefore, to move the head is to shake off the immobility of the mind, and to draw near to the knowledge of faith with the steps of belief. 27. How great a consolation to the Church from their conversion. What the converted ought to offer to Christ.

— But because holy Church is now afflicted by the aversion of the Hebrews, and then relieved by their conversion, it is rightly added: And they comforted him over all the evil which the Lord had brought upon him. They comfort, namely, Christ; they comfort the Church, who come to their senses out of the error of their former unbelief, and forsake the depravity of life through which they had resisted those who taught what is right. Is it not a heavy grief to preach fruitlessly to hard hearts, to labor to bring forth the truth by showing it, yet to find no fruit of labor in the conversion of the hearers? But on the contrary, a great consolation of preachers is the ensuing progress of the hearers. For the relief of the teacher is the change of him who advances.

And it is to be noted that they were unwilling to comfort Him when He was set under the scourge, but they come to comfort Him after the scourge; because doubtless at the time of His passion the Hebrews, despising the teachings of faith, refused to believe that He whom they had proved by death to be man was God. Whence through the Psalmist the Lord says: I looked for one that would grieve together with me, and there was none; and for one that would comfort me, and I found none (Ps. 68:21). For He found none to comfort Him in the passion, because in the contempt of death He endured even those enemies for whom He came to death. After the scourges, therefore, the kinsfolk come to console Him, because in His members the Lord even now suffers;

but at the last time all the Israelites, having come to know the preaching of Elias, run together to the faith, and return to the protection of Him whom they had fled, and then that distinguished banquet is celebrated with a manifold gathering of peoples. Then, after the scourges, Job is as it were shown whole, when by those converted and believing, after His passion and resurrection, the Lord is known through the certainty of faith to live immortal in heaven. Then Job is seen as it were rewarded, when He is believed to be God in the power of His majesty as He is, and those who before had resisted are seen to be made subject to faith in Him.

At the end of the world, therefore, let the believing Hebrews come together, and pay the oblation of their vows to the Redeemer of the human race in the power of His divinity, as to a healthy Job. Whence also it is well added: And they gave him every one a sheep, and one golden earring. What is designated by the sheep but innocence, what by the earring but obedience? For by the sheep is expressed a simple soul, and by the earring the grace of the hearing that is adorned with humility. 28. Commendation of obedience. Obedience to be kept even unto death. — But since an opportune occasion has offered itself for showing the virtue of obedience, it pleases us to discuss it a little more watchfully and carefully, and to demonstrate of how great worth it is to the mind.

For obedience is the only virtue that implants the other virtues in the mind, and, once implanted, guards them. Whence also the first man received a precept that he should keep (Gen. 2); to which, had he been willing to submit himself obediently, he would have come to eternal blessedness without labor. Hence Samuel says: Obedience is better than sacrifices, and to hearken more than to offer the fat of rams; for it is like the sin of divination to refuse, and like the crime of idolatry to be unwilling to acquiesce (1 Sam. 15:22-23). Obedience indeed is rightly preferred to sacrifices, because through sacrifices another's flesh is slain, but through obedience one's own will is slain.

By so much the more swiftly, therefore, does each one appease God, the more he sacrifices himself before His eyes with the sword of the precept, the pride of his own judgment being repressed. On the contrary, disobedience is called the sin of divination, that it may be demonstrated how great is the virtue of obedience. From the opposite, therefore, it is better shown what is to be thought of its praise. For if to resist is as it were the sin of divination, and to be unwilling to acquiesce as it were the crime of idolatry, then obedience alone is that which possesses the merit of faith, without which anyone is convicted of being unfaithful, even if he seems to be faithful. Hence through Solomon it is said in the setting forth of obedience: An obedient man shall speak victories (Prov. 21:28).

For an obedient man speaks victories, because while we humbly submit to another's voice, we overcome ourselves in our heart. Hence in the Gospel the Truth says: Him that cometh to me I will not cast out, for I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me (John 6:37-38). For what? Had He done His own will, would He have repelled those who come to Him? But who does not know that the will of the Son does not differ from the will of the Father? But because the first man, in that he willed to do his own will, went out from the joy of paradise (Gen. 3:24), the second, coming for the redemption of men, while He showed that He did the will of the Father and not His own, taught us to remain within.

When therefore He does not His own will but the Father's, He casts not out those who come to Him, because while by His example He subjects us to obedience, He closes to us the way of going out. Hence again He says: I can of my own self do nothing, but as I hear, so I judge (John 5:30). For obedience is enjoined upon us to be kept even unto death. But He Himself, if He judges as He hears, then also obeys, even when He comes as judge. Lest therefore obedience should appear to us laborious even to the end of the present life, our Redeemer indicates that He keeps it even when He shall come as judge. What wonder, then, if a sinful man subjects himself to obedience in the brevity of the present life?

What wonder, when the Mediator of God and men, even when He rewards the obedient, does not forsake it? 19. Evil ought never to be done through obedience, but good may sometimes be intermitted. — It is to be known that evil ought never to be done through obedience, but sometimes a good that is being done ought through obedience to be intermitted. For it was no evil tree that stood in paradise, which God forbade man to touch (Gen. 2). But that man, well created, might grow the better through the merit of obedience, it was fitting that he should be forbidden even from a good, so that what he did might be by so much the more truly a virtue, as, ceasing even from a good, he should show himself the more humbly subject to his Author. But it is to be noted that there it is said:

Of every tree of paradise eat ye, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, touch it not (Gen. 2:16-17). He who forbids His subjects some one good must needs grant them many things, lest the mind of the obedient be utterly starved, if, wholly repelled from all goods, it should fast. But the Lord granted all the trees of paradise for eating, when He forbade one, that His creature, whom He willed not to be extinguished but advanced, He might by so much the more easily restrain from the one, by so much the more widely He relaxed the rein toward all the rest. 30. When obedience is of no merit, when of the least. — But because sometimes prosperous things of this world are commanded to us, and sometimes adverse ones, it is chiefly to be known that obedience is sometimes nothing, if it have anything of its own;

but sometimes, if it have nothing of its own, it is of the least. For when success of this world is commanded, when a higher place is bidden, he who obeys in order to obtain these things empties out for himself the virtue of obedience, if he also pants after these things from his own desire. For his obedience does not direct itself, who, to receive the prosperous things of this life, serves the lust of his own ambition. Again, when contempt of the world is commanded, when to gain reproaches and insults is bidden, unless the soul of itself desires these things, it lessens for itself the merit of obedience, because it descends unwillingly and reluctantly to those things which in this life are held in contempt.

Obedience indeed is brought to loss, when one's own wishes in no part at all accompany the mind to the undertaking of the reproaches of this age. Obedience therefore ought both in adversity to have something of its own, and again in prosperity in no way to have anything of its own; so that both in adversity it may be by so much the more glorious, as it is joined to the divine order even by desire, and in prosperity it may be by so much the truer, as the very present glory which it divinely receives is utterly separated from the mind. 31. That prosperity is to be undertaken from the command alone, but adversity even from devotion, we are taught by the example of Moses and Paul. — But we shall better show this weight of virtue, if we recall the deeds of two men of the heavenly homeland.

For Moses, while he fed sheep in the desert, was called by the Lord speaking through an angel in the fire, that he might preside over the whole multitude of the Israelites to be delivered (Exod. 3). But because he was humble in mind within himself, he straightway dreaded the glory of so great a rule offered him, and forthwith had recourse to the patronage of his infirmity, saying: I beseech thee, Lord, I am not eloquent; and since Thou hast begun to speak to Thy servant, I have become of a slower and more impeded tongue (Exod. 4:10). And, setting himself aside, he asked for another, saying: Send whom Thou wilt send (Exod. 4:13). Behold, he speaks with the Author of language, and, that he may not take up the power of so great a rule, he pleads that he is tongueless.

Paul too had been divinely admonished that he ought to go up to Jerusalem, as he himself says to the Galatians: Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem, taking Barnabas and Titus; and I went up according to revelation (Gal. 2:1-2). And when on the journey he had found the prophet Agabus, he heard what great adversity awaited him in Jerusalem (Acts 21). For it is written that the same Agabus, binding Paul's girdle upon his own feet, said: The man whose girdle this is, they shall bind thus in Jerusalem (Acts 21:11). But by Paul it is immediately answered: I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of Jesus; neither do I count my life more precious than myself (Acts 21:13).

Going therefore to Jerusalem by the command of revelation, he learns of the adversity, and yet freely desires it; he hears what he should fear, but pants the more ardently toward it. Moses, then, in prosperity has nothing of his own, because he resists with prayers, lest he be set over the Israelite people. Paul is brought to adversity even by his own vow, because he perceives the knowledge of impending evils, yet by the devotion of the spirit grows fervent even toward harsher things. The one willed to decline the glory of present power at God's command; the other, when God disposed hard and harsh things, took pains to prepare himself for graver ones.

By the unbroken virtue of both these leaders going before us, therefore, we are instructed, that if we truly strive to lay hold of the palm of obedience, we should serve as soldiers in the prosperous things of this age from the command alone, but in adverse things even from devotion. 32. Obedience is the ornament of innocence. — But it is to be noted that in this place the sheep is offered with the earring, the earring with the sheep, because doubtless the ornament of obedience is always joined to innocent minds; the Lord bearing witness, who says: My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me (John 10:27). To blessed Job, therefore, no one offered an earring without a sheep, no one a sheep without an earring, because assuredly he does not obey his Redeemer who is not innocent;

and he cannot be innocent who disdains to obey. But because obedience itself is to be kept not from servile fear but from the affection of charity, not from the terror of punishment but from the love of righteousness, all who come to the banquet are declared to have offered a golden earring, so that, namely, in the obedience which is shown forth, charity may shine, which transcends all virtues as gold transcends the other metals. 33. There can be neither innocence nor obedience save in the one true Church. — But because there can be no innocence, no true obedience, in the manifold divisions of heretics, let those coming to the knowledge of faith offer a sheep, but one; let them offer an earring, but one;

that is, let such come as persist innocent and obedient in the unity of holy Church. For the one cannot be divided by numbers, because that very one which we speak is not a number. Let them therefore offer a sheep, but one; let them offer an earring, but one; that is, coming to holy Church with innocence and obedience, let them bring that mind which the schisms of sects do not divide. 34. How great will be the joy in the Church over the conversion of the Jews, and the banquet one day to be celebrated. — It pleases us to open the eyes of faith, and to contemplate that final banquet of holy Church over the reception of the Israelite people. To which banquet, doubtless, that great Elias, coming, is employed as the inviter of the guests;

and then the kinsfolk, then the acquaintances come to Him with gifts, whom a little before, set under the scourge, they had despised. For as the day of judgment draws near, whether by the voices of the forerunner or by certain signs breaking forth, the very power of the Lord already in some manner coming gleams upon them. Whose wrath while they hasten to forestall, they hasten the time of their conversion. But the converted come with gifts, because Him whom a little before in His passion they derided, then, offering as gifts the works of virtues, we venerate—doubtless fulfilling by this their oblation that which we both discern to have been already in great part accomplished, and still believe to be perfectly accomplished: The daughters of Tyre shall adore him with gifts (Ps. 44:13).

For then indeed the daughters of Tyre more fully adore Him with gifts, when the minds of the Israelites, now subject to the desires of this world, at some time having come to know Him whom in their pride they denied, bring the sacrifices of their confession to Him. And although in those very times in which Antichrist draws near, the life of the faithful may appear to be somewhat of lesser virtue, although in the conflict of that lost man a grave fear may constrain even the hearts of the strong: yet, strengthened by the preaching of Elias, not only do all the faithful persist in the solidity of holy Church, but, as we said above, many also from among the unbelievers are converted to the knowledge of faith;

so that the remnants of the Israelite nation, which before had been utterly cast off, may run together with a wholly pious devotion to the bosom of mother Church. Whence also it is now well added: