Moralia in Job 165

Verse 9. — Then said his wife unto him: Dost thou still remain in thy simplicity? Bless God, and die. Job's wife, giving evil counsel, is a figure of the carnal placed within the bosom of the Church. — For whose image did the woman giving evil counsel bear, if not that of any carnal persons placed within the bosom of the Church, who, in that by the words of professed faith they are within, so much the worse do they oppress the good by their uncorrected morals? For perhaps they would have done less harm, if holy Church, admitting them within even to the very couch of faith, did not receive them; whom, while she receives them through professed faith, she assuredly renders to herself well-nigh unavoidable. Hence it is that, while the crowd pressed him, one woman touched our Redeemer; whereupon our same Redeemer straightway says:

Who touched me? And when the disciples answered him: The multitudes throng thee and press thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me? he at once added: Somebody hath touched me, for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me (Luke viii, 44, 45, 46). These press Christ, they do not touch him. — Many therefore press upon the Lord, and one touches him, because whatever carnal persons in the Church press upon him, are far from him; and they alone touch him who are joined to him in true humility. The crowd therefore presses, because the multitude of the carnal, the more it is admitted within, the more grievously is it endured. It presses, and does not touch, because it is both troublesome by its presence, and absent by its life.

For sometimes they pursue us with depraved words, but sometimes with perverse morals alone. For sometimes they counsel the things which they hold; but sometimes, even if they do not counsel, they nonetheless do not cease to furnish examples of iniquity. Those therefore who allure us to evils either by words or by examples are assuredly our persecutors, from whom we take up the contests of temptations, that we may at least conquer them in the heart. They counsel perverse things sometimes from fear, sometimes from boldness. — But it must be known that the carnal in the Church strive to counsel perverse things sometimes from fear, sometimes from boldness; and when they themselves fail either through pusillanimity or through pride, they strive to pour these into the hearts of the just as though out of love.

Peter, to be sure, retained a carnal mind before the death and resurrection of the Redeemer; with a carnal mind the son of Zeruiah had cleaved, joined to his leader David; but yet the one sinned through fear, the other through pride. For the former, hearing of his Master's death, said: Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee (Matt. xvi, 22, 23); but the latter, not bearing the injuries done to his leader, said: Shall not Shimei be put to death for these words, who cursed the Lord's anointed? (2 Kings xix, 21, 22.) But to the first it is presently said: Get thee behind me, Satan; and the second heard forthwith, together with his brother: What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah, that ye should this day be as Satan unto me?

Those who give evil counsel, therefore, are reckoned with the name of apostate angels, who by flattering words draw men, as though loving them, to unlawful things. But far worse are those who succumb to this fault not from fear but from pride: of whom especially blessed Job's wife bore the figure, who proudly attempted to counsel her husband, saying: Dost thou still remain in thy simplicity? Bless God, and die. She reproves the simplicity in her husband, in that, despising all things that shall pass away, with a pure heart he longs for eternal things alone. As if she said: Why in simplicity dost thou desire eternal things, and under present evils groan with equanimity? Rise above, despise things eternal, and escape present evils even by dying.

But let us learn from the words of the wounded yet unharmed man, of him who sits and yet stands erect, what a pattern of uprightness the elect show when they inwardly endure perverse things from the carnal — he who says: