Moralia in Job 166

Verse 10. — Thou hast spoken like one of the foolish women. If we have received good things at the hand of the Lord, why should we not endure the evil? The saints oppose the shield of patience to those who strike them, and hurl the javelins of doctrine at those who counsel evil. — Holy men, caught in the war of tribulations, when at one and the same time they endure some striking them and others counseling them, oppose to the former the shield of patience, and hurl at the latter the javelins of doctrine; and to each mode of fighting they rouse themselves with wondrous skill of virtue, so that they may both wisely teach the perverse within, and bravely despise adversities without; correcting these by teaching, pressing back those by bearing with them.

For they despise by suffering the enemies that rise up, but they bring back to salvation by compassion the fellow citizens who grow weak: they resist the former, lest they draw away others also; they fear for the latter, lest they utterly lose the life of uprightness. This is proved by the example of St. Paul. — Let us behold the soldier of God's camp battling against both. He says: Without were fightings, within were fears. He enumerates the wars which he endures from without, saying: In perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren (2 Cor. vii, 5; xi, 26). But in this war, what darts he hurls against the adversary, let him add:

In labour and toil, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness (in the same place). But amid so many contests, when caught in them, let him say with how great a garrison of vigils he even keeps guard over the camp. For he presently adds: Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches. Behold, he bravely takes upon himself wars for himself, and mercifully spends himself in protecting his neighbours. He recounts the evils which he suffers, he subjoins the goods which he imparts. Let us therefore weigh of what labour it is, at one and the same time to endure adversities without and to protect the weak within. Without he suffers fightings, because he is torn by scourgings, bound with chains;

within he endures fear, because he dreads lest his Passion be a hindrance not to himself but to his disciples. Whence he also writes to them, saying: That no man should be moved by these afflictions: for yourselves know that we are appointed thereunto (1 Thess. iii, 3). For he feared the falls of others in his own suffering, lest, while the disciples recognized him afflicted with scourgings for the faith, they should refuse to profess themselves faithful. O bowels of immense charity! He despises what he himself suffers, and takes care lest the disciples suffer anything of perverse persuasion in their heart. In himself he scorns the wounds of the body, and in others he heals the wounds of the heart. For the just have this as their own, that, placed in the pain of their own tribulation, they do not abandon their care for the profit of others;

and while they grieve, suffering adversities in themselves, they foresee for others the necessary things by teaching, and, as it were struck, they lie sick like great physicians. They themselves endure the rents of a wound, and to others they offer the medicaments of health. But it is of far less labour either to teach when you endure nothing, or to endure when you teach nothing. Whence holy men skilfully stretch themselves toward both; and when perhaps they are struck by tribulations, they so take up the outward wars that they solicitously consider lest the inward parts of their neighbours be torn. Thus holy men stand strong in the battle line; and on the one side they strike the opposing breasts with javelins, on the other with the shield they protect the weak set behind them, and thus on both sides they keep vigil with the swiftness of circumspection;

so as both to pierce through the bold before them, and to defend the trembling behind them from the wound. Since therefore holy men so know how to endure adversities without, that within they also know how to correct perverse things, let it be rightly said: Thou hast spoken like one of the foolish women. For because it is said to the elect: Do manfully, and let your heart be strengthened (Psalm xxx, 25), the minds of the carnal, who serve God with a wavering intention, are not undeservedly called women. Tending toward eternal goods, he does not take temporal evils ill. — If we have received good things at the hand of the Lord, why should we not endure the evil? As if he said: If we tend toward eternal goods, what wonder if we suffer temporal evils?

But Paul had solicitously looked into these good things, when he bore with equanimity the evils inflicted upon him, saying: The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall come, which shall be revealed in us (Rom. viii, 18). In the same place. — In all this did not Job sin with his lips. He is contumelious neither against God nor against his adversaries. — Holy men, when they suffer persecution both without and within, not only do they in no way transgress in the injuries done to God, but neither do they hurl contumelious words against their very adversaries. This the leader of the good, Peter, rightly admonishes, saying: Let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or a reviler (1 Peter iv, 15).

For he suffers as a reviler who, in the time of his suffering, is unbridled in injury to his persecutor for his own salvation. But because the body of the Redeemer, namely holy Church, so bears the weight of griefs that it does not by its words pass beyond the measure of humility, it is rightly said of this grieving one: