Moralia in Job 216

Ibid.—'Who build for themselves solitudes.' 57. They carry within themselves a tumultuous crowd. The man given to lust, the wrathful, the covetous, the proud, the one enslaved to worldly cares. For all who either seek unlawful things, or wish to seem to be something in this world, are pressed in the heart by dense tumults of thoughts; and while they stir up crowds of desires within themselves, they trample the prostrate mind with the foot of wretched frequenting. For one man has subjected himself to the dominion of lust, and before the eyes of his mind he fashions figures of base perpetrations: and when the effecting of the deed is not granted, this is done the more frequently by the intention of thought.

The perfecting of pleasure is sought, and the mind, enervately shaken, on this side and that both anxious and blinded, searches out an occasion for the most wicked fulfillment. This mind, therefore, suffers, as it were, a certain populace, which is laid waste by the insolent tumult of thoughts. Another has prostrated himself to the dominion of anger; and what does he do in his heart but quarrels, even those that are lacking? This man often does not see those present, contradicts the absent, within his very self utters insults and receives them, and to those received responds more harshly; and although there is no one at hand to meet him, with great clamors he composes brawls in his heart. This man, therefore, sustains a crowd within, whom the vehement weight of inflamed thought presses.

Another has delivered himself to the dominion of avarice, and, loathing his own things, covets what belongs to others. This man, for the most part being unable to obtain the coveted things, turns the day indeed into leisure, but the night into thought: he grows torpid at useful work, because he is wearied by unlawful thought; he multiplies plans, and expands more widely the bosom of his mind with the inventions of thoughts; he busies himself to arrive at the coveted things, and for obtaining these seeks out certain most secret passages of pretexts. As soon as he thinks he has found something subtle in a case, he already exults that he has obtained what he coveted: he already devises what more he may add to the thing acquired, and considers how it ought to be cultivated into a better state.

Because he already possesses that thing, as it were, and as it were brings it to a more pleasing appearance, he presently considers the plots of the envious and weighs what quarrel may be stirred up against him; he searches out what he shall answer, and, though he holds nothing in hand, he already labours as an empty litigant in defence of the very thing he covets. Therefore, although he has received nothing of the object desired, he nevertheless already has in his heart the fruit of covetousness and the toil of strife. And so he is oppressed by a grievous burden who is laid waste by the tumult of goading avarice. Another has subjected himself to the tyranny of pride; and while he lifts up his wretched heart against men, he casts it down beneath vice. He craves the badges of exalted honours, he seeks to be raised up by successes, and everything that he desires to be he paints for himself within his own thoughts:

already he presides as if upon a tribunal, already he sees the homage of his subordinates rendered to him, already he stands eminent above the rest, already he inflicts evils upon some and requites others because they have inflicted harm. Already, hemmed about by throngs, he goes forth in his own imagination to the public place; already he beholds by what services he shall be supported; yet he who thinks these things crawls along alone. Already he tramples upon some, already he satisfies his hatreds against others he has raised up from those he has trampled, already from the exalted he receives favours. He, therefore, who imprints so many phantasms upon his heart, what else does such a man behold than a waking dream? Since, then, he endures so many causes of things which he feigns, without doubt he inwardly carries tumults born of his desires. Another already shuns unlawful things, yet nonetheless dreads to be without the goods of the world:

he craves to hold what is permitted, he blushes to seem lesser among men, and he takes utmost care lest he be poor in his house or despised in public. He inquires what may suffice for himself, and what the need of his subordinates demands; and, in order that he may fully discharge the rights of patronage toward his dependents, he seeks out patrons whom he himself may serve. But while he is joined to these in familiarity, he is beyond doubt entangled in their affairs, in which he often consents to unlawful things, and he commits evils which he does not crave for his own sake, on account of others which he will not relinquish. For often, while he trembles lest his honour be diminished in this world, he approves before greater personages the very things which he already condemns by his own judgement. This man, while he anxiously ponders what he owes to his patrons, what to his subordinates,

what he may add to his own store, what may profit his affections—he is pressed, as it were, by so great a throng as the importunity of cares by which he is torn asunder. [Old Version, chapter 34.] 58. They alone are with themselves who have subdued their vices.—But by contrast the holy men, because they crave nothing of this world, are beyond doubt pressed by no tumults in the heart; for they cast out all the disordered motions of desires from the couch of the heart by the hand of holy reflection, and because they despise all transitory things, they do not suffer the insolences of thoughts arising from them. For they crave the eternal fatherland alone; and because they love nothing of this world, they enjoy a great tranquillity of mind. Whence it is also rightly said: They who build for themselves solitudes.

To build solitudes, indeed, is to expel from the secret place of the heart the tumults of earthly desires, and with a single intent to pant, in the love of inmost quiet, after the eternal fatherland. Had he not expelled from himself all the tumults of thoughts, who said: One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord (Ps. 26:4)? He had fled from the throng of earthly desires, namely to a great solitude of himself, where he might behold nothing foreign to his purpose, that he might love nothing unfitting. From the tumult of temporal things he had sought a certain great retreat, a quiet mind, in which he might behold God so much the more purely as he found Him alone with himself alone. 59.

And they are truly consuls, because they do not cease to counsel others.—Well, moreover, are these who build solitudes for themselves also called consuls, because they so build within themselves the solitude of the mind, that nevertheless, in that wherein they excel, they by no means cease to counsel others through charity. Let us therefore weigh a little more subtly this consul, whom we have just now brought forward, in what manner, to furnish examples of a loftier life to the assembled throngs of the peoples, he scatters the pebbles of the virtues. Behold, to instil the requital of good for evil, he confesses concerning himself, saying: If I have rendered evil to those who repaid me, let me fall empty before my enemies (Ps. 7:5). To rouse up love of the Creator, he suggests, saying:

But it is good for me to cling to God (Ps. 72:28). To imprint the pattern of holy humility, he discloses the secrets of his own heart, saying: Lord, my heart is not lifted up, neither are my eyes lofty (Ps. 130:1). To rouse us by his own example to imitate the rectitude of zeal, he says: Did I not hate those who hated Thee, O God, and pine away over Thine enemies? With a perfect hatred I hated them; they are become enemies to me (Ps. 138:21-22). To kindle in us the desire of the eternal fatherland, he laments the length of the present life, saying: Woe is me, that my sojourning is prolonged (Ps. 119:5).

With the largesse of a consulship, indeed, did he shine forth, who by the example of his own manner of life scatters for us so many pebbles of the virtues. [Old Version, chapter 35.] 60. But let this consul relate whether he also builds a solitude for himself. For he says: Behold, I have gone far off, fleeing, and I abode in the solitude (Ps. 54:8). Fleeing, he goes far off, because from the throng of temporal desires he lifts himself up into the high contemplation of God. And he abides in solitude, because he perseveres in the withdrawn intention of the mind. Concerning this solitude Jeremiah rightly says to the Lord: From before the face of Thy hand I sat alone, because Thou hast filled me with threatening (Jer. 15:17).

For the face of the hand of God is that stroke of just judgement by which He drove proud man from paradise and shut him out in this blindness of the present exile. And His threatening is the terror of the punishment yet to follow. After the face of the hand, therefore, His threats still terrify us, because—since by the experience of judgement the penalty of the present exile has already struck us—if we do not cease from sinning, He assigns us still to eternal punishments. Let the holy man therefore consider, cast down hither, whence man has fallen, and consider whither the justice of the Judge yet seizes this man who still sins after these things; and let him cast out from himself all the throngs of temporal desires, and hide himself in the great solitude of the mind, saying:

From before the face of Thy hand I sat alone, because Thou hast filled me with threatening. As if he openly said: While I consider what I already suffer through the experience of judgement, I seek from the tumult of temporal desires a fearful retreat of the mind, because I dread yet more sharply those eternal punishments which Thou threatenest. Well, therefore, is it said of kings and consuls: They who build for themselves solitudes. For those who know both how to govern themselves well and to counsel others, since they cannot for the present be brought into that inmost quiet, imitate it within themselves through the endeavour of a tranquil mind. There follows: