Moralia in Job 259

Verse 17. — 'Shall man be justified in comparison with God, or shall a man be purer than his Maker?' 67. Human justice, compared with the divine, is injustice. On restraining complaint against God's scourges. — Human justice, compared with divine justice, is injustice: because even a lamp is seen to shine in the darkness, but placed in the ray of the sun it is darkened. What, then, did Eliphaz, caught up in contemplation, come to know, but that man cannot be justified in comparison with God? For we believe that the things we do outwardly are right, but when we in no wise know our inward things, we are darkened, as it were, when placed in the ray of the sun.

But when we perceive those inward things in any measure, we judge these outward things not in any casual measure; because everyone judges the more subtly concerning darkness the more truly the brightness of light is established for him. For he who sees the light knows what to reckon of darkness. But he who is ignorant of the whiteness of light approves even obscure things as bright. And well is it subjoined: 'Or shall a man be purer than his Maker?' Whosoever murmurs at his chastisement, what else does he but accuse the justice of Him who strikes? A man therefore reckons himself purer than his Maker if against the scourge he prepares complaint; and he undoubtedly sets Him beneath himself whose judgment concerning his own affliction he impugns.

That man therefore may not dare to reprehend the Judge of his fault, let him humbly consider Him the Author of nature; because He who wondrously made man out of nothing does not impiously afflict him when made. This Eliphaz learned when he heard the voice as of a gentle breeze. For in the consideration of the divine greatness it is learned how humbly He is to be feared in His animadversion. And he who tastes things above bears things below with equanimity, because he inwardly beholds fully at what he esteems what he does outwardly. For he wrongly thinks himself upright who is ignorant of the rule of the highest rectitude; and often a piece of wood is believed straight, if it be not brought to the rule;

but when it is joined to the rule, with how great a crookedness it swells is found out, because indeed the cutting rectitude rebukes what the deceived eye had approved. Eliphaz therefore, because he beheld things above, puts forth a strict judgment concerning things below; and although he does not rightly rebuke blessed Job, yet in comparison with the Creator of all he rightly describes the measure of the creature, saying: Verses 18, 19. 'Behold, they that serve Him are not stable, and in His angels He found depravity: how much more shall these, who dwell in houses of clay, who have an earthly foundation, be consumed as by a moth?' 68. Why the angelic nature is mutable, and whence it becomes immutable. The fall of the angels admonishes men to distrust their own infirmity.

The moth is concupiscence. — The angelic nature, although by cleaving to the contemplation of its Author it remains unchangeably in its own state, yet by that very fact that it is a creature, it has in itself the vicissitude of mutability. But to be changed is to go from one thing to another, and not to be stable in oneself. For each thing tends toward another by as many steps, as it were, as the motions of mutability to which it lies subject. But the incomprehensible nature alone knows not to be moved from its own state, which knows not to be changed from that which is ever the same. For if the substance of the angels had been alien from the motion of mutability, being well fashioned by their Author, it would by no means, in the reprobate spirits, have fallen from the citadel of its blessedness.

But God Almighty wondrously fashioned the nature of the highest spirits good, but mutable, so that both they who would not persevere might fall, and they who persisted in their condition might be so much the more worthily in it, in that they stood by their own free choice; and might become of the greater merit before God, the more they had fixed the motion of their mutability by the settled stance of their will. Because, therefore, the angelic nature also is in itself mutable—which mutability, forsooth, it overcame by this, that it is bound with the bonds of love to Him who is ever the same—it is rightly said here: 'Behold, they that serve Him are not stable.' And forthwith the proof of that same mutability is added, when concerning the apostate spirits it is subjoined: 'And in His angels He found depravity.'

From whose fall he well gathers the consideration of human infirmity, when he forthwith subjoins: 'How much more shall these, who dwell in houses of clay, who have an earthly foundation, be consumed as by a moth?' We dwell in houses of clay, because we subsist in earthly bodies. Well did Paul, considering this, say: 'We have this treasure in earthen vessels' (2 Cor. iv, 7). And again: 'We know that if our earthly house of this habitation be dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands' (2 Cor. v, 1). The earthly foundation, too, is the substance of the flesh. This the Psalmist had anxiously beheld in himself, when he said:

'My bone is not hidden from Thee, which Thou didst make in secret, and my substance in the lower parts of the earth' (Ps. cxxxviii, 15). But the moth is born of the garment, and by being born corrupts the very garment from which it arises. Now the flesh is, as it were, a certain garment of the soul; but this garment surely has its own moth, because from the flesh itself carnal temptation arises, by which it is torn. For our garment is consumed, as it were by a certain moth of its own, when the corruptible flesh begets temptation, and through this comes to destruction. Man is consumed as by a moth, when out of himself arises that whereby he is worn away. As if it were openly said: If those spirits cannot be immutable of themselves, who are depressed by no infirmity of the flesh;

with what rashness do men constantly reckon themselves to remain in the good, whom, in that which lifts the understanding up to the heights, the weighing-down of carnal infirmity impedes, so that through the vice of corruption they have in themselves that whereby they grow old, away from their inmost newness? (Vet. XXVIII.) 69. Angels are teachers, who, however holy, are not without fault. The moth, doing damage without a sound, sets forth the wicked as not heeding their own losses. — By the angels, too, holy teachers can be understood, as it is said through the prophet: 'The lips of the priest keep knowledge, and they require the law from his mouth, because he is the angel of the Lord of hosts' (Mal. ii, 7).

They, however great a virtue they shine with, cannot be at all without fault while they tread the path of the present life, because their steps are indeed touched either by the mire of an unlawful deed, or by the dust of thought. But they dwell in houses of clay who exult in this alluring life of the flesh. This house of clay Paul had scorned to dwell in, when he said: 'But our conversation is in heaven' (Phil. iii, 20, 21). Let him say, therefore: 'Behold, they that serve Him are not stable, and in His angels He found depravity; how much more shall these who dwell in houses of clay, who have an earthly foundation, be consumed as by a moth?' As if it were openly said:

If those cannot pass the way of the present life without defilement, who, announcing eternal things, gird themselves against temporal things, what detriments do they endure who rejoice to be in the pleasures of a carnal habitation? For they that serve Him are not stable, because when the mind strains toward the heights, it is scattered by the thought of its own flesh; so that often the soul, while it yearns for the inmost things, while it looks upon heavenly things alone, being suddenly smitten by a carnal delight, lies rent asunder from itself, and he who was rejoicing that he had overcome the troubles of his infirmity, groans, laid low by a sudden wound. Depravity therefore is found even in the angels, since even those very ones who announce the truth are sometimes weighed down by the stealthy creeping-in of a deceitful life.

If, then, even these are smitten by the iniquity of this world, whom a holy intention raises up against it, with what blows are those pierced whom, before its darts, the very delight of their own infirmity lays low? These are well described as consumed like a moth. For the moth does damage, and makes no sound; so the minds of the wicked, because they neglect to consider their own losses, lose their integrity as though not knowing it. For they lose from the heart innocence, from the mouth truth, from the flesh continence, and, by the advance of time, from their age, life. But they by no means perceive that they are unceasingly losing these things, while with their whole desire they are occupied with temporal cares.

As by a moth, therefore, they are consumed, because without a sound they endure the gnawing of guilt, while they know not what detriments of life and innocence they suffer. Whence it is also well subjoined: