Moralia in Job 263

Ibid. — They shall die, and not in wisdom. 74. It is the custom of Scripture that, wherever it inserts something foreign, it soon returns to the subject of its discourse. — What is it that above it declared the destruction of the reprobate, saying: Because none understandeth, they shall perish forever; and then straightway concerning God's elect it added: They that shall be left shall be taken away out of them; and immediately subjoins this, which does not suit those same elect, saying: They shall die, and not in wisdom? For if they are divinely taken away from among the reprobate, how are they said to die not in wisdom? But surely it is the practice of sacred Scripture that, when it is narrating something, it interposes a statement about another matter and then straightway returns to what came before. For after it had said:

And because there is none that understandeth, they shall perish forever, it soon brought in the lot of the elect, saying: But they that shall be left shall be taken away out of them. And again, casting the eye of its discourse upon that destruction of the reprobate which it had foretold, it suddenly added: They shall die, and not in wisdom. As if it said: These of whom I said that, not understanding, they shall perish forever, will without doubt die not in wisdom. But we shall better show that this is sometimes the manner of sacred speech, if we bring forward from it some likeness of this thing. For the apostle Paul, when he was admonishing his beloved disciple about establishing the offices of the Church, lest he should perhaps advance any to sacred orders in a disorderly way, said:

Lay hands hastily on no man, neither be partaker of other men's sins; keep thyself chaste (1 Tim. 5:22). Then, immediately turning his words to the infirmity of his body, he says: Do not still drink water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake, and thine often infirmities (Ibid., 23). And straightway he subjoins, saying: Some men's sins are manifest, going before to judgment; but some men's they follow after (Ibid., 24). What, then, has this — that he forbade the sick man to drink water — to do with what he added concerning the hidden and manifest sins of certain men, unless that, having interposed a statement about his infirmity, he returned at the last to that which he had said above:

Lay hands hastily on no man, neither be partaker of other men's sins? For in order to show with how great care these same sins must be searched out, having interposed against the annoyance of infirmity an admonition of discretion, he straightway brought in that in some they lie open, in others they lie hidden, saying: Some men's sins are manifest, going before to judgment; but some men's they follow after. As, therefore, by this statement Paul does not agree in the same words with which, when speaking of Timothy's infirmity, he subjoined it; but returned to that which above, by way of interruption, he had narrated; so in this place Eliphaz, when he had said of the elect: They that shall be left shall be taken away out of them, immediately adding:

They shall die, and not in wisdom, he straightway recurs to that which above he had declared concerning the reprobate, saying: And because none understandeth, they shall perish forever. 75. Both reprobate and elect die, the latter in wisdom, the former in folly. — But the reprobate despise the elect for this reason, that through visible death they press on toward the invisible life. Of whom it is now well said: They shall die, and not in wisdom. As if it were plainly said: They flee alike from death and from wisdom; but wisdom they utterly forsake, while the snares of death they do not escape. And because, being destined at some time to die, they might by dying have lived, while they fear the death which will without doubt come, they lose at once both life and wisdom.

But on the contrary, the just die in wisdom, because the death which they can by no means avoid, and which for truth's sake presses upon them, they scorn to defer; and while they bear it with equanimity, they turn the penalty of their stock into an instrument of virtue, so that life must be received from that very source whence, by the desert of the first fault, it is compelled to be ended. But because Eliphaz has spoken these things truly against the wicked, judging blessed Job to be reprehensible, he was puffed up with the pride of wisdom. Whence also, after the pronouncements of such great rectitude, he subjoins words of mockery, saying: