Moralia in Job 285

Verse 13. Who catcheth the wise in their own craftiness, and scattereth the counsels of the perverse. 28. Those who resist God's counsels serve them unwillingly. It is shown by the examples of Joseph's brothers, Saul, Jonah, the Jews. For often some, puffed up with human wisdom, while they behold the divine judgments running counter to their desires, strive to resist them by crafty machinations; and that they may bend the force of the supernal dispensation to their own vow, they insist upon cunning thoughts, they seek out subtler counsels; but thence they accomplish the will of God, whence they contend to change it;

and while they strive to resist the counsel of Almighty God, they obey it, because often even that fittingly serves His disposition which frivolously rebounds against Him through human effort. The Lord, therefore, catches the wise in their very craftiness, when human deeds fittingly serve His counsels even then, when they resist. Which we may better show, if we bring to the fore a few examples of things done. 29. Joseph had seen a dream, that to his sheaf the sheaves of his brothers bowed down (Gen. xxxvii, 7); he had seen a dream, that the sun and the moon with the rest of the stars adored him. Which because he purely related to his brothers, the envy and dread of his future dominion straightway struck their hearts.

And when they saw him coming to them, with raging malice they said: Behold, that dreamer comes; come, let us kill him, and see what his dreams shall profit him (Ibid., 20). And while they fear to be subjected to his dominion, they cast the dreamer into a pit, and sell him to passing Ishmaelites: who, led into Egypt, subjected to servitude, condemned by an accusation of lust, aided by the merit of chastity, raised by the judgment of prophecy, was set over all Egypt; and through supernal wisdom, provident, he gathered corn, and met the future peril of want. And when famine rushed upon the world, Jacob, solicitous about the preparation of foods, sent his sons into Egypt:

who, not knowing him, find Joseph set over the dispensing of the corn, and, that they might deserve to receive food, were compelled to adore its dispenser with necks bowed to the earth. Let us weigh, therefore, the order of the thing done; let us weigh how the divine power catches the wise in their very own craftiness. For this reason Joseph had been sold by them, that he might not be adored; but for this reason he was adored, because he was sold. For they dared to do something craftily, that God's counsel might be changed; but by divine judgment, that which they attempted to decline, by resisting they served. For thence they were compelled to accomplish the will of God, whence they endeavoured craftily to alter it. Thus the divine counsel, while it is shunned, is fulfilled;

thus human wisdom, while it struggles against, is caught. The brothers feared lest Joseph should grow up over them; but this which had been divinely disposed came to pass by their guarding against it. Human wisdom, therefore, was caught in itself, which served the fulfillment of God's will from that very point whence by intention it resisted it. 30. Thus Saul, while he beheld David, his subject, growing up daily by the increase of virtues, promised him his daughter in marriage, and for her dowry demanded that a hundred foreskins of the Philistines be given by him, so that when the provoked soldier sought to grow beyond himself, he might, delivered to the swords of the enemies, end his life, as it is written:

The king desires no dowry, but only a hundred foreskins of the Philistines, that vengeance may be taken on the king's enemies (1 Sam. xviii, 25). Moreover Saul thought to deliver David into the hands of the Philistines; but David, strengthened by the favour of the inward disposition, undertook to give a hundred, and brought back two hundred foreskins. By the very argument of which work Saul, being overcome, was caught by the supernal providence in the counsel of his own wisdom; because whence he believed he would extinguish the life of the growing soldier, thence he heaped up the glory of his valour. 31.

But because sometimes even the elect endeavour to be crafty in something, it is pleasing to bring forward to the fore another wise man, and to demonstrate how in inward counsels the craftiness of mortals is caught. Prudently indeed Jonah wished to be wise, when, sent to preach repentance to the Ninevites, because he feared that Judea would be forsaken for the elect nations, he refused to fulfill the office of preaching (Jonah i, 2, 3, seq.). He sought a ship, he chose to flee to Tarshish; but forthwith a tempest arises, a lot is cast, so that indeed it may be known by whose fault the sea is troubled. Jonah is caught in the fault, is plunged into the deep, is devoured by the swallowing whale, and by the carrying beast arrives there whither he scorned to go of his own will.

Behold, the tempest finds the fugitive from God, the lot binds him, the sea receives him, the beast encloses him, and because he refuses to obey his Author, to the place whither he had been sent he is carried, guilty, in his own prison. When God commanded, the man refused to minister prophecy; when God breathed upon it, the beast vomits forth the prophet. The Lord, therefore, catches the wise in their own craftiness, when He reduces even that to the use of His will, whereby human will contradicts Him. 32. Let us search still further the wisdom of the Hebrews, that we may see what by foreseeing He prohibited, what by prohibiting He provoked. Certainly, when the crowd of believers flocked to the miracles of our Redeemer, when the priests of the people, kindled by the torches of envy, proclaimed that the world was going after Him, saying:

You see that we prevail nothing; behold, the whole world is gone after Him (John xii, 19); that they might cut off from Him the force of so great a concourse, they attempted to end His power by death, saying: It is expedient that one man die, and that the whole nation perish not (John xi, 50). But the Redeemer's death availed for the joining together of His body, that is, the Church, not for its separation. Whence also through the Law it is commanded that the throat of the turtledove or the pigeon, in the figure of our sacrifice, be cut, and not entirely severed, so that even after death the head may cleave to the body (Lev. i, 15); because indeed the mediator of God and men (1 Tim.)

(ii, 5), that is, the Head of us all, and the victim of true cleansing, whence he bore death for us, and thereby clove to us the more truly. After the cutting, therefore, the turtledove's head cleaves to its own body, because no intervening death divides Christ from the Church. The persecutors, then, accomplished the very thing they had wickedly plotted: they brought in death that they might cut off from him the devotion of the faithful; but from that source faith grew, whence the cruelty of the unbelieving supposed it would extinguish it. And while they reckon that by persecuting him they cut off his miracles, they were surely compelled, all unknowing, to spread them abroad.

Therefore the Lord catches the wise in their own craftiness, since he turns even to the service of his own goodness that with which human cruelty blazed up against him. 33. God grants some things being favourable, permits others being angry. For the Just and Merciful One, ordering the deeds of mortals, grants some things being favourable and permits others being angry; and the things which he permits he so tolerates that he turns them to the use of his own counsel. Hence in a wondrous way it comes about that even what is done without the will of God is not contrary to the will of God, because, while evil deeds are turned to a good use, even those things which fight against his counsel serve his counsel. For hence it is said through the Psalmist: Great are the works of the Lord, sought out according to all his wills (Psalm).

(cx, 2). For so are his works great, that through everything which is done by men his will is sought out. For often it is accomplished from the very quarter whence it was thought to be repelled. Hence again it is said: Whatsoever the Lord willed, he did, in heaven and on earth (Psalm cxxxiv, 6). Hence Solomon says: There is no wisdom, there is no prudence, there is no counsel against the Lord (Prov. xxi, 30). It remains, therefore, that in all things we do we should inquire the force of the supernal will, which, once known, our action ought devoutly to serve, and to follow as the guide of its journey, lest it serve that will even unwillingly, if it proudly turns aside from it. For the counsel of the Most High can by no means be escaped;

but he tempers it to himself with great virtue who restrains himself beneath its beckonings; and he lightens its weights for himself who willingly bears it upon the submissive shoulder of his heart. But since we made mention above of the persecutors, let us show how the things also which are subjoined suit their blindness. There follows: