Moralia in Job 292

Verse 18. — For he wounds, and heals; he strikes, and his hands shall make whole. 42. In two ways God wounds unto salvation. To a mind returning to God, whatever before was pleasant in the world is turned to temptation. — In two ways Almighty God wounds those whom he takes care to lead back to salvation. For sometimes he strikes the flesh, and melts the hardness of the mind by fear of him. By wounding therefore he recalls to salvation, when he afflicts his elect outwardly, that they may live inwardly. Whence too through Moses he speaks, saying: I will kill, and I will make to live; I will strike, and I will heal (Deut. xxxii, 39). For he kills that he may make alive, he strikes that he may heal; because for this reason he applies stripes without, that he may cure the wounds of sins within.

But sometimes, even if scourges seem to cease outwardly, he inflicts wounds within, because he strikes the hardness of our mind with desire of himself. But by striking he heals, because, when we are transfixed by the dart of his terror, he recalls us to the sense of uprightness. For our hearts are ill and unsound, when they are wounded by no love of God, when they feel not the affliction of their own pilgrimage, when toward the infirmity of a neighbour they languish with no affection, however small. But they are wounded that they may be healed, because with the darts of his love God strikes the insensible minds, and forthwith renders them sensible through the ardour of charity. Whence too the bride in the Song of Songs says: I am wounded with charity (Cant. ii, 5, according to the LXX).

For the ill and unsound soul, prostrate upon the couch of this exile in blind security, neither saw the Lord nor sought to see him; but smitten with the darts of his charity, it is wounded in its inmost parts with the affection of piety, it burns with desire of contemplation, and in a wondrous way is quickened out of a wound, which before lay dead in soundness; it glows, it pants, and now desires to see him whom it fled. By a smiting therefore is it brought back to salvation, which by the perturbation of its love is recalled to the security of inmost repose.

But when the wounded mind has begun to pant after God, when, despising all the blandishments of this world, it stretches through desire toward the supernal homeland, forthwith whatever before was thought friendly and pleasant in the world is turned to temptation for it. For those who were wont to love the sinner cruelly assail the one living rightly. And the soul raised up to God endures the wars of its own flesh, in which before, serving vices, it lay delightfully; the old pleasures return to memory, and afflict the gainsaying mind with grievous struggle. But because, while we are worn down by transitory labour, we are freed from perpetual pain, fitly it is subjoined: