Moralia in Job 431

Verse 33. — There is none who is able to reprove both, and to lay his hand upon them both. 60. What it is to reprove God. — It sounds harsh that one should be sought who might reprove God; but it will not be harsh, if one recur to the memory of what He Himself says through another prophet. For through Isaiah He admonishes, saying: Cease to do perversely, learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge for the fatherless, defend the widow; and come, and reprove me, saith the Lord (Isai. i, 16). For we oppose by the authority of reason him whom we reprove. And what is this, that the Lord, admonishing us to act rightly, adds: Come, and reprove me, save that He plainly insinuates how great a confidence He grants to good deeds? As if He openly said:

Do right, and meet the motions of my animadversion no longer through the groan of entreaty, but through the confidence of authority. For hence John says: If our heart reprove us not, we have confidence toward God (1 John iii, 21). Hence it is that Moses, because pleasing while he serves, is heard while silent, when it is thus said to him: Why criest thou to me? (Exod. xiv, 15). Hence it is that he holds back the angered One, when he hears: Let me alone, that my fury may be angry against this people (Exod. xxxii, 10). Hence it is that the Lord complains that He had none to reprove Him, when it is said through the prophet: I sought a man that might interpose a hedge, and stand opposed against me, lest I should destroy it, and I found none (Ezech. xxii, 30).

Hence it is that Isaiah grievously bewails, saying: We all have fallen as a leaf, and our iniquities like the wind have carried us away; there is none that calleth upon thy name, that riseth up and layeth hold of thee (Isai. lxiv, 6, 7). 61. Christ alone could deliver us from death. By suffering He rebuked man's fault, and appeased God's wrath. — But any upright men can, through the merit of received innocence, sometimes meet the motions of the present animadversion; yet they are not able by their own strength to drive away from the human race the punishments of the death that was to follow. Let the holy man therefore consider whither the human race has fallen away; let him behold the losses of eternal death;

against which, it is certain, human justice by no means gainsays; let him see how perversely man has offended; let him see how strictly the Creator is angered against man, and let him seek a mediator of God and men, God and man. [Old Version XXXI, Received Version XXI.] And because he considers Him as one to come long afterward, let him, bewailing, say: There is none who is able to reprove both, and to lay his hand upon them both. For the Redeemer of the human race, the mediator of God and men made through the flesh, since He alone appeared just among men, and yet came to the punishment of fault even without fault, both reproved man that he should not offend, and withstood God that He should not smite, gave examples of innocence, took upon Himself the penalty of malice.

By suffering therefore He reproved both, who both rebuked the fault of man by breathing justice into him, and tempered the wrath of the Judge by dying; and He laid His hand upon both, since He both gave to men examples which they might imitate, and showed to God, in Himself, works whereby He might be appeased toward men. For none existed before Him who could so intercede for the guilt of others that he had none of his own. Anyone was therefore the less able to meet eternal death in others, the more his own guilt bound him fast. There came therefore a new man to men, a gainsayer to fault, a friend to punishment; He showed wondrous things, He endured cruel things. He laid His hand therefore upon both, since whereby He rightly taught the guilty, thereby He appeased the angered Judge.

And this too He furnished, more wonderful than His very miracles, that He corrected the hearts of offenders rather by gentleness than by terror. Whence also it is added: