Moralia in Job 442

Verse 8. — 'Thy hands have fashioned me and made me whole round about, and dost Thou thus suddenly cast me down?' 74. The dogma of the Manichaean is destroyed. — As if he humbly said to Him: Since under just examination what I have done is not worthy of Thy appeasing, weigh it mercifully, lest that which Thou hast made should perish. By which words also the perverse dogma of the Manichaean is destroyed, who, lying that there are two first principles, strives to assert that the spirit was created by God, but the flesh by Satan. For the holy man, full of the grace of the prophetic Spirit, considers things to come long afterward, and, foreseeing the offshoots of errors, tramples them down, saying: 'Thy hands have fashioned me and made me whole round about.'

For he who asserts that he was both fashioned and made whole round about by God, leaves nothing, either in his spirit or in his flesh, to the people of darkness. For he said that he was 'fashioned' on account of the inner image; but he mentioned that he was 'made whole round about' in respect of that which consists of the garment of the flesh. 75. Man's prerogative in the creation of things. — But it is to be noted that by this, that he asserts he was fashioned by the hands of God, he sets the dignity of his own creation over against the mercy of the Judge. For although all things were created through the Word co-eternal with the Father, yet in the very relation of creation it is shown how far man is preferred to all animals, how far to things even heavenly, yet insensible.

For 'He spoke, and all things were made' (Psalm 148:5). But when He determines to make man, He sends before this that which is to be reverently pondered, saying: 'Let us make man to Our image and likeness' (Genesis 1:26). For it was not written of him as of the other things, 'Let it be made, and it was made' (ibid., 3); nor did the earth bring forth man as the waters brought forth the flying creatures; but before he was made, it is said 'Let us make,' so that, namely, because a rational creature was being created, it might seem to be made as with deliberation.

He is as it were fashioned out of the earth with care, and is raised up by the inspiration of the Creator in the power of the vital spirit, so that he who was being made to the image of the Creator might exist, not by the voice of a command, but by the dignity of an operation. That therefore which man, through his creation, received more nobly than the other creatures of the earth, this, being set amid the scourge, he sets over against the loving-kindness of his Maker, saying: 'Thy hands have fashioned me and made me whole round about, and dost Thou thus suddenly cast me down?' As if he openly said: Why dost Thou despise with such contempt him whom Thou didst create with such dignity? And him whom by reason Thou preferrest to the creatures of the earth, why dost Thou place beneath through pain?

But nevertheless this same dignity of ours shines through the image, and is far distant from the perfection of blessedness through the flesh, because while the spirit is mingled with the dust, it is in a certain way bound together with infirmity. Which infirmity indeed blessed Job casts before the loving-kindness of the Judge, when he subjoins: