Moralia in Job 448

Verse 14. — 'If I have sinned, and Thou hast spared me for an hour, why dost Thou not suffer me to be clean from my iniquity?' 83. Sins blotted out which nevertheless infect the memory and renew the war. What is then to be done. — For an hour the Lord spares the sin, when He at once washes away the guilt of the fault by the tears He has granted. But He does not suffer us to be clean from our iniquity, because willingly indeed we committed the fault, but sometimes unwillingly we endure the memory of it with delight. For often that which has already been blotted out from the Judge's sight, a weeping intervening, returns to the mind, and the fault, once vanquished, strives to creep back again unto delight, and in the old contest is renewed by a reviving assault;

so that what it first did in the body, this it afterward turns over in the mind by importunate thought. Which that spiritual athlete had known how to behold, who said: 'My scars have grown putrid and are corrupted, because of the face of my folly' (Psalm 37:6). For what are scars, if not the healings of wounds? He therefore had beheld the loosened wickednesses returning unto the delight of the memory, who bewailed his scars. For scars to grow putrid is for the already healed wounds of sins to creep again into temptation, and, out of their suggestions, after the skin of penance has been drawn over them, to feel once more the stench and the pain of the fault.

In which matter indeed nothing is done outwardly by deed, and sin is committed by thought alone within; and the mind binds itself with strict guilt, unless it wipe this away with anxious laments. 84. Whence it is well said through Moses: 'If there be among you a man who is defiled in a nocturnal dream, he shall go forth outside the camp; and he shall not return before he is washed with water toward evening, and after the setting of the sun he shall go back into the camp' (Deuteronomy 23:10). For a nocturnal dream is a hidden temptation, through which, by a dark thought, something base is conceived in the heart, which nevertheless is not fulfilled in the work of the body.

But he who is defiled by a nocturnal dream is commanded to go forth outside the camp, because, namely, it is fitting that he who is defiled by an unclean thought should judge himself unworthy of the fellowships of all the faithful, should set the desert of his fault before his eyes, and should despise himself in his esteem of the good. For one defiled to go forth outside the camp is, for him who labors under a base assault, to despise himself in comparison with the continent. He is washed with water toward evening, when, beholding his own defect, he turns to the laments of penance, that with his weeping he may wash away all that a hidden defilement accuses in his soul. But after the setting of the sun let him return to the camp, because, when the ardor of the temptation has cooled, it is necessary that he again take up confidence toward the fellowship of the good.

For after the washing of water, when the sun goes down, he returns to the camp who, after the laments of penance, when the flame of unlawful thought grows cold, is restored to presuming upon the merits of the faithful; so that he no longer esteems himself to be far from the rest, who rejoices that he is clean through the passing away of the inmost ardor. But amid these things it must be known that we are sometimes afflicted by the impulse of unlawful thought for this reason, that in certain acts of earthly conversation, though lawful, we are gladly occupied. And when even in the least things earthly action is touched by desire, the strength of the ancient enemy growing against us, our mind is defiled with no small importunity of temptation.

Hence the priest of the Law is commanded to burn in the fire the members of the victim cut into pieces, the head and the parts that are about the liver, but first to wash with water the feet and entrails of the victim (Leviticus 1:7,12). For we ourselves offer a sacrifice to God when we dedicate our life to the divine worship. We lay the members of the victim, cut into pieces, upon the fire when, distinguishing the works of our life among the virtues, we offer them up. We burn the head and the parts contained near the liver when, in our understanding by which the whole body is governed, and in our hidden desires, we glow with the flame of divine love. And yet it is commanded that the feet and the entrails of the victim be washed.

For by the feet the earth is touched, and in the entrails the dung is carried; because very often we are already kindled by desire toward eternity, and already with the whole affection of our devotion we pant after the longing for our own mortification; yet because through our weakness we still do something earthly, we also endure in our heart certain unlawful things that we have already subdued. And when an unclean temptation defiles our thoughts, what else do the entrails of the victim carry but dung? But that they may deserve to be burned, let them be washed; for it is indeed necessary that the weeping of holy fear should cleanse our unclean thoughts, which supernal love may kindle in the acceptance of the sacrifice.

And whatever the mind suffers, whether from an untried conflict or from the memory of its former way of life, let it be washed, so that it may burn the more sweetly in the sight of its own beholder, the less it lays anything earthly, anything slippery, upon the altar of its prayer when it begins to stand before Him. Let the holy man therefore consider the losses of the human mind, that very often it defiles itself with unlawful thought; and after the Judge has remitted the guilt of the deed, let him, lamenting his own case, disclose to us the things we should lament, saying: If I have sinned, and Thou hast spared me for an hour, why dost Thou not suffer me to be clean from my iniquity? As if he plainly said: If pardon has taken away the fault, why does it not also wipe it from memory?

But often the mind is so shaken in the recollection of its fault that it is driven toward the committing of it far more heavily than it had first been seized by it; and, caught, it trembles, and being impelled by various motions, it throws itself into confusion. It fears indeed lest it be overcome by temptations, yet even while resisting, it shudders at this very thing, that it is afflicted by the long labor of the struggle. Whence it is aptly added: