Moralia in Job 45

9. All Satan's contrivances raised against Job. — But now let us follow out the very order of his temptation. The enemy raging, and striving to overthrow the most valiant breast of the holy man, raised up against him all the engines of temptation: he took away his substance, slew his sons, struck his body, incited his wife, brought his friends for consolation—but roused them to the harshness of rebuke; another friend too, who rebuked more harshly, he kept for the last and sharper invective, so that at least by striking more frequently he might reach the heart, which he might ever renew with a fresh wound. For because he saw him powerful in the world, he believed that one whom the shock from the death of his sons had not moved might be moved by the losses of his substance.

But seeing that even from the wound of bereavement he grew to the increase of divine praise, he asked that the health of his body be smitten. Perceiving also that through the pain of the body he could not attain to the suffering of the mind, he incited his wife. For the city which he longed to storm he saw to be too strongly fortified; and therefore, inflicting so many blows without, he as it were brought up an army from outside; but kindling the mind of the wife with words of evil persuasion, he as it were corrupted the hearts of the citizens within. For from outward wars we learn what we should feel about inward ones.

For the enemy raging, and hemming in the city with surrounding armies, if he perceives its defences unconquered, turns himself to other means of fighting, so that within he may corrupt the hearts of certain citizens; so that when he has brought up assailants from without, he may have helpers also within, and, the contest of war increasing outside, the city, deprived by the perfidy of those in whose fidelity within it had trusted, may be captured. 10. War without, poisonous counsels within, he employed. — So then, having set up a battering-ram, as it were, on the outside, he struck the wall of this city with as many blows as the times he announced adverse tidings. But within he corrupted, as it were, the hearts of the citizens, while he strove by the persuasion of the wife to destroy the strong defences of this city.

Without, then, he set on the onslaught of war, within the poisons of counsel: so that he might capture the city all the sooner, the more he threw it into confusion both outside and inside. [Old VIII.] But because sometimes words disturb more than wounds, he armed, as has been said, the tongues of the friends. These indeed, because they were elders, from their words perhaps less grief might be felt. Elihu the younger is substituted, that he might strike the holy breast with a wound so much the sharper, as he stirred up against it the blow of a baser arm. Behold, to strike that most unconquered strength the raging enemy found how many javelins of temptation; behold how many engines of siege he set round about; behold how many darts of blows he sent across:

but in all these things the mind remained undaunted, the city stood unshaken.