Moralia in Job 483

Ibid. — And their hope is the abomination of the soul. 42. What is pleasure to the wicked is punishment to the just. Where the flesh is refreshed, thence the spirit fails. — What here does the sinner hope for with all his thoughts, except that he may surpass others in power, transcend all in the multiplicity of things, subject the opposing to himself by domination, become known as admirable to those who obey him, satisfy his anger at will, show himself benign when he is praised; offer whatever his gluttony craves; concur by the fulfillment of the work to that which pleasure commands? Well, therefore, is their hope called the abomination of the soul, because those very things which the carnal covet, spiritual men turn away from by the judgment of rectitude.

For what sinners esteem as pleasure, this the just without doubt account as punishment. The hope of the depraved, therefore, is the abomination of the soul, because assuredly the spirit fails where the flesh rests. For as the flesh is nourished by soft things, so the soul by hard things: soft things cherish the former, harsh things exercise the latter; the one is fed by delights, the other is quickened by bitternesses. And as hard things wound the flesh, so soft things kill the spirit; as laborious things destroy the former, so delightful things extinguish the latter. The hope, therefore, of the carnal is called the abomination of the soul, because from that source the spirit perishes forever, from which for a time the flesh lives pleasantly. 43. The indiscretion of the speaker often corrupts things rightly said.

— But Sophar would say these things rightly, had not blessed Job proclaimed all things more amply by his very living. But after he strives to admonish one holier concerning life, and endeavors to instruct with the mastery of wisdom one more learned than himself, he himself lightens the weight of his own words; for, indiscretion being interposed, he destroys all that he speaks, because he pours the liquor of knowledge over a full vessel. For thus the riches of knowledge are possessed by the indiscreet, as often the riches of bodily substance are possessed by the foolish. For some, who are propped up by the multiplicity of earthly things, sometimes give much even to those who have, that they themselves may be seen to have these things more abundantly than all. So the perverse, when they savor true things, speak certain right things even to those more right;

not that they may teach others who hear, but that they themselves may become known for how great learning they excel in. For they esteem that they surpass all in wisdom, and therefore they think they say nothing to anyone beyond the measure of their own greatness. Thus any depraved, thus all heretics, with proud voice fear not to teach their betters, because they judge all inferior to themselves. But holy Church recalls each of the lifted-up from the summit of their own self-estimation, and by the hand of discretion reforms them to the framework of equality. Whence blessed Job, who is a member of that same holy Church, seeing that the mind of his friends had swelled through words of vaunted erudition, replied on the spot, saying: