Moralia in Job 507

Verse 21. — He poureth out contempt upon princes, and relieveth those who had been oppressed. The Jews were despised on account of their unbelief; the Gentiles were raised up from their fall on account of their faith. For while the people of the Jews remained in the mandate of the law, and all the Gentile world knew no precepts of God, the former seemed to hold rule through faith, and the latter lay pressed down in the depths through unbelief. But when Judea denied the mystery of the Lord's incarnation, and the Gentile world believed, the princes fell into contempt, and those who had been oppressed in the guilt of perfidy were raised up into the liberty of true faith. This fall of the Israelites, Jeremiah, beholding long before, said:

The Lord is become as an enemy; he hath cast down Israel, he hath cast down all its walls, he hath destroyed its fortifications (Lam. ii, 5). Now walls in cities are for ornament, but fortifications for defence. And some are the gifts that fortify us, others that adorn us. Prophetic doctrine, kinds of tongues, the power of healings, are, as it were, certain walls of the mind. And though anyone have not these, he can stand fortified through faith and justice, although he may in no way seem adorned by the height of virtues. But hope, faith, and charity are not our walls, but our fortifications; which if we neglect to have, we lie open to the snares of the enemy.

Concerning Judea, then, because he took away prophecy and doctrine, or the signs of miracles, he cast down her walls. But because on account of her hardness he permitted hope, faith, and charity to be taken away, he was zealous to destroy her fortifications. And the right order was preserved, that first the walls, and afterward the fortifications, should be said to be destroyed; because when a sinful soul is forsaken, first the gifts of virtues, which are given for the manifestation of the Spirit, and afterward the foundations of hope, faith, and charity, are destroyed in it. All which things the Lord, having taken them from the perfidious, granted to the Gentile world, and from those things which he took away from the unbelieving, he adorned the minds of the faithful. Hence it is written: And to the beauty of the house to divide the spoils (Ps. lxvii, 15).

For when he took away the spoils of virtues from the Jews, he gave the beauty of gifts to the house of the heart of the Gentiles, which he deigned to inhabit through faith. This was assuredly done when, of the words of God, both the people of the Jews received according to the sole letter which killeth, and the converted Gentile world penetrated through the spirit which giveth life. Hence it is at once subjoined: