Moralia in Job 622

Ver. 22.—'And would that a man might so be judged with God, as the son of man is judged with his fellow!' 30. That God punishes sin in us by his scourges is uncertain.—We indeed always acknowledge ourselves to be sinners; yet often, when set under the scourge, we are ignorant for which sin the more we are scourged; and we sift our very selves with subtle inquiry, that, if in any way we can, we may be able to investigate the cause of our chastisement. And while this often lies hidden from us, our very blindness becomes a burden to us, and over that which we suffer we grieve the more. But whoever comes to judgment with his fellow both says what he thinks, and recognizes whatever is contradicted, and strikes wherever he wills, and knows whence he is struck.

But he who is struck by the divine visitation, while he indeed knows that he is being beaten, yet is ignorant why he is beaten, as it were himself says what he feels, but knows not what is said against him, because he indeed groans under the lash, but God does not openly declare for what avenging he strikes him. And so now it is said: 'And would that a man might so be judged with God, as the son of man is judged with his fellow!' As if it were openly said: 'Just as in everything that I say I am heard, so I would hear everything that is said of me.' Which nevertheless can in no way come to pass in this life, because there is a great interposition to the eyes of our heart in contemplating the subtlety of God—namely, our very own infirmity.

But then we shall behold in purity him whom we now behold but faintly, when, this infirmity laid aside, we shall come to the grace of inward contemplation, of which Paul says: 'Then shall I know even as also I am known' (1 Cor. xiii, 12). Whence blessed Job, seeing that this same knowledge can in no way be here most fully perfected, indeed groans over the blindness of the present life, yet consoles himself concerning its brevity, saying: