Moralia in Job 652

Same verse. — And shall the rocks be moved out of their place? 6. The heretics call their own teachers rocks. — The heretics call those men rocks whom they esteem to surpass others of the human race by their lofty understandings, and whom they boast of having, forsooth, as their teachers. But when holy Church strives to gather every perverse preacher into the bosom of the right faith, what else does she do but move rocks from their proper places, that they who once stood rigid in their perverse understandings may, thinking rightly within her, lie down humbly?

But the heretics utterly contradict that this should be done, and on account of her voice they resist having the rocks moved from their proper place, because forsooth they are unwilling that those who among them, puffed up in their understandings, relished falsehoods, should, on coming to her, humbly think what is true. 7. On account of the scourges which she suffers, they rage against the Church. — But very often, when the heretics behold certain persons within holy Church labouring either under want or under scourges, they at once exalt themselves into an arrogance of righteousness; and whatever adversity they consider to have befallen the faithful, this they suppose to have been done for their iniquities, being ignorant indeed that the quality of the present life in no way proves the merit of one's actions.

For very often both good things befall the wicked and evil things befall the good, for this reason, that both true goods are reserved for the good, and true evils for the wicked, in the eternal recompense. Baldad therefore, holding the type of the heretics who exalt themselves out of the prosperity of the present life, is puffed up against the scourges of blessed Job as though from their mouth against the reproaches of the righteous; and he disputes eloquently indeed against the ungodly, but he knows not how perversely he speaks such things against a righteous man, for he subjoined, saying: