Moralia in Job 760

Verses 27-28. — 'Surely I know your thoughts, and your sentences that are unjust against me. For you say: Where is the house of the prince, and where are the tabernacles of the ungodly?' Job unbroken, because though he had lost all else he had not lost God. — For they had believed him to be ungodly whom they saw temporally ruined by the taking away of his goods. But the holy man judges them with the more lofty consideration, in that amid the losses which he had borne he stood with unbroken uprightness. For what harm had the outward losses of goods done him, who had not lost Him whom he loved inwardly? The allegorical sense. — From abundance is pride born. — But as to that which is said:

'Together they shall sleep in the dust, and worms shall cover them,' if perchance anyone wish to take it by allegory, we can briefly unfold it, if we go over again those things which have already been said concerning this wicked rich man. For it is said: 'His bowels are full of fat.' For just as fat comes from abundant food, so pride comes from abundance of goods, which strike upon the mind of the rich man, while the soul of the proud is lifted up. For the pride of the heart is, as it were, a certain fatness of grossness. Whence, because very many commit sins out of abundance, it is said through the Prophet: 'Their iniquity came forth as it were from fatness' (Psalm 72:7). There follows: 'And his bones are watered with marrow.'

The lovers of this world have, as it were, bones, when in this world they possess the strength of dignities. But if in their outward dignity earthly and domestic riches be lacking, as regards their own judgment they have bones indeed, but they have no marrow in the bones. Because, therefore, this lover of the world is so upheld by outward power that he is also fattened by the abundance of an inward earthly household, it is said: 'And his bones are watered with marrow.' Or else the bones of this rich man are his depraved and hard habits, but the marrow in the bones are the very desires of living evilly, which are not sated even by the satisfaction of wickedness.

These marrows, as it were, water the bones, when perverse desires preserve their perverse habits in the delight of pleasures. Whence the rich man vainly rejoices, and thence the poor man is afflicted in vain. The good things which the rich man has with fear, the poor man craves with anxiety. — And there are some who in this world do not have riches, but desire to have them, and long to be exalted; although in this world they cannot obtain what they crave; and though they are upheld by no goods or honors, yet through evil desires their conscience makes them guilty in the sight of the inward Judge. For such a one is very often afflicted for this reason, that he does not prevail to grow rich and to become proud. Concerning whom it is added:

'But another dies in the bitterness of his soul, without any riches at all.' Behold, whence the rich man with proud heart vainly rejoices, thence another poor man with proud heart is yet more vainly afflicted. But of both it is well added: 'And yet they shall sleep together in the dust, and worms shall cover them.' For to sleep in the dust is to close the eyes of the mind in earthly desires. Whence to everyone who sins and sleeps in his guilt it is said: 'Rise, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall enlighten you' (Ephesians 5:14). But the worms which are born from the flesh cover them together, because whether it be the mind of the rich or of the poor proud man, carnal cares press upon it.

For in earthly matters the poor and the reprobate rich, though they are not upheld with equal prosperity, are nevertheless troubled with equal anxiety; because what the one already has with fear, the other craves with anxiety; and because he cannot have it, he grieves. Let it be said, then: 'Together they shall sleep in the dust, and worms shall cover them,' because although they are not together raised up by temporal goods, yet together they are lulled by torpor of mind in the care of temporal things. And together the worms cover them, because carnal thoughts press either upon the one, that he may have the things coveted, or upon the other, lest he lose the things he has. Job neither exalted by goods possessed, nor anxious over goods lost.

— But blessed Job, who had neither been exalted by goods possessed, nor sought back with anxiety the goods he had lost, because he was gnawed by no thoughts of outward loss, the worms of the heart had not covered him. And because he had not cast down his mind into earthly care, in no way was he sleeping in the dust. There follows: 'Surely I know your thoughts, and your sentences that are unjust against me.' Since it is written: 'What man knows the things of a man, save the spirit of a man that is in him?' (1 Corinthians 2:11) — by what reasoning is it now said: 'Surely I know your thoughts'? But the spirit of a man is then unknown to another, when it is not shown forth by words or works. For since it is written: 'By their fruits you shall know them' (Matthew 7:20),

through that which is done outwardly, whatever lies hidden within is laid open. Whence also it is rightly said through Solomon: 'As in the waters the faces of those who look in are reflected, so the hearts of men are made manifest to the prudent' (Proverbs 27:19). Therefore blessed Job, when he said that he knew the thoughts of his conversing friends, added: 'And your sentences that are unjust against me,' that from the manifest deed he might show that he had found out that which lay hidden in them. Whence he also adds their unjust sentences themselves, saying: 'For you say: Where is the house of the prince, and where are the tabernacles of the ungodly?' The false opinion of those who measure faults by scourges.

— The weak, who long to flourish in this world and who dread scourges as they dread great evils, measure faults by the punishment in those whom they behold scourged. For those whom they see struck, they suspect to have displeased God. Whence the friends of blessed Job, when they saw him struck, believed him to have been ungodly, evidently reckoning that, had he not been ungodly, his tabernacles would have remained. But this no one thinks except one who yet labors under the weariness of weakness, who fixes the step of his thought in the delight of the present world, who knows not how to pass over to the eternal fatherland with perfect desires. Whence it is well added: