Moralia in Job 77

Ver. 1. — 'There was a man in the land of Uz named Job.' 34. The moral sense. Job signifies the elect. What is their disposition toward things earthly and eternal. — If Job is called 'grieving,' and Uz 'counsellor,' not undeservedly is each of the elect figured by both names; because assuredly a counselling mind inhabits him who, grieving over present things, hastens to the eternal. For there are some who neglect their life; and while they desire transitory things, while they either understand not the eternal, or, understanding, despise them, they neither feel grief nor know how to have counsel. And when they consider not the supernal things which they have lost, they think themselves, alas the wretched! to be among good things. For they in no wise raise the eyes of the mind to the place of truth, for which they had been created;

in no wise do they stretch the point of their desire toward the contemplation of the eternal fatherland: but deserting themselves in the things unto which they have been cast, in place of a fatherland they love the exile which they suffer, and in the blindness which they endure they exult as though in the brightness of light. But on the contrary the minds of the elect, while they behold all transitory things to be nothing, seek those things unto which they were created; and when nothing outside of God suffices for their satisfaction, their thought, wearied by the very exercise of inquiry, rests in the hope and contemplation of its Creator, and longs to be inserted among the supernal citizens;

and each one of them, still placed in the world in body, already rises in mind beyond the world, deplores the hardship of the exile which he endures, and rouses himself to the sublime fatherland with unceasing goads of love. When therefore, grieving, he sees how eternal is that which he has lost, he finds the wholesome counsel to despise this temporal thing which he traverses; and the more the knowledge of counsel grows, so as to forsake perishing things, the more grief is increased, that he does not yet attain to the abiding things. Whence it is well said through Solomon: 'He that addeth knowledge, addeth sorrow' (Eccles. i, 18). For he who now knows the highest things which he does not yet have, grieves the more over the lowest things in which he is held. 35. In the land of Uz, that is, in counsel they dwell.

— Rightly therefore is Job said to dwell in the land of Uz, because in the counsel of knowledge the grieving mind of each of the elect is held. It is also to be observed how there is no grief of mind in the action of headlong haste. For those who live without counsels, who desert themselves headlong to the outcomes of events, are meanwhile wearied by no grief of thoughts. For he who fixes his mind attentively upon the counsel of life, carefully considers himself in every action by looking around; and lest from the matter which is being done a sudden and adverse end steal upon him, he first gently feels his way, having set down the foot of thought; he weighs, lest dread hinder him from those things which are to be done; lest precipitation impel him in those things which are to be deferred;

lest depraved things through concupiscence overcome him in open war; lest right things through vainglory supplant him by lying in wait. Job therefore dwells in the land of Uz, while the mind of the elect, the more it strives to live by counsel, the more it is wearied by the grief of its narrow journey. There follows: