Moralia in Job 87

In the same place. — For he said: Lest perhaps my sons have sinned, and have blessed God in their hearts. 50. The various ambushes of the enemy, whereby he mars good works, at the beginning of the work, in its progress, at its end. — The sons curse in their hearts when our right works proceed from thoughts that are not right; when they display good things openly, but in secret contrive harmful things. They curse God when our minds suppose that they have of themselves what they are. They curse God when they understand that they have received their powers also from Him, yet nevertheless seek their own praise for His gifts. [Old numbering

XXXVIII.] Now it must be known that the ancient enemy pursues our good deeds in three ways, namely, that what is done rightly before men may be marred in the sight of the inner Judge. For sometimes he defiles the intention in a good work, so that all that follows in the action may not come forth pure and clean, since he disturbs it from its very origin. Sometimes indeed he does not prevail to mar the intention of the good work, but he sets himself against it as it were in the way, in the very action; so that when anyone goes forth the more securely by the purpose of his mind, a vice being secretly attached, he is destroyed as it were from ambush. Sometimes indeed he neither mars the intention nor trips it up on the way, but ensnares the good work at the end of the action;

and the further he feigns to have withdrawn either from the house of the heart or from the way of the work, so much the more cunningly does he lie in wait to deceive the end of the good action; and when he has made anyone unwary, as it were by withdrawing, he then transfixes him the more grievously and incurably with a sudden wound. 51. He defiles the intention in a good work, because, when he beholds men's hearts easy to deceive, he sets before their desires a breath of transitory favor; that in the very things they do rightly they may be bent, by the strength of intention, toward seeking the lowest things. Whence it is rightly said, under the figure of Judaea, concerning every soul taken in the snare of wretched intention, by the prophet: Her enemies are become at the head. As if it were openly (Lam.

1:5): When a good work is undertaken not with a good intention, the spirits opposing it hold sway from the very outset of the thought; and they possess it the more fully the more they hold dominion through its beginning. 52. But when they do not prevail to mar the intention, they hide snares set in the way, so that in what is being well done the heart, exalting itself, may be diverted to vice from the side; so that what one had at the outset proposed otherwise, in the action he may run far otherwise than he had begun. For often, while human praise meets a good work, it changes the mind of the doer: which, although it had not been sought, yet, being offered, delights. And when by the delight of it the mind of one who works well is loosened, it is scattered from all the vigor of its inmost intention.

Often to our well-begun righteousness anger attaches itself from the side; and while by immoderate zeal for rectitude it troubles the mind, it wounds all the wholeness of inward peace. Often a sadness added from the side, as it were, follows the gravity of the heart; and every work which the mind begins with good intention, this sadness overshadows with a veil of grief. And this is sometimes repelled the more slowly the later it, as it were, attends upon the oppressed mind. Often immoderate gladness attaches itself to a good work; and while it chooses to make the mind more cheerful than is fitting, it drives away from good action all the weight of gravity. Now because the Psalmist had beheld snares to lie in wait in the way even for those beginning, being full of the prophetic spirit he rightly said:

In the way wherein I walked, they have hid a snare for me (Ps. 141:4). And this Jeremiah well and subtly intimates, who, while he took care to relate deeds done without, indicated what was being done within us, saying: There came eighty men from Shechem, and from Shiloh, and from Samaria, with beards shaven, and clothes rent, and squalid; they had offerings and incense in their hand, to offer in the house of the Lord. And Ishmael the son of Nethaniah went forth from Mizpah to meet them, going and weeping as he went. And when he had met them, he said to them: Come to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam. And when they had come into the midst of the city, he slew them (Jer. 41:5).

For they shave their beards who withdraw from themselves confidence in their own powers. They rend their garments who do not spare themselves in the tearing away of outward comeliness. Let them come to offer incense and gifts in the house of the Lord, who promise to present ourselves in God's sacrifice—prayer together with works. But nevertheless, if they know not how to look about them warily in the very way of holy devotion, Ishmael the son of Nethaniah comes to meet them; because assuredly every malignant spirit, begotten in the error of pride after the example of his forerunner, namely Satan, sets himself against them for the snare of deception. Of whom it is well said: He went and wept as he went;

because, in order that he may prevail to slay devout minds by striking them, he conceals himself as it were under the veil of virtue; and while he feigns to be in concord with those who truly mourn, being more securely admitted to the inmost recesses of the heart, he slays that which lies hidden within concerning virtue. And he often promises to advance men to higher things. Whence he is reported to have said: Come to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam; and while he promises greater things, he takes away even the least. Whence too it is rightly said: And when they had come into the midst of the city, he slew them. He slays therefore in the midst of the city the men coming to offer gifts to God;

because minds given to divine works, unless they guard themselves with great circumspection, while they bear the sacrifice of devotion, lose their life on the very way, the enemy stealing upon them. From whose hand there is no escape, unless one quickly has recourse to penitence. Whence there is fitly added: But ten men were found among them who said to Ishmael: Do not slay us, for we have treasures in the field, of wheat and barley, and oil, and honey; and he slew them not (Jer. 41:8). For the treasure in the field is hope in penitence, which, because it is not seen, is contained as it were buried in the earth of the heart. They therefore who had treasures in the field were saved;

because those who, after the fault of their incaution, return to the lamentation of penitence, are not slain when taken captive. 53. But when the ancient enemy neither strikes at the outset of the intention, nor intercepts in the course of the action, he stretches harder snares at the end. And him he besets the more wickedly the more he sees that this alone remains to him for deception. For the Prophet had beheld these snares set at its end, when he said: They will watch my heel (Ps. 55:7 [56:6]). For since in the heel is the end of the body, what is signified by it but the end of the action? Whether therefore the malignant spirits, or any perverse men, followers of their pride, watch the heel, when they desire to mar the end of a good action.

Whence too it is said to that same serpent: She shall watch thy head, and thou her heel (Gen. 3:15, according to the Septuagint). For to watch the head of the serpent is to look upon the beginnings of his suggestion, and to root them out utterly from the approach of the heart by the hand of watchful consideration. Yet he, when he is caught from the beginning, strives to strike the heel, because, even if by his first suggestion he does not strike the intention, he aims to deceive at the end. But if once the heart is corrupted in its intention, the middle and the end of the ensuing action is securely possessed by the crafty enemy; since he beholds the whole tree bearing him its fruits, which by the poison he had marred in the root.

Since, therefore, we must watch with the utmost care, lest the mind, while serving good works, be defiled by a reprobate intention, it is rightly said: Lest perhaps my sons have sinned, and have blessed God in their hearts. As if it were openly said: There is no good that is done without, if for it, within, before the eyes of God, the victim of innocence is not sacrificed upon the altar of the heart. [Old numbering XXXIX.] With all virtue, therefore, the stream of the work is to be examined, whether it flows pure from the fountain of thought. With all care the eye of the heart is to be kept from the dust of malice; lest that which it displays as right to men in the action, it twist awry within itself through the vice of a depraved intention. 54. Therefore care must be taken lest our good works be few, or unexamined.

— Care must therefore be taken lest our good works be few; care lest they be unexamined; lest either, by doing few, we be found barren, or, by leaving them unexamined, senseless. For no virtue is truly a virtue if it is not mingled with other virtues. Whence it is rightly said to Moses: Take unto thee spices, stacte and onycha, galbanum of sweet savor, and the clearest frankincense; they shall be of equal weight, and thou shalt make incense compounded by the work of a perfumer, mingled diligently and pure (Exod. 30:34-35). We make incense compounded of spices when upon the altar of a good work we are fragrant with the manifold variety of virtues. And this is made mingled and pure; because the more one virtue is joined to another, the more sincerely is the incense of the good work presented.

Whence too it is well added: And when thou hast beaten all of it into a very fine powder, thou shalt set of it before the tabernacle of the testimony (Ibid., 36). We beat all the spices into a very fine powder when, as it were in the mortar of the heart, we pound our good deeds with a hidden scrutiny; and, if they be truly good, we subtly reconsider them. To reduce the spices to powder, therefore, is to grind the virtues by reconsidering them, and to bring them back even to the fineness of a hidden examination. And it is to be noted that of this same powder it is said: Thou shalt set of it before the tabernacle of the testimony; because then indeed our good deeds truly please in the sight of the Judge, when the mind grinds them by subtler reconsideration, and, as it were, renders powder out of spices;

lest the good that is done be coarse and hard; lest, if the strict hand of reconsideration does not crush it small, it may not more subtly scatter its fragrance from itself. For hence it is that the virtue of the bride is praised by the voice of the bridegroom, when it is said: Who is this that cometh up through the desert, like a pillar of smoke from the spices of myrrh and frankincense, and of all the powder of the perfumer (Cant. 3:6)? For the holy Church ascends like a pillar of smoke from the spices; because from the virtues of her life she advances daily into the uprightness of an inward incense, nor does she flow away scattered through her thoughts, but binds herself within the secret places of the heart into the rod of strictness.

She who, while she never ceases always to reconsider and reexamine the things she does, has myrrh indeed and frankincense in her work, but powder in her thought. Hence it is that of those who offer the victim it is again said to Moses: The skin of the victim being drawn off, let them cut the limbs into pieces (Lev. 1:6). [Old numbering XL.] For we draw off the skin of the victim when we remove from the eyes of our mind the surface of virtue. We cut its limbs into pieces when, subtly distinguishing its inmost parts, we consider it limb by limb. Care must therefore be taken lest, while we conquer evils, we be tripped up by wanton good things;

lest perchance they come forth loose, lest they be taken unwarily, lest through error they forsake the way, lest, broken by weariness, they lose the merit of the labor already undergone. For in all things the mind ought to look about itself vigilantly, and to persevere in the very providence of its own circumspection. Whence too it is rightly added: