Moralia in Job 874

9. He convicts those who hear the divine precepts and do them not. As if he plainly said: For your sake I ought not to be dragged into fault, I who have dreaded to sin in my own affairs. But it is to be known that whosoever disagrees in deed with the Lord's precepts, as often as he hears them is reproved and confounded by his own heart, because he is reminded of that which he has not done. For in that wherein he considers that he has erred, his own conscience secretly accuses him. Hence David the prophet prays, saying: «Then shall I not be confounded, when I look into all thy commandments» (Ps. 118:6). For each one is grievously confounded when, by reading or hearing, he looks upon the commandments of God which by his living he has despised. Hence it is said by the voice of John:

«If our heart reprehend us not, we have confidence toward God; and whatsoever we ask, we shall receive of him» (1 John 3:21); as if he said: If we do what he commands, we shall obtain what we ask. 10. Let action be supported by prayer, and prayer by action. For with God both these are necessarily and mutually fitting to each other, that work be supported by prayer, and prayer by work. Hence Jeremiah says: «Let us search our ways, and seek, and return to the Lord. Let us lift up our hearts with our hands to God in the heavens» (Lam. 3:40). For to search our ways is to examine the inward things of our thoughts. But he lifts up his heart with his hands who strengthens his prayer with works.

For whoever prays but neglects to work, lifts up his heart and lifts not his hands. But whoever works and prays not, lifts up his hands and lifts not his heart. According to the voice of John, therefore, the heart then receives confidence in prayer, when no depravity of life contradicts it. Of which confidence it is now rightly said by the holy man: «For neither did my heart reprehend me in all my life.» As if he plainly said: He remembers in no way to have done anything whereby he should be confounded in his prayers. But it may be asked in what manner he denies that he is reproved by his own heart, who above accuses himself of having sinned, saying: «I have sinned; what shall I do to thee, O keeper of men?» (Job 7:20). Or indeed: «If I would justify myself, my own mouth shall condemn me» (Job 9:20). 11.

Certain sins cannot be avoided. But it is to be known that there are sins which can be avoided by the just, and there are some which even by the just cannot be avoided. For whose heart, set in this corruptible flesh, does not slip into some sinister thought, even if it be not plunged into the pit of consent? And yet to think these very depraved things is to sin. But while resistance is made to the thought, the mind is freed from its confusion. Therefore the mind of the just, even though it be free from perverse deed, sometimes nonetheless falls in perverse thought. And so it slips into sin, because at least in thought it is turned aside; and yet it has nothing wherefore afterwards to reprehend itself by weeping, because it restores itself before it falls through consent.

Rightly, therefore, does he who has confessed himself a sinner in no way confess that he is reprehended by his own heart, because even if perchance by thinking he ever fell short of rectitude in something unlawful, yet by a strong struggle of mind he resisted the thought. There follows: