Moralia in Job 997

11. Let the saints take care to weigh their own merits in Christ as in a balance, that they may recognize wherein they fall short. — God is said 'to know' in the sense of making us know, according to the customary manner of our speech, by which we call that day 'broad' on which it happens that we rejoice. Hence it is that the Lord says to Abraham: 'Now I know that thou fearest God' (Gen. 22:12). For neither did the Creator of times know anything from time; but 'to know' is His, from the crisis of any emerging cause, to bestow knowledge upon us. And who is designated by the name of 'balance' but the Mediator of God and men? In whom all our merits are weighed with an even scale, and in whose precepts we recognize what we fall short of in our life.

But in this balance we are weighed, as often as we are summoned to the examples of His life. For hence it is written: 'Christ suffered for us, leaving you an example, that you should follow His steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth: who, when He was reviled, did not revile again; when He suffered, He threatened not' (1 Pet. 2:21-23). Hence it is said through Paul: 'By patience let us run to the contest set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of faith, who, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame' (Heb. 12:1-2).

For this purpose, then, the Lord appeared in the flesh: that by admonishing He might rouse human life, by furnishing examples might kindle it, by dying might redeem it, by rising again might restore it. When, therefore, blessed Job finds in himself nothing that ought justly to be reproved, he stretches the eyes of his mind toward the life of the Redeemer, which surpasses all things, that in that life he may recognize what he himself falls short of, when he says: 'If I have walked in vanity, and my foot has hastened in deceit, let Him weigh me in a just balance, and let God know my simplicity' (Job 31:5-6). As if he plainly said: If ever I have committed anything lightly, if anything ruinously, let the Mediator of God and men appear, that in His life I may recognize whether I have truly been sincere.

For he who, as we have said, had surpassed the men of his own times, sought the Mediator of God and men, that, weighed in Him, he might recognize whether he had truly kept a sincere life. Let him therefore say: 'Let Him weigh me in a just balance, and let God know my simplicity.' Which is to say: Let Him make me know it. As if he openly confessed, saying: As far as the measure of human life, I now see nothing in me to be reproved; but unless the Mediator of God and men appear with the precepts of a more subtle life, I do not recognize how far I still differ from true simplicity. But the right order is kept, if it be said that the foot hastened first in vanity, and afterwards in deceit. For vanity pertains to lightness, but deceit to malice.

And several people very often arrive at certain malicious things afterwards, because they do not first turn aside from light ones. There follows: