"He is light upon the face of the waters"—he said this of those who confess in baptism. Let their portion be cursed upon the earth: let what they chose be barren. For from the bosom of orphans they snatched: from the heart of the weak they snatched the word by evil persuasion. Then his sin was brought to remembrance: which he thought would come into oblivion. Let every wicked one be crushed like an incurable tree: which He does not heal. For He did not deal well with the barren woman: who is without the consolation of children. Rising up therefore, he does not believe against his own life: he does not believe to the harm of his own life; for he ought to have believed that he has an evil life, and by that very thing to rise up. When he begins to be made weak, let him not hope for health: to be afflicted. But he falls into languor.
For such an impious one seeks in adverse circumstances those consolations by which he becomes weaker. He withered like a mallow in the heat: his loftiness, because he did not bear the heat of tribulation; and "mallow" because of its weakness. Or like the ear falling of its own accord from the stubble: because its stalk was empty; for he himself chose for himself such consolations by which he is made worse and weaker. Otherwise, who is there who would say that I speak a lie? if things are also otherwise. The words of Bildad the Shuhite. For what beginning is there but fear from Him? This addition seems to agree with those words in which Job says: "Therefore at His countenance I shall be troubled, I shall consider and fear before Him." Let no one think there is delay for the pirates: without delay, according to His permission, they tempt.
For upon whom will not snares come from Him? That is, when He Himself permits. And by "snares" he means temptations. Or how shall a man be just before the Lord? Therefore He justly permits him to be tempted. Or how shall one born of woman cleanse himself? For unless he be cleansed by God, he is unclean. If He commands the moon, and it does not shine: because if the accounts and order of His providence should require that the moon not shine, He will command that it not shine, and it will not shine. But why? Does He thereby wish the moon to be seen as not clean before Him, because He commands it, and it does not shine? Or perhaps the nature of the rational soul is here figuratively suggested, for which the intelligible sun is that true light which enlightens every man?
And since the moon shines all the more to earthly sight the further it recedes from the sun, but when it draws near the sun it is extinguished to the earth: let us understand that the soul is divinely commanded that, having overcome its earthly and mortal nativity—by which its splendor appears to those seeing with earthly sense—it should appear and draw near and be subjected to Wisdom, so that, most secretly exulting in His light, it may beware of doing its righteousness before men to be seen by them, but when it glories, let it glory in the Lord, because even when it appears to men, it appears by the gift of the Creator. Nor are the stars clean before Him: in comparison with Him. The words of Job. To whom are you present, or whom will you help? When, indignant, he supposed they were to be punished by God as if for their injustice.
But speaking to himself, he recalls himself, that he might rather leave their judgment to God, lest he seem either to be present with God, or to wish to help Him as though He were too weak to restrain or correct men, or to give counsel as to what He should do with them; or to follow Him, as if he could attain the cause why He suffers deceitful men to exist and to live, when by incomprehensible power He surpasses every soul that seeks Him; or as if to announce to Him something about them, when from Him man has even his breath when he announces anything. Shall the giants be reduced to nothing? Therefore it is not to be wondered at, if God spares these, since He does not reduce the giants to nothing. And lest it be said: but they have been thrust down to the lower regions, he added that God sees hell.
And yet He has ordained them there where they deserved to be, just as He has the just—whether now, as they are, or hereafter, as they will be—although He never removes them from His face, because all things are naked before Him; so that you may take even these proud comforters as giants near at hand. Beneath the water and their neighbors: is "are held" or something of the kind to be understood under "beneath the water"? And there is no covering for perdition: even perdition does not escape Him. Stretching out the north over nothing: the north can signify the devil, and the earth the sinner, since for both the one and the other hope is empty. Suspending the earth over nothing: in the air. Binding the water in His clouds: because of the obscurity of prophecy. And the cloud is not rent beneath Him:
Beneath the truth which the cloud held, which is not rent for those who understand the Scriptures; for they are not said to be contradictory, as those who do not understand suppose. Who holds the face of the sun: lest the Sun of Righteousness be recognized by the impious. And He stretched His cloud over it: the flesh which the Lord took up. He set a precept around upon the face of the water: the peoples. Until the consummation of the light: the end of this life, that is, the end of the age; or until they are consummated, that is, perfected, the men to whom it is said: "For you were once darkness, but now light in the Lord." The pillars of heaven trembled and were astonished at His rebuke: which happened to Peter through Paul. By His power He calmed the sea:
He pacified the world, from which the Church was suffering persecution. Whence also that the pillars of heaven trembled at His rebuke can be understood in this way: that the most robust of the Church trembled for the weak at the rebuke of the Lord permitting the temptations of persecution. For the pillar cries out: "Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is offended, and I do not burn?" And by His prudence the sea-monster was wounded: he means the devil wounded by the grief that the just did not yield to him. And the bars of heaven fear Him: either the angels, or those who received the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And by His precept He slew the dragon, the deserter: he called the same one both "sea-monster" and "dragon."
But now he shows how it was wounded, when those who renounced it received the precept. Behold, these are the parts of His way: by which one comes to God. But who will know the power of His thunder, when He will do it? By "thunder" he means the most evident voice of His manifestation, or perhaps that voice which He gave through the son of thunder: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"—so that the order may be: "when He will do it, will anyone know the power of His thunder?" And the divine Spirit in my nostrils: here it is shown that he speaks prophetically what he says, and prophetically knows that these comforters of his are full of guile. Far be it from me to call you just, until I die:
Even if you persecute me to the death, because I reprove you freely. For I shall not separate the innocent: but not you. For I am not conscious to myself of having committed any wrong: for they are wont for the most part to spare others, who fear lest something true be cast in their teeth. For what hope is there for the impious one? Because he waits. Lest anyone should think he had wished evil to his enemies, here he made plain with what mind he spoke. For indeed he wishes their impiety to be overturned and their pride to perish: which happens when the soul which was held guilty is loosed from impiety—and it is loosed through the confession of the penitent man and the grace of the forgiving God. Therefore: for what hope is there for the impious one? Question and answer:
Because he waits and trusts in the Lord, if perchance he be loosed, or the Lord hear his prayers. Indeed another sense too may occur in these words, but it is not so woven together with both the book and the faith, as though the whole were from despair—that the impious one should have no hope at all—since against this it is written: "But to him who believes in Him who justifies the impious, his faith is reckoned unto righteousness." And therefore what follows is understood to speak of the grace of the Lord. Or, if necessity should befall him: therefore we ought to wait for the grace of Him who looses. For did he in necessity, that is, in temptation, have confidence in his merits in the sight of God? Or if he calls upon Him, will He hear him? If he calls as though with confidence in his own works, which are nothing.
Wherefore I shall announce to you what is in the hand of the Lord: what God ordains. Behold, you all know that you speak vain things vainly: on this account grace is now to be awaited. For how did he allege the merits of his own works, speaking vain things vainly? But the possession of the powerful shall come from the Almighty upon them: that the powerful may possess them, that is, the devil and his angels. And he calls them "powerful" because these will be made weak by following vanity, so that those leaders and princes of vanity may prevail over them—just as the Lord too calls him "strong man" for no other reason than that he holds the weak. But if his sons be many, they shall be for slaughter: he calls his "sons" those who invite him to seduce, the persuader of false doctrines, unto damnation.
But if they become young men, they shall be in need; that is: if they be confirmed in error, they shall be in need; for vanity has not satisfied them. And those who are around him shall die the death: those who are most like him in seducing. And he will not have mercy on their widows: the common people, whom he seduced together with them, deserted by their husbands' death—as though he had kept conjugal faith toward them in the promise of error. But if he gather silver like the earth, that is: if the prudent and wise, while they are still earth and clay—that is, while they still think foolish and carnal things—have consented to them, afterward, corrected and coming to knowledge, they shall be turned to the just. For their houses shall be like a moth and a spider, which he has kept: the heart or the conscience.
Or by "houses" he meant the defenses by which they protect themselves—cunning indeed and full of lurking-places, but most feeble, like the cocoon of the moth in which it hides itself, and the spider's web, into which, withdrawing, it covers and shuts itself up. And "which he has kept" is understood of itself within that web, because not all spiders do this: on account of the spontaneous and inward corruption of wicked thinking, and on account of the useless works which the impious one has, as it were, carefully kept for himself in the house. The rich man shall sleep and shall not add: because after death he will not add riches to those very impieties. He opened his eyes, and it is not: for in the resurrection he will not find himself rich, as he had supposed. The heat shall take him away, and he shall depart:
Either the heat of the sea, the tribulation of the age, or the heat by which the grasses that have no root wither. And it shall winnow him from his place: either from his hope, or God will winnow him from his place. That he may not be in the place of God, that is, in the people whom God has inhabited. And He shall cast upon him, and shall not spare: as it were a heap of penalties. He shall clap His hands over him. As it is said: "And I too shall laugh over their perdition"; for He shall not lament over the perdition of the impious. For there is a place of silver, whence it comes: the prudent, who are rather in action. But a place for gold, where it is purified: the wise, who are in contemplation. For iron is made from the earth: these metals are to be taken indifferently in a good sense;
For he said "iron" thus, because it makes no difference, as if he were speaking above of iron—though by "iron" the strong may be understood. For in truth there is no distinction in the wisdom of men, in that they are in it. But bronze is excluded like stones: because the whole is separated from the earth; so that he may show that the good are mixed with the wicked for a time on this account: because from these very wicked the good are sifted out, and through them they are purified—like metals necessary for work or building, which need the very earth in order to be smelted and shaped, whence also they are to be separated, so that after this separation the earth may have its place and order, just as the impious through damnation according to their merits. And He Himself found every end: that to which He might lead. But by "found" he said "He established."
A stone of darkness and the shadow of death: "stone," that is, the Old Testament, was given to darkness and the shadow of death, that is, to those pursuing carnal things, though they expected these from the one God: where the proud did not split the torrent, that is, they did not pass through the lapse of temporal things to some solidity, but were carried along by that very lapse. And there was made a splitting of the torrent from ashes, that is: from one confessing his sins and not being proud of the merits of works—which was done through the grace of the New Testament. The splitting of the torrent from ashes: from men. And they were moved by men: by flatterers, while God did not rebuke them, regarding the very things that had been promised them—by losing their primacy. The earth from which bread came forth, is to be understood:
I mean those very men who were moved, from whom, as from earth, the bread of the Lord went forth. And He is about to burn it: the unfaithful, by the heavenly judgment of the Lord. The place of sapphire are its stones. The order is: the place of sapphire, that is, of stones precious and necessary for the building of the heavenly city. And its heaps are gold: gold for it is not small, but heaps. The path which the bird has not known: the humility of the Lord. Nor did the eye of the vulture see it: of the devil. The lion did not pass over it: the one priding himself through his strength. Upon the hardest stone He stretched out His hand: for God is able to raise up sons of Abraham from the stones. And He broke through the banks of the rivers: that He might water everything. For by "rivers" he meant the preachers of the word.
For they wished to be contained within their banks, that they might preach the whole only to the circumcision. But my eye saw every precious thing: the human eye, through the Word made flesh. He revealed the depths of the rivers: the virtues of enduring persecutions are hidden and deep in a man in martyrdom, until they are revealed by the temptation of persecution. And He showed His power in the light, in those to whom He said: "You are the light of the world." Through whom also no small part of the Jews was converted. He said: The abyss: it is not in me: therefore men set in the abyss could not find it, because it is not in him. Gold enclosed shall not be given for it: that is, treasure. It shall not be worth less than the gold of Ophir: as if he should say: even so seek it.
Seek it, since indeed it is not worth less than the gold of Ophir. Gold and glass shall not be made equal to it: either some splendid glass is to be understood, or because there are men who love glass more than wisdom. And its exchange shall be vessels of gold: "they are not," understand. And the heights and the gabis shall not be in remembrance: they shall be for oblivion in comparison with it: or "the heights and the gabis," as if all proud things should not be in remembrance, so that through humility you may draw wisdom from hidden things. Whence has wisdom been found? He says, because man could not find it except through grace; therefore the heart is to be turned to God. It lies hidden from the eyes of every man: because it is not in things without sense. Perdition and death said: the lost and the dead, while they live in delights.
The Lord commended its way: the humility which is hidden from the birds of heaven. And He Himself knew its place: who is the place of wisdom but the Father? For when it is said: "I in Him and He in me," they are, as it were, mutually places to each other. For He Himself beholds all that is under heaven: in this manner He knew the things which He made, and not sensibly. The balancings and measures of the winds: the whole creation is signified by a part. And He said that all things were made well, by weight, measure, and number, in which the Creator is understood. When He made them, as He saw, He numbered them: He did not see outside Himself in order to make, but in Himself, as a craftsman. And the way of the tempests by voices: "tempests" is put for "temptations";
but "temptations" is put for those who are tempted—as the voices of a shipwreck might be said for the voices of the shipwrecked. Then He saw it and set it forth: in predestination the Lord saw the way by which the tempted should turn themselves. He prepared and searched it out: in predestination, not in action. Who then will restore me to the months of former days? These words seem to be spoken from the persona of the Church together with its Head, Christ, as though the whole man Himself speaks at a time of abundance of tribulations and temptations—as in those days of which the Lord says: "Days will come when you will desire to see one of these days, and you will not see it."
For at that time, when the Lord was on earth, there was no anxiety, although the Christian people was still small, consisting of those who had believed in Him—among whom there were more than five hundred brethren, to whom He even deigned to appear after the resurrection, as the Apostle says. There was therefore then no anxiety, lest either the Church be badly governed by evil men, or be torn by the snares of heresies or schisms. For neither did it suffer those bodily persecutions; it bore no adversities either within or without. And so Job speaks from the persona of man, that is, of the people belonging to the New Testament, longing for those days, as the Lord had foretold.
And perhaps for this reason he called them "months," not "years," because from the time the Lord chose His disciples until the Passion there were not years, but months. When His lamp shone above my head: either the flesh of the Lord visibly present, or the word from the mouth of one bodily present. When the word of the Lord looked upon my house: unto the diligence of guarding my way of life. And my boys around me: who attended humbly, ministering necessary things. When butter was rained through my ways: through my conduct, the exultation of faith and good works. When my mountains abounded with milk: when the prophets were well expounded to the little ones. When I went forth in the morning into the city:
Either when the brightness was now dawning, the darkness of fear having passed away; or at the beginning of the Church, so as to be neither too hidden nor too manifest. And in the streets a seat was set for me: the authority of teaching was conferred upon me by the crowds. The young men seeing me hid themselves: those given over to lusts. But the old men rose up: the prudent. And the powerful ceased to speak: those who prided themselves on their doctrines. Because the ear heard and blessed me: a people whom I did not know served me; at the hearing of the ear they obeyed me. And the eye seeing me turned aside: of the unbelieving Jews. And the mouth of the widow blessed me: of that soul which renounced the marriage of the devil. Behold, the dead only son of his mother, who was a widow, was being carried out.
And I clothed myself with judgment as with a cloak: in preferring spiritual things to carnal, let your left hand not know what your right hand does, that is, with what intention it works; for the left being covered, the right is put forth in the clothing of the cloak: that which it does. He who rightly judges to what end that which he works is to be referred. The judgment which I did not know, I searched out: "Behold, we have left all and followed You; what shall we have?" He says it was part of his felicity that he had One of whom to inquire concerning the future judgment. I broke the jaws of the wicked: that they might no longer devour the people from the food of bread. My age shall grow old, and like the palm tree I shall live a long time: it shall be prolonged, and I shall be like the palm tree in everlasting honor and loftiness and uprightness.
And the dew shall abide in my harvest: from the time the field is sown and sprouts, it is called "harvest." My glory is new with me, that is: of the New Testament. And my bow in my hand shall go forth: I shall do what I command. And to my speech they added nothing: it signifies the perfection of the Gospel; for the discourse given to the synagogue needed addition. But they rejoiced when I spoke to them: because the former discourse had fear, the latter charity. But if I should even laugh toward them, they did not believe: concerning those things which He spoke in parables in such a way that He was not understood, yet not so as the words seemed to sound; He was supposed to speak vain things. This is the laughter of Sarah, which signified that they did all things in prophecy: whence those who say something figuratively.
I chose their way and sat as chief: either by taking on mortality, or by dining with publicans and sinners, but in such a way that I might be chief to them unto salvation. And I dwelt like a king girt about with strong men: those who, having dismissed their own, followed Him. As one consoling the sorrowful: he means those who rejoiced in hope, while they were sorrowful concerning the present life; "blessed are they that mourn," as it is said, and: "as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing"; those who cannot hold that greatness of which it is said: "But whoever shall do and so teach, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." But now the lowest deride me, now those lesser in time admonish me: because afterward such men too were born in the Church and do not profit much.
He said "they admonish me," because through ecclesiastical honors they receive the power of preaching to the people, which they themselves do not do—those whose parents I scorned: he called "their parents" those by whose imitation they are sons, to whom it was then said: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites." And the strength of their hands was as nothing to me: the power of their parents, who then could do so very much that they crucified the Lord. In them all life was perishing: because they did not correct themselves even at the end. Unstable through want and hunger: insatiable from various desires. Who were fleeing into the desert yesterday: betaking themselves to the excuse of the law, which they did not understand simply; and because in the desert they had received it, fleeing into the desert yesterday.
For as "today" pertains to the New Testament, so "yesterday" to the Old; for of the New it is said: "Today if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts," and: "You are My Son; this day have I begotten You." Who gnawed the bark of trees: because they held the figures of the law, by which useful things were covered, in place of food. Whose food was the root of grasses: the sacraments which they were bodily commanded to celebrate, as things clinging to the earth; from which, nevertheless, the fruit of simple understanding might arise and be borne up above the earth into liberty—whither those could not attain. Without honor and abject and lacking every good thing: the honor of primacy having been lost, from the hope of the promise;
because they had lost even that earthly gift according to their merits, and they do not hold the kingdom of heaven. Who ate the roots of trees because of great famine: what was said of the roots of grasses on account of the fruit of grain, this is to be understood of the roots of trees on account of the fruit of wine and oil. For the Church received all those spiritual fruits, whose roots, entangled in the earth, were the sacraments which the Jews were bodily compelled to observe: the sabbath, circumcision and the victims, and the rest of this kind of spiritual foods. Thieves rose up against me: who attained to undue honors—those proper to the just—through dark deceptions. Whose houses were caverns of rocks: .
Who defended and covered their lusts with certain obscurities of the divine books. And among the trees they cried out: their sins were manifest, although they tried to cover them with the obscurity of the Scriptures, as with the shadows of trees. Hence it is: "The cry of Sodom has ascended to me." And in very many places Scripture puts "cry" for manifest sins: so that whatever is conceived in the heart may be the "word," and the "cry" when it proceeds into the deed. Who remained beneath the roots of the earth: not even in the roots, but even lower than the roots, those can be understood to remain who keep the precepts carnally. For roots are not now the fruits themselves, but that from which the fruit-bearing parts of trees or grasses arise;
if at least it is a fruit-bearing kind, since the roots even of a non-fruit-bearing kind are called "roots." The sons of the foolish and ignoble: of the Jews; for he called these above "their parents" on account of imitation, because these too walk under the name of the God whom they do not worship. And he calls the Jews "foolish and ignoble," who on the contrary trusted themselves to be not only leaders of the blind, but also sons of Abraham, of which father they boasted to be noble. But when they hear: "the blind are leaders of the blind," they are shown to be foolish; and when they hear: "if you are sons of Abraham, do the works of Abraham," by degenerating they are shown to be ignoble. Their name and honor was extinguished from the earth: for it existed, but it has been extinguished. But now I am their harp:
Of these men the fathers are they who kept me at their ear, not at their heart. They keep me for a tale: an empty and useless story, a thing merely told and heard, although they both tell of me and listen to me. They have abhorred me and gone far off: made distant from righteousness by their sinning, and execrating the precepts of righteousness by their evil ways. Nor did they spare to spit in my face: for the face of Christ is a thing accursed to those who shrink in contempt from his precepts; or else: they have made me ill spoken of through the depravity of their own conduct. For he opened his quiver and afflicted me: the hidden things of affairs, from which temptations arise. And they put a bridle upon my face: so that against my will I should consent to them, carrying those who led me wherever they wished down to their own depths.
And on the right hand they sprang up and rose against me: by flattering and by giving good counsel they indeed arose, that they might fulfil their own desires, not by persecuting. They bound my feet with fetters: of ecclesiastical offices, so that they might not be able to flee from them. My paths were worn away: so that the ways did not appear by which the good are wont to walk, who seek not their own things but the things of Christ. For he stripped off my robe: my former authority, to which men are wont to yield, which happens when the multitude and habit of sinners prevails. And he wounded me with his darts: with the precepts whereby I see evils, and, because I cannot restrain them, I am tormented. He has abused me as he willed: God has used even my calamity and misery for his own righteousness, as he willed. I am wrapped in sorrows:
both in myself and in others I suffer; without are fightings, within are fears. Who is weak, and I am not weak? And my sorrows are renewed; my hope departs like a spirit: as though those who have turned to the hope of temporal things hold what I promise to be something empty. And my salvation has passed like a cloud: those who hope not for the promised salvation, through love of present well-being. And now my soul shall be poured out upon me: by sinning. But in the night my bones were broken: he said that the firmness which he had was snatched from him. And my sinews were loosened: my past deeds. With great force he laid hold of my robe: to display his power, now by afflicting and afterward by restoring. And he girded me about as with the collar of my garment: he left me but little of authority.