約伯倫理 第 1044 章

VERSE 16. — Since therefore I waited, and they have not spoken; they stood still, they answered no more. 17. When they refute those who err, they desire only to display their own wisdom, not to profit others. It is otherwise with good preachers. — It is usually the end of the discourse of the wise to speak up to the point where they impose silence upon their adversaries. For they desire not to display themselves, but to restrain those who teach perverse things. But after it was said of Job's friends: They were afraid, they answered no more, they took speech away from themselves; Elihu, adding on, says: I waited, and they have not spoken; they stood still, they answered no more.

And with them now silent, he still multiplies words, because indeed a man who is arrogant, and displaying in himself the pattern of the arrogant, hastens not to overcome the sayings of his adversaries, but to display his own wisdom. Hence there also follows: VERSE 17. — I too will answer my part, and I will show my knowledge. For every arrogant man reckons that to be his part, if he does not so much have knowledge as display it, because indeed all the elated desire not to have knowledge, but to display it. Against which it is well said through Moses: A vessel that has no cover, nor binding above, shall be unclean (Numbers 19:15). For the covering of the lid, or the binding, is the restraint of discipline, and whoever is not pressed down by it is reproved as an unclean and polluted vessel.

Was not Elihu a vessel without a cover, who had reckoned this to be his part, if he displayed the knowledge which he had? For like a vessel without a cover or binding, he is polluted who, lying open through the zeal of ostentation, is covered by no veil of silence. But the holy preachers reckon it their part if they themselves indeed rejoice inwardly over their wisdom, but outwardly restrain others from error;

nor do they so go out from themselves in speaking as to place the joy of the mind in the display of eloquent speech, but they meditate on the good of knowledge in the secret of the heart, and there they rejoice where they perceive it, not where they are compelled to become known amid so many snares of temptations; although when they make known the good which they receive, with charity intervening as a mean, they give thanks from the profit of the hearers, and not from their own display. For the arrogant, when they receive knowledge, reckon that they have received nothing, if it happens that they keep it hidden. For nowhere do they place their joy except in the mouth of men. Hence the foolish virgins are said to have taken no oil in their vessels (Matthew 25:3),

because all the arrogant, when they perhaps restrain themselves from certain vices, cannot have the good of glory within their consciences. But Paul had taken oil in his own vessel, who said: For our glory is this, the testimony of our conscience (2 Corinthians 1:12). To carry therefore an empty little vessel is to seek outwardly the judgment of the human mouth with an empty heart within. And so Elihu, because while he seeks glory outwardly he has no oil within his vessel, says: I too will answer my part, and I will show my knowledge. Hence too this very thing, which he suffers inwardly from the fervour of vainglory, he opens in the following words, saying: