約伯倫理 第 105 章

Verses 18, 19. — 'He was yet speaking, and behold, another came in and said: While your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in the house of their firstborn brother, suddenly a violent wind rushed in from the direction of the desert, and shook the four corners of the house, which, collapsing, crushed your children, and they are dead; and I alone have escaped to tell you.' 25. He strives to provoke Job to hatred of God. — He who is not laid low by one wound is therefore struck twice and thrice, that at last he may be smitten to his inmost parts.

And so adversity had been announced concerning the Sabeans, divine chastisement announced through the fire from heaven; again a plundering of camels by men is announced, and a slaughter of servants, and the wrath of divine indignation is repeated, when a rushing wind is reported to have shaken the corners of the house and destroyed his children. For because it is known that the elements cannot be moved without the supernal will, it is secretly implied that He Himself moved the elements against Job, He who permitted them to be moved; although Satan, once he has received power from the Lord, prevails to shake even the elements for the use of his wickedness. Nor need it disturb us, if a spirit cast down from the heights was able to trouble the air into winds;

since indeed it is established that water and fire serve the use even of those condemned to the mines. Care was therefore taken that evils should be announced, care that they be many, care that they be sudden. But when he first announced adversities, he inflicted a wound, as it were, upon a still-tranquil breast, as upon sound limbs; but when he struck the already-smitten heart by striking again, he heaped wound upon wounds, that he might drive it to words of impatience. 26. Job's blows were sudden and manifold. — But it is to be observed how craftily the ancient enemy took care not so much to break the patience of the holy man by the loss of his goods, as by the very order of the messengers.

Striving to announce first the small things, and afterward the greater, he inflicted the death of the children last, lest the father should count the loss of his household goods as of small worth, if he heard of it when already bereaved; and lest the loss of goods should strike him less, once the death of the children was foreknown, since indeed there would be no inheritance if he first removed those who were kept as heirs. But beginning with the least, he announced the graver things last; so that while he learned by degrees of worse and worse, every wound might find a place of grief in his heart. It is to be noted how craftily so many weights of evils are announced both divided and sudden, so that, growing both suddenly and piecemeal, the very grief might not be contained within the hearer's heart;

and might kindle him the more ardently to blasphemy, the more anxiously he seethed within himself at the sudden and manifold tidings. 27. When those set over others serve pleasure, the reins are loosened to their subordinates. The devil finds a place even in moderate feasts. — But neither do I think this ought to be passed over negligently, that the sons were feasting in the house of the elder brother when they perish. For it was said above that feasts can scarcely be carried on without fault. Therefore, to speak of ourselves and not of them, we must know that what is done in a spirit of pleasure by inferiors is checked by the discipline of superiors; but when the superiors themselves serve pleasure, then assuredly the reins of wantonness are loosened to their inferiors.

For who would hold himself within the constraint of discipline, when even those who receive the right of constraint loosen themselves to pleasures? Therefore, while they feast in the house of the elder brother, they perish, because the enemy then more violently gathers strength against us, when he perceives that even those very ones who were set over us for the guardianship of discipline are serving gladness. For he seizes upon us the more freely to strike, the more those who could have interceded for our faults are idle for pleasure. But far be it that we should suspect the sons of so great a man to have been idle for the belly by gorging themselves through the pursuit of feasts;

yet we truly know that, even though each one, through the guardianship of discipline, does not in eating pass the bounds of necessity, nevertheless the kindled intention of the mind grows torpid amid feasts; and it considers less in how great a war of temptations it stands, insofar as it relaxes itself through a false sense of security. On the day of the first brother, therefore, he overwhelms the sons, because the ancient enemy seeks an entrance for subversion in the death of the lesser through the negligence of the greater. But since we have recognized by how many darts of messengers Job was struck, let us hear what our brave hero is like as he stands amid his wounds. There follows: