約伯倫理 第 1078 章

Verse 15. — All flesh shall fail together, and man shall return to ashes. 48. Then flesh fails, and man returns to ashes through humility. — For all flesh fails together, when it no longer serves any of its own habits, because the presiding spirit restrains all its fluid impulses, and with a certain sword of its own strictness slays all that lived evilly within it. With this sword of discipline Jeremiah had slain himself, when he said: After you converted me, I did penance; and after you showed me, I struck my thigh (Jer. 31:19). For what is understood by the thigh, but the pleasure of the flesh? And what is it that he says:

After you showed me, I struck my thigh, except that after he spiritually beheld the things above, he extinguished all that lived carnally and basely within himself, so that the more the highest things lay open to view, the less should the low things which he had held delight him? For the more anyone begins to live in a higher way, so much the more does he begin to perish in the lower. According to the affection of carnal working, all the flesh of Paul had perished together, when he said: I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me (Gal. 2:20). 49. The sinner forgets his own mortality; not so the just man. — Well also did Elihu here add: And man shall return to ashes.

For anyone set in sin forgets his own mortality, and does not remember that he is earth, while he is still puffed up by pride. But after the grace of his conversion, when he is touched with the spirit of humility, what else does he recall himself to be but ashes? David had already returned to ashes, when he said: Remember, Lord, that we are dust (Ps. 102:14). Abraham had returned to ashes, saying: I will speak to my Lord, though I am dust and ashes (Gen. 18:27). And though death had not yet loosed their living flesh from the earth, yet this was in their minds, that they foresaw without doubt that they would be so. Hence it is said elsewhere: You will take away their spirit, and they shall fail, and shall return to their dust (Ps. 103:29).

But what spirit is this, except that it is named the spirit of pride? Let their spirit be taken away, therefore, that they may fail—that is, with the spirit of pride withdrawn, let them acknowledge that of themselves they are nothing. And let them return to dust—that is, let them be humbled from their weak condition. On account of this dust, to the remembrance of which those who consider themselves are recalled, it is said through Wisdom: The just shall shine, and shall run to and fro like sparks among the reeds (Wisd. 3:7). For holy men, while they are mingled among sinners, kindle them with the fire of their own examples, and reduce to ashes all that glitters, because, consumed by the flame of piety, when they behold the weakness of their condition, they acknowledge themselves to be nothing but embers, so that from the hardness of their pride,

being loosened, they may say through penance that which we brought forward above: Remember, Lord, that we are dust (Ps. 102:14). Well, therefore, is it said that when the Lord draws the spirit of man to himself, all flesh shall fail together, and man shall return to ashes. These things which Elihu says are both true and great; but because he presently swelled with pride from that which he perceived well, he betrays it in the following words, saying: