約伯倫理 第 1107 章

Verse 2. — Doth thy thought seem equitable to thee, that thou shouldst say: I am more just than God? 15. How unjustly they are wont to accuse the innocent. — That blessed Job did not say that he was more just than God, everyone who reads the text of the history recognizes; but he said: Let Him set forth equity against me, and my judgment shall come to victory (Job xxiii, 7). Weighing his own life, of course, and being ignorant of the causes of his smiting, as has often already been said, he believed that he was scourged for the washing away of sins and not for the increasing of merits; and therefore he trusted that his judgment would come to victory, because he found not in himself the fault for which he ought to have been smitten. Which, indeed, the Lord also said concerning him to the devil:

Thou hast moved me against him, that I should afflict him in vain (Job ii, 3). What sin, therefore, did he commit by saying this, who by these words assented, even unknowingly, to the divine and hidden sentence concerning himself? Or what harm is there if our words, on the surface, differ by human judgment from the rectitude of truth, when in the very hinge of the heart they agree, fitted to it? Human ears judge our words such as they sound outwardly; but the divine judgments hear them such as they are brought forth from the innermost parts. With men the heart is weighed from the words, but with God the words are weighed from the heart.

Blessed Job, therefore, while he said outwardly that which the Lord said inwardly, brought forth all that he spoke so much the more justly outwardly, the more piously he did not depart from the inner sentence. Yet, filled with the prophetic spirit, in that which he said: Let Him set forth equity against me, and my judgment shall come to victory (Job xxiii, 7), he was able to behold the presence of our Redeemer. For He Himself, who is the power of the Father and wisdom, is also not unfittingly received as His equity. Whence it is written: Who was made for us by God wisdom, and justice, and sanctification (1 Cor. i, 30).

Which equity, because God set it in opposition to the unjust who were fleeing, by showing it incarnate, He forthwith called them back from iniquity, and in that judgment the human race conquered the ancient adversary, wherein it found the equity of God opposing its own paths. There follows: