約伯倫理 第 1108 章

Verse 3. — For thou hast said: That which is right pleaseth thee not; or what shall it profit thee if I sin? 16. Either they speak false things, or, if true, then things not fitting. — If the whole series of the book is attended to, blessed Job is shown to have said none of these things. But arrogant men, as we also said above, are wont to have this as their own property, that while they come forth in excessive invective, they even lie in inveighing; and when they cannot justly reprove the things that are, they reprove by lying the things that are not. There follows: Verse 4. — Therefore I will answer thy words, and thy friends with thee. By the foregoing sayings he related as it were culpable words of blessed Job, and from them set forth for himself matter for speaking;

but with the following words he discusses with strong keenness that which was falsely present to him as matter for speaking. And strong indeed are the sentiments that follow, but they suit not the person of blessed Job; and the darts of this rebuke smite him so much the less, the more unjustly they are hurled against him. There follows: Verses 5-7. — Look up to heaven, and behold, and contemplate the sky, that it is higher than thou. If thou sin, what wilt thou hurt Him; and if thy iniquities be multiplied, what wilt thou do against Him? But if thou act justly, what wilt thou give Him, or what shall He receive from thy hand? 17. Creatures are the footprints of God.

— Although to blessed Job, who knew greater things, these ought by no means to have been said, yet true are the two things that are said, namely, that neither do our sins harm God, nor do our well-done deeds concur to His advantage. Whence following on, he added: Verse 8. — Thy impiety shall hurt a man who is like thee, and thy justice shall help a son of man. But among these things this is skilfully to be observed, which he says: Look up to heaven, and behold, and contemplate the sky, that it is higher than thou. For saying this, he doubtless gathers that Job ought to consider how much less he either profits or harms God by his action, who can neither profit nor harm the height of heaven and the sky.

Although in heaven or in the sky we may understand the supernal powers, ever cleaving to the divine gaze, so that when we behold the angelic spirits still far distant from us, we may recognize how far inferior we are ourselves distant from the very Creator and Ruler of spirits, yet nothing hinders us here from perceiving the corporeal matter of heaven and sky. For if we watchfully behold outer things, through those very things we are recalled to inner things. For the footprints of our Creator are the wondrous works of the visible creation. For Him indeed we cannot yet see; but we already tend toward His vision, if we marvel at Him in the things which He has made. His footprints, therefore, we call the creation, because through these things which are from Him, by following we go to Him.

Whence Paul says: The invisible things of Him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, His eternal power also and divinity (Rom. i, 20). Whence also in the book of Wisdom it is written: For by the greatness of the creature and its beauty the Creator may be intelligibly seen (Wisd. xiii, 5). For to our mind, scattered outwardly by its own sin, God is not yet made known inwardly as He is; but while He sets forth outwardly the beauty of His handiwork, He as it were beckons to us by certain nods, and shows what we are to follow within, and in a wondrous way, by these very outer forms, He leads us to inner things; by wondrously showing outwardly these things which He is not, He beckons with immense admiration to that which He is. For hence concerning wisdom it is written:

'In the ways she shows herself to them cheerfully, and meets them with all providence' (Wisdom vi, 17). The ways lead to the Creator. Through visible things we have fallen away from God; through the very same we ought to return to God. For the ways to the Creator are the works of the creature considered attentively. When we behold these things made, we marvel at the power of their Maker. On these ways we are met by wisdom with all providence, for the Maker's power is set before us to be sought out in everything that appears to be wondrously made; and wherever the soul may turn, if it attends watchfully, it finds God in the very things through which it had forsaken Him; and it comes again to know His power by considering those things which for love of them it had abandoned; and through the same things by which, being perverse, it fell, being now converted it is called back.

For where we have fallen, there we must lean in order to rise; and as it were by fixing there the hand of consideration where, slipping with the foot of love, we lay fallen through neglect. For since we fell from invisible things through visible ones, it is fitting that we should raise ourselves again to invisible things by those same visible ones, so that by whatever descent the soul came down to the lowest, by that same step it may return to the heights; and let it rise by the very steps by which it fell, since, as has been said, those things well considered call us back to God which, ill chosen, separated us from Him. Elihu therefore, in order to bring to bear the force of consideration, and to show from corporeal things how much more exalted God is than man, aptly adds: 'Look up to heaven and behold, and contemplate the sky, which is higher than you' (cf. Job xxxv, 5).

For from these very created and corporeal things we recognize how far we stand from the sublimity of our Creator, since through everything that we behold we are admonished to be humble, so that the appearance of the creature, when considered, may be as it were a kind of lesson to our mind. Let him say therefore: 'Look up to heaven, and behold, and contemplate the sky, which is higher than you. If you have sinned, what will you harm Him? and if your iniquities be multiplied, what will you do against Him? Moreover if you act justly, what will you give Him, or what will He receive from your hand?' (cf. Job xxxv, 5-7). As though he said: From these very creatures which you see to be bodily higher than yourself, understand how far you are separated from the sublimity of the divine power;

and from this consideration of yours gather that you neither aid God by living well, nor again burden Him by evil deeds. We are lower than the angels—how much more than God! But if, as we said above, we understand by heaven or sky the supernal powers, by these words Elihu admonishes us to consider that, since the angelic spirits themselves cannot fully contemplate the power of our Creator—of whom nevertheless it is certain that they are higher than we by this very fact, that they have not fallen into the lowest depths—we may accordingly gather how far lower than God we are, we who are subject even to sublime creatures that are yet far lower than Him. As though he said:

See how far you are separated from the divine loftiness, before whose power even those powers tremble in humility which transcend you by an immense sublimity, and how much lower you are than that Most High, you who find yourself lower even than those beneath Him. But by showing the highest things, he leads back to equal things, and says: