約伯倫理 第 1127 章

V. 13.—Dissemblers and crafty men provoke the wrath of God. 58. The image of the crafty dissembler.—When he had said 'dissemblers,' he fittingly subjoins 'and crafty,' because unless they are shrewd in wit, they cannot suitably feign what they desire to appear. For there are some vices which are easily perpetrated even by those slower in perception. To swell with elation, to gape with the fevers of avarice, to succumb to assailing luxury—even anyone of dull senses can do this; but to carry through the falseness of dissimulation, none can do save one of subtler wit. For whoever is such is divided by continual watchfulness in guarding two things, namely, that he may craftily know both how to conceal what he is, and to display what he is not;

both to suppress true evils, and to display false goods; and not openly to exalt himself in that which is seen, but, in order to hold greater glory, often to feign to shun glory. For because he cannot apprehend it before the eyes of men by pursuing it, he strives for the most part to hold glory by fleeing it. These things, therefore, in no way suit the simple, because if they suited them, they would no longer be simple. 59. He not only deserves but provokes the wrath of God.—Well, moreover, when he had said 'dissemblers and crafty,' he did not add 'they deserve,' but 'they provoke the wrath of God.' For to deserve the wrath of God is to sin even unknowingly. But to provoke it is knowingly to go against His commands: to know the good, but to despise it; to be able to do it, yet not to will it.

For these grow dark within by the perpetration of wickedness, and are whitewashed on the surface by the display of righteousness. To whom it is said by the Lord's own voice: 'Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you are like whited sepulchres, which outwardly appear to men beautiful, but within are full of dead men's bones, and of all filthiness; so you also outwardly indeed appear to men just, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity' (Matt. 23:27-28). Outwardly, therefore, by making a show, they keep what by living they inwardly assail. But within, thinking evil things, they aggravate what outwardly they conceal by drawing something else over it.

Before the strict Judge, therefore, they can no longer have an excuse from ignorance, because while before the eyes of men they display every manner of holiness, they are themselves witnesses to themselves that they are not ignorant how to live well. Let it therefore be rightly said: 'Dissemblers and crafty men provoke the wrath of God.' What, moreover, follows them at the last, he adds, saying: