約伯倫理 第 1220 章

26. By the death of Christ the Church grew. Like Samson, dying He slew more of the enemy than while living. — For when the Lord sought the straits of death, He spread abroad the faith in Him among the nations, and extended the holy Church to countless hearts of believers. To her it is said through the prophet: Enlarge the place of thy tent, and stretch out the skins of thy tabernacles, spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes; for thou shalt pass to the right hand and to the left, and thy seed shall inherit the nations (Isaiah 54:2). Which breadth of the earth would surely not have come to pass, unless He first had despised, by dying, the life which we know, and had shown, by rising again, the life which we do not know.

For in His death He opened the eyes of our mind, and showed what life should follow. Whence, holding this order also in the Gospel, He says to His disciples: Thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations (Luke 24:46). For few of the people of Israel believed while He Himself was preaching; but countless peoples of the nations followed the way of life when He had died. For while He yet lived visible, He bore with the proud; but, dead, by His life that could suffer no more, He laid them low. This Samson long ago figuratively expressed in himself (Judges 16:30), who indeed slew but few while he lived;

but when the temple was destroyed, he slew countless enemies as he died, because assuredly the Lord, while He lived, slew but few from the elation of pride, but slew more when the temple of His own body was dissolved (John 2:19); and the elect from among the nations, whom He upheld by living, He laid low all together by dying. Rightly therefore, after He had taught that He had penetrated the lower regions, He straightway added that the breadth of the earth was to be considered: Hast thou considered the breadth of the earth? As if He said to the scourged man: Weigh what I have borne, and consider what I have bought; and do not complain of the blow, while thou knowest not what rewards await thee in the retribution.

Amid these words of the Creator, therefore, I think it worth the labour, if for a little while we turn our eyes from the common and public good, and observe what He secretly works in each of us. For He says: 27. God enters the depth of the sea when He visits the mind of a sinner. — For the sea is the human mind, whose depths God enters when, through knowledge of Himself, it is stirred from its inmost thoughts to the laments of penance, when it recalls to memory the wickednesses of its former life, and shakes the wavering soul with confusion at itself. God penetrates the depth of the sea when He changes even despairing hearts.

For He Himself enters the sea when He humbles a worldly heart; He enters the depth of the sea when He does not disdain to visit minds even weighed down by crimes. Whence it is also rightly added by way of inquiry: And hast thou walked in the uttermost parts of the abyss? For what is the abyss, but the human mind, which, while it cannot comprehend itself, hides itself away from all that is, as it were an obscure abyss? Whence it is well said through the prophet: The abyss uttered its voice, from the height of its imagination (Habakkuk 3:10), because, while the human mind does not penetrate itself, from comparison with itself it more humbly praises the power of the divine nature which it does not suffice to comprehend. 28. He walks in the uttermost parts of the abyss when He converts the hearts of the most wicked.

— Therefore for God to walk in the uttermost parts of the abyss is to convert the hearts even of the most wicked men, and, by touching despairing minds with the footprints of His visitation, wondrously to reform them. For when, after immense crimes, each one is pricked with compunction, what else is seen but God walking in the uttermost parts of the abyss? For God walks as it were in the abyss when, penetrating the dark heart, He treads down the invisible waves of vices. For very often we bewail past things, and are pressed by other present things, so that now by pride, now by anger, now by lust, now by avarice we are wearied by temptation. But when the Lord represses all these in our heart by the fear of His secret visitation, what else does He do but set His steps in the abyss?

Which steps we behold with the mind, when we weigh how the gifts of His fear come to meet the vices that rise up against us. For these steps the Prophet had beheld, when he said: They have seen thy goings, O God, the goings of my God, of my King, who is in His sanctuary (Psalm 68:24). For he who perceives the disordered motions of the soul repressed within him by the remembrance of the divine judgments, sees as it were the steps of the Lord walking within himself. Let it therefore be said to blessed Job: Hast thou entered into the depth of the sea, and hast thou walked in the uttermost parts of the abyss? Understand: as I, who by wondrous mercy tread down in the hearts of sinners now anger, now lust, now avarice, now rising pride. As if it were openly said to him:

If thou perceivest that I alone repress the hidden vices of the heart, thou wilt cease to exalt thyself over thine own justification. And because, when we are visited from above, we are led even from the hidden and unlawful motions of the mind to confession, it is rightly added: