約伯倫理 第 1288 章

38. Human hearts, while they think upon and desire earthly things, lay themselves down to be crushed by the devil. Then the foot treads the eggs, and the beast of the field crushes them, when they are forsaken upon the earth—namely, because human hearts, while they ever desire to think earthly things, ever to do the things that are lowest, lay themselves down to be crushed by the beasts of the field, that is, by the devil; so that, when they have long been cast down in lowest thought, they are at some time even shattered by the perpetration of graver crimes. The Synagogue, therefore, neglected by good living to lift up from the earth the fields which she begot. But almighty God, though He found many of her sons dead and cold in earthly desires, yet quickened them with the warmth of His love.

But the life which the Synagogue did not give to her sons she afterward envied them, when she strove by persecution to extinguish those whom she did not remember to have begotten by cherishing them unto good works. Whence also concerning this ostrich it is fitly added: 39. The synagogue's cruelty toward her sons. As though they were not her own, she despises those whom she catches living otherwise than she taught; and with hardening savagery she applies terrors, and exercises herself in their torments, and, inflamed with the torches of envy, she labors that those whom she did not labor that they might live should perish; and when she persecutes the members of the Lord, she supposes herself thereby to please the Lord. Whence also to these same eggs of the ostrich the Truth says:

The hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doth a service to God (John 16:2). Because, therefore, while the Synagogue is led by cruelty to persecute, she thinks she does this by the impulse of divine fear, it is rightly subjoined: For it was not fear, but cruelty, that compelled her to pant in the labor of persecution. But because oftentimes vices, tinged with the color of virtues, are the more wicked in proportion as they are the less recognized to be vices, the synagogue stood the harder in persecution the more religious she esteemed herself to become by the deaths of the faithful; and therefore she could not at all discern what she was doing, because she shut against herself the light of understanding by the barrier of pride. Whence also it is well subjoined: 40.

She lost the light of understanding through pride. For the examination of secret retribution is strict, and because knowingly she lost humility, unknowingly she also lost the understanding of the truth. But far smaller are the wounds which she inflicted upon the faithful at the coming of the Redeemer than those with which she strives still to smite the holy Church through the coming of Antichrist. For she prepares herself for that time, that with gathered forces she may press the life of the faithful. Whence also it is fitly subjoined: