約伯倫理 第 1401 章

The first angel was so created that he should chastely fear God. The liberty which he coveted bound him. For he was indeed so made by nature that he ought to have chastely feared his Creator, with a fear, that is, sober and secure; not the fear which charity casts out, but the fear which abides forever and ever (1 John 4:18), that is, the fear which charity begets. For a loving wife fears her husband in one way, a sinning maidservant her master in another way. So then had he been created, that with a whole fear he might both love and dread his Author, and dreading might love. But by his own perversity he was made such that he feared no one. For he disdained to be subject to Him by whom he had been created. For God is above all things in such wise that He Himself is under no one.

But this Leviathan, gazing upon the height of His loftiness, coveted the summit of his own perverse liberty, that he might both be set over the rest and be subject to none, saying: 'I will ascend above the height of the clouds, and I will be like the Most High' (Isa. 14:14). Whose likeness he lost by that very thing, when he proudly desired to be like Him in loftiness. For he who ought to have imitated His charity, ambitiously aspired, as a subject, to His loftiness, and, being lifted up, lost that which he was able to imitate. He would indeed have been lofty, if he had willed to cleave to Him who is truly lofty. He would have been lofty, if he had been content with participation in true loftiness. But while he proudly coveted a private loftiness, he justly lost the one he shared in.

For, having forsaken the Beginning to which he ought to have cleaved, he coveted in a manner to be his own beginning to himself. Having forsaken Him who could truly suffice for him, he judged that he could suffice for himself; and he fell the lower beneath himself, the more he raised himself against the glory of his Creator. For a captive liberty cast down him whom a free servitude had exalted. By which liberty he is now unbridled, so that he fears no one, but by that very unbridledness he is grievously restrained. For, by the supernal judgment marvellously ordering all things, the liberty which he coveted bound him, because now, fearing no one in any way, he lies subject to all punishments, he who could even have been set above the elements, if he had been willing to fear the one whom he ought to have feared.

He would assuredly, fearing One, have possessed all things, who now, fearing none, suffers all things. He omitted to fear God. To how great a loss of his own. He was made, therefore, to fear no one, no one that is, because he feared neither God, nor yet that which he is to suffer. For him it would truly have been happier by fearing to avoid punishments than by not fearing to endure them. And so he turned his appetite for loftiness into rigidity of mind, so that now through hardness he does not perceive that he has acted evilly, he who sought to be set over others through glory. For because he did not obtain the right of the power he sought, he found, as a kind of remedy for his pride, the insanity of insensibility; and because he could not transgress all things by advancement, he prepared himself against all things by contempt.

Whose pride is still carefully described, when it is at once subjoined: