約伯倫理 第 164 章

In the same place. — Sitting on the dunghill. He sat on the dunghill, because he chose the weak things of the world. Not in the forum, where the law resounds; not in a building that lifts itself high with its lofty summit; but he rests upon the dunghill, because plainly the Redeemer of the human race, coming to flesh, as Paul testifies, chose the weak things of the world, that he might confound the strong (1 Cor. i, 27). Does he not rest, as it were amid falling buildings, upon the dunghill, who, having left the proud Jews, reposes in that Gentile world which he had a while before cast off? He is found outside his dwelling in wounds, who, in that he endured Judaea's opposition, being despised by his own nation, felt the pain of his Passion; John bearing witness, who says:

He came unto his own, and his own received him not (John i, 11). But how he takes his rest sitting on the dunghill, let this same Truth declare concerning himself. For he says: There shall be joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance (Luke xv, 10). Behold, he sits grieving on the dunghill, who, after faults have been committed, gladly possesses the hearts of the penitent. Are not the hearts of the penitent as a kind of dunghill, who, while they consider their evils with weeping, heap up their very selves by casting themselves down, as it were dung before them?

Stricken Job, therefore, did not seek the mountain, but sat down on the dunghill, because the Redeemer, coming to his Passion, forsook the lofty hearts of the proud, and rested in the humility of the afflicted. Yet this he indicated of himself even before he was made incarnate, when he said through the Prophet: To whom shall I look, but to him that is humble and quiet and that trembleth at my words? (Isaiah lvi, 2, according to the LXX.) Christ suffers many things in his own members, both from unbelievers and from carnal believers. — Who indeed could reckon how many kindnesses he showed to men, and how many perverse things he endured from men? Who could reckon how much he even now endures, even while he reigns from heaven over the hearts of the faithful?

For he himself daily suffers all that his elect are torn by from the reprobate. And although the Head of this body, which body indeed we are, has already raised itself free above all things, yet through his body, which he still holds below, he feels the wounds of the reprobate. But why do we say these things of unbelievers, when even in the Church herself we see many of the carnal fighting by their depraved habits against the life of the Redeemer? For there are not a few who, because they cannot with swords, pursue him with their perverse deeds; because, while they see themselves lacking in the Church what they covet, they become enemies of the good; and not only do they insert themselves into depraved action, but they also strive to bend the uprightness of the just toward what is perverse.

For they neglect to gaze on things eternal, and through the pusillanimity of their mind succumb to the appetite for temporal things; and they fall the more deeply from things eternal the more they suspect that temporal goods are, as it were, the only goods. To such the simplicity of the just is displeasing; and when they find occasion for disturbance, they persuade them to seize upon their own duplicity. Whence this also fittingly agrees with what is added: