約伯倫理 第 173 章

Ibid.—For they saw that his grief was very great. 54. When the heart grieves out of love of God, the adversary fears to speak wicked things.—For when the vehement grief of the love of God pierces our hearts, the adversary fears everywhere to speak wicked things, because he sees that in provoking a mind that is intent he is not only unable to draw it to perversity, but perhaps through the mind he has stirred up will lose even those whom he had held fast. [Old div. XXI. Rev. XVI.] 55. In Scripture, deeds well done sometimes signify things to be done ill; and vice versa.—Perhaps it moves some that we have said this, namely that things well done by the friends should signify things to be done ill by the heretics. But so, for the most part, any given matter is a virtue according to history, but a fault according to signification:

just as sometimes a deed done is, in the fact, a cause of damnation, but in the writing a prophecy of virtue. We shall show this to be true more readily if we bring forward a single testimony of sacred Scripture to prove both. For who, hearing—not only of the faithful, but even of the unfaithful themselves—would not in every way detest that David, walking upon his terrace, coveted Bathsheba the wife of Uriah? Yet when Uriah was returning from battle, David bade him go to his house and wash his feet. He at once replied, saying: The ark of the Lord is under skins, and shall I rest in my own house (2 Kings 11:11)? Him David received at his own table, and delivered to him letters by which he was to die.

But of whom does David, walking upon his terrace, hold the type, save of Him of whom it is written: In the sun He hath set His tabernacle (Ps. 18:6)? And what is it to bring Bathsheba to himself, save to join to himself by spiritual understanding the law of the letter, which was joined to a carnal people? For Bathsheba is called the seventh well, because assuredly through the knowledge of the law, by the infusion of spiritual grace, perfect wisdom is administered to us. But whom does Uriah signify, save the Jewish people? Whose name, being interpreted, is said to be 'my light is of God.' But the Jewish people, because it is exalted by the knowledge of the law it has received, glories as it were in the light of God. But from this Uriah David took away his wife and joined her to himself:

because forsooth the Redeemer, who is called 'strong in hand'—for so is David interpreted—appearing in the flesh, when He made known that the law spoke of Him spiritually, thereby showed this law, which was held according to the letter, to be foreign to the Jewish people; and He joined it to Himself, because He declared that He was proclaimed through it. Yet David bids Uriah go to his house and wash his feet, because the incarnate Lord, coming, commanded the Jewish people to return to conscience and to wipe away the filth of their works with weeping; that they might understand the commands of the law spiritually, and after so great a hardness of precepts, finding the fountain of baptism, might run to the water after their labor. But Uriah, who remembered that the ark of the Lord was under skins, answered that he could not enter his house.

As if the Jewish people should say: I see the commands of God in carnal sacrifices, and I do not seek to return to conscience through spiritual understanding. For he says as it were that the ark is under skins, who understands the precepts of God only for the rendering of the ministry of carnal sacrifice. Yet him too, unwilling to return home, David calls to his table; because although the Jewish people scorns to return to conscience, nevertheless the Redeemer, coming to it, preaches the spiritual commands, saying: If ye believed Moses, ye would perhaps believe Me also, for he wrote of Me (John 5:46). Thus the Jewish people holds the law which proclaims His divinity, in which that same people disdains to believe.

Hence too Uriah is sent to Joab with the letters by which he is to be killed, because that same Jewish people carries the law by whose conviction it dies. For while, retaining the commands of the law, it strives against fulfilling them, it itself assuredly delivers the sentence by which it is condemned. What therefore can be called more wicked than this deed of David? What more pure than Uriah? But again, through the mystery, what is found holier than David, what more unfaithful than Uriah, when the one, through the fault of his life, signifies in prophecy innocence; and the other, through the innocence of his life, expresses in prophecy fault?

Not incongruously, therefore, by those things well done by Job's friends are signified things to be done ill by the heretics, since the power of sacred eloquence so narrates what is past that it may express what is to come; so approves the matter in the deed that it may contradict it in the mystery; so condemns things done that it may persuade these same things to be done mystically. The moral sense.—[Old div. XXII.] 56. Why the devil sometimes rests from temptation.—Therefore, since we have finished unfolding the mysteries of allegory limb by limb, let us now pursue, briefly touching upon, the understanding of the moral sense. For the mind hastens to discourse of more obscure matters; and if it be long occupied with things plain, it is hindered from knocking, as is fitting, at things closed.

Often the ancient enemy, after he has inflicted upon our mind the struggle of temptations, withdraws for a time from his very struggle; not that he may put an end to his malice, but that he may, suddenly returning, more easily and unexpectedly break in upon the hearts which through quiet he had rendered secure. Hence it is that he returns again to tempt the blessed man, and seeks his tortures, which nevertheless the supernal loving-kindness grants him while yet holding him in restraint, saying: