約伯倫理 第 176 章

Ibid.—Sitting on a dunghill. 60. Let the victor over temptation keep humility. The elation of those who do little and think much of themselves. The elation of the wicked, when others sin in the very things wherein they themselves do not sin.—To sit on a dunghill, indeed, is for one to think of himself vile and abject things. To sit on a dunghill is for us, by repenting, to bring back the eyes of the mind to those things we have unlawfully done; that when we behold before us the dung of our sins, we may bend down all that rises in the soul from elation. He sits on a dunghill who anxiously regards his own infirmity, and does not exalt himself over the good things he has received through grace. Was not Abraham sitting, as it were, on a dunghill within himself, who said:

I will speak to my Lord, though I am dust and ashes (Gen. 18:27). For we plainly perceive in what place he had set himself within himself, who reckoned himself dust and ashes even while he was speaking with God. If therefore he so despises himself who ascends even to the honor of divine converse, it must be weighed with anxious attention with what penalty those are to be smitten who both make no progress toward the highest things, and yet are exalted over the least. For there are some who, when they do small things, think great things of themselves: they lift their mind on high, and suppose that they surpass all others in the merits of the virtues. These indeed, within themselves, desert the dunghill of humility, and ascend the heights of elation;

imitating, namely, him who first exalted himself within himself, but by exalting himself cast himself down; imitating him who was not content with the dignity of his received condition, saying: I will ascend into heaven, above the stars of heaven will I exalt my throne (Isa. 14:13). Whence too Babylonia, evilly joined to him—that is, the confused multitude of sinners—says: I sit a queen, and I am not a widow (Isa. 47:8, according to the Septuagint). Whosoever therefore swells inwardly has set himself on high in his own regard. But he presses himself down among the lowest the more grievously, the more he scorns to think truly the lowest things of himself. But there are some who indeed strive to do nothing of virtue, yet, when they behold others sinning, suppose themselves just in comparison with them.

For not one and the same fault, nor a similar one, pierces the hearts of all. This one pride ensnares; that one perhaps anger supplants; this one avarice torments; that one lust inflames. And it often happens that he whom pride oppresses looks upon another, how anger sets him afire; and because anger does not so quickly goad himself, he now reckons himself better than the wrathful man, and within himself is exalted as it were over his own justice, because he neglects to weigh the vice by which he is more grievously held. It often happens that he whom avarice wounds beholds another sunk in the abyss of lust; and because he regards himself as a stranger to carnal pollution, he does not attend to the filth of a spiritual vice by which he himself is inwardly polluted;

and while he weighs in another the evil which he himself does not have, he neglects to consider in himself the evil which he does have: and so it comes about that while the mind is led to judge the things of others, it is deprived of the light of its own judgment; and it is the more harshly proud against the things of others, the more negligently it is ignorant of its own. [Old div. XXIV.] 61. Let the perfect man not lose humility at the sight of another's fault. Temptation sometimes knocks without and within.—But on the contrary, those who truly desire to rise to the heights of the virtues, when they hear the faults of others, straightway bring back their heart to their own; and they judge those the more rightly, the more truly they deplore these.

Because, therefore, every elect person restrains himself in the consideration of his own infirmity, it is rightly said that the holy man sits grieving on a dunghill. For he who truly humbles himself weighs, with the eye of continual consideration, by what filth of sins he is encompassed as he makes progress. But it must be known that for the most part the mind is touched by an importunate temptation in prosperity; yet sometimes we both suffer adversity outwardly, and are wearied within by the assault of temptation; so that scourges torment the flesh, and yet the carnal suggestion floods over the mind. Hence too, fittingly, after so many wounds of blessed Job, there are yet subjoined even the words of his ill-persuading wife, who said: