約伯倫理 第 214 章

Verse 13.—'For now I should have been sleeping in silence, and should be at rest in my sleep.' 54. The first condition of man, from which by sinning he fell. The quiet silence of innocent man. Man had been placed in paradise for this end, that if he should bind himself by the bonds of charity to the obedience of his Creator, he might at some time pass over to the heavenly fatherland of the angels without the death of the flesh. For he was so created immortal that yet, if he should sin, he could also die; and he was so created mortal that, if he should not sin, he could also not die; and by the merit of free will he might attain the blessedness of that region, in which he could neither sin nor die.

Where, therefore, after the time of redemption, the death of the flesh being interposed, the elect pass over, thither without doubt our first parents, if they had stood firm in the state of their condition, could have been translated even without the death of their bodies. Man would therefore sleep in silence, and rest in his sleep, when, led to the rest of the eternal fatherland, he would find, as it were, a certain retreat from this clamor of human weakness. For after sin he keeps watch as if crying out, who, resisting, bears the contention of his own flesh. Man as created had this silence of quiet, when against his enemy he received the free arbitration of his will.

But because he of his own accord yielded, he soon found in himself that which clamored against himself, soon found tumult in the contest of weakness; and although he had been created by his Author in the peace of silence, yet, of his own accord laid low before the enemy, he endured the clamors of the battle. For the very suggestion of the flesh is, as it were, a certain clamor against the quiet of the mind, which before the transgression man did not feel; because, forsooth, he had nothing that he could endure from weakness. But after he had of his own accord subjected himself to the enemy, bound fast by the chains of his own fault, he serves the enemy in certain things even unwillingly, and suffers clamors in the mind, when the flesh strives against the spirit. Or did he not hear clamors within, who bore the words of the evil law against himself, saying:

'I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and leading me captive in the law of sin, which is in my members' (Rom. 7:23)? Let the holy man therefore contemplate in how great a peace of heart he would be at rest, if he had been unwilling to receive the words of the serpent, and let him say: 'For now I should have been sleeping in silence, and should be at rest in my sleep,' that is, I should have withdrawn within the secret place of the mind to the contemplation of the Creator, had not the fault of the first consent betrayed me outside myself into the tumults of temptations. And let him add with what companions he would enjoy the joys of this quiet, saying: