約伯倫理 第 233 章

Verse 26. — 'Did I not dissemble? did I not keep silence? did I not rest? and indignation is come upon me.' 17. In what ways those set in power are wont to sin by thinking, speaking, and acting. — Although, placed in whatever station, we sin by thinking, speaking, and acting, yet the mind is more unbridledly carried away by these three when it is exalted by the prosperity of this world. For when a man beholds himself surpassing others in power, he perceives himself thinking loftily and haughtily of himself. And when the authority of his voice is resisted by none, the tongue is more licentiously unbridled over precipices. And since it is permitted to do what he pleases, he justly reckons all that he pleases to be permitted him.

But holy men, when they are upheld by the power of this world, hold themselves under so much the greater discipline of mind, as they know that through impatience of their power unlawful things are the more licentiously suggested to them. For they restrain the heart from considering its own glory, they restrain the tongue from immoderate speech, they guard their action from the wandering of restlessness. [Old Version.] For often those who are in power lose the good things which they rightly do, because they think of them proudly; and while they esteem themselves useful for all things, they even condemn in themselves the merit of the usefulness they have bestowed.

For in order that anyone's deeds may be the more worthy, it is necessary that they always seem unworthy to himself, lest that same good action lift up the heart of the doer, and by lifting him up cast down the author more from pride than it helps those to whom perchance it is rendered. For this is the reason that the king of Babylon, while with proud mind he silently pondered within himself, saying: 'Is not this Babylon, which I have built?' (Dan. iv, 27), was straightway turned into an irrational animal. For he lost what he had been made, because he would not humbly dissemble what he had done. And because by the pride of his thought he raised himself above men, he lost that very human sense which he had in common with men.

But often those who are in power break out into insults against their subjects on every side; and that which they serve by watching over their government, they lose through the impudence of the tongue, weighing the words of the Judge with too little fear — for he who without cause says to his brother, 'Thou fool,' consigns himself to the fires of Gehenna (Matt. v, 22). Often those who are in power, while they know not how to restrain themselves from lawful things, slip down into unlawful and disquieting deeds. For he alone does not fall into unlawful things who sometimes cautiously restrains himself even from lawful ones. Bound by which restraint, Paul well insinuates himself, saying: 'All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient' (1 Cor. vi, 12).

And that from this very binding he might show in how great a liberty of mind he expanded, he straightway added: 'All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any' (Ibid., 12). For when the mind follows its conceived desires, it is convicted of being a slave to the things by love of which it is overcome. But Paul, to whom all things are lawful, brings himself under the power of none, because by restraining himself even from lawful things, he despises and transcends those things which, when enjoyed, would oppress. 18. How Job avoided these. — Blessed Job therefore, that he may instruct us, makes known what manner of man he was in power, saying: 'Did I not dissemble?' For power, when it is possessed, is both to be considered for usefulness, and to be dissembled on account of swelling pride;

so that he who uses it may both know himself able, in order that he ought to profit others, and may not know himself able, in order that he ought not to be exalted. But what manner of man he was in speech, let him add, saying: 'Did I not keep silence?' What manner toward unlawful deeds, let him further subjoin: 'Did I not rest?' But 'to keep silence' and 'to rest' can be scrutinized still more subtly. For to keep silence is to restrain the mind from the voice of earthly desires. For the tumult of the heart is the force of a great outcry. 19. Those who preside ought to intermit temporal occupations in order to have leisure for God. — They also rest who are rightly in power, when for the sake of divine love they postpone by intermitting the din of earthly actions; lest, while they unceasingly occupy themselves with the lowest things, the heart fall utterly from the highest.

For they know that the mind is by no means raised to things on high if it is continually occupied with the lowest by the tumults of cares. For what can it obtain concerning God when occupied, since it labors to apprehend something of Him even when at leisure? And well is it said through the Psalmist: 'Be still, and see that I am God' (Ps. xlv, 11); because he who neglects to have leisure for God hides from himself, by his own judgment, the light of His vision. Hence also it is said through Moses that the fishes which have no fins should not be eaten (Lev. xi, 12, 13). For the fishes which have fins are wont to give leaps above the waters.

Only those therefore pass as food, as it were, in the body of the elect, who, in that they serve the lowest things, know nevertheless sometimes to ascend to things on high by the leaps of the mind, lest they lie always hidden in the depths of cares, and no breeze of the highest love, as of free air, touch them. Those therefore who are occupied with temporal things then rightly dispose of outward matters, when they anxiously flee back to inner things; when they by no means love the din of perturbations without, but rest within their own selves in the bosom of tranquillity. [Old Version.] 20. How depraved minds are affected regarding these occupations. How pious ones. — For depraved minds cease not to turn over within themselves the tumults of temporal things, even when they are at leisure.

For in their thought they keep painted the things which they love, and although they do nothing outwardly, yet within themselves they labor under the weight of a restless rest. And if the administration of those same things be offered to them, they utterly desert themselves, and follow these fugitive temporal things through the course of their intention with continual steps of thoughts. But pious minds do not seek these things even when they are absent, and bear them heavily even when they are present, because through care of outward things they dread to go out of themselves. This is well signified by the life of those two brothers, of whom it is written: 'Esau became a man skilled in hunting, and a husbandman; but Jacob was a simple man dwelling in tents' (Gen. xxv, 27, according to the LXX).

Or as it is said in another translation, 'He dwelt at home.' For what is figured by the hunting of Esau, if not the life of those who, poured out in outward pleasures, follow the flesh? He who is also described as a husbandman, because lovers of this world so much the more cultivate outward things, as they leave their own inner things untilled. But Jacob is reported as a simple man dwelling in tents or in a house, because assuredly all who flee to be scattered abroad in outward cares abide simple in their thought and in the habitation of their own conscience.

For to dwell in tents or in a house is to restrain oneself within the secret places of the mind, and by no means to be dissipated outwardly through desires, lest while they gape after many things without, they withdraw from their own selves with alienated thoughts. Let the proven man, then, exercised in prosperity, say: 'Did I not dissemble? did I not keep silence? did I not rest?' For, as we said above, holy men, when transitory prosperity smiles upon them, dissemble the favor of the world as though not knowing it, and with strong step tread inwardly upon that whereby outwardly they are exalted. And they keep silence, because they make no noise with any outcries of depraved action. For all iniquity has its own voices before the secret judgments of God. Whence it is written:

'The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is multiplied' (Gen. xviii, 20). And they rest, when they are not only carried away by no turbulent appetite of temporal covetings, but even flee to be immoderately occupied with the necessary cares of the present life. 21. Why the just continually suffer scourges. — But even while doing these things, they still feel the fatherly scourges, that they may come to their inheritance the more perfect, as the discipline which piously smites them daily purges them even of the least faults. They therefore do just things unceasingly, yet continually suffer hard things, because often our very justice, brought to the examination of the divine justice, is injustice, and that grows foul in the strictness of the Judge which shines in the estimation of the doer.

Whence Paul, when he had said: 'I am conscious of nothing in myself,' straightway added: 'But I am not hereby justified' (1 Cor. iv, 4). Who, intimating at once the reason why he is not justified, says: 'But he that judgeth me is the Lord.' As if he said: For this reason, in that I am conscious of nothing in myself, I deny that I am justified, because I know that I am examined more subtly by Him who judges me. [Old Version.] The things therefore which outwardly favor us are to be dissembled, the things which inwardly clamor are to be repressed, the things which as if necessary entangle us are to be declined; and yet in all these the scourges of strict examination are still to be feared, because even our very perfection is not without fault, unless the severe Judge mercifully weigh it in the subtle balance of His examination. 22.

If the just suffer so much, what punishments await the wicked? — And well is it subjoined: 'And indignation is come upon me.' For with great skill of teaching, about to speak of stripes, he set forth first the good things rightly done; that from this everyone might consider what punishments afterward await sinners, if even the just are here chastised by such mighty scourges. For this is the reason that Peter says: 'It is time that judgment should begin at the house of God. And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?' (1 Pet. iv, 17, 18). Hence Paul, when he had said many things in praise of the Thessalonians, straightway added:

'So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith, in all your persecutions and tribulations which ye endure, for an example of the righteous judgment of God' (2 Thess. i, 4). As if he said: While ye who do such right things endure so many hard things, what else do ye give but examples of the righteous judgment of God? because from your penalty it is to be gathered how He may smite those with whom He is angry, if He suffers you to be so afflicted in whom He rejoices; or how He is about to strike those to whom He shows a just judgment, if He so torments even you whom, piously reproving, He cherishes. [Old Version IX, Revised X.] 23. The intention of Job's friends was pious, but their speech incautious.

What they ought to have done. — The first speech of blessed Job therefore being ended, the friends in turn, who had come to console him, piously subject themselves to his rebuke; and while they leap forth into words of contention, they lose that cause of piety for which they had come. These indeed do this not with a depraved intention; but although they show affection toward the stricken man, yet they believed the stricken to be smitten only for iniquity; and while a cautious speech by no means follows their good intention, their very purpose of piety is turned into the vice of transgression. For it ought to have been weighed to whom and when they were speaking. For he to whom they had come was just, and girded about with divine stripes.

From his former life therefore they ought to have weighed those words of his which they were not able to understand; and from his present scourges they ought not to have reproved him, but to have feared for their own life; and, the just man being scourged, not as it were to have raised themselves up by reasoning, but to have joined themselves to him by weeping; so that they might by no means display their knowledge through words, but that grief the master might teach the tongue of the consolers to speak rightly. Even if perchance they felt differently on some point, it would surely have been fitting that they should say these things humbly, lest they should heap wounds upon the stricken man by immoderate words. 24. Often the sayings or deeds of better men displease worse men. — For often, because they cannot be understood, either the deeds or the sayings of better men displease the worse:

but they are for that reason not rashly to be reprehended by them, in that they can by no means be truly apprehended. Often something is done by the greater in a dispensatory way, which is thought an error by the lesser. Often many things are said by the strong, which the weak judge amiss for this reason, that they know them not. This was well signified by that ark of the testament, tilted by the kicking oxen, which the Levite, because he believed it about to fall, wished to raise up, and straightway received the sentence of death (2 Sam. vi, 7). [Old Version X.] For what is the mind of the just man, if not the ark of the testament? Which, being carried, is tilted by the kicking oxen; because sometimes even he who presides well, while he is shaken by the confusion of the subject peoples, is moved to the condescension of dispensation from love alone.

But in this which is done in a dispensatory way, the very tilting of strength is thought a fall by the unskilled. Whence also some subjects put forth against this the hand of reproof, but straightway fail of their very life through their own temerity. The Levite therefore, as if helping, stretched out his hand, but sinning lost his life; because while the weak reprove the deeds of the strong, they themselves are reprobated from the lot of the living. Sometimes also holy men say certain things condescending to the least, but utter certain things while contemplating the highest; and while men know not the force either of the condescension or of the loftiness, the foolish boldly reprehend these things.

And what is it to wish to correct the just man for his condescension, but to raise up the tilted ark with the hand of proud reproof? What is it to reprehend the just man for a speech not understood, but to reckon the movement of his strength a lapse of error? But he loses his life who proudly lifts up the ark of God, because no one of the saints would presume to correct right things, unless he had first thought better things of himself. Whence also the Levite is rightly called by the name Uzzah, which is interpreted 'strong of the Lord'; because none of the presumptuous would believe themselves strong in the Lord with bold mind, unless they judged the deeds or sayings of better men as though weak.

Job's friends therefore, while they leap forth against him as if in defense of God, in their pride exceed the rule of the divine precept. 25. If anything in these things displeases, it is not to be kept back, but to be brought forth with great humility. — But when certain deeds of better men displease worse men, that which moves the mind is by no means to be kept back, but to be brought forth with great humility; so that the intention of one who feels piously may truly keep the form of rectitude, in that it walks by the way of humility. And so the things we feel are to be spoken freely, and the things we say are to be brought forth very humbly, lest even the things we rightly intend we make not right by proudly proffering them. Paul had said many things humbly to his hearers;

but concerning that very humble exhortation he was still more humbly striving to please them, saying: 'But I beseech you, brethren, that ye suffer the word of consolation; for I have written to you in few words' (Heb. xiii, 22). Also, bidding farewell to the Ephesians at Miletus, to the afflicted and groaning he recalls to memory his humility, saying: 'Watch, remembering that for three years night and day I ceased not with tears to admonish every one of you' (Acts xx, 31). To the same he says again through his Epistle: 'I beseech you, brethren, I a prisoner in the Lord, that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called' (Eph. iv, 1). Hence therefore let each one gather, whenever he rightly feels anything, with how great humility a disciple ought to speak to his master;

if that master of the Gentiles himself, in the things which he preaches with authority, so submissively entreats his disciples. Hence let each one gather, with how great humility he ought to say what he well understands to those from whom he has received the examples of living well; if Paul submitted himself with humble voice to those whom he himself raised up to life. 26. He who knows not how to speak humbly is ignorant of the rule of consolation. — But Eliphaz, who speaks first among the friends, although he comes to console out of piety, yet, deserting the humility of speech, is ignorant of the rule of consolation. Who, while he neglects the guarding of his speech, goes out even to the insults of the afflicted, saying: 'The tiger hath perished for lack of prey.'

'The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the lioness, and the teeth of the lions' whelps are scattered' (Job iv, 11). Marking blessed Job indeed by the name of the tiger, as if by the vice of variableness, denoting by the roaring of the lion the terror of that same man, by the voice of the lioness the loquacity of his wife, and by the scattered teeth of the lions' whelps the destroyed voracity of his sons. Whence also the divine sentence well reprehends the meaning of the friends, which lifted itself up in swollen rebuke, saying: 'Ye have not spoken before me the thing that is right, as my servant Job' (Job xxxii, 7 [xlii, 7]). [Old Version XI.] 27. On what ground God censures the sentences of Job's friends, and Paul commends them.

— But I see it must be asked why Paul uses their sentences with so great authority, if these their sentences are annulled by the Lord's reprehension. For they are the words of Eliphaz which he adduced to the Corinthians, saying, as it is written: 'I will take the wise in their own craftiness' (1 Cor. iii, 19; Job v, 13). How then do we reject as depraved the things which Paul builds up from authority? or how shall we by the attestation of Paul think right the things which the Lord Himself did not define as right? But we recognize both of these to be diverse more quickly than that they are not so, if we more subtly weigh the words of that same Lord's sentence; which, when it said: 'Ye have not spoken before me the thing that is right,' straightway added: 'As my servant Job.'

It is clear therefore that certain things in their sayings are right, but are surpassed by comparison with the better. For among other things which they say irrationally, they bring forth many strong sentences to blessed Job, but, compared with stronger sayings, they lose the force of their strength. But many things which they say are wonderful, unless they were said against the adversity of the holy man. In themselves therefore they are great, but because they seek to transfix a just man, they lose the weight of that same greatness; because even however strong, a javelin is thrown in vain to strike hard rocks; for the more forcibly hurled it comes, the more blunted it flies back at a distance.

Therefore the sayings of Job's friends, although in certain respects they are very strong, yet when they strike the strong life of the holy man, they blunt the whole point of their sharpness. Because therefore both in themselves they are great, but against blessed Job they ought by no means to have been taken up; let Paul, weighing these from their virtue, bring them forth in authority; and let the Judge, because they were incautiously uttered, reprehend them from the quality of the person. 28. These sayings, as they have certain right things and other perverse ones, are congruous to heretics. — But because we said above that these same friends of blessed Job hold the type of heretics, let us now investigate how their words are congruous to heretics. For they feel certain things very rightly, yet amid these they slip down to perverse ones.

For heretics have this as their own property, that they mingle good things with evil, so that they may easily delude the sense of the hearer. For if they always spoke depraved things, being more quickly recognized in their depravity, they would by no means persuade what they wished. Again, if they always felt right things, assuredly they would not have been heretics. But while by the art of deceiving they serve both, they both infect good things from evil, and hide evil things by good, that they may be received; just as he who offers a cup of poison touches the rim of the cup with the sweetness of honey; and while that which is sweet is tasted at the first touch, even that which is deadly is without doubt swallowed down. And so heretics mingle right things with perverse, that by displaying good things they may attract hearers to themselves;

and by exhibiting evil things, they corrupt them with a hidden pestilence. Sometimes, however, being corrected by the preaching and exhortation of the holy Church, they are saved from this diversity of their thinking. Whence also Job's friends offer the sacrifice of their reconciliation by the hands of that same holy man, and, though condemned, are recalled to the grace of the Judge on high. These are well designated in the Gospel by that cleansing of the ten lepers (Luke xvii, 15). For in leprosy both part of the skin is brought to brightness, and part is retained in a healthy color. Lepers therefore express heretics, because while they mingle perverse things with right, they besprinkle the healthy color with spots. Whence also, that they may be saved, they well cry out, 'Jesus, master.'

For because they signify that they have erred in His words, they humbly call Him their master, the one who saves; and when they return to the knowledge of the master, they straightway recur to the form of salvation. But because in the sayings of the friends we have drawn out the preface of exposition somewhat too far, let us now weigh their very words subtly. There follows: