約伯倫理 第 255 章

Verse 15. — And when a spirit passed in my presence, the hairs of my flesh stood up. 58. We do indeed come to know invisible things, but hurriedly. — A spirit passes while we are present, when we come to know invisible things, and yet we see these not solidly, but hurriedly. For the mind is not fixed long in the sweetness of inward contemplation, because it is recalled to its own self, beaten back by the very immensity of the light. And when it tastes the inward sweetness, it burns with love, it strives to go above its own self, but, broken, it slips back to the darkness of its own infirmity; and, advancing by great virtue, it sees that it cannot see that which it ardently loves, nor yet would it ardently love, unless it saw in some measure.

Therefore the spirit does not stand, but passes, because our contemplation both opens the supernal light to us who pant after it, and soon hides it from us who grow faint. And because in this life, however great the virtue by which one has advanced, he yet still feels the goad of his own corruption—For the body which is corrupted weigheth down the soul, and the earthly habitation presseth down the sense that thinketh many things (Wisd. ix, 15)—it is rightly subjoined: The hairs of my flesh stood up. (Recension XXIV.) 59. No one here is so perfect that there does not always arise in him something to be cut away. — For the hairs of the flesh are any superfluous things of human corruption. The hairs of the flesh are the thoughts of the old life, which we so cut off from the mind that we are wearied by no grief at their loss.

Well is it said through Moses: 'Let the Levites shave off all the hair of their flesh' (Num. viii, 7). For 'Levite' is interpreted 'one taken up.' The Levites, therefore, must shave off all the hair of the flesh, because he who is taken up into the divine services ought to appear before the eyes of God pure from all carnal thoughts, lest the mind put forth unlawful thoughts and render the fair beauty of the soul deformed, as it were, by sprouting hairs. But however far, as we have said, the virtue of a holy manner of life may exalt anyone, there yet arises in him from the oldness of his former life something to be endured. Whence the Levites too were commanded to have their hairs shaved, not plucked out.

For when the hairs are shaved, the roots remain in the flesh, and they grow again so as to be cut off once more; because superfluous thoughts must indeed be lopped off with great earnestness, yet they can by no means be utterly cut away. For the flesh ever begets superfluous things which the spirit must ever cut back with the blade of solicitude. Yet we discern these things in ourselves more subtly when we penetrate the heights of contemplation. Whence it is rightly said here: 'When the spirit passed before me while I was present, the hairs of my flesh stood on end' (Vet. XXIV). The mind given to contemplation cuts these things away more carefully, and thus almost fixes the Spirit fast, yet does not hold it long.

For the human mind, raised up to the citadel of contemplation, torments itself the more harshly over its superfluities the more it beholds that which it loves to be exceedingly subtle; and when it gazes upon that fair thing which it longs for above itself, it judges more severely whatever within itself it once bore tranquilly as trifling. When the spirit therefore passes by, the hairs are struck with dread, because before the force of compunction superfluous thoughts flee away, so that nothing loose, nothing now slack, pleases it; for the severity of that inward visitation inflames the breathed-upon mind even against its own self.

And when that which springs up unlawfully in the heart is cut back by continual strictness, it often comes to pass that the invigorated mind clings a little more widely to the ray of its own contemplation, and almost fixes the spirit that was passing by. Yet not even this delay of contemplation fully lays open the power of the Godhead, because His immensity transcends human powers even when they are increased and raised aloft. Whence it is also well added: