約伯倫理 第 261 章

Ibid. — 'And because no one understands, they shall perish forever.' 71. They neglect to know what punishments await them, what rewards await the just. — No one, namely, of those who are cut down from morning until evening. No one understands, either of those who perish, or of those who imitate the manners of the perishing lost. Whence it is elsewhere written: 'The just perishes, and there is none that considers it in his heart, and men of mercy are taken away, because there is none that understands' (Isa. lvii, 1). The wicked, therefore, while they seek temporal things alone, and scorn to know what good things await the elect forever;

while they behold the affliction of the just, but recognize not what the recompense of that affliction is, they thrust forward the foot of their action into the depths, because they of their own accord close their eyes to the light of understanding. For, deceived by foolish pleasures, while they love for a time the hard things that they see, alienated from themselves, they see not where they rush headlong forever. Morning, too, may signify prosperity, and evening the adversity of this world. From morning until evening, therefore, the reprobate are cut down, because both, growing wanton through prosperity, they perish, and, growing impatient through adversity, they rise up unto madness. Whom from morning until evening fault would by no means cut down, if either they believed prosperity to be a fomentation, or reckoned adversity to be the lancing of their own wound.

72. Of those who make good use of prosperity or of adversity. — But because the multitude of the human race is by no means so wholly abandoned that all are permitted to press on toward destruction, there are some who despise the delight of the present life even while it is present, who consider these things to be transitory, and who trample them underfoot out of love for eternity. And when they set the step of their judgment upon this first stage, they advance the more vigorously to higher things, so that they despise all temporal things not merely because these must soon be lost, but so that they do not even desire to cling to them, even if they could be eternal; and they withdraw their love from things beautifully made, because with the steps of the heart they press on toward the very Author of beauty.

And there are some who love the goods of the present life, yet by no means attain them: who with all their desires gape after temporal things and seek the glory of the world, but can in no way obtain it. These, if I may so put it, the heart drags toward the world, and the world drives back toward the heart. For it often happens that, broken by their very adversities, they return to their mind, and, turned back into themselves, they consider how empty were the things they sought, and forthwith turn to lamentation over so foolish a desire; and they long for eternal things the more strongly, the more foolishly they grieve to have labored for temporal ones. Whence, after the reprobate have been well described, it is added: