約伯倫理 第 269 章

That Job prefigures Christ and the Church, and his friends the heretics. Having preserved the historical truth, I have set myself to examine the sayings of blessed Job and his friends by a mystical interpretation; for it is plain to all who know the truth that Holy Scripture takes care, in all its allegations, to promise the Redeemer of the world, and has striven to signify Him through all the elect, that is, through His members. Hence blessed Job himself, in the Latin tongue, is said to mean 'grieving,' so that by his name and his wounds the Passion of our Redeemer might be designated, of whom the prophet says: 'Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows' (Isaiah liii, 4). The tempter, having stripped him of everything, slew both his servants and his children;

for the enemy, at the time of His Passion, struck with the dart of perfidy not only the Jewish people who served out of fear, but even the apostles themselves who had been regenerated in His love. Blessed Job's body is worn down by wounds, because our Redeemer did not disdain to be fastened with nails to the gibbet of the cross. And he received wounds from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head, because the raging tempter, by persecution, afflicts the holy Church, which is His body, not only in its outermost and lowest parts, but even in its highest members. Hence also Paul said: 'I fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ in my flesh' (Colossians i, 24). His wife strives to persuade him to curse, because the carnal-minded within the holy Church are the cunning helpers of the tempter.

For she who provokes him to curse denotes the life of the carnal-minded; because, as we have already said above (Book iii, ch. 20, nn. 36, 37), those placed within the holy Church with uncorrected morals oppress the more grievously by their life, the nearer they are to the good through faith. For since, as though faithful, they cannot be avoided, they are tolerated by the faithful the more perniciously, the more inwardly they are borne. But his friends, who come as though to console, yet burst forth into words of harsh invective, hold the likeness of heretics, who, while they strive to defend God against the good, give offence. 2. The spiritual senses which Gregory brings forth spring from the root of history. The sayings of Job's friends are by no means to be reproved in all respects.

These things, therefore, spoken more fully above, I have now taken care to compress briefly by way of mystical signification, so that my reader may remember from this very recapitulation that in this work I am serving the spiritual understanding. And yet, when the use of profit demands it, I also study to examine subtly the words of history. But when it is necessary, I embrace both together, so that allegory may germinate spiritual fruits, which nevertheless the truth of history produces from its root. But the friends of blessed Job, who we said held the likeness of heretics, we by no means reprove in all their sayings, because when it is said against them by the sentence from above:

'Ye have not spoken of Me the thing that is right,' and it is immediately added, 'as My servant Job hath' (Job xlii, 7), it plainly appears that what is reproved by comparison with the better is not utterly despised. For they fall incautiously into reproach of him; yet, because they are the friends of so great a man, they have learned much of mystical things from familiarity with him. Hence, as we also said above (Book v, n. 27), Paul too uses their words, and taking these as an aid to his assertion, he attests that they were brought forth from the truth. Yet this same truth rightly reproves, because however strong a sentence it was, it ought not to have been uttered against the holy man. The words of Eliphaz, therefore, by which he speaks to blessed Job, can be weighed mystically, saying: