約伯倫理 第 319 章

Verse 5. Will the wild ass bray when he has grass? or will the ox low when he stands before a full manger? 14. The wild ass signifies the faithful people, the ox the ecclesiastical order. For both, here, the cause of groaning is over the deferred vision of God. Who else are signified by the name of the wild ass, save those who, stationed in the field of faith, are bound by the reins of no office? Or whom does the signification of the ox express, save those whom, received within the holy Church for the office of preaching, the yoke of the order they have undertaken presses down? But the grass of the wild ass and the fodder of the ox is the inward refreshment of the faithful people. For some, after the manner of the ox, are held within the Church by the reins of the office they have undertaken;

others, after the manner of the wild ass, know not the stables of sacred order, and dwell in the field of their own will. But when someone from the secular life burns with desire for the inward vision, when he covets the fodder of the inmost refreshment, when, considering himself fasting in the blindness of this pilgrimage, he refreshes himself with such tears as he can, then, as though finding no grass, the wild ass brays. And another endures the necessity of the order he has undertaken, sweats in the labor of preaching, and desires already to be refreshed by eternal contemplation; but because he does not yet behold the beauty of his Redeemer, he groans like an ox bound before an empty manger.

For because, placed far from inward wisdom, we do not discern the green freshness of the eternal inheritance, we fast, like brute animals, from the grass we desire. Concerning which grass it is surely said by the voice of the Redeemer: By me if any man enter in, he shall be saved; and he shall go in, and go out, and shall find pastures (John x, 9). But for the most part — which is wont to be more grievous to those who love — the life of the wicked opposes the holy pursuits of the good; and when the mind is caught up to heavenly desire, the well-begun intention is beaten back by the interrupting words and manners of fools; so that what had already flown up to the heights through the effort of contemplation must gird itself in the depths against conflicts, to overcome the folly of the depraved. Whence it is also added: