約伯倫理 第 386 章

Verse 14. His folly shall not please him. 70. The hypocrite sells a thing of great price cheaply. He is like a fruitful but neglected vine. For it is great folly to do laborious things and to gape after the breath of praise; to serve the heavenly precepts with strong effort, but to seek the reward of an earthly recompense. For, so to speak, he who desires human favours in return for the virtue he practises carries a thing of great merit for sale at a cheap price; from that whereby he might have merited the kingdom of heaven, he seeks the coin of transitory talk. Therefore he sells his work at a cheap price, because he expends much but receives very little.

To what then are hypocrites to be likened, save to fruitful and neglected vines, which by their abundance put forth fruit, but are in no way raised from the earth by cultivation? What the fat shoots put forth, wandering beasts trample down; and the more richly they behold this, the more greedily they consume what is cast down among the lowest places, because indeed the works of hypocrites, while they are shown to be brilliant, come forth as it were rich, but while they seek human praises, are as it were left lying on the earth. And the beasts of this world, that is, the malignant spirits, devour these, because they turn them to the use of perdition; and they seize them the more ardently the more brilliantly great things become known. Hence it is well said through the prophet:

The stalk stands, there is no bud in them, they shall yield no meal; and if they should yield it, strangers shall eat it (Hos. 8:7). For the stalk has no bud when life lacks the merits of virtues. The stalk makes no meal when he who prospers in the present age understands nothing of subtlety, renders no fruit of good work. 71. The hypocrite satisfies the malignant spirits with his fruits. He himself too is fed for a while, but afterward otherwise, beyond death. But often even when he has produced it, strangers eat it, because even when hypocrites display good works, the desires of malignant spirits are satisfied by them. For those who through these do not seek to please God, feed in no way the master of the field, but strangers.

The hypocrite therefore, like a fruitful but neglected vine-shoot, is unable to preserve his fruit, because the cluster of good work lies on the ground. Yet nevertheless he is fed by this very folly of his, because for his good work he is honoured by all; he takes precedence over others, holds the subject minds of men, is raised to higher places, is nourished by favours. But this folly of his pleases him for the time, yet it shall not please him, because when the time of retribution shall come, that which was folly is displeasing in punishment. Then he shall understand that he acted foolishly, when for the delight of praise he shall have received the sentence of divine rebuke. Then he considers that he was foolish, when everlasting torments chastise him for the temporal glory he received.

Then the torments lay open true knowledge, because through them indeed it is gathered that all things which were able to pass away were nothing. Whence it is also rightly added: