約伯倫理 第 397 章

Ibid. And the tabernacle of the impious shall not subsist. 91. What is the affection of the reprobate toward earthly goods. What is that of the just. For a tabernacle is constructed that the body may be defended from heat and cold. What therefore in this place is expressed by the name of tabernacle, but the edifice of earthly felicity, by which the reprobate multiply things that shall fall down upon themselves, that they may defend themselves from the necessities of the present life, as from heat and rains? For they aspire to grow great in honours, lest they seem despised. They pile up earthly things by heaping them together, lest they waste away in the cold of want. They scorn to care for what follows, and with their whole intention they busy themselves lest anything be lacking in things present. They strive to enlarge their name, lest they lie hidden;

and if all things are at hand for their desire, they reckon themselves fortified in all and happy. Where therefore they build the habitation of their mind, there without doubt they have fixed their tabernacles. They bear adversity impatiently, they rejoice slackly in prosperity. They think only of the things that are present, nor by any recollection do they breathe toward the affection of the heavenly fatherland. They rejoice that the goods they desire are at hand for them; and where they rest in the flesh, there also, by extinguishing it, they bury the mind, because, slaughtered by the dart of worldly care, they always inwardly carry, through thought, that heap of earthly things which they multiply by seeking it abroad. 92. [Vet. XL.] But on the contrary, the just neither here receive as a great thing the goods offered them, nor greatly dread the evils inflicted.

But even when they use present goods, they fear evils to come; and when they groan over present evils, they are consoled by the love of the goods that shall follow. And so they are refreshed by temporal aid, just as a traveller uses a bed in an inn: he pauses, and hastens to depart; he rests in body, but tends in mind to something else. But sometimes they even desire to suffer adversities, and shun to be prospered in transitory things, lest by the delight of the journey they be delayed from arriving at the fatherland, lest they fix the steps of the heart in the way of pilgrimage, and at some time come to the sight of the heavenly fatherland without recompense. They rejoice to be despised, nor do they grieve to be afflicted by necessities.

They therefore who do not fortify themselves against present adversities are, as it were, unwilling to have a tabernacle against heat and rains. Whence too Peter is justly reproved, because, not yet strengthened by the perfection of mind, when the brightness of the truth had been made known, he attempted to fix a tabernacle upon earth (Matt. 17:4; Mark 9:5). The just therefore neglect to build themselves up here, where they know themselves to be pilgrims and strangers. For because they desire to rejoice in their own, they refuse to be happy in what is another's. But the unjust, the further they are divided from the inheritance of the eternal fatherland, the higher they fix upon earth the foundations of their thought. Hence it is that from the very beginning of the human condition, in the chosen offspring Enoch is born the seventh.

Hence it is that Cain calls his first son Enoch, and after his name calls the city which he founded (Gen. 4:17). For Enoch is interpreted 'dedication.' The wicked therefore dedicate themselves in their beginnings, because in this life, which is before, they plant the root of the heart, that here they may flourish according to their wish, and utterly wither away from the fatherland that follows. But to the just Enoch is born the seventh, because the festal dedication of their life is reserved for the end. Hence it is that, as Paul witnesses, Abraham dwells in tents (Heb. 11:9), because he awaits the city having foundations, which the heavenly Maker constructed. Hence it is that Jacob, following his flocks of sheep, walks humbly (Gen.

33:14), and Esau, coming to meet him, is exalted by the tumult of a manifold retinue, because indeed the elect here have no elation, while the reprobate, glad, swell in the goods of the flesh. Hence the Lord says to Israel: If thou shalt choose one of the people of the land, and set him prince over thee, he shall not multiply for himself horses and horsemen (Deut. 17:16). And yet the first king chosen by that same people, as soon as he attained the summit of power, chose for himself three thousand horsemen, at once broke forth into elation, and burst out into building up the summit he had received (1 Sam. 13:2), because he could not outwardly restrain within equality what the mind inwardly swelled above the rest.

That rich man had constructed for himself, as it were, a fortified tabernacle, who said: Soul, thou hast many goods laid up for many years: rest, eat and drink, and make good cheer (Luke 12:19). But because his tabernacle did not subsist upon the foundation of truth, forthwith he heard: Fool, this night they require thy soul of thee; and the things thou hast prepared, whose shall they be (ibid. 20)? Well therefore is it said: The tabernacle of the impious shall not subsist, because the lovers of fleeting life, while they zealously build themselves up in things present, are suddenly snatched away to things eternal.