約伯倫理 第 425 章

Verse 25: 'My days have been swifter than a runner; they have fled away, and have not seen good.' 46. The ancient just grieve that they did not reach the times of Christ.—For it is the office of a runner to announce things to come. All the elect, therefore, who arose before the coming of the Redeemer, because they announced Him either merely by living or also by speaking, were, as it were, certain runners in the world. But because they foresee that they are being taken away before the awaited time of redemption, they grieve that they pass more swiftly than a runner; and they lament that their days are short, because they are not extended even to the seeing of the Redeemer's light. Whence it is fitly said: 'They have fled away, and have not seen good.' All things that have been created are good, Moses attesting, who says:

'God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good' (Gen. i, 31). But this alone is principally good, through which all these things are good, which are not good in a principal way. Of which good Truth says through the Gospel: 'None is good but God alone' (Luke xviii, 19). Since, therefore, the days of the ancient fathers were finished before God was shown to the world in the flesh, it is rightly said of those same days: 'They have fled away, and have not seen good.' As if it were openly said: They slipped away before the awaited time, because they could not reach the presence of the Redeemer. Whence it is still further subjoined, Verse 26: 'They have passed by like ships bearing fruits.' 47.

By awaiting Him they smelled His fragrance; by His sight and fruit we are satisfied. They brought us the hidden fruit of the Spirit.—Those who cross the seas carrying fruits do indeed enjoy the fragrance of the fruits, but they bear those same fruits as food for others. What, then, were the ancient fathers, save ships bearing fruits? For prophesying the mystery of the divine incarnation, they themselves were indeed enriched with the fragrance of hope, but they brought to us the fruit of the fulfilment of that same hope. For what they smelled by awaiting, that we are satisfied with by beholding and receiving. Whence the Redeemer says to these same disciples: 'Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labours' (John iv, 38).

Whose days indeed are compared to ships, because they run their course; and rightly to those bearing fruits, because all the elect whom they bore before the presence of the Redeemer they were able, through the spirit of prophecy, to cherish with expectation, but not to refresh with manifest exhibition. Or certainly, because ships, when they carry fruits, mix them with straw, that they may bring them unharmed to land, rightly are the days of the preceding fathers described as like ships bearing fruits, because the sayings of the ancients, in that they announce the mysteries of the spiritual life, preserve these through the interspersed straw of history, and bring to us the hidden fruit of the Spirit when they speak of carnal things.

For often, while they narrate certain things of their own, we are lifted up to the secrets of the Divinity. And frequently, even while they gaze upon the height of the Divinity, they are suddenly poured out to the mystery of His incarnation. Whence it is still fitly subjoined: