Verse 27: 'When I shall say, I will by no means speak thus, I change my countenance, and I am tormented with grief.' 49. The perfidy and reprobation of the Jews.—For the Jewish people would not speak as before, which denied Him whom it had foretold. But with changed countenance it is tormented with grief, because, while it defiled with the foulness of perfidy the aspect of its inner man—whereby it might have been recognized by the Creator—beginning with present evils, it condemned itself under eternal vengeance. For as with a changed countenance it is not recognized by its Author, being reprobated when the faith of a good conscience is lost. But surely it remains that the grief of punishments should torment her whom her own Creator, not recognizing, ignores.
Since, therefore, we have run through these things under the signification of our Redeemer, let us now go over them again by examining them morally. THE MORAL SENSE.—50. Chapter ix, Verse 25: 'My days have been swifter than a runner; they have fled away, and have not seen good.'—Of what goods man, by sinning, was despoiled, and to what evils he became liable.—As we have often already said, the first man was so created that his life might only be extended by the increments of time, not run out. But because he fell of his own accord into fault, when he touched what was forbidden, he suffered a running-down, which now man, oppressed by desire of the present life, both unceasingly endures and desires. For lest it be ended, he craves to live, but by the increments of life he daily tends to the end.
Nor does he well perceive how the increments of time are nothing, save when suddenly those things become past which, while coming, seemed long. The holy man, therefore, let him look upon the state of his own condition, and from the voice of the human race let him lament the losses of its running-down, saying: 'My days have been swifter than a runner; they have fled away, and have not seen good.' As if he openly said: For this was man created, that he might have been able to see the good, which is God; but he who would not stand in the light, by fleeing lost his eyes, because, since through fault he began to run down to the depths, he thereby suffered blindness, that he might not see the inmost light. Of which days it is still fitly subjoined: 'They have passed by like ships bearing fruits.'
Ships, when they carry fruits, bear the fruits of the earth, namely, over the waves. But the earth of man was paradise, which could have held him unshaken, if he had willed to stand through innocence. But because through fault he fell to the waves of mutability, he came, after the earth, to the seas of the present life. The fruits, too, of this earth were the word of the commandment, the granted possibility of work, and the understanding of the Creator implanted in nature. But these fruits, which we refused to eat in the earth, we carry over the seas, because the granted goods of so many gifts we would not guard, unshaken, in paradise, and now we strive to keep them amid temptations. Tending to our end, we are driven by the breeze of the present life, and are wearied by the wave of our own mutability.
But because through the mystery of the Cross we are restrained back to the inborn goods of nature, we carry the fruits, as it were, by means of wood. Yet this can be understood also otherwise. For ships, when they carry fruits, have the sweetness of fragrance, but they do not have the heaviness of weight. And the human race, expelled from the joys of paradise, lost the power of contemplation, forfeited the strength of its created fortitude; and when it raises itself to seek again the things above, it is indeed fragrant with the scent of memory, but it does not worthily put forth the weight of life. It is filled, therefore, with the fragrances of fruits, and yet the ship of our mind is lightly driven this way and that, because we both remember the height of paradise with the recollection of fragrance, and endure from the flesh the importunate waves of temptations.
Whence it is fitly subjoined: 'As an eagle flying to its food.' For the eagle is suspended in a very high flight, and is borne aloft to the upper air with swift effort; but through the appetite of the belly it seeks the earth, and suddenly pours itself down from the heights. So, so did the human race in its first parent fall from the heights to the depths, which the dignity of its condition had suspended in the loftiness of reason, as though in the freedom of the air; but because, against the precept, it touched the forbidden food, through the concupiscence of the belly it came to the earth; and, as it were after flight, it is fed on flesh, because it lost those free breathing-holes of contemplation, and is gladdened downwards with bodily pleasures.
As an eagle, therefore, flying to its food, our days swiftly pass, because, the more we seek the depths, the more we are forbidden to abide in life. 51. Hard questions concerning man's fall, which are to be curbed. Even to a righteous mind, blindness is nonetheless hard.—But when we revolve these things before the eyes of the mind in continual thought, we are silently pressed by hard questions: why did almighty God create him whom He foreknew was to perish? why did He who is supremely powerful and supremely good by no means will to make man such as could not perish? But when the silent mind asks these things, it is afraid lest by the very daring of its questioning it burst forth into pride, and it humbly represses itself and restrains its thoughts.
But it is the more grievously afflicted, in that, amid the evils which it endures, it is tortured also by the hidden understanding of its own condition. Whence here too it is fitly subjoined: 'When I shall say, I will by no means speak thus, I change my countenance, and I am tormented with grief.' For we say that we ought by no means to speak thus when, passing beyond the measure of our infirmity in inquiry, we reprehend ourselves with dread, and rein ourselves in by the consideration of supernal reverence. In which reining-in, namely, the countenance of our mind is changed, because that which before, not grasping, was boldly demanding the highest things, afterward, recognizing its own infirmity, begins to venerate what it does not know.
But in this very exchange there is grief, for he is sorely afflicted, since by the desert of the first fault he is blinded to the understanding of the things that concern it. The things he suffers he judges to be just; he dreads lest through the license of speech he go beyond measure in his grief; he enjoins silence upon his mouth, yet the grief once stirred is increased by the very thing by which it is restrained. Let him say therefore: When I shall say, In no wise will I speak thus, I change my countenance, and I am racked with grief; for we are then most often the more grievously afflicted, when, as if in the pursuit of consolation, we strive to lighten the evils of our affliction. But whoever, having now subtly weighed the condemnation propagated from our first parent, considers the losses of the human race, it remains for him to fear to add his own to these.
Whence the holy man, after he has set forth things common, suddenly subjoins things particular, saying: Verse 28. — I feared all my works, knowing that thou wouldst not spare the offender. 52. He teaches that Job feared even for his good works. — What works the blessed Job practised, the text of this sacred history shows. For with manifold holocausts he strove to appease the Author, since, according to the number of his sons, as it is written, rising up at dawn, he offered holocausts for each one; and he cleansed them not only from unclean deeds, but from depraved thought as well. Of whom, Scripture bearing witness, it is related: For he said, Lest perchance my sons have sinned, and have blessed God in their hearts (Job i, 5).
He exercised therefore the disposition of compassion, since being pressed concerning himself by the questionings of his friends he says: I wept of old for him that was afflicted (Job xxx, 25). He bestowed the ministry of piety, who says: I was an eye to the blind, and a foot to the lame (Job xxix, 15). He kept the cleanness of chastity in his heart, who lays himself open by protestation, saying: If my heart hath been deceived over a woman (Job xxxi, 9). He held the summit of humility at his very core, who says: If I despised to submit to judgment with my manservant and my maidservant, when they contended against me (Ibid., 13). He bestowed the benefits of bounty, who says: If I have eaten my morsel alone, and the fatherless hath not eaten thereof (Ibid., 17). And again:
If his loins have not blessed me, and if he were not warmed with the fleece of my sheep (Ibid., 20). He displayed the grace of hospitality, who says: The stranger did not lodge without; my door was open to the wayfarer (Ibid., 32). And amid these, unto the very crown of the virtues, by the more excellent way of charity, he loved even his enemies, who says: If I rejoiced at the ruin of him that hated me (Ibid., 29); and again: For I gave not my throat to sin, by wishing a curse to his soul (Ibid., 30). Why then did the holy man fear his own works, who always displayed such works as those by which God is wont to be appeased toward iniquities? What then is this, that doing wondrous works, he yet fears these very works in dread, when he says:
I feared all my works — save that in the deeds and words of the holy man we gather that, if we truly desire to please God, after we have subdued perverse things, we should fear even the things well done in us? [Old Version XXVI.] 53. In them are to be dreaded sloth and fraud. — For there are two things which in good works must needs be studiously dreaded, namely sloth and fraud. Whence also it is said through the prophet in the ancient translation: Cursed be everyone that doeth the work of God fraudulently and slothfully (Jerem. xlviii, 10). But it must be greatly known that sloth is born of torpor, fraud of private love; for the one a lesser love of God magnifies, while the other a self-love, possessing the mind for ill, creates.
For whoever, loving himself inordinately, hastens through that which he has rightly done toward the transitory goods of reward, perpetrates fraud in the work of God. It must also be known that this fraud is committed in three ways, since through it there is, without doubt, desired either the hidden favour of the human heart, or the breath of applause, or some outward thing whatsoever. Whereby, on the contrary, it is rightly said of the just man through the prophet: Blessed is he that shaketh his hands from every bribe (Isai. xxxiii, 15). For since fraud is not only in the taking of money, without doubt the bribe is not one thing only. There are indeed three takings of bribes, toward which one hastens out of fraud. For a bribe from the heart is favour caught from thought.
A bribe from the mouth is glory through applause. A bribe from the hand is reward through a gift. But every just man shakes his hands from every bribe, since in that which he rightly does he seeks neither empty glory from the human heart, nor praise from the mouth, nor to receive a gift from the hand. He alone therefore commits no fraud in the work of God, who, while he keeps watch upon the pursuits of good action, pants neither after the rewards of bodily things, nor after the words of praise, nor after the favour of human judgment. These our good things, therefore, since they cannot escape the sword of the ambushing fault unless they are daily fortified with anxious fear, are now rightly spoken of through the holy man: I feared all my works. As if it were said in humble confession:
What I have done openly I see, but what I have secretly incurred in these I know not. [Old Version XXVII.] For often our good things perish through robbing fraud, since they subject themselves to earthly concupiscence by our upright deeds. Often, sloth intervening, they fail, since from the fervour with which they were begun they waste away as love grows cold. Since therefore the stealthy encroachment of fault is scarcely overcome even in the very act of virtue, what remains for security save that one should always fear studiously even in virtue? 54. No sin is unpunished. — But after these things, what he subjoins presents to the heart a very scrupulous matter: Knowing that thou wouldst not spare the offender.
For if the offender is not spared, who is snatched from eternal death, since no one is found free from offence? Or does He spare the penitent and not spare the offender? For when we bewail our sins, we are by no means still offenders. But what of this, that Peter, when he denies, is looked upon, and by the look of the denied Redeemer is called to tears? What of this, that Paul, when he strove to blot out the name of the Redeemer on earth, deserved to hear His words from heaven? Yet nevertheless the fault was punished in each, for both of Peter, the Gospel bearing witness, it is written: Peter remembered the word of Jesus, and going forth, he wept bitterly (Luke xxii, 61). And of Paul the same Truth that called him says:
I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake (Acts ix, 16). The Lord therefore by no means spares the offender, since He does not leave the offence without vengeance. For either the man himself, being penitent, punishes this in himself, or God, taking vengeance along with the man, smites it. In no wise, therefore, is sin spared, since it is in no way loosed without vengeance. Thus David (On Penance, dist. 1, ch. Si peccatum) deserved after his confession to hear: The Lord hath taken away thy sin (2 Kings xii, 13). And yet, afflicted afterward with many torments and a fugitive, he paid the guilt of the fault he had committed. Thus we are absolved by the water of salvation from the fault of our first parent; yet nevertheless, while washing away the guilt of that same fault, though absolved we still die carnally.
Well therefore is it said: Knowing that thou wouldst not spare the offender, since He cuts away our offences, whether through ourselves or through Himself, even when He remits them. For He is zealous to wipe away from His elect, by temporal affliction, the stains of iniquities which He wills not to see in them for ever. But often the mind, while it trembles more than is just, while it is shaken with dread, while it is pressed by sinister suspicions, is wearied of living this life which it doubts it will ever attain unto life whether through its labours. Whence also there is subsequently added: Verse 29. — But if I am wicked even so, why have I laboured in vain?