約伯倫理 第 438 章

Verse 2. — 'I will say to God: Do not condemn me; show me why Thou dost so judge me.' 68. God here judges and punishes us in two ways. — Because he declares himself a sinner in the bitterness of his soul, what else does he say to God than that he may not be condemned? For the bitterness of present penance extinguishes the punishments of the wrath to come. Now in two ways God judges man in this life: for either through present evils He already begins to inflict the torments that follow, or He extinguishes the torments that follow by means of present scourgings. For unless the just Judge, at the demand of offenses, smote certain men both now and afterward, Jude would by no means have said, 'Afterward He destroyed those who did not believe' (Jude 5); and of the wicked the Psalmist would not say:

'Let them be clothed with their own confusion as with a double cloak' (Psalm 108:29). For by 'diploid' we mean a double garment. Therefore they are clothed with confusion as with a double cloak who, according to the desert of their guilt, are struck both with a temporal and with an everlasting punishment. For punishment frees from torment only those whom it changes. For those whom present evils do not correct, it leads on to the evils that follow. But if present punishment did in no wise defend certain men from eternal torment, Paul would by no means have said: 'When we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with this world' (1 Corinthians 11:32). Hence by the angelic voice it is said to John: 'As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten' (Revelation 3:19). Hence also it is written:

'Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth' (Hebrews 12:6). 69. That the mind of the just man, in order to be secure, trembles. — Often therefore the mind of the just man, that it may be the more secure, trembles the more deeply; and when it is girt about with scourges, it is troubled by the uncertainty of the heavenly judgment. It is afraid lest all that it suffers be the beginning of the condemnation that follows; and through its thoughts it interrogates the Judge, because in the smiting it is in doubt concerning the merits of its own life. But when the virtue of its life is brought back before the eyes of the mind, there is as it were a consolation given in answer by the Judge, because He by no means smites unto destruction the one whom, by striking, He guards in innocence of deed. Rightly therefore is it now said: 'Show me why Thou dost so judge me.' As if it were openly said:

'Since Thou judgest me by scourging, show that Thou renderest me secure as to the judgment through these scourges.' Yet this can also be understood in another way. For very often the just man receives scourges for his proving, and, examining his life with most subtle scrutiny, although he both feels and confesses himself a sinner, yet for what particular fault he is smitten he by no means knows; and he trembles the more in the smiting the more he is ignorant of the causes of his smiting. He asks that the Judge would show himself to himself, so that what the Judge has struck in punishing, this he too, by weeping, may in himself chastise.

For he knows that the most just Avenger in no way afflicts any one of us unjustly, and he is shaken with great fear, because he both grieves under the lash and yet is not perfectly able to detect within himself that which he should bewail. Whence it is further added: