約伯倫理 第 44 章

7. The virtues of Job are recounted. — But it must be examined more subtly why he endured so many scourges, who kept so great a guard of the virtues without reproach. Humility indeed he had, for he himself testifies: 'If I have despised to undergo judgment with my manservant and my maidservant, when they contended against me' (Job 31:13). Hospitality he displayed, as he himself attests, saying: 'The stranger did not remain without, my door lay open to the traveller' (Job 31:32). The rigour of discipline he maintained, as he himself indicates, saying: 'The princes ceased to speak, and laid their finger upon their mouth' (Job 29:9). Gentleness he kept within his rigour, as he himself confesses, saying:

'And when I sat as a king, with the army standing round about, yet I was a comforter of them that mourned' (Ibid., 25). The bounty of almsgiving he embraced, as he himself intimates, saying: 'If I have eaten my morsel alone, and the fatherless has not eaten of it' (Job 31:17). Since therefore he fulfilled all the commandments of the virtues, one thing was lacking to him: that even when scourged he might know how to give thanks. It was known that he knew how to serve God amid gifts; but it was fitting that the strictness of severity should inquire whether he would remain devoted to God even amid scourges. For punishment asks whether one who is at rest truly loves. Him the enemy indeed asked for, that he might fail, but received him that he might advance. The Lord graciously permitted to be done what the devil unjustly demanded.

For when the enemy sought him out in order to consume him, by tempting he brought it about that his merits were increased. For it is written: 'In all these things Job did not sin with his lips' (Job 1:22). And indeed certain words of his replies sound harsh to unskilled readers, because they know not how to understand the sayings of the saints devoutly, as they are meant; and because they know not how to take upon themselves the mind of one who grieves and is just, therefore they cannot rightly interpret the words of grief. For a fellow-feeling in suffering knows well how to weigh the mind of one who suffers. 8. He is acquitted by the judgment of God from the accusations of the unskilled.

— They believe, therefore, that blessed Job transgressed in his discourses, looking with too little caution, because if they censure the replies of blessed Job, they thereby testify that the sentence of the Lord concerning him was also false. For the Lord says to the devil: 'Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him upon the earth, a simple and upright man, and one that feareth God, and departeth from evil?' (verse 8). To whom the devil at once replies: 'Doth Job fear God for nought? Hast thou not made a hedge about him, and about all his household? But put forth thy hand, and touch him, if he will not bless thee to thy face' (verse 10). So the enemy exercised his strength upon blessed Job, yet nonetheless took up his contest against God.

Thus between God and the devil blessed Job stood in the midst as the subject matter of the contest. [Old VI]. Whosoever therefore asserts that the holy man, set among scourges, sinned by his words, what else does he do but reproach that God, who had put him forward on his behalf, with having been overcome? For He willed to take upon Himself the cause of the one tempted, who both preferred him before the scourges, and, preferring him, permitted him to be tempted through the scourges. If therefore Job is said to have gone too far, his praiser is declared to have succumbed—although even the gifts bestowed testify that Job in no way offended. For who does not know that not rewards but punishments are due to faults?

He therefore who merited to receive double of what he had lost, taught by his recompense that everything he said was in no way a vice but a virtue. To this assertion is further added the fact that he himself intercedes for his offending friends. For one placed in grave sins, while he is weighed down by his own, does not wash away the sins of others. He is therefore shown to be clean of himself, who was able to obtain cleansing for others. But if it displeases some that he himself narrated his own good deeds, it must be known that amid so many losses of possessions, amid so many wounds of the body, amid so many burials of his children, while friends came to console him and burst forth into rebuke, he was being compelled to despair of his life;

and him whom so many losses had afflicted, the insulting words of those who rebuked him were besides striking. For these, who had come to console, while they reproached him as it were with his injustice, were driving him utterly to despair of himself. That therefore he recalls his good deeds to mind is not to exalt himself through boasting; but, as one collapsing amid words and wounds, he restores his mind to hope. For the mind is smitten with a grievous dart of despair when it is pressed by the tribulations of wrath from above, and is urged without by the reproaches of tongues. Blessed Job, therefore, pierced through by the casting of so many sorrows, while he feared to be shaken down by reproaches, recalled himself to a state of confidence by taking assurance from his past life.

In no way, therefore, did he fall into the vice of arrogance, because against the inward assault of despair he fought by the outward words of his own praises; so that while he told the good deeds he had done, he might in no way despair of the good which he had sought.