約伯倫理 第 48 章

16. By their names Job signifies Christ, his friends heretics. — For because blessed Job holds the likeness of the Redeemer to come, he shows it even by his name. For Job is interpreted 'grieving.' By which grief, doubtless, either the passion of the Mediator or the labour of the holy Church is expressed, which is tormented by the manifold weariness of the present life. His friends too, by the appellation of their name, indicate the desert of their action. For Eliphaz is said in the Latin tongue 'contempt of the Lord.' And what else do heretics do, but that, while they think false things of God, they contemn Him by their pride? Baldad is interpreted 'oldness alone.'

But rightly are all heretics, in those things which they speak of God, called 'oldness alone,' while, not with right intention but with the appetite for temporal glory, they seek to seem preachers. For to speaking they are stirred not by zeal of the new man, but by the depravity of the old life. Sophar too is said in the Latin tongue 'the scattering of the watch-tower,' or 'scattering the speculation.' For the minds of the faithful raise themselves to contemplate heavenly things; but while heretics seek to pervert the words of those rightly contemplating, they endeavour to scatter the watch-tower. [Old XIII.] In the three names of Job's friends, therefore, three cases of the perdition of heretical minds are expressed. For unless they contemned God, they would in no way think perverse things of Him;

and unless they drew a heart of oldness, they would not err in the understanding of the new life; and unless they destroyed the speculation of the good, the judgments from above would in no way reprove them with so strict an examination for the fault of their words. By contemning God, therefore, they retain themselves in oldness: but by retaining themselves in oldness, they harm the speculation of the upright by their depraved discourses.