約伯倫理 第 487 章

Ver. 4. — He who is derided by his friend as I am, shall call upon God, and He will hear him. 47. To one acting rightly, how praise may harm, how men's mockery may profit. Mockery profits where there is no merit of guilt. — Often a weak mind, when the breeze of human favor is received for good deeds, is drawn away to outward joys, so that it postpones what it inwardly desires, and willingly lies dissolved in this — in what it outwardly hears; so that it rejoices to be called blessed rather than to become so. And while it pants after the voices of its own praise, it relinquishes what it had begun to be. Thence, therefore, it is disjoined from God, whence it seemed praiseworthy in God. But sometimes the soul leans steadfastly upon a right work, and yet is pressed by human mockeries: it does wondrous things, and receives reproaches;

and he who could go out abroad through praises, being repelled by insults, returns to himself; and he settles himself the more robustly within in God, the less he finds outwardly where to rest. For all his hope is fixed upon the Author, and amid the revilings of mockeries the sole inner Witness is implored; and the mind of the afflicted becomes the nearer to God, the more it is estranged even from the grace of human favor; it is at once poured forth into prayer, and, pressed outwardly, it is more purely melted for penetrating the things that are within. Well, therefore, is it now said: He who is derided by his friend as I am shall call upon God, and He will hear him; because, while the depraved reproach the mind of the good, they show whom it seeks as the witness of its own deeds.

Which mind, while compunct it girds itself in prayers, is thereby within joined to the supernal hearing, whence without it is separated from human praise. But it is to be noted how providently is interposed «as I am», because there are some whom human mockeries also depress, and yet who are not audible to the divine ears. For when derision is born against guilt, assuredly no merit of virtue is generated in the derision. For the priests of Baal, imploring him with clamorous voices, had been derided by Elijah, when he said: Cry with a louder voice, for he is a god, and perhaps he is talking, or is in a lodging-place (1 Kings xviii, 27). But this derision was not for them to the use of virtue, because it came through the merit of guilt.

Providently, therefore, is it now said: He who is derided by his friend, as I am, shall call upon God, and He will hear him; because human derision makes him near to God whom innocence of life keeps estranged from human depravities. There follows: