Verse 8: 'Do you accept His person, and strive to judge on God's behalf?' 38. Fools judge others with a severity proportioned to how deeply they are ignorant of their own affairs. — Fools, when they behold the deeds of the prudent, all these things seem to them reprehensible; and, forgetful of their own inexperience and infirmity, they judge concerning others' affairs the more intently, the more deeply they are ignorant of their own. But on the contrary, the just, when they rebuke the deeds of the depraved, being always conscious of their own infirmity, reprove them by raging outwardly, yet by having compassion inwardly; because it belongs to Him alone to discuss the sins of men without compassion, who by the omnipotence of His own nature knows not how to sin.
Because therefore the friends of blessed Job had thus reproved his deeds as though they themselves had nothing reprehensible in them, rightly is it now said: 'Do you accept His person, and strive to judge on God's behalf?' For to accept His person is to take up His authority in judgement; and he strives, as it were, to judge on God's behalf, who, when he reproves whatever is weak in another, is not inwardly weakened within himself through compassion. There follows: