約伯倫理 第 573 章

Verse 13: 'Why does your spirit swell against God, that you utter such words out of your mouth?' 36. The words of the righteous and of the wicked are often alike, but the heart unlike. Heretics mingle certain true things with false ones, which are not to be rejected. — Very often the righteous, afflicted by certain necessities, are compelled to confess their own works — which blessed Job had done, whom the scourges pressed down after his righteousness; but when the unjust hear their sayings, they reckon these to have been uttered through exaltation rather than through truth. For they weigh the words of the righteous by their own hearts, and do not think that good words can be spoken humbly.

For just as it is a grievous fault for a man to arrogate to himself what he is not, so very often there is no fault if he humbly says the good that he is. Whence it often happens that the righteous and the unjust have like words, yet always a heart far unlike; and by the same sayings whereby the Lord is offended by the unjust, in these same He is also appeased by the righteous. For the Pharisee, entering the temple, said: 'I fast twice on the Sabbath, I give tithes of all that I possess' (Luke 18:12); yet the publican went out more justified than he. Hezekiah too, the king, when, afflicted by bodily distress, he had come to the extremity of life, being pricked in prayer, said:

'I beseech You, O Lord, remember, I pray, how I have walked before You in truth and with a perfect heart' (Isa. 38:3). Nor yet did the Lord despise or refuse this confession of his perfection, whom soon after He heard in his prayers. Behold, the Pharisee justified himself in work, and Hezekiah asserted himself to be righteous even in thought; and whence the one gave offence, thence the other appeased the Lord. Why then this, unless because almighty God weighs the words of each from their thoughts, and in His ears those things are not proud which are uttered with a humble heart? Whence blessed Job, when he brought forth his own works, in no way swelled against God, because what he had truly done he said humbly.

But heretics are wont to mingle some true things with the sayings of their errors; and the friends of blessed Job, although in reproving him they are altogether deceived, can yet also say certain true things, which they learned from his constant company. If all their sayings were to be refuted, the apostle Paul would by no means have brought forward a sentence of Eliphaz, saying: 'He takes the wise in their own craftiness' (1 Cor. 3:19). Since therefore even the right things which they say, they do not say rightly against blessed Job, let us in their sayings both cast out the vice of indiscretion, and sift the strength of rectitude. There follows: