約伯倫理 第 579 章

Same verse: 'And the number of the years of his tyranny is uncertain.' 43. Death ought to be feared, because it cannot be foreseen. — He ought by no means to have been proud, even if he could have had the number of his years certain, so that, knowing how long he would live, he might foreknow when he should remove himself from exaltation. But since the present life is always uncertain, death, which steals upon us, ought always to be feared so much the more, the less it can ever be foreseen. Well moreover does he call the pride of the impious a 'tyranny.' For properly is he called a tyrant who rules in the common commonwealth not by right. But it is to be known that every proud man exercises tyranny after his own manner.

For what one man does sometimes in the commonwealth — that is, through received power of dignity — another does in a province, another in a city, another in his own house, another through hidden wickedness exercises this in his own thought within himself. Nor does the Lord regard how much of evil each is able to do, but how much he wills. And when power is lacking outwardly, he is a tyrant within himself, over whom iniquity rules inwardly, because although outwardly he does not afflict his neighbours, yet inwardly he desires to have power, that he may afflict. And because almighty God weighs hearts, the impious man has already done in His eyes what he has thought.

But for this end our Creator willed our end to be hidden from us, that while we are uncertain when we shall die, we may always be found ready for death. Whence rightly, after it was said: 'All his days the impious man is proud,' he adds: 'And the number of the years of his tyranny is uncertain.' As if it were plainly said: 'Why is he exalted as though concerning something certain, whose life is held under the penalty of uncertainty?' But almighty God not only reserves future punishments for those who act wickedly, but even here entangles their hearts with pains where they transgress, so that by the very thing wherein they sin they may strike themselves, so that, always trembling and always suspicious, they may fear to suffer evils from others which they remember they have done to others. Whence it is further subjoined concerning this impious man: