約伯倫理 第 602 章

Verses 4-6. — And would that your soul were in the place of my soul! I too would console you with words, and would shake my head over you. I would strengthen you with my mouth, and would move my lips, as though sparing you. 5. Divine scourges ought sometimes to be wished upon the wicked. — Sometimes it is necessary that divine scourges be kindly wished upon perverse minds which cannot be corrected by human preaching. When this is done with great zeal of love — namely, not the punishment of the erring, but his correction is sought — it is shown to be a prayer rather than a curse.

In these words blessed Job is shown to intend this: that his friends, who did not know how to suffer with him in his sorrow through charity, might learn by experience how they ought to have shown pity to another's affliction; and, tamed by sorrows, might draw from their own suffering how they should offer consolation to others; and might live the more wholesomely within, when they felt something outwardly of infirmity. It is to be noted that he does not say: Would that my soul were in the place of your soul! but: Would that your soul were in the place of my soul! For assuredly he would be cursing himself, if he wished to become like them. But he wished better things for those whom he sought to become like himself.

We indeed console the depraved when they are set under scourges, when we point out that from the outward blow inward health is gaining strength in them. We also shake our head when we bend the mind, which is our chief part, to compassion. And we strengthen them amid the scourges when we soothe the force of their sorrow with gentle words. For there are some who, while they know nothing of inward things, are desperately afflicted by outward evils; concerning whom it is said through the Psalmist: In their miseries they shall not stand fast (Ps. 139:11). For he indeed knows well how to stand fast amid outward miseries, who knows always to rejoice from inward hope. 6. Sometimes the Church, as it were sparing, does not spare, and, as it were not sparing, spares.

— But that he does not say Sparing, but As though sparing you, I think this is by no means to be passed over carelessly; because holy Church, preserving the vigor of discipline with an admixture of gentleness, sometimes both as though sparing does not spare the wicked, and sometimes as though not sparing does spare them. This we shall show better if we bring forward the very things that generally happen. Let us therefore set before the eyes of the mind two depraved men established in holy Church, of whom one is powerful and insolent, the other meek and submissive. If any fault has stolen upon the meek and submissive man, the preacher forthwith pursues it by rebuking and corrects him, and by correcting frees him from the fault, and restores him to the way of rectitude.

What then did he do to this man but, by not sparing, spare him, since, by not deferring the word of correction, he freed him the sooner from fault? For freely reproving, he did not spare, but in that he corrected him, he spared. But on the contrary, when the powerful and insolent man is known to have committed something, a time is sought in which he may be rebuked for the evil he has done. For unless the preacher takes up the moment when he can fittingly bear correction, he increases in him the evil which he pursues. For it often happens that such a one is of a kind who would accept no words of rebuke.

What then is to be done by the preacher concerning this man's fault, except that, in the sermon of admonition which he delivers for the common salvation of all his hearers, he bring into the open such faults as he considers this man to have committed — a man who is present, and who as yet cannot be reproved concerning himself alone, lest he become worse? And when the invective is directed generally against the fault, the word of correction is willingly borne to the mind, because the powerful sinner does not know that this is said specially to him. What then did his preacher do to this man but, sparing, by no means spare him — the man to whom he did not specially bring words of correction, and yet whose wound he struck under a common admonition?

Whence it often comes to pass that he laments the fault he has committed all the more vehemently, in that he supposes his guilt, even when struck, to remain unknown. 7. With what discretion the insolent are to be corrected. — With great art of preaching therefore it must be brought about that those who become worse from open correction may, by a certain tempering of correction, return to health. Whence Paul also says: The members of the body which we think to be less honorable, upon these we bestow more abundant honor; and those parts of ours which are unseemly have more abundant seemliness; but our seemly parts have need of nothing (1 Cor. 12:23).

For just as the unseemly members in the body, so within holy Church there are certain powerful and insolent men who, while they cannot be smitten by open invective, are as it were veiled with the honor of a covering. But this we say of the hidden offenses of the powerful. For when they sin with others also knowing it, they are to be rebuked with others also knowing it, lest, if the preacher be silent, he seem to have approved the fault, and this, growing, come as an example — the fault which the shepherd's tongue does not cut away. Holy Church therefore, when through her preachers she rebukes certain deeds of the wicked under the dispensation of invective, moves her lips as though sparing; but yet by sparing she does not spare, because she is not generally silent about the invective against a fault of which she is specially silent. There follows: