約伯倫理 第 605 章

Verse 9. — My wrinkles bear witness against me. 10. The wrinkles of the Church are the wicked Christians. — What is designated by wrinkles but duplicity? The wrinkles of holy Church, then, are all who live within her in a double manner, who proclaim the faith with their voices but deny it with their works. These indeed, in a time of peace, because they see this same faith to be held in honor by the powers of this world, lie that they are faithful. But when a sudden storm of adversity has troubled holy Church, they at once show what they were contriving in their treacherous mind. But holy Church does not have these wrinkles in her elect, because indeed they know not how to show one thing of themselves outwardly and to have another within. Whence the excellent preacher rightly says:

That he might present to himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle (Eph. 5:27). She has indeed neither spot nor wrinkle, who is free both from the baseness of works and from the duplicity of speech. But because now within the bosom of the faith she holds also many reprobate, when the time of persecution has blazed forth, she suffers as enemies those very ones whom she seemed before to nourish with the words of preaching. Let her therefore say: My wrinkles bear witness against me — that is, they themselves rebuke me by persecuting me, who now, set within my body, do not conceal the malice of their duplicity in themselves. Whence it is well added still: — Ibid. — And a liar is raised up against my face, contradicting me. 11. Through the wicked the devil rages.

— Even in the time of her peace holy Church suffers falsehood, while there are in her many who distrust the promise of eternity, and yet lie that they are faithful. These, while they do not presume openly to contradict her preaching, she suffers their falsehood not against her face, but as it were behind her back. But when the time of malice has burst forth, he who now, being afraid, disparages her, comes to contradict her before her face, because he opposes with open voice the words of the true faith. But it is to be known that when we suffer these things from carnal men, it is not so much they themselves who rage in our death, as the malignant spirit who rules over their minds, as is said through Paul:

Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world (Eph. 6:12). Whence, when here too he was speaking of falsehood, he fittingly at once turns his words to describing the prince of that falsehood, saying: