約伯倫理 第 647 章

1. A recapitulation of the things said above.—In the earlier part of this work (Preface, chap. 2) we treated how almighty God, in order to correct the minds of those placed under the law, brought forward the life of blessed Job for a testimony—one who knew not the law, and yet held it; who kept the precepts of life which he had not received in writing. His action is first praised with God attesting, and afterward is permitted to be tested with the devil laying snares, so that through the trials of tribulation he might show how much he had before advanced in tranquillity. His life the enemy of the human race, wicked after his manner, both knew to be praised with God attesting, and yet sought out to tempt.

When he could not lay him low, though smitten with so many losses of goods, with so many bereavements, he stirred up his wife as a goad of evil persuasion, that at least through familiar words he might corrupt him whom through so many torments of tidings he could by no means overthrow. But when, by the help of a woman—which against the first Adam he formerly obtained in paradise—he could not be strengthened against this second Adam placed on the dunghill, he turned himself to other devices of tempting, that he might bring in his friends as though consoling, and yet stir up their minds to the harshness of reproach; so that at least amid the scourges, harsh words might overcome him whose patience the scourges had not conquered.

But the enemy, craftily laying snares, endured the frustration of the fraud which he had prepared against the holy man, because to the holy man he supplied as many causes of victory as he brought occasions of perdition. Against torments indeed he held patience, against words wisdom, because he both bore the pains of the blows with equanimity, and wisely bridled the folly of those who evilly persuaded. But because in those very sufferings and learned discourses he holds the type of holy Church, his friends, as we have often already said, speaking some things right and some things foolish, are not undeservedly figured as heretics, who, in that they are friends to the holy man, say many right things concerning the reprobate;

but because they hold the appearance of heretics, for the most part in the excess of their mouth they run riot, and with the darts of their words they strike the breast of the holy man, but against his unconquerable mind they are wearied by their very own striking. We therefore ought with subtle discretion to distinguish both what there is in their words that they truly perceive concerning the reprobate, and what there is that sounds foolish against blessed Job.