約伯倫理 第 695 章

Same place.—'And there are left only lips about my teeth.' 58. Christ's teeth, the apostles, had lost all their power while He suffered.—For what else have we about our teeth but lips, even if we suffer no scourging? But what is signified by the lips but speech, and what by the teeth but the holy apostles? Who are for this reason placed in this body of the Church, that by rebuke they may bite the life of the carnal, and break it from the hardness of its obstinacy. Whence also to the first of the apostles, as it were a tooth set in His body, it is said: 'Kill and eat' (Acts x, 13).

But because at the time of His Passion these teeth, through the fear of death, lost the bite of rebuke, lost the confidence of strength, lost the efficacy of every kind of operation—so that two of them, walking after His death and resurrection, spoke on the way and said: 'We had hoped that it was He who should redeem Israel' (Luke xxiv, 21)—it is rightly now said: 'And there are left only lips about my teeth.' They still talked together about Him, but no longer believed in Him. Only the lips, then, had remained about His teeth, because they had lost the power of good operation, and retained only the words of talk about Him. They had lost the bite of rebuke, and had the movement of speech.

The lips, therefore, are left only about the teeth, because they still indeed knew how to talk together, but were now afraid to preach Him, or to bite the vices of the unbelieving. These things, then, which He spoke in the voice of the Head being finished, blessed Job returns to his own words, saying: