約伯倫理 第 718 章

Verse 15. — 'The riches which he devoured he shall vomit up, and God shall draw them out of his belly.' — Despising good work, the hypocrite often loses even knowledge. — The hypocrite wishes to know the divine words, yet not to do them. He wishes to speak learnedly, not to live. Therefore, because he does not do what he knows, he loses even that which he knows; so that, because he does not join a pure working to his knowledge, having despised the purity of good work, he carries away knowledge also. And so the riches of the sacred law, which by reading he devoured, by forgetting he vomits up, and God draws them out of his belly, because what he was unwilling to observe, by a just judgment He plucks out of his memory, lest he should hold in his tongue at least the precepts of God which he did not keep in his life. Whence by the Prophet it is said:

'But to the sinner God said: Why dost thou declare my justices, and take my covenant in thy mouth?' (Psalm xlix. 16). And these words of doctrine, if it ever happens that the hypocrite is seen to retain them in his mouth even to the end, he shall thence be the more condemned, whence even the wicked is not at all deprived of the good gift of God. For it is written: 'To those who retain his commandments in memory, that they may do them' (Psalm cii. 18). He therefore who retains His commandments in memory, but in no way does them, holds in the words of doctrine the sentences by which he shall be condemned. [Received Version VIII.] — The sacred discourses are unto eternal condemnation to those who either are unwilling to know them, or, knowing them, despise them. — For hence it is written in Zechariah:

'What seest thou, Zechariah? And I said: I see a flying volume; the length thereof is twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof ten cubits. And he said to me: This is the curse that shall go forth over the face of the whole earth; for every thief, as it is there written, shall be judged' (Zechariah v. 2). For what is the flying volume, but Sacred Scripture?

For while it speaks of heavenly things, it lifts the attention of our mind to the higher things, because while we behold that Scripture to be above us, we avoid attending to, that is, coveting, the lowest things. [Old Version VII.] It is reported to have a breadth of ten cubits, but a length of twenty, because the breadth of our working is single, and the long-suffering of hope is stretched into a double measure, since for our good work both here a rest of mind, and there eternal joys, are prepared for us — the Truth attesting, who says: 'If anyone shall leave house, or fields, and the rest, he shall receive a hundredfold in this world, and in the world to come shall possess eternal life' (Matthew xix. 29; Luke xviii. 30).

For the number one hundred is made perfect by the tenfold multiplication of ten. He therefore receives a hundredfold here who, even if he has possessed nothing, yet by the very perfection of his mind now seeks in this world to possess nothing. Because therefore through this the double is rendered to us for the single, rightly is this volume stretched in length by twenty cubits, which is widened by ten. But because these very sacred discourses are unto eternal condemnation to those who either are unwilling to know them, or certainly, knowing them, despise them, rightly is it said of this volume: 'This is the curse that shall go forth over the face of the whole earth' (Zechariah v. 3). And why it is called a curse, he adds: 'For every thief, as it is there written, shall be judged.'

The hypocrite therefore, because he despises to live according to the words of the law which he knows, and seeks favours from doctrine, shall be judged a thief, because through this — that he speaks just things — he snatches for himself the praise of the life of the righteous. Concerning whom it is still well added: