約伯倫理 第 720 章

Verse 17. — 'Let him not see the streams of the river, the torrents of honey and butter.' — The hypocrite is without part in faith, hope, and charity. — In the Gospel the Lord says: 'He that believeth in me, as the Scripture saith, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water' (John vii. 38). Where the Evangelist subjoins, saying: 'Now this he said of the Spirit which they should receive who believed in him.' The streams therefore are the gifts of the river, of the Holy Spirit. A stream of the river is charity, a stream of the river is faith, a stream of the river is hope. But because every hypocrite loves neither God nor neighbour, since he seeks the transitory glory of the world, he does not see the streams of the river, because he is not flooded with the irrigation of charity.

The hypocrite, while he seeks present gains, despises future gifts, and not having faith, does not see the stream of the river in his mind, because faith is 'the argument of things not appearing' (Hebrews xi. 1). And while the hypocrite retains the things which are seen, he neglects the hope of the things which are not seen. Therefore he does not see the stream of the river through desire, because he attends to visible things alone. And it is written: 'For what a man seeth, why doth he hope for?' (Romans viii. 24). He would therefore have seen the streams of the river, if he had closed his eyes to the glory of the present world, and had opened them to the love of the heavenly homeland. And it is to be noted that he says not 'rivers,' but 'streams' (little rivers).

For by the streams of the river can be taken those spiritual gifts which so subtly run into the mind of the lover from heavenly things that they cannot be expressed through the mouth of the flesh. For often the soul of the lover is so filled with the gift of contemplation that it is able to see what it is not able to speak. But the rushing river is the very inundation of the Holy Spirit, which is gathered into the mind of the contemplative by an overflowing infusion, when the mind is filled more than it is sufficient to understand. [Old Version IX.] And it is to be known that when the grace of the Holy Spirit floods us, it fills us alike with honey and with butter. For honey falls from above, but butter is gathered from the milk of animals. Honey therefore is from the air, but butter is from flesh.

But the Only-begotten of the Most High Father, though He is God above all things, was made man among all things. Who, when He filled us with the sweetness of His divinity and the mystery of His incarnation, satiated us alike with honey and with butter. Because therefore the Spirit of Christ gladdens the mind which He has filled both with the sweetness of His divinity and with the faith of His incarnation, these are recorded to be the streams of the rushing river of honey together with butter, because they both refresh the mind with the lofty sweetness of the knowledge of God, and anoint it with the mystery of the grace of the charism of the incarnation. But this hypocrite, because, poured out in outward favours, he does not perceive these inward gifts, to what he shall tend after his punishments is added, when it is subjoined: