約伯倫理 第 793 章

Chapter 23, Verses 1, 2. — But Job answered and said: Now also my speech is in bitterness, and the hand of my plague is aggravated above my groaning. Disordered consolation increases grief. — After his manner, blessed Job begins with plainer words, but consummates his sayings with a deep pursuit of mystery. For the grief of the afflicted ought to have been healed by the consolation of his friends; but because the consolation broke out into the flatteries of deceit, the grief of the afflicted bristled up. For because Eliphaz did not fear to promise better things to one converted, the wound grew, as it were, from a harmful medicine. Whence it is rightly said:

Now also my speech is in bitterness, and the hand of my plague is aggravated above my groaning — because, of course, the intention of a disordered consolation multiplied the blow which it ought to have lessened. In which words, indeed, by the type of holy Church, the grief of the faithful also is expressed, who groan the more, the more they behold the wicked fawning — those who, according to Paul's word: By sweet words and blessings seduce the hearts of the innocent (Romans 16:18). The minds of the faithful know not how to be without bitterness. — Which words also are rightly referred to the more subtle consideration of the mind of the faithful, who know not how to be without bitterness even if they seem to prosper in this world.

To whom, when adversity also comes, it redoubles the grief which it finds. Whence it is rightly said: Now also my speech is in bitterness, that it may be openly shown that the mind of the elect was not without bitterness even in prosperity. And it is well said: And the hand of my plague is aggravated above my groaning. For the hand of the plague is the strength of the blow. For the elect consider their first blow — namely, that they are divided from the vision of their Creator, that they by no means enjoy the brightness of inmost illumination, but groan in the exile of this present life, banished, as it were, into a place of blindness. Always, therefore, they have in this hand of the plague their groaning.

But when, even in this life, adversities also befall, the hand of their plague is weighed down even above the groaning. For there was a groaning of the plague even when the adversities of the present life were absent. But the bitterness of the first blow grows even out of the temptation of adversity. He says therefore: And the hand of my plague is aggravated above my groaning: because adversity in this life struck each just man not glad, but multiplied in him the grief of the wound. Yet it comes to pass, by the wondrous governance of Almighty God, that when in this world the mind of the just labors more under adversities, it thirsts the more to contemplate the face of its Author. Whence here it is aptly subjoined: