約伯倫理 第 977 章

56. Now the elect wither in themselves, but in God they are green. — For the soul of the elect now withers, because it afterward grows green in that eternal exultation. Now the days of affliction possess them, because the days of gladness follow after. For it is written: It shall be well at the last with him that feareth God (Ecclus. i, 13, 19). And again it is said of the Church: She shall laugh in the last day (Prov. xxxi, 25). For now is the time of affliction for the good, so that there may follow them an exultation one day without time. Hence it is said by them elsewhere: Thou hast humbled us in the place of affliction (Ps. xliii, 20). For the place of affliction is the present life.

The just, therefore, here—that is, in the place of affliction—are humbled, because in the eternal life—that is, in the place of joy—they are exalted. But when he said that the soul withers, he rightly also premised, In myself; because in ourselves indeed it is afflicted, but in God our mind is refreshed; and it becomes as far from the greenness of joy as it still recedes into itself from the light thrust back by the Author. But then it attains to the greenness of true gladness, when, uplifted by the grace of eternal contemplation, it passes beyond even its very self. But these things which we have run through by allegorical searching, we ought in all points also to hold according to the history. Which nevertheless I now pass over, because I am not unaware that these are plain to the readers.

But in the days of the last persecution, because many are those who perish, and few those who are saved, therefore the holy man, in the time of his passion, speaks little concerning the good, and much concerning the perverse. Whence also he straightway turns his words to the person of those who fall; and so he intimates his own affairs, that what he narrates may be able to fit those who are falling. For there follows: