約伯倫理 第 979 章

58. Those who cling to the Church as a garment are sometimes, by the force of torments, torn away from her. — If we attend to the history, what else do we understand the garment of blessed Job to be but his body? whose garment, that is, is consumed while his flesh is tortured. But according to the mystery of allegory, the garment of holy Church is the life of the faithful. For just as the whole Church together is the garment of Christ, so each of the faithful are reckoned garments of that same Church. For if holy Church were not the garment of Christ, Paul assuredly would not have said: That He might present to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle (Eph. v, 27);

that is, having no spot through sin, nor wrinkle through duplicity; for she is both clean through righteousness, and stretched out taut through single-minded intention. She therefore who is washed that she may have no spot, and stretched taut that she may have no wrinkle, is assuredly a garment. As therefore the whole Church in general is called the vesture of Christ, so the souls of individual persons are the vesture of the Church — souls which, converted from error, encircle that same Church by believing and by faithfully cleaving to her. Of these the Lord says to the same Church through the prophet: As I live, thou shalt be clothed with all these as with an ornament (Isai. XLIX, 18). But when the storm of savage persecution arises, very many of the faithful, who seemed to cleave to her diligently, are severed from her love. Let her therefore say:

By reason of their multitude my garment is consumed; for while there are but few who inflict torment, many are destroyed who had cleaved to her by the bond of love. 59. The reprobate strive to extinguish in the Church the life of faith and the voice of preaching. — Well is it added: And they have girded me about as with the collar of my tunic. For the collar of a tunic encircles the neck of the one who wears it. But if the neck is constricted, the use of the voice and the vital breath are choked. The reprobate therefore constrict holy Church as with the collar of a tunic, because in their persecutions they strive to extinguish in her the life of faith and the voice of preaching. For this her persecutors especially aim to accomplish: that above all things they may take from her the word of preaching.

Hence also those who resisted the first beginnings of holy faith gave charge to the beaten Apostles, saying: We straitly commanded you that ye should not teach in this name, and behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine (Acts v, 28). They had therefore girded the body of holy Church as with the collar of a tunic, who, by binding the preachers, and, as it were, pressing upon her neck, wished to close within her the passage of the voice. But the elect, in the time of their persecution, are readier to die than to be silent. And while they fall bodily in death, they are despised and esteemed worthless by all the foolish and the carnal; for since the reprobate cannot see the good things which the elect hold spiritually, they judge those wretched whom they behold extinguished carnally.

Whence also it is added: