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I. ON THE PLEADING OF JOB AND ON THE INFIRMITY OF MAN. The divine Scripture shows in frequent passages that many disturbances must be undergone by us in this life, and that many consolations are at hand, by which a mind capacious of vigor and conscious of the right ought to swallow up the things that belong to present hardships, and to look toward those things which have everlasting joy. For the consolations outweigh the disturbances, since they both bring a calming of present things and a hope of things to come. Whence also the apostle Paul says: 'The sufferings of this present time are unworthy to be compared with the glory that is to come' — unworthy indeed for the consolation of comparison, not for the fruit of redemption.
For what life of any man on earth is so illustrious that it could be made equal to that heavenly glory? What is more sublime than Paul, who underwent so much peril, who drank up so much grief and infirmity? In those sufferings which he underwent for Christ's name, he died daily, as he himself says, and reckoned that he endured nothing unworthy in this time, for the hope and expectation of so great a glory. Elijah endured hunger, ambushes, the terrors of death, the bitter hardships of labors; and yet he alone, brought down from heaven to earth by fiery chariots and fiery horses, and carried back from earth to heaven, hid all the merit of this warfare and, beyond all things human, exalted the grace of his holy ascent. For of Peter what shall I say?
He, judging his own cross unworthy of the future recompense, begged to be hung with his footing inverted, that he might add something to his passion — he who did not fear to heap up tortures upon himself. Whence not without reason holy David testified that he hastened toward that glory, both in his work in general and most especially in the forty-first psalm, saying: 'When shall I come and appear before the face of God?' In which psalm he plainly expressed both the disturbances of human frailty and the consolations from the Lord.
In which he also intercedes with God on our behalf, that God should not, forgetful of his own work, forgetful of the bounty and grace bestowed upon man, whom he had undertaken to protect and adorn, abandon him and cast aside the weak and shipwrecked man, broken by diverse infirmities, to be ground down. The same thing holy Job had done before him, but this one more morally, the other more vehemently. It is therefore in my heart to consider the pleadings of both, since in these the form of human life is expressed, the cause is pleaded, the prerogative is shaped. In their own order, then, they are to be examined by us.
And so, when Job had lost his children and all that was his, except his wife, who alone had been kept for him as a temptation, and was moreover drenched with a grievous ulcer, when he saw that his friends had come not to console, but to aggravate and heap up his grief, he perceived that the power of tempting him had been given against him by the Lord to the adversary. And although he felt that the arrows of the Lord were in his body, by which he said he was pierced, nevertheless, like a good athlete who would not yield to pain nor refuse the hardships of the contest, he added: 'Though the Lord begin to wound, yet in the end let him not destroy me. For what is my strength, that I endure, or what is my time, that my soul should bear it? Is the strength of stones my strength, or is my flesh of bronze?'
'Or did I not trust in him? But help has withdrawn from me, and his visitation has despised me. Is not the life of man upon earth a temptation, and his life like that of a daily hireling, or like a servant fearing his master, who would shelter himself under a shadow, or like a hireling awaiting his wages? So I too have awaited empty months, and nights of sorrows have been given to me. If I lie down, I say, When will it be day? If I rise, again, When will it be evening? I am full of pains from evening until morning. My body ferments in the rottenness of worms; I melt the clods of earth, scraping the pus of my ulcers. My life is lighter than a tale; it perishes in empty hope. I will say, My bed shall comfort me.'
'Thou frightenest me in dreams and dost terrify me with visions.' How wretched is the condition of man, which labors as a hireling for others, is needy for itself, and cannot sustain itself except by another's mercy! Daily under dread, under fear, bearing a grievous servitude, and, lest he be caught by his master, wandering and fugitive, he thinks he can hide himself under a certain shadow of this world. Consider that man of whom Sirach says in Ecclesiasticus: 'Every man who transgresses upon his own bed, despising and saying in his soul: Who sees me? Darkness surrounds me, and walls. Whom do I fear?' Does not this man seem to you to be truly a hireling, who...
...had squandered, like that young man in the Gospel, who is read to have squandered the portion of his father's substance that he received, and, needy and destitute, in order to relieve his hunger, began to feed another's flocks, that by hire he might gain his sustenance. Yet that one was at some point converted, because he returned to his father and did not suppress his sins but disclosed them; but this man, who reckons that he is not seen by him who sees all things, and thinks his deeds can be hidden in darkness, holds out a shadow before himself, but in vain believes that he lies hidden, since the eye of the Lord, brighter than the sun, detects all hidden things, illumines dark things, penetrates the conscience of the inmost heart, and descends into the deep and profound places. Vain therefore is he who thinks he is...
...safe in darkness is vain, since he cannot avoid the light which shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not comprehend it. Like a fugitive, then, and a wicked hireling, he is caught, and before he can hide himself he is recognized, because to the Lord all things are known before he seeks them — not only the things that have been done, but also those that are to come. He therefore perishes in empty hope who thinks to conceal his own crime: that is a tale, not the truth. Indeed, the tale of sinners is hateful, having no fruit, but only a groan. 'For the narration of a fool is a burden on the road.' For what else is sin but a burden, which loads the wayfarer of this world, pressed down by the heavy bundle of his offense? And if he were unwilling to lie under the load, he ought to have heeded him who says:
'Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.' But what is more wretched, when the very bed, given for common rest, inflicts a grievous wound? For then we are wont to recall the things we have done, and the inner conscience is pricked by the goads of its own deeds. Whence also the Scripture says to these: 'The things which you say in your hearts, be pricked with remorse upon your beds.' A remedy indeed for debt, yet it has wounded the conscience. But suppose that at some time sleep steals over the weary: we are frightened by sleepless dreams, we are tossed by visions, so that now this is no longer rest, but a punishment. For thus the riches of the world depart like the dream of one waking.
Some man arose from the sleep of this body, and possessed nothing, and lost that very thing which he believed himself to have. Set before me now that rich man who gathered daily gains and various profits and was tossed about by his own desires, suddenly coming to his senses and considering within himself that, when he dies, he will not take everything with him, nor will the glory of his house descend together with him, and that the things he possesses have something of pleasure in this life, but not also in the time to come — opening his eyes to heavenly things.
Does he not seem to you like one who drank in dreams and had drunk, and like one who feasted in dreams and had feasted, but, having opened his eyes, recognized that his soul had hoped in vain and that he still hungers and still thirsts, because avarice has no measure nor is it filled by seizing, but is the more incited the more needy, the more things it has sought? This man too, then, has arisen, and the dream is empty. But let us again hear that same man speaking. His friends, who had come to console him, pressed upon him and, like enemies, harassed him with bitter words. For there is one kind of solace for those set in hardship and bitterness: to be free of fault, so that the adversities they suffer may not seem to be endured as the price of a transgression.
This too they were eager to take away from the holy man, so that he might seem the author of his own hardship, as one who had incurred the Lord's offense by grievous sins and was enduring those things for his own impieties; they described the punishments of the impious, who sow vices and reap sorrows for themselves, who perish by God's command and die by the breath of his wrath, who breathes upon the houses of clay and their inhabitants, and they dry up; who frustrates the thoughts of the crafty and stops the mouth of the unjust. These things they asserted as true indeed concerning the power of the Lord, but not as fitting to the merits of so great a man. To these, then, he answered: 'In truth I know that it is so. For how shall a mortal man be just before the Lord?'
'For if he should wish to contend in judgment with him, he will not hear him, so that he may not answer back to one word of his with a thousand speeches. For he is wise in understanding, and strong, and great. Who is so hard that he could stand in his sight? Who makes the mountains grow old, and they know it not, and overturns them in his anger; who moves the circle of the earth from its foundations, and its pillars are shaken; who says to the sun, and it does not rise, and seals up the stars; who alone stretches out heaven and walks as upon a pavement above the sea; who makes the Pleiades and the evening star and the north, and the service of the south; who does great things and unsearchable, glorious and immense, of which there is no number.'
'If he passes by me, I shall not see, and if he goes past me, neither thus shall I know it.' With how much more vehement a trumpet did this man sound forth concerning the power of the Lord! But in that power there is the help of the just, not their ruin. In short, power seems to be expressed, but rather the mysteries of our redemption are declared. For who are the mountains which he made to grow old, but Moses, Aaron, Joshua son of Nun, Gideon, the prophets, all the books of the Old Testament? The Lord Jesus came: he brought a New Testament, and that which was old was done away. The Christian has been made new, the Jew has grown old; grace has been renewed, the letter has grown old. He overturned the mountains and converted them. For he overturned and undermined the understanding according to the letter, and established the spiritual understanding.
The carnal understanding of the law, then, vanished away; it became spiritual. Whence the apostle says: 'But we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal.' Yet he too who was carnal was made spiritual, as he himself asserted, saying: 'For I think that I too have the Spirit of God.' These mountains, then, Jesus made old, and the Jews do not know it. For if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of majesty, they would never still be following Jewish ravings. They themselves, then, are the ones who do not know. Whence also in the Gospel the Lord Jesus says: 'Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.' But they are not excused because they do not know, since they are unwilling to know what they ought to have recognized. Certainly we do not begrudge them, if they would follow the Lord's sentence:
for a sentence is wont to absolve past things, not future ones. But neither is that man free from crime who crucified the author of his own salvation and afterward did not ask for pardon. Granted that he had previously been ignorant of whom he was persecuting: yet, placed upon the cross, he ought to have recognized that he was the Lord of all the elements, beneath whom all the elements trembled, the heaven was darkened, the sun fled back, the earth was rent asunder, the tombs of the dead were laid open, the dead received the fellowship of the living. Whence also the centurion said: 'Truly this was the Son of God.' The centurion recognizes a stranger, the Levite does not recognize his own; the Gentile venerates, the Hebrew abjures. Not without reason, then, were the pillars of the earth moved, when the chief priests did not believe:
but the old pillars were moved, that the new ones might be confirmed, just as he himself deigned to say: 'I have confirmed its pillars.' Hear which pillars he confirmed: Peter and James and John. 'They who seemed to be pillars gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship.' How, then, do they excuse themselves on the ground that they did not know, when some of them saw, others recognized, that the sun, without completing the course of the day, had withdrawn itself, and again, before the span of night was finished, having gone forth, had made night in the day and day in the night? Surely they ought to have understood that the sun, when bidden, withdrew itself, and when bidden, went forth. For the Lord had foretold that for three days he would be in the heart of the earth and for three nights: the sun learned this, it kept the command. It doubted, then, saying:
'What shall I do? I rise, and it is day; I set, and it is night. If I keep my course, I shall delay the salvation of the world. Let us hasten to our own redemption too: I myself also ought to hasten to the new life; for it shall come by the benefit of the cross, by which all things are renewed, both a new sun and a new heaven. I hasten, therefore, that I may be able to behold that Sun of righteousness illuminating the souls of all. But what shall I do? He himself wills the resurrection to take place after three days. I have found what to do, so that I may both make no delays and keep the number of the days. I shall not make a whole day and a whole night.
I shall shorten the hours, so that the Lord Jesus may indeed be among the dead for three days and three nights, yet may rise from the dead sooner than the intervals of three days and nights would allow. I shall therefore shorten the hours when he ascends the cross. From the sixth hour let night straightway come, that I may not see the Lord's passion, but may flee the spectacle of a parricidal persecution. I shall set, and there shall be a night of three hours; I shall go forth and renew the day, that it may be of three hours: the first day is run through, the second night shall follow in its own span, the day shall likewise follow; the third night shall begin, the Lord shall rise in the night, and there shall be day in the light of him who rises, that this may be fulfilled: And the night shall be illumined as the day. This is that great day,
which Abraham saw and was glad, of which David also said: 'This is the day which the Lord has made; let us exult and rejoice in it' — in which I shall be present not by the service of labor, but by the fruit of exultation. The Lord himself, then, shall lead the day, and before the consummation of the world the light of the world shall be seen, which illumines every man coming into this world. He himself is the Lord who marks and numbers the multitude of the stars; he himself is the one who alone stretches out the heaven, who walked as upon a pavement over the sea, when Peter saw him walking and said: 'Lord, bid me come to thee over the waters.' And the Lord bade him, but he wavered, and unless the Lord had stretched out his right hand to him, he would have been submerged in the waves and perished. The flesh wavered, the right hand saved.
And he said to him: 'O you of little faith, why did you doubt?' Faith, then, walked in the apostle, not the flesh. In short, faith wavered, and the flesh had begun to feel shipwreck. This was not improperly said, since the flesh is the ship of the soul, as it is written: 'They that go down to the sea in ships,' and elsewhere: 'There are pains as of one giving birth; with a vehement spirit thou shalt break the ships of Tarshish.' For our souls, when they give birth to the word, bring forth pains; but she who has given birth no longer remembers her sorrow for joy, because a man is born who has redeemed the world.
The ships of Tarshish, then — that is, the intelligible ones, which brought gold and silver to Solomon, that is, our bodies, which have a treasure in earthen vessels, as the apostle said — or because even here in childbearing they are broken with peril, according to what is said: 'Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing!' — for when the soul is shaken, the flesh tosses about — or they shall be tossed by a vehement spirit poured in, when, the time being fulfilled, there must be a resurrection, according to what is written: 'Come, O Spirit, and breathe upon these dead, and they shall live.' Whence Job himself also says in later passages: 'For I know that he who is to release me upon the earth is eternal and powerful, to raise up again my skin, which has borne these things.' But they are broken, because they are raised up unto judgment.
But there is a good contrition; for 'a heart contrite and humbled God does not despise,' and elsewhere: 'Heal its contritions.' But also to Jehoshaphat it was said: 'They have been crushed who go to Tarshish,' because he had mingled himself with the sacrilegious one. Each, then, is signified by contrition, since each occurs on the day of judgment, when all who are in the tombs shall hear the voice of the Son of God and shall come forth — those who have done good, unto the resurrection of life; those who have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment. This too the prophet David signifies, saying: 'There are pains as of one giving birth. As we have heard, so also we have seen, in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God.' For he comprehends both the future pain and the gladness — the pain from judgment, the gladness from absolution.
But let us return to the sequence of the pleading set before us. 'He has wrought many contritions for me,' he says; 'he does not let me breathe, he has filled me with bitterness; and because he is mighty in power, no one can resist his judgment. If I am just in heart, my tongue errs. He destroys the great and the mighty with his anger. The wicked die a grievous death, but the just are mocked; for they are given into the hands of the impious.' Look at each point. To the mighty their own anger is grievous, to the wicked their own wickedness, to the just the weakness of their condition. Thus nothing is free from peril. The strength and greatness of a man is deceived by its own power, wickedness is afflicted, virtue is laughed at. The one, because he is more able, falls; the other, because he is able to do nothing, is afflicted.
It is a fault of our condition, because our life is lighter than a runner; 'it has passed by, and has seen nothing. Like the track of a ship, or of a flying eagle seeking its food, so too the life of man passes by.' What we speak, we forget, nor is any mark of our passing detected, except what is full of mourning and groaning. 'I am shaken,' he says, 'in all my members. Would that there were a mediator for us, both reproving and judging between the two of us. I will say to the Lord: Why dost thou judge me thus? Is it good for thee that I should be unjust, since thou hast rejected the works of thy hands and hast attended to the counsel of the impious? Dost thou see as a mortal sees?'
'Or is thy life like that of a man, or thy years like the years of a mortal, that thou hast searched out my iniquities and investigated my sins? For thou knowest that I have not acted impiously; but is there one who could deliver out of thy hands?' Great is the faith, great the authority of conscience, to summon God as witness of one's own mind. What belongs to his condition he does not deny; what belongs to impiety he repels; what belongs to infirmity he confesses. To have sinned belongs to the condition, since no one is free from a fall; but to act impiously belongs not to the condition, but is the venom of a treacherous and most wicked mind. The just man does not acknowledge this, but the absolution of man lies in God's mercy, not in man's power. 'Thy hands,' he says, 'have molded me; afterward thou hast turned and stricken me.'
'Remember that thou hast made me clay, and into earth thou wilt resolve me. Hast thou not milked me out like milk, and curdled me like cheese? With skin and flesh thou hast clothed me, with bones and sinews thou hast knit me together; and life and mercy thou hast placed in me, and thy visitation has protected my spirit.' How great is the lamentation of the holy man for the common infirmity, how great the authority of his appeal, that God made man with his own hands! The fault is excused under the pretext of infirmity; the grace is commended by the privilege of the eternal working and by the favor of the heavenly protection. Of which matter David too spoke most beautifully, saying: 'What is man, that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man, except that thou dost visit him?'
'Having these things in thee,' he says, 'I know that thou canst do all things, and nothing is impossible to thee. For if I sin, thou wilt keep me, but from iniquity thou hast not made me spotless. If I am impious, woe to me! If I am just, I cannot lift myself up; for I am full of confusion. I am hunted like a lion unto slaughter.' Observe three things: 'If I sin,' he says, 'thou wilt keep me'; and therefore, O man, confess your sin, that you may obtain pardon. Declare your iniquities, that you may be justified. Why are you ashamed to confess the very things in which you were born? It is the part of one who denies, not of one who confesses, to deny the crime that you were born in it. What you have received, would that you might keep. Why do you think you have what you have not received?
Therefore let the sinner confess, let the impious groan, let the just man not lift himself up nor exalt himself, lest through arrogance he lose the fruit of his righteousness. And beautifully he says: 'If I am just, I cannot lift myself up; for I am full of confusion.' For the just man attends rather to his own frailty than... The wise man acknowledges, the foolish does not acknowledge. In short, by his falls the wise man is pricked, the foolish is delighted; the just man is his own accuser, the unjust his own advocate; the just man wishes to forestall the accuser by the confession of his sin, the unjust desires to conceal his sin. The one runs to meet it at the beginning of his speech, to betray his error; the other, by the verbosity of his speech, wraps the slumber of accusation in folds, lest he betray his error. Adding again, he says:
'Why hast thou ascribed evils against me and laid upon me the sins of my youth?' Beautifully he has seized upon that age for his complaint, which is wont to be more slippery toward vice. For boyhood has innocence, old age has prudence, that very youth bordering on adolescence has regard for good repute and shame at sinning; but adolescence alone is feeble in strength, weak in counsel, hot with vice, disdainful of those who admonish, enticed by delights. In so great and so rugged and stormy a whirlwind of this world, then, why are such frequent shipwrecks ascribed to that improvident age? Whence David admirably begged of the Lord pardon for that whole time, saying:
'Remember not the transgression of my youth and of my ignorance,' because then most of all the heat of the body seethes and is set ablaze by the burning of the steaming blood. But let us again hear that same man. 'A mortal,' he says, 'the son of a woman, is of brief life and full of wrath, who like a flower has flowered and fallen, and departs like a shadow and does not endure. Is not even of this an accounting demanded, and hast thou made this one to enter into judgment under thy sight? But who is clean from filth? No one, even if his life upon earth be of a single day.'
Truly a wretched condition, that he should be compelled to render account of his own sin, which he cannot avoid, to enter into judgment, to come beneath the sight of the almighty Lord, and is constrained to set forth the causes of his deeds which he has run through in so many ages of his life — since no one whatsoever can be free from sin, so that from the very cradle the fault of infancy creeps upon us before there is any awareness of error. And how wretched is this, that his life should be brief, his enticement sweet, his hardship manifold, his wrath daily. And so in scant delight there is perpetual bitterness. 'There is hope,' he says, 'for a tree; for if it has been cut down, it will grow green again, and if its branch has died upon the rock, by the scent of water it will flower and will yield a harvest like a young plant.'
But the man, once dead, has departed; and when he falls, mortal man is no more. The sea, however, ebbs and flows with time. We have considered the sequence of the prophetic discourse drawn from the two lower elements, earth and sea, which are subject to every injury and to frequent tempests. How forceful an argument he has framed for our misery! Earthly shrubs, he says, and the woodland growth of trees, even when they have died, rise again for the uses of life. The sea too is wont to surge with the alternations of the seasons. But our flesh is forever seething and is itself a tempest to itself, and is never granted respite from the stirrings of storms and from pitiable shipwrecks. 'But when he has slept, he shall not rise again until the heaven be unstitched' — which seems to declare: until the heaven be made new.
For there shall be a new heaven and a new earth, as it is written. For what is stitched on is old, and what is old shall be changed. Hear then him who says: In the beginning thou, O Lord, didst found the earth, and the heavens are the works of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou remainest; and they shall all grow old like a garment, and like a vesture thou shalt change them and they shall be changed. We may also weave in this: that what is old is stitched on, while what is new is forced. For from the days of John the Baptist the kingdom of heaven is forced, and the violent take it by force.
The synagogue therefore stitched it on in a few, but the Church forces it in thousands — either because the heaven now seems to be stitched together with clouds and gloom and the darkness of night and the saffron blush of the rising day, often interwoven with a varied and parti-coloured appearance (but then there shall be night no more, and they shall not need the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, for the Lord shall give light upon them, as John said) — or because woe is upon those who stitch cushions to overturn the souls of the people.
To the prophet lamenting the misery of our frailty — which neither has rest in this life and would suddenly lose all things at the onset of death — the Holy Spirit infused that men would not rise again so long as he should come who would not stitch old things to new, nor put a new garment upon an old garment, but would make all things new, as he himself said: Behold, I make new things. For he himself is the resurrection, the firstborn from the dead, in whom indeed we all received the prerogative of the resurrection to come; yet he alone has thus far risen in perpetual resurrection.
Having therefore heard what God had spoken in him, and having known through the Holy Spirit that the Son of God would not only come to the earth but would also descend to the lower regions to raise up the dead — which indeed was then done as a testimony to those present and an example to those to come — he turned to the Lord and said: Would that thou wouldst keep me in the netherworld, and hide me until thy wrath cease, and appoint me a time in which thou wouldst make remembrance of me. For if a man die, he shall live, completing the days of his life. I will endure until I am made anew. Then thou shalt call me, and I will obey thee; but despise not the works of thy hands. Thou hast numbered my devices, and nothing of my sins shall escape thee.