Moralia in Job 1463 part 1/3

At that time, when Jesus drew near to Jerusalem, seeing the city He wept over it, saying: If only you also had known, even you, in this your day, the things that are for your peace; but now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days shall come upon you when your enemies shall encompass you with a rampart, and shall surround you, and hem you in on every side, and dash you to the ground, and your children who are within you; and they shall not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation. And having entered the temple, He began to cast out those who sold and bought in it, saying to them: It is written that My house is a house of prayer. But you have made it a den of thieves. And He was teaching daily in the temple.

I wish, if I can, to run through this short lesson of the holy Gospel in a short discourse, so that a lengthier attention may be given to those matters by those who know how to ponder much from few words. That the destruction of Jerusalem which was wrought by Vespasian and Titus, the Roman rulers, is here described while the Lord weeps, no one is ignorant who has read the history of that same overthrow. For the Roman rulers are foretold when it is said: For the days shall come upon you, when your enemies shall encompass you with a rampart, and shall surround you, and hem you in on every side, and dash you to the ground, and your children who are within you. And this too which is added: They shall not leave in you one stone upon another—the very removal of that same city bears witness to it as well.

It bears witness by its removal, since it is now built up in that place where the Lord was crucified outside the gate, while, as is said, the former Jerusalem was utterly overthrown to its foundations. And from what fault the punishment of its overthrow came upon it is added: Because you did not know the time of your visitation. For the Creator of all things deigned through the mystery of His Incarnation to visit her, but she herself did not keep in mind the fear and love of Him. Whence also through prophecy, in rebuke of the human heart, the birds of the sky are brought forward as witnesses, when it is said: The kite in the sky knows its time; the turtledove and the swallow and the stork have kept the time of their coming; but My people has not known the judgment of the Lord (Jer. VIII, 7).

But it must first be asked what is meant by what is said: Seeing the city, He wept over it, saying: If only you also had known, even you. For the Redeemer first wept over the ruin of the faithless city, which ruin the impious city did not know was to come upon it. To it, while the Lord weeps, it is rightly said: If only you also had known—understand: you would weep, you who, because you do not know what threatens, exult. Whence it is also added: And indeed in this your day, the things that are for your peace. For while she was giving herself over to the pleasures of the flesh, and did not foresee the evils to come, she was having, in that her day, the things that could have been for her peace. But why she had good things that were to be provided for her peace is made clear when it is said: But now they are hidden from your eyes.

For if the evils that threatened had not been hidden from the eyes of her heart, she would not have been glad in the present prosperity. And to her was soon joined also the punishment which, as I said before, threatened from the Roman rulers. When this had been described, what the Lord did is added: that, having entered the temple, He began to cast out those who sold in it and those who bought, saying to them: It is written that My house is a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves (Isa. LVI, 7). For He who narrated the evils to come, and immediately entered the temple to cast out from it those selling and buying, plainly made known that the ruin of the people came chiefly from the fault of the priests.

For in describing the overthrow, yet in striking those selling and buying in the temple, He showed in the very execution of His act whence the root of perdition proceeded. But, as we have learned from another evangelist bearing witness, in the temple doves were being sold (Mark XI, 15). And what is received by the doves but the gift of the Holy Spirit? But He drives out from the temple those selling and buying, because He condemns either those who bestow the laying on of hands for a payment, or those who strive to buy the gift of the Spirit. Concerning which temple it is soon added: My house is a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves. For those who sat in the temple to receive payments, without doubt sought out injury for certain persons who did not give.

The house of prayer, therefore, had become a den of thieves, because they had learned to stand in the temple for this purpose: either to strive to persecute bodily those not giving payments, or to slay spiritually those who did give. But because our Redeemer withdraws the words of preaching from the unworthy and ungrateful, after He had, by casting out, held the perverse man with the rigor of discipline, He soon showed the gift of grace. For it is added: And He was teaching daily in the temple. These things, treating them briefly according to the history, we have run through.

But since we know that Jerusalem is now overthrown, and by its overthrow changed for the better, since we know that the thieves have been driven from the temple, and that the temple itself is now demolished, we ought to draw from outward things some inner likeness, and from the overthrown buildings of walls to fear the ruin of our morals. For seeing the city, He wept over it, saying: If only you also had known, even you. This He did once, when He announced that the city was to perish. This our Redeemer never ceases to do daily through His elect, when He considers that certain persons have passed from a good life to reprobate morals. For He laments those who do not know why they should be lamented, because, according to the words of Solomon: They rejoice when they have done evil, and exult in the worst things (Prov.

II, 14). If they had recognized the damnation which threatens them, they would lament themselves with the tears of the elect. And the sentence which is added fits well the soul that is to perish: And indeed in this your day, the things that are for your peace; but now they are hidden from your eyes. The perverse soul, which rejoices in transitory time, has its own day. To it the things that are present are for peace, because while it is glad because of temporal things, while it is exalted by honors, while it is dissolved in the pleasure of the flesh, while it is terrified by no dread of punishment to come, it has peace in its own day, which will have the grievous scandal of its damnation in another's day. For there it must be fastened, where the just shall rejoice;

and all the things which now are for its peace shall then be turned into the bitterness of strife, because it will begin to quarrel with itself as to why it did not dread the damnation which it suffers, why it closed the eyes of its mind to foreseeing the evils that would follow. Whence it is said to it: But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the perverse soul, given over to present things, dissolved in earthly pleasures, hides from itself the evils that follow, because it shrinks from foreseeing future things, which disturb its present joy; and while it deserts itself in the delights of the present life, what else does it do but go with closed eyes to the fire? Whence it is well written: In the day of good things, be not unmindful of evils (Sir. XI, 27). And thence it is said through Paul:

Those who rejoice, as though not rejoicing (1 Cor. VII, 30), because even if there is any joy of the present time, it is to be so exercised that the bitterness of the judgment to follow may never depart from the memory; so that, while the fearful mind is transfixed with dread of the final vengeance, the wrath that follows afterward may be tempered as much as the present joy is now. For hence it is written: Blessed is the man who is always fearful; but he who is of a hard mind shall fall into evil (Prov. XXVIII, 14). For the wrath of the judgment that follows shall then be borne the more strictly, the less it is now feared even amid faults. It follows: For the days shall come upon you, and your enemies shall encompass you with a rampart.

Who are ever greater enemies of the human soul than the malignant spirits, who besiege it as it goes forth from the body—the soul which, set in the love of the flesh, they cherish with deceptive delights? With a rampart they encompass it, because, having brought back before the eyes of its mind the iniquities which it committed, they hem it in, dragging it into the fellowship of their damnation, so that, caught now in the very extremity of life, it may both see by what enemies it is shut in, and yet not be able to find any way of escape, because it is no longer permitted to do good—which, when it was permitted to do, it despised. Concerning whom what follows can also aptly be understood: They shall surround you, and hem you in on every side.

For the malignant spirits hem in the soul on every side, when they rehearse to it the iniquities not only of deed, but also of speech, and moreover of thought; so that the soul which formerly spread itself far and wide in wickedness may at the last be straitened concerning all things in retribution. It follows: And they shall dash you to the ground, and your children who are within you. Then is the soul cast down to the ground through the knowledge of its guilt, when the flesh, which it believed to be its life, is forced to return to dust. Then do its children fall in death, when the illicit thoughts which now proceed from it are scattered in the final vengeance of life, as it is written: In that day all their thoughts shall perish (Ps. CXLV, 4).

These hard thoughts can also be understood by the signification of the stones. For it follows: And they shall not leave in you one stone upon another. For when the perverse mind adds to a perverse thought a still more perverse one, what else does it do but place stone upon stone? But in the destroyed city stone is not left upon stone, because when the soul is led to its vengeance, the whole construction of its thoughts is scattered from it. And why it suffers this is added: Because you did not know the time of your visitation. Almighty God is accustomed to visit every depraved soul in many ways.

For He constantly visits it by precept, sometimes by scourging, and sometimes indeed by miracle, so that it may both hear the truths it did not know, and yet, still being proud and contemptuous, may either return pricked by grief, or, overcome by benefits, may blush at the evil it has done. But because it in no way knows the time of its visitation, it is handed over at the end of life to those enemies, with whom it is bound in the eternal judgment in the fellowship of perpetual damnation, as it is written: When you go with your adversary to the ruler on the way, give diligence that you may be delivered from him, lest perhaps he drag you to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the exactor, and the exactor cast you into prison (Luke XII, 58).

For our adversary is the word of God, contrary to our carnal desires in the present life. From whom that man is freed who humbly submits himself to His precepts. Otherwise the adversary will hand him over to the judge, and the judge to the exactor, because from the word of the Lord despised he will be held guilty of sin in the examination of the judge. Whom the judge hands over to the exactor, because He permits him to be dragged to vengeance by the malignant spirit, so that the spirit itself may exact from the body, unto punishment, the soul which of its own accord consented to it unto guilt. The exactor casts him into prison, because through the malignant spirit he is thrust down into hell, until the day of judgment comes, from which he too shall then be tortured together in the fires of hell.

Therefore, the destruction of the city being completed—which we have drawn to the likeness of the perishing soul—immediately it is added: And having entered the temple, He began to cast out those selling and buying in it. Just as the temple of God is in the city, so also the life of the religious is in the faithful people. And often some take up the habit of religion, and while they receive the honors of sacred orders, they drag the office of holy religion into the traffic of earthly business. For those selling in the temple are they who dispense for a reward that which by right belongs to certain persons. For to sell justice is to keep it back for the receiving of a reward. But those buying in the temple are they who, while they are unwilling to render to their neighbor that which is just,

and while they scorn to do the thing due by right, having given a reward to patrons, buy iniquity. To whom it is rightly said: My house is a house of prayer; but you have made it a den of thieves, because while sometimes perverse men hold the place of religion, there they slay with the swords of their malice, where they ought to have given life to their neighbors by the intercession of their prayer. The temple also, and the house of God, is the very mind and conscience of the faithful. Which, if ever in the injury of a neighbor it brings forth perverse thoughts, thieves reside there as in a den, and slay those who walk in simplicity, when they thrust the swords of injury into those who are guilty of nothing.

For the mind of the faithful is now no longer a house of prayer, but a den of thieves, when, innocence and the simplicity of holiness abandoned, it attempts to do that whereby it may be able to harm its neighbors. But because against all these perverse things we are unceasingly instructed by the words of our Redeemer through the sacred pages, up to now that is being done which is reported to have been done, when it is said: And He was teaching daily in the temple. For when Truth subtly trains the mind of the faithful to beware of evils, daily does Truth teach in the temple. But we must know that we are truly trained by the words of truth if we gaze fearfully and unceasingly upon our final evils, according to what is said through a certain wise man:

In all your works remember your last things, and you shall never sin (Sir. VII, 40). For we ought daily to ponder what we have heard from the voice of the same our Redeemer: And indeed in this your day, the things that are for your peace; but now they are hidden from your eyes. For while the strict Judge forbears, and does not yet stretch out His hand to strike, while from the retribution of the last vengeance there seems to be some security of time, we ought to ponder the evil that follows; pondering, to groan; groaning, to avoid it; and unceasingly to gaze upon the sins we have committed; gazing, to weep; and weeping, to wipe them away.

Let no gladness of transitory prosperity dissolve us, nor let transitory things block up the eyes of our mind, nor lead us blind to the fire. For if it be strictly weighed, of what weight the reproach is, it is recognized from the mouth of Truth, when to the negligent one who does not foresee the future it is said: And indeed in this your day, the things that are for your peace; but now they are hidden from your eyes. For it must be very much considered how terrible will be for us the hour of our dissolution—what dread of the mind, how great then the memory of all evils, what forgetfulness of past felicity, what fear and consideration of the Judge.

What, then, ought to be for us a delight in present things, when, all things passing away together, that which threatens cannot pass away? When both that which is loved is utterly ended, and that is begun where grief is never ended? Then the malignant spirits seek out their own works in the soul going forth; then they rehearse the evils which they suggested, that they may drag it as a companion to torments. But why do we say this only of the perverse soul, when they come also to the elect as they go forth, and seek something of their own in them, if they can prevail? But one there was among men, who before His passion says with free voice: I will no longer speak much with you; for the prince of this world is coming, and in Me he has nothing (John XIV, 30).

For because the prince of this world saw this mortal man, he believed that he could find something of his own in Him. But He went forth from the corruption of the world without any sin, who came into the world without sin. This concerning himself against the prince of the world not even Peter presumed to say, who merited to hear: Whatsoever you shall bind upon earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven (Matt. XVI, 19). This neither did Paul presume to say, who before he paid the debt of death attained to the secrets of the third heaven (2 Cor. XII, 2). This neither did John dare to say, who for his special love reclined upon the breast of his Redeemer at the supper (John XXI, 20). For when the Prophet says:

Behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins did my mother bear me (Ps. L, 7), he who came into the world with guilt could not be in the world without fault. Hence also the same Prophet says: In Your sight shall no living man be justified (Ps. CXLII, 2). Hence Solomon says: There is no just man on earth who does good, and does not sin (Eccl. VII, 21). Hence John says: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John I, 8). Hence James says: For in many things we all offend (James III, 2).

For it is evident that of all who were conceived from the delight of the flesh, the prince of this world had, without doubt, something of his own in them either in deed, or in speech, or in thought. But therefore he could neither seize them afterward nor hold them beforehand, because He snatched them from their debts who for us paid the debt of death without any debt of His own, so that our debts might not, under the right of our enemy, hold us bound, because for us the Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, freely rendered what He did not owe. For He who for us rendered the undeserved death of the flesh, freed us from the deserved death of the soul. He says, then: For the prince of this world is coming, and in Me he has nothing (John XIV, 30).

Whence we must take care, and with great weeping ponder daily, how rabid, how terrible the prince of this world comes on the day of our departure, seeking his own works in us—if he came even to God dying in the flesh, and sought something in Him in whom he could find nothing. What, then, shall we wretched ones say, what shall we do, who have committed innumerable evils? What shall we say to the adversary who seeks and finds much of his own in us, except only that which is our certain refuge and solid hope: that we have been made one with Him in whom the prince of this world both sought something of his own, and could in no way find it? Since He alone is free among the dead (Ps. LXXXVII, 5).

And now we are loosed from the servitude of sin by true liberty, because we are united to Him who is truly free. For it is evident, nor can we deny it, but truly confess it, that the prince of this world has much in us; yet nevertheless at the time of our death he is not able to seize us, because we have been made members of Him in whom he has nothing. But what does it profit that we are joined by faith to this our Redeemer, if we are disjoined from Him in morals? For He Himself says: Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven (Matt. VII, 21). Right works, therefore, must be joined to right faith.

Let us wash away by daily lamentations the evils we have done; let right works rising from the love of God and neighbor overcome our past wickednesses; let us refuse no good things which we can bestow upon the brethren. For not otherwise are we made members of our Redeemer, except by cleaving to God and by having compassion on our neighbor. But because for the most part examples more than words stir up the hearts of hearers to the love of God and neighbor, I take pains to make known to your charity a miracle which my son Epiphanius the deacon, who is here present, sprung from the province of Isauria, is wont to relate as having happened in the neighboring land of Lycaonia.

For he says that in that place there was a certain monk named Martyrius, of a very venerable life, who was going from his own monastery to another monastery, for the sake of a visit, over which a spiritual father presided. Journeying, therefore, he found in the way a certain leper, whom the elephantine disease had disfigured throughout his limbs with dense sores, wishing to return to his lodging, but not able to for weariness. And on that very road he declared that he had a lodging, to which that same monk Martyrius was hastening to go.

But the man of God, pitying the weariness of that same leper, at once threw down on the ground the cloak with which he was clothed and spread it out, and placed the leper upon it, and, having bound the leper about on every side with his cloak, lifted him upon his shoulder, and, turning back, carried him along with him. And when he was now drawing near to the doors of the monastery, the spiritual father of that same monastery began to cry out with a great voice: Run, open the gates of the monastery quickly, for brother Martyrius is coming, carrying the Lord.

But as soon as Martyrius reached the entrance of the monastery, he who was thought to be a leper, springing down from his neck, and appearing in that form in which the Redeemer of the human race, God and man Christ Jesus, is wont to be recognized by men, returned to heaven while Martyrius looked on, and as He ascended He said to him: Martyrius, you were not ashamed of Me on earth; I will not be ashamed of you above the heavens. And that holy man, as soon as he entered the monastery, the father of the monastery said to him: Brother Martyrius, where is he whom you were carrying? To whom he answered, saying: If I had known who it was, I would have held his feet. Then that same Martyrius related that when he had carried him, he had by no means felt his weight.

And no wonder; for how could he feel the weight, who was carrying the one who carried him? In which matter we must weigh how much fraternal compassion avails, how much it joins us to Almighty God with the bowels of mercy. For thence we draw near to Him who is above all things, whence through compassion for our neighbor we set ourselves down even beneath ourselves. In bodily things no one touches another, except one who is stretched out; but in spiritual things it is certain that the more we are drawn upward by compassion, the more truly we draw near to the heights. But behold, it does not suffice for the Redeemer of the human race, unto our edification, that He declared He would say at the last judgment: Insofar as you did it to one of these My least brethren, you did it to Me (Matt.

XXV, 40), unless He also, before the judgment, showed Himself to be that which He had said; so that He might demonstrate that whoever now exhibits good works to the needy, bestows them especially on Him for whose love he has exhibited them. And each one receives so much the greater reward, the more he does not despise even one who seems more to be despised. For what in human flesh is more sublime than the flesh of Christ, which is exalted above the angels? And what in human flesh is more abject than the flesh of the leper, which is torn with swelling sores, and filled with exhaling stenches? But behold, He appeared in the form of a leper; and He who is to be reverenced above all things, did not disdain to be seen despised beneath all things.

Why this, except that He might admonish us who are slower in understanding, that whoever hastens to stand beside Him who is in heaven should not refuse to be humbled on earth and to have compassion even on abject and despicable brethren? I had resolved to speak to your charity with brevity; but because the way of man is not in himself (Jer. X, 23), the running discourse cannot be held back, which He Himself, of whom we speak, ordains—who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, throughout all the ages of ages. Amen. At that time, Jesus said to His disciples: There was a certain rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen, and feasted sumptuously every day.

And there was a certain beggar, named Lazarus, who lay at his gate, full of sores, desiring to be filled with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table, and no one gave to him. But even the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. But the rich man also died, and was buried in hell. And lifting up his eyes when he was in torments, he saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And crying out, he said: Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, to cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame. And Abraham said to him:

Son, remember that you received good things in your lifetime, and Lazarus likewise evil things. But now he is comforted here, and you are tormented. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm is fixed, so that those who wish to pass from here to you cannot, neither can they cross from there to us. And he said: I beg you then, father, that you would send him to my father's house; for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come into this place of torments. And Abraham said to him: They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. But he said: No, father Abraham; but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will do penance. And he said to him: If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe if someone shall rise again from the dead.

In the words of sacred eloquence, most beloved brethren, the truth of the history is first to be kept, and afterward the spiritual understanding of the allegory is to be sought. For then is the fruit of the allegory sweetly plucked, when it is first made solid through the history in the root of truth. But because sometimes the allegory builds up faith, and the history builds up morality, we who, God being the author, now speak to the faithful, do not believe it out of place if we postpone the very order of speaking, so that you who now hold a firm faith may first hear something briefly of the allegory; and what is very necessary for you concerning the morality of the history, this may be kept last in the order of our exposition, because for the most part those things are wont to be better recollected which happen to be heard afterward.

Therefore we run through the allegorical senses in brief, so that we may more quickly be able to come to the breadth of morality. There was a certain rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen, and feasted sumptuously every day. Whom, most beloved brethren, whom does this rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen and feasted sumptuously every day, signify but the Jewish people, who had the cultivation of life outwardly, who used the delights of the received Law for splendor, not for usefulness? But whom does Lazarus, full of sores, figuratively express but the Gentile people? Who, when converted to God, was not ashamed to confess his sins, and this man had the wound in his skin. For in the wound of the skin the poison is drawn from the inner parts, and bursts forth outwardly.