In Iob sermo 4

Fourth Homily on the Righteous and Blessed Job In every case and, so to speak, in all divine narratives, words are inferior to the deeds and expressions are weaker than the subjects, but this is especially true regarding the achievements of the blessed Job. No one can ever make the speech of his own poverty equal to the speech of the subject. For even if countless things are said about him, the speech falls short of the power worthy of him. Since we have already spoken according to our moderate ability, nothing prevents us from touching upon the same narratives today as well. And let no one think that the subject is insulted if we divide the narrative. For Job is not pained by being cut; if he did not feel pain when his body was cut, will he feel pain when the narrative is cut? We have learned from the previously mentioned narratives that he lost everything, or rather, he found everything. For although he lost all that was bright, he did not lose the root of brightness. He lost the lyre, but the craftsman remained; he lost the fruits of prosperity, but the farmer of good fortune remained; he was stripped of all possessions, but he was not stripped of virtue. He cast his possessions before the devil, casting away his life, just as Joseph cast his garment before the dishonorable woman. In suffering, he did not suffer. For one must both acknowledge the passion of nature and hymn the courage of the soul. The signs of nature were shown, and the advantages of virtue were shown. He heard of the calamity of his children and tore his garments, in order to show the sympathy of nature. For if he had not suffered, he would not have been admired as a lover of virtue, but would have been condemned as insensible.

He suffered as a human, but he endured as a lover of God, and he exposed the weakness of nature but did not betray the manner of his piety. He tore his garments, yet he worshipped. So the devil did not so much strike as he was deceived, did not so much wound as he was wounded. But after Job had nobly completed the first contest, God again gives him over to another contest, so that he might weave for him a more brilliant crown of endurance. For a second time the angels and the devil stand forth, and the devil is questioned in the midst by the one who knows all. "Where do you come from?" Observe the wisdom of God, observe the cunning of the devil. God knew where he had come from, that he came defeated by the righteous man, but God wishes to see if he honestly admits his defeat. "Where have you come from?" The devil, concealing his defeat—for he was ashamed—uses the same words as the first time: "Having gone around the earth and walked under the heavens, I am present." "Is this why you went out? Is this what you asked? Did you not say, 'Hand over to me Job's possessions'? Why do you hide the contest, so as to obliterate the crown of victory? Speak of the contest, accursed one, speak also of the struggle, so that you may proclaim the victory." But what the devil enviously concealed, the Lord of all celebrates with virtuous philosophy. "Did you set your mind against my servant?" "What you hide, I know." For God often asks, not to learn, but to test the intention of those questioned, to see if they honestly confess. Thus he asked Cain: "Where is your brother Abel?

He wanted the one who had done the evil to stand as his own accuser, so that his self-accusation might blunt the magnitude of the charge. For everyone who accuses himself softens the judge’s indignation. Just as then he asked Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” and he, thinking the question came from ignorance, says, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” and when he tested his intention, then he exposed the impiety, saying, “The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground,” so, if after questioning he sees someone being ungracious, he convicts the malefactor. And now, since by questioning the devil he does not learn from him the defeat he suffered, he himself pillories his defeat and hymns the victory of the righteous man. “Did you set your mind against my servant Job, that there is no one guileless like him on earth?” Here pay close attention, I beg you, and do not pass over the words of the divine scriptures. In the first testimony the word “guileless” was nowhere spoken, but in the second. In the first, God said, “Did you set your mind against my servant Job, that there is no one like him on earth, a blameless, righteous, truthful man, abstaining from every evil deed?” He did not add “guileless” there; but after the victory and the struggle, he adds to him, as a crown, the praise that accords with his struggles. For since, suffering countless things, he bore the calamity guilelessly, not blaspheming against the master, but judging everything with goodness and saying, “If we received the good things from the hand of the Lord, shall we not bear the bad things?

Since the word was one of guilelessness, he weaves a crown of his own guilelessness, because there is no man like him who is guileless. But why did you say, "Destroy his possessions in vain," meaning, "Did you envy his wealth for nothing?" You said that, under the pretext of his wealth, the man was pious; he was stripped of his possessions, but he was not stripped of the truth. So you, devil, said, "Destroy his possessions in vain." Wickedness is not at a loss for its own malice. It finds again another suspicion capable of extinguishing the courage of the virtuous man. So he says to God: "Skin for skin, and everything a man has, he will give for his life." He says, "It is no great thing if he lost possessions; he gladly despised everything in order to save himself. But if you wish to test him, touch his flesh; then he will bless you to your face." "Bless" is used instead of "curse." For Scripture covered the blasphemy with euphemism. And why is this written? So that you, the faithful, may learn, when you recount the shameful deeds of others, to cover them with the dignity of words. Do not take pride in doing shameful things, but take pride when you avoid the company of shameful things. For this reason the apostle says, "Let no shameful word come out of your mouth." Then God hands over the contestant to a second trial, not because he learns from the trial what sort the contestant was, but because he shames the devil through the trial. For God knows all things before all things. So the devil went out from the Lord's presence and struck Job with a foul sore from his feet to his head. He made his whole body one wound, one bruise.

For it was necessary that he be crowned entirely, from head to foot, as a contestant. From feet to head the saving wound, the victorious sore: a sore which, in appearance, oozes pus, but in its inner meaning is full of praise. The pus of the sore came to be in a short time, but the praises which the struggle produced are not consumed for all eternity. It struck him with an evil sore from feet to head, so that he might be proclaimed a crown-wearer through and through in all his limbs. Then, since the place within the wall did not receive one so unfortunate in body, but the whole household cast him out as a mutilated man—for the wound of Job was nothing other than a mutilation—he went outside the city, the man alien to the world; he went outside the city and sat on a dunghill; he went outside the city, not having a worldly contest, but one that transcends the present condition. For being outside the city and the wall was an image of the cross of Christ. For this reason Paul says: "The blood of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary, their bodies are burned outside the camp." For this reason also Jesus, in order to sanctify the people, suffered outside the gate. Christ outside the gate, Job sat outside the city on a dunghill; the seed of piety, the seed of patience, manured by afflictions, sat on a dunghill, awaiting the one who raises the poor from the ground and lifts the needy from the dunghill.

He saw, brothers, the body flowing away, but the soul firmly fixed; he saw the body bearing worms, but the soul giving birth to piety; he saw the earthly vessel perishing and remembered, before Paul, the words of Paul. For it was fitting for him to say: "As much as our outer man is destroyed, so much the inner man is renewed day by day." He took a potsherd to scrape off the ichor, scraping away the ichor with the potsherd, dissolving the opponent with endurance. It was fitting for him also to say, holding the potsherd: "We have this treasure in a potsherd vessel." He sat on a dunghill, he who had raised many from a dunghill; he took a potsherd to scrape off the ichor; with dead clay he scraped away the living clay. The three friends came. For misfortunes summon friends to consolation. Eliphaz, Zophar, and Bildad came, three kings to one king. For he was a king before this, he who said: "I was among them as a king among the unarmed." And they sat, it says, opposite Job for seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke. For moderate misfortunes admit consolation, but the magnitude of misfortunes is honored by silence. For there is, brothers, a time when suffering overcomes consolation; and just as illnesses at their peak reject all treatment, so also sufferings at the peak of misfortunes reject all admonition. They were silent, sharing in the suffering by their silence. And what does he do? Since the misfortune had conquered them and no one dared to break forth a voice of consolation, Job himself first begins the words; the sufferer opens a door for those who are not suffering.

We know, brothers, that in misfortunes or in grief or in any other matter of dejection, each person is ashamed to be the first to break forth in speech, lest he seem to be an untimely introducer of virtue or opinion; but if he sees another having begun, he follows without risk. This, brothers, both experience teaches and facts suggest. So, when he saw that passion had shut out the consolation of his friends, the sufferer opens a door and immediately begins to lament the calamity in tragic terms, everywhere avoiding the suspicion of blasphemy. The first speech of Job: "Cursed is the day on which I was born, and let that night be darkness." He says these things not as one blaspheming, but as one suffering. And see what he does. Just as when someone afflicted with a terrible abscess is cut with iron by the physician, not having the strength to resist the one cutting, he seizes those standing around and bites the bystanders, having nothing with which to accuse them, and being unable to stretch out his hand against the physician, so also Job, fearing the magnitude of blasphemy, insults inanimate things and fulfills the full expression of his passion, not daring to attack God, but accusing himself and the day; for he curses not creation, but his own day. For he says, "I have authority over my own day; I do not curse creation, I curse my own day. Cursed is the day on which I was born, and let that night be darkness." Jeremiah also says these things: "Woe, O mother, what kind of man did you bear, one who is judged and tried? Cursed is the day on which I was born.

All these things the saints dramatize, so that you may learn afterwards that they did not pass through life in luxury, but endured countless evils and completed their struggles. So Jeremiah lamented, saying, "Woe, O mother, why did you bear me?" And he suffered as a man, but endured as a lover of God. Moses likewise, the great and divine lawgiver of God, who received the sacred tablets, the first introducer of what is beneficial to life, also says to God, burdened by the multitude of his misfortunes: "Lord, you said that you have found favor with me, and I know you above all; and if I have found favor before you, take my soul from me, for I cannot bear the weight of this people. Soon they will stone me. Did I give them birth? Did I bear them? Why do you tell me, 'Bear them as a nurse bears a child'? I cannot bear the faults of the people." Yet, though lamenting and mourning as a man, he did not blaspheme as an atheist, but showed the passions of nature, being convicted by those very passions. So likewise each of the prophets laments. And Habakkuk says, "Why did you show me toils and labors, to look upon the miseries of men?" For the prophetic chorus saw injustice and could not bear it, but Habakkuk cried out, saying, "Why did you show me toils and labors? Before me a judgment has taken place, and the judge takes bribes, and because of this the verdict comes out distorted. The ruler demands, and the judge takes, and the law is held in contempt.

Thus all the righteous suffered and were vexed at the difficulty of the world. But do not, taking these things, interpret them as an agreement with your own inclination; do not say, "Am I not better than Jeremiah, who cried out against the world?" Let not the words of healing become wounds for you. These things are written so that you may learn how great a struggle they endured, through how many perils their life passed. Do you wish to learn what sort of person you ought to be? Learn the things after grace: The prophets suffered, and the apostles also suffered; but the former, while suffering, grieved, while the latter, while suffering, boasted. Paul came forward, suffering indeed, but not weeping, beaten, but not lamenting, tormented, but boasting. And what does he say? "Not only this, but we even boast in our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, endurance produces testing, testing produces hope, and hope is not put to shame." And again, the apostles, after being beaten, went rejoicing from the presence of the council, because they were deemed worthy to be dishonored for the name of Christ. Do not, therefore, interpret the things before grace as a pattern for grace. For these things have been said to us so that you may learn hope from the labors. Thus also Job curses the day and suffers in his soul, and does not torment his soul with impiety, but endures the wounds and does not wound his soul with blasphemy. Then, since it is necessary to be brief, I will summarize the subject for you concisely: In the contest concerning Job, apart from God, all were ignorant of the purpose of the contest; Job did not know for what he was contending, he did not know that the wrestling bouts were set before him as a training exercise.

The friends were ignorant of God's purpose; the devil was ignorant of the future. For if he had known that he would be defeated, he would not have attempted it. Job did not know what would result from the contest. That God had given him over by permission, Job knew—not by foreknowledge, but by learning from God. But the devil did not know to what end the struggles would come. For if he had known, he would not have attempted it, lest he draw upon himself a worse disgrace. But what he suffered in the case of the martyrs, he suffered also in the case of Job. He destroyed martyrs to extinguish the Church, not knowing that after the martyrs the Church would flourish. All, then, were ignorant except God. The friends, being ignorant of God's purpose and also ignorant of Job's trial, chose, as in a comparison of ignorance, rather to condemn Job as suffering deservedly than to condemn God as having judged undeservedly. Pay close attention. They chose to condemn a man as suffering deservedly for his own sin rather than to speak against God, saying that he had judged undeservedly. And in one respect they hit the mark, declaring God free of injustice; in another respect they missed it, condemning the innocent man. But ignorance pleads for the ignorant, and they are acceptable because in ignorance they philosophize and do not vote against God's justice, as they see it. They disregard Job's righteousness, but they extol God's. Then Job begins to be reproached by his friends, and they say to him: When have the truly righteous been utterly destroyed root and branch? When have you seen the just perishing entirely? If you had not sinned, they say, and done what deserves sin, the just one would not have unjustly wronged you.

Your sins are many. If you yourself have not sinned, how is this, unless your sons have sinned? Often you have wronged a widow, oppressed orphans. If these things have happened, then God justly brought this verdict. Job knew in himself that he had done nothing of the sort, and he also knew that God does not judge unjustly. Therefore, when Job saw that he was condemned among men, but his conscience did not condemn him and his God did not find fault with him, since he could not persuade men, he transfers his speech to the judge and turns the eye of his soul upward, not blaspheming but entreating, and says to him: "He who knows the mind of men, why did you set me as your suppliant? You made me plead with your justice; you know my heart." Then Job utters something great, not from malice but from innocence. And, to cut many things short—for the material of his defense is great—he says: "Who will give a judge between me and you, that he may know how many my sins are, that you have judged me thus?" The saying is fearful, but it comes from innocence. For God had said beforehand that there is no one innocent in his sight; but for the innocent man, no one counts his word as wickedness. For always, brothers, all of us humans, not to mention God, judge not by the deeds but by the intention of those who act. A son insults his father, and the deed is unbearable both to the sufferer and to the hearer; and such a one is called a parricide and matricide and unholy and lawless, because he uttered a contrary word to his father, because he dared to defame his own root.

This he suffers and is condemned, he who is of mature reasoning; but a guileless child, even if he strikes his father or mother or insults them, is more desirable than all joy. Often mothers provoke their children to insult, not delighting in the insult, but in the guilelessness, the innocence, and the simplicity of their character. So also God, knowing that he speaks not from malice but from guilelessness—for he bears witness to him, saying, "He still retains guilelessness"—accepts the words of Job when he is called to judgment by him. It is a fearful thing for a servant to summon his master to judgment, a man to summon God, the creature to summon the creator, the clay to summon the one who fashioned it; but nevertheless, as I said before, it is a word of guilelessness, not of wickedness. Yet, brothers, this guilelessness was not without understanding, but was within all wisdom. Do you wish to learn the more precise point? Job asked for nothing that he had not done. He knew himself to be a servant of God; he knew God to be his master. But since he himself, when often judging with his own servants, had granted them the right of equal speech, and if ever a servant was examined before him, he did not silence him as a servant, but accepted his defense—what he had done, he asked for, persuaded by the saying, "With what measure you measure, it will be measured back to you." And he says, "Who will give a judge? And when did you preserve for a servant the right of equal speech?" Listen to him when he enumerates his virtues, and he says this not from ambition but from guilelessness: "I did not refuse judgment to my male servant and my female servant when they were pleading their case against me. I will give an answer to God. Was I not formed as they were?

Considering these things, he provided the commonality of equal speech to the commonality of nature. But we, brothers, are not like this. You admire the righteous man? Condemn yourself. For often, if someone brings a charge—I do not mean against a slave, but against one slightly inferior—if he answers justly, you silence him as if he were shameless and daring to speak on equal terms. "What," he says, "do you even dare to speak on equal terms? Do you demand justice? Receive the just equality of speech." The proud man brings a charge and accepts neither a defense nor is shamed by silence. If the accused is silent, he says, "He is condemned; he does not know how to open his lips." If he speaks, he says, "He dared to raise his voice against his master." Then another, full of pride, if he is persuaded for the sake of justice, for the sake of a noble man, being asked to put forth a word to the other and to come to peace and to put an end to evil through love, immediately, carried away by pride, says, "I descend to this man?" Oh, the pride! For where do you stand, that you should descend? "I descend to this man?" As if treading on heaven and clouds, he speaks. You tread the same earth, you are nourished from it, you return to it, you are buried in it—and where do you descend? Do you not revere, are you not shamed by the passion of the Lord? Are you not ashamed to say to your equal, "I descend to this man?" Are you not ashamed to say these things, considering that Jesus descended for you? Against such opinions and such pride, it is fitting always to cry out with Isaiah: "Why does earth and ashes boast?" But let us return to the matter at hand: "Who will give a judge between me and you?

At the end, the righteous judge appears, and he is seen from the whirlwind and the clouds. Job appears from the clouds, he who is about to pour forth the rain of blessing. He appears to him from the clouds, he who is about to irrigate the seed that has been manured, and he rouses Job, and he merely nods and scatters the sufferings; he merely nods and raises the fallen one, and says to him: Arise and gird your loins like a man. I will question you, and you answer me. Since you have summoned me to judgment and said, Who will give a judge between me and you? arise, noble athlete, you who did not fall under the blow of calamity, arise. For if someone, having been disciplined, bears the calamity and the discipline nobly, he hears from God the word arise, as when he says to Jerusalem: Arise, Jerusalem, who have drunk the cup of my wrath. Gird your loins like a man. I will question you, and you answer me. He did not say: I will judge you, and you answer me. For you did not summon me, he says, to judgment, but you summoned me to be compared with you. You asked for a judge between me and you; you be the judge. Do you think I have dealt with you otherwise, than that you might appear righteous? Do you suppose, he says, that I brought this calamity for any other reason than to reveal you as righteous? And see, paying attention to the precision of such words. He did not say: Do you think I have dealt with you otherwise, than that you might become righteous? For the calamity did not make him righteous, but it revealed him as righteous. Do you think I have dealt with you otherwise, than that you might appear righteous?

For to me," he says, "you were known even before the contests, but to the world you become known through misfortune, to the world you are proclaimed through the struggle. For this reason I dealt with you, not to harm you, but to crown you, not to shame you, but to glorify you. Yet, since you overstepped the bounds of nature because of your innocence, I have pardoned your integrity. For even if someone errs from innocence, God corrects the things that come from innocence. Since you altogether called God to judgment, tell me, what equality with me did you have that you called me? Where were you when I was laying the foundation of the earth? Were you contemporary with the creator, that you might call him to judgment? He is before the ages, you after many ages. When I was forming the earth, you were not present; when the sea, you were not present; or whatever such things, you were not present. All creation came to be, and you were nowhere. Did you then call to judgment the one more ancient than the ages, the creator of the universe? When I stretched a measuring line over the earth, when I fixed its pillars, when I brought it forth from the womb of its mother, when the sea was born, where were you? When I covered it with cloud, when I enveloped it with mist, where were you?" He rebukes him as one who has spoken unworthily, from innocence indeed, but from ignorance. And what does he do? He does not convict him before all, but corrects him privately as a friend. So after he said these things and things similar to these—for there is no time to interpret every word in detail, and Job, becoming his own judge (for the righteous man corrects his error from the first rebuke)—he says: "Lord, before, I heard you with the hearing of the ear, but now my eye has seen you, and I have despised myself.

I considered myself earth and ash. And: "I spoke once, but I will not add a second time." See how he who received the reproach well corrects his error. "I spoke once"—and this from simplicity, not from malice—"but I will not add a second time." For who am I to be judged before the Lord? What Job did not know beforehand through simplicity, he learns after the rebuke. Then what does God do? He does not allow him to decline the judgment, but says: "No, but gird your loins like a man. Stand," he says, "as a man. Do not think that I overwhelmed you with my power to evade justice, but I corrected your simplicity. However, I do not decline the judgment: judge me justly, and demand an account of what happens. You were judged so that you might be crowned; you were judged so that you might be praised throughout the whole world under heaven. Before the suffering, one corner knew you; after the suffering, the whole world under heaven will know you. Your dunghill becomes more brilliant than any royal diadem. Those who wear the diadem desire to see both your contest and the toil of your struggles. I made your dunghill a paradise; I cultivated it for piety; I revealed a heavenly plant. You received the heavenly things; accept also the earthly things; receive everything twofold. Here, learn, every Christian, your hope, the preeminence of your promise. For to Job he promises and gives double, but the Savior says to his own disciples: 'Whoever has left father or mother or sisters for my sake will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.'

But pay close attention to this: how he corrects the friend in private, yet refutes Job’s friends openly. And God says to them: “Why did you not speak rightly concerning my servant Job?” But, O righteous judge, we set forth the argument on your behalf, we proclaimed your righteousness, we condemned a man, and we showed your righteousness blameless. Here, then, observe the righteous judgment of God. For if he does not accept the one who speaks on his own behalf against the righteous man, will he accept those who speak against the righteous man contrary to justice? So he refutes his friends and says: “And now, if not for my servant Job, I would have destroyed you.” Thus he both refutes and saves: he saves because they said nothing evil against God, and he refutes the righteous man, correcting his integrity; and he honors the friends on account of him, and he honors the righteous man on account of his struggle, and gives him double, and from his darkness light shone both then and now. Having said one more thing, let us show the superiority. He received sheep double, cattle, camels, donkeys double, but having lost ten children, he did not receive twenty. Here it must be inquired: why livestock double, but children single? Because livestock and possessions, when lost, were completely lost, but a man who dies is preserved for life and raised for resurrection. He does not give him children double, so as not to cut off the hope of those who have departed, but to show him that they, even if they were taken early, yet live. And all of them are provided to him.

He gives him only ten, so that Job may be found not passing from life to death, but from house to house. For ten accompanied him to the tomb when he completed his life, and ten will again receive him from the tomb into the kingdom on the day of resurrection and will enjoy together those secret and eternal goods. May it be granted to all of us to be deemed worthy of these, by the grace and loving kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom are the glory and the power, now and always and for ever. Amen.