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| Chapter XII. To prevent any one from being checked in the exercise of mercy, he shows that God cares for human actions; and proves on the evidence of Job that all wicked men are unhappy in the very abundance of their wealth.
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Chapter XII.
To prevent any one from being checked in the exercise of
mercy, he shows that God cares for human actions; and proves on the
evidence of Job that all wicked men are unhappy in the very abundance
of their wealth.
40. But many are
kept back from the duty of showing active mercy, because they suppose
that God does not care about the actions of men, or that He does not
know what we do in secret, and what our conscience has in view.
Some again think that His judgment
in no wise seems to be just; for they see that
sinners have abundance of riches, that they enjoy honours, health, and
children; while, on the other hand, the just live in poverty and
unhonoured, they are without children, sickly in body, and often in
grief.
41. That is no small point. For those
three royal friends of Job declared him to be a sinner, because they
saw that he, after being rich, became poor; that after having many
children, he had lost them all, and that he was now covered with sores
and was full of weals, and was a mass of wounds from head to
foot. But holy Job made this declaration to them: “If
I suffer thus because of my sins, why do the wicked live? They
grow old also in riches, their seed is according to their pleasure,
their children are before their eyes, their houses are prosperous; but
they have no fear; there is no scourge from the Lord on
them.”77
42. A faint-hearted man, seeing this, is
disturbed in mind, and turns his attention away from it. Holy
Job, when about to speak in the words of such a one, began thus,
saying: “Bear with me, I also will speak; then laugh at
me. For if I am found fault with, I am found fault with as a
man. Bear, therefore, the burden of my words.”78
For I am going to say (he means)
what I do not approve; but I shall utter wrong words to refute
you. Or, to translate it in another way: “How
now? Am I found fault with by a man?” That is:
a man cannot find fault with me because I have sinned, although I
deserve to be found fault with; for ye do not find fault with me on the
ground of an open sin, but estimate what I deserve for my offences by
the extent of my misfortunes. Thus the faint-hearted man, seeing
that the wicked succeed and prosper, whilst he himself is crushed by
misfortune, says to the Lord: “Depart from me, I desire not
the knowledge of Thy ways.79
What good is
it that we serve Him, or what use to hasten to Him? In the hands
of the wicked are all good things, but He sees not their
works.”
43. Plato has been greatly praised, because
in his book “on the State,”80
| 80 Plato, de
Repub. II. 2. | he has
made the person who undertook the part of objector against justice to
ask pardon for his words, of which he himself did not approve; and to
say that that character was only assumed for the sake of finding out
the truth and to investigate the question at issue. And Cicero so
far approved of this, that he also, in his book which he wrote
“on the Commonwealth,” thought something must be said
against that idea.
44. How many years before these did Job
live! He was the first to discover this, and to consider what
excuses had to be made for this, not for the sake of decking out his
eloquence, but for the sake of finding out the truth. At once he
made the matter plain, stating that the lamp of the wicked is put out,
that their destruction will come;81
that God, the
teacher of wisdom and instruction, is not deceived, but is a judge of
the truth. Therefore the blessedness of individuals must not be
estimated at the value of their known wealth, but according to the
voice of their conscience within them. For this, as a true and
uncorrupted judge of punishments and rewards, decides between the
deserts of the innocent and the guilty. The innocent man dies in
the strength of his own simplicity, in the full possession of his own
will; having a soul filled as it were with marrow.82
But the sinner, though he has
abundance in life, and lives in the midst of luxury, and is redolent
with sweet scents, ends his life in the bitterness of his soul, and
brings his last day to a close, taking with him none of those good
things which he once enjoyed—carrying away nothing with him but
the price of his own wickedness.83
| 83 Job xxi. Very freely used all through this
section. |
45. In thinking of this, deny if thou canst
that a recompense is paid by divine judgment. The former feels
happy in his heart, the latter wretched; that man on his own verdict is
guiltless, this one a criminal; that man again is happy in leaving the
world, this man grieves over it. Who can be pronounced guiltless
that is not innocent in the sight of his own conscience?
“Tell me,” he says, “where is the covering of his
tabernacle; his token will not be found.”84
The life of the criminal is as a
dream. He has opened his eyes. His repose has departed, his
enjoyment has fled. Nay, that very repose of the wicked, which
even while they live is only seeming, is now in hell, for alive they go
down into hell.
46. Thou seest the enjoyments of the sinner; but
question his conscience. Will he not be more foul than any
sepulchre? Thou beholdest his joy, thou admirest the bodily
health of his children, and the amount of his wealth; but look within
at the sores and wounds of his soul, the sadness of his heart.
And what shall I say of his wealth, when
thou readest: “For a
man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he
possesseth”?85
When thou
knowest, that though he seems to thee to be rich, to himself he is
poor, and in his own person refutes thy judgment? What also shall
I say of the number of his children and of his freedom from
pain—when he is full of grief and decides that he will have no
heir, and does not wish that those who copy his ways should succeed
him? For the sinner really leaves no heir. Thus the wicked
man is a punishment to himself, but the upright man is a grace to
himself—and to either, whether good or bad, the reward of his
deeds is paid in his own person.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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