Man's short life how full of miseries at best.

41

XI.

from the same act, whereby he seemed to have fallen from Book righteousness for a time. In which respect it is rightly said, Better is the iniquity of a man than a woman doing well; in that sometimes the very fault of the strong becomes occasion of virtue, and the virtue of the weak occasion of sin. In this place then by the name of a woman,' what else but 'frailty' is denoted, when it is said, Man that is born of a woman? As if it were said in plainer words, What strength shall he have in himself, who was born in frailty?'

66. Liveth a short time, and is full of many miseries. Observe by the holy man's words we have the punishment of man briefly set forth, in that he is at once stinted in life and filled out in misery. For if we consider with exactness all that is done here, it is punishment and misery. For to minister to the corruption of the flesh by itself in things necessary and permitted is misery, in such measure that clothing should be sought out against cold, food against hunger, coolness against heat. That the health of the body is kept only with great care, that even when kept it is lost, when lost it is recovered not without great difficulty, and yet after being restored is always in risk; what else is this than the misery of the life of mortality? That we love our friends, mistrusting lest they may be offended with us; that we dread our enemies, and truly are not secure touching those whom we dread; that we often talk to our enemies as confidentially as to friends, and often take the sincere words of our friends, and those, perhaps, that love us very much, as the words of enemies; and that we, who wish never either to be deceived or to deceive, err the more by our caution; what, then, is all this but the misery of man's life? That after the heavenly country has been lost, banished man is delighted with his exile, that he is weighed down with cares, and yet shuts his eyes to considering how great the burthen is, in that he is full of a multitude of thoughts; that he is deprived of the interior light, and yet in this life wishes to prolong his state of blindness; what else is this but misery, the offspring of our punishment? Yet though he desire to stay here for long, still he is driven on by the mere current of his mortal life to depart out of it. Hence the holy man rightly adds;

Ver. 2. He cometh forth like a flower, and is crushed: he fleeth also as a shadow, and never continueth in the same state.

42

Man's life as the flower of grass,' as a shadow.'

JOB 14, 2.

MORAL.

15.

1.

67. For, as a flower, he cometh forth,' in that he shews fair in the flesh; but he is crushed,' in that he is reduced. to corruption. For what are men, as born in the world, but a kind of flowers in a field? Let us stretch our interior eyes over the breadth of the present world, and, lo, it is filled as it were with as many flowers as there are human beings. So life in this flesh is the flower in grass. Hence it is well Ps. 103, said by the Psalmist, As for man, his days are as grass: as Is. 40,6. a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. Isaiah too saith, All flesh is grass, and all the glory thereof is as the flower of the field. For man cometh forth like a flower from concealment, and of a sudden shews himself in open day, and in a moment is by death withdrawn from open view into concealment again. The greenness of the flesh exhibits us to view, but the dryness of dust withdraws us from men's eyes. Like a Lone Ms. flower we appeared, who were not; like a flower' we wither, grass.' who appeared only in time.

'like

Matt. 24, 2.

68. And whereas man is daily being driven into death moment by moment, it is rightly added, He fleeth also as a shadow, and never continueth in the same state. But as the sun is unceasingly going through his course, and never stays himself in a state of stedfastness, why is the course of man's life likened to a shadow' rather than to the sun,' excepting that, when he parted with the love of the Creator, he lost the heat of the heart, and remained in the coldness of his iniquity alone? Since according to the voice of Truth, Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. He, then, who hath not warmth of the heart in the love of God, and yet keepeth not the life, which he loves, assuredly he 'fleeth like a shadow.' Hence it is well written Ecclus. concerning him, that he hath followed a shadow. Now it is well 34, 2. said, and never continueth in the same state. For whereas infancy is going on to childhood, childhood to youth, youth to manhood, and manhood to old age, and old age to death, in the course of the present life he is forced by the very steps of his increase upon those of decrease, and is ever wasting from the very cause whence he thinks himself to be gaining ground in the space of his life. For we cannot have a fixed stay here, whither we are come only to pass on; and this very circumstance of our living is to be daily passing out of life. Which same flight the first man could not have known before

Fallen man borne downward.

God's looking on man. 43

XI.

the transgression, seeing that times passed, himself standing. BOOK But after he transgressed, he placed himself on a kind of slide of a temporal condition, and because he ate the forbidden fruit, he found at once the failure of his stay. Which liability to change man suffers, not only without, but also within him, when he strives to arise to better works. For by the weight of its changeableness the mind is always being driven forwards to some other thing than it is, and, except it be kept in its stay by stringent discipline in self-keeping, it is always sliding back into worse. For that mind which deserted Him, Who ever standeth, lost the stay in which she might have continued.

Henceforth now when he strives after better things, he has as it were to strain against the force of the stream. But when he relaxes in his bent to ascend, without effort he is carried back to the lowest point. Thus whereas in ascent there is effort, in descent rest from effort, the Lord warns us that we have to enter by a narrow gate, saying, Strive to enter in at the strait gate; for when about to Luke mention the entering in of the narrow gate,' He premised, Strive, since unless there be an ardent striving of the heart, the water of the world is not surmounted, whereby the soul is ever being borne down to the lowest place. And so whereas man' springeth up like a flower and is cut down, and fleeth also as a shadow, and never continueth in his place,' let us hear what he further subjoins in this train of reflection. It

goes on;

k

Ver. 3. And dost Thou deign to open Thine eyes upon such an one, and to bring him into judgment with Thee?

13, 24.

69. For he surveyed above both the power of Almighty li. God and his own frailty; he brought before his view himself and God, he considered Who would come into judgment, and with whom. He saw on the one side man, on the other side his Creator, i. e. dust and God; and he rightly exclaims, Dost Thou deign to open Thine eyes upon such an one? With Almighty God, to open the eyes is to execute His judgments, to look whom to smite. For as it were with eyes closed He does not wish to look at him, whom He does not wish to smite. Hence it is immediately added also about the

kal. "unless the purpose of the soul be fervent."

MORAL.

44 God only can cleanse man conceived in uncleanness.

JOB 14, judgment itself, To bring him into judgment with Thee? But whereas he had viewed God coming to judgment, he lii. again takes a view of his own frailty. He sees that he cannot be clean of himself, who, that he might be able to be, came forth out of uncleanness. And he adds,

Ver. 4. Who can make clean a thing conceived of unclean seed? Is it not Thou, Who only Art?

lii. 70. He That alone is clean in Himself can cleanse the unclean thing. For man, who lives in a corruptible flesh, has the uncleannesses of temptation engrained in him, seeing that he derived them from his birth. For his very conception, for the sake of fleshly gratification, is uncleanness. Hence Ps.51,7. the Psalmist saith, Behold, I was shapen in wickedness, and in sin hath my mother conceived me. Hence it is therefore that he is very often tempted even against his will. Hence it is that he is subject to impurities in imagination, even though he strive against them by reason, because being conceived in uncleanness, whilst he follows after cleanness, he is striving to get the better of that which he is. But whoever has mastered the motions of secret temptation, and overcome uncleanness of thought, must never ascribe his cleanness to himself, in that none can make clean a thing conceived of unclean seed, save He Who alone is clean in Himself. Let him, then, that has already reached in mind the place of cleanness, cast his eye upon the way of his conception, which he came by, and thence satisfy himself, that in his own power he has no cleanness of life, the beginning of whose existence was made in uncleanness. But the meaning here may be that blessed Job, regarding the Incarnation of the Redeemer, saw that That Man only in the world was not conceived of unclean seed, Who so came into the world from the Virgin's womb, that He had nothing derived from unclean conception. For He did not proceed from the man and the woman, but from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. He only then proved truly clean in His Flesh, Who was incapable of being affected by the gratification of the flesh, seeing that it was not by the gratification of the flesh that He came hither.

BOOK XII.

Wherein after the fourteenth chapter of the Book of Job has been explained, beginning at the fifth verse, the fifteenth chapter entire is explained for the most part in a moral sense.

IT is the practice of the righteous, to think of the present LIT. life, how transitory it is, so much the more heedfully in proportion as they are taught more earnestly to take thought of the eternal blessings of the heavenly Country; for by those things, which they see lasting within, they more exactly mark the flight of things passing away without. Whence blessed Job, when he had delivered a sentence on the transition of man's time, saying, Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live; and again, He fleeth also as a shadow, and never continueth in the same state; further adds of the shortness of his life;

Ver. 5. The days of man are short, the number of his months is with Thee.

1. For he sees that that as it were is not with us, which runs by with such great rapidity, but seeing that even things passing away stand with Almighty God, he declares that the number of our months is with Him.' Or, indeed, by the 'days,' the shortness of time is denoted, but by the months' the spaces of the days are multiplied. Thus to ourselves 'the days are short;' but seeing that our life is further extended afterwards, 'the number of our months' is recorded

16.

, to be with God.' Hence also it is said by Solomon, Length Prov. 3, of days is in her right hand. It goes on;

Thou hast appointed his bounds, that he cannot pass.

2. Of the things that happen to men in this world, none ii. come to pass without the secret counsel of Almighty God; for God, foreseeing all things that should follow, before the ages of the world decreed how they should be ordered in the