Fragments of the Homilies on Job (Part 2: Fragments from the Vatican manuscripts)

Fragments of the Homilies on Job

continued

Fragment 29

Chapter 29, 3. “As when his lamp shone over my head, when by his light I walked in darkness.” That he sought his former prosperity for this reason, so that God’s providence might be shown, is clear from his saying, “when God was guarding me.” 4. “When God was making an inspection of my house.” Symmachus has: “When God fenced around my tent.” You see that this is what he longed for: to show God’s oversight and providence. Since I was young, he says, being righteous, I made virtue the material useful to me, for I dealt well with everyone. 7. “When I went out early in the morning in the city, and in the squares my seat was set.” Like a ruler and teacher of virtue, he did not devote himself to sleep and drunkenness, but out of love sat in the squares at dawn, becoming a law and a pattern for those in the city.

13. “May the blessing of one who is perishing come upon me.” From Severus, in his letter to the deaconess Julian. In the Gospels the Lord speaks of those who put themselves to death to the world. Some give up their bodies for the contest of martyrdom, and some give them up to the labors of ascetic discipline. In this way they seem to destroy themselves and kill themselves by being deprived of the enjoyment of this life. Of them he says: “Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” So for one who is “perishing” in this way, according to the Savior’s word, and who finds his life, the prayer and the blessing are something great. Any sensible person might pray that this blessing come upon him, and would wisely say: “May the blessing, etc.” 15. “I was an eye to the blind, and a foot to the lame.” Vat. 794, 2. As for the meaning: he opened blind minds, and he owed it to those whose souls were maimed to become their eye himself. To those lame in the steps of the soul he gave feet; by his word he became their foot, and he led each group by the hand. The eye is taken to stand for guidance in understanding, and the foot for guidance in conduct.

16. “I was a father to the powerless.” Same source. In these words we are shown the voice of one who helps the powerless, the weak. 16. “And a case that I did not know, I searched out.” You see his care as a protector. It went beyond money, beyond food and clothing: he even stood in danger for the sake of another man’s fight. 17. “And I broke the molars of the unjust.” Note how hard the task was. He says, in effect: from where could it come that I set right a matter that had already been seized? Truly, when Christ came, he crushed the molars of the opposing powers. The Lord broke the molars of the lions, and it is written in the prophet: “From the midst of their teeth I snatched the plunder.” 18. “And I said: My age will grow old like the trunk of a palm tree.” Notice how much time has passed when he says this. He does not boast or think highly of himself. He is compelled to speak of God’s providence, of the things in which he enjoyed it, and of the things in which he now finds himself.

Fragment 30

Chapter 30, 1. “But now the least of men laugh at me; now they admonish me in turn, men whose fathers I used to despise.” Vat. 794, 2. He does not say this out of contempt. He knew them clearly, just as the prophet said: “Every evildoer is despised in his sight.” Such people he counted as nothing. 2, 3. “Even the strength of their hands, what was it to me? Completion perished upon them. In want and hunger they were barren, those who fled the waterless land, yesterday’s distress and misery.” Olympiodorus, Origen. He says: But I never asked for any help from them, so that they might therefore speak such words to me. They were long since in debt to justice, being wicked, and somehow the punishment flew away from them. Or perhaps they longed for death because of extreme poverty and did not obtain it, and not even want taught them sense, so as to become begetters of what is good. They remained barren, those who only yesterday, or a little while ago, had escaped the desert and its calamities. He seems to slander them as base-born, as coming from ignoble stock and from poor fathers. “Completion perished upon them” means: they never accomplished anything good.

4. “Those who go around gathering salt-herb on the echoing ground, whose food was salt-herb.” The salt-herb, they say, is a certain plant that quickly fills the one who eats it. “On the echoing ground” means in ravines and rocky places, for such places resound well and echo back to those who speak. Or he may mean by “echoing” a wooded place in which the blowing of the winds, stirring the trees, makes a sound. So he says that, because of their extreme need, these men wandered through the woods, the ravines, and the places beside which running waters sound and murmur. They searched for plants and scraped the roots of trees for food, as a comfort [for hunger]. 4. “Dishonored and despised, lacking every good thing.” Vat. 795, 1. It is another wickedness, to be such men even in poverty. 24. “If only I could get control of myself.” Vat. 795, 2. You see that when he says “if I could,” he does not say it from weakness, but because he is prevented.

28. “I stand in the assembly crying out.” Same source. Because of the extremity of his sufferings, he is not even ashamed before a crowded gathering. 29. “I have become a brother of sirens, and a companion of ostriches.” Same source. He says: I have fallen into the wildness of birds. I have lost sight of my own nature, and I am in no better condition than they.

Fragment 31

1 “For I stand in a just balance, and the Lord knows my innocence, if my foot turned aside from the way...” Wonderful precision! No one could say, “I used my wealth and my former good things for carelessness and dissipation, so I am paying this kind of penalty, and I have been changed, since God has applied a fitting remedy.” For a man who loves laughter and tripping others up [and has given himself to luxury], it would be reasonable for God to set the opposite condition against him. He would hand him over to a life of groaning and many tears. But take the man who even before these things avoided revelry and drove away people who play and make jokes. What reason would there be for him to fall into a gloomy, downcast life? Since I was withered and stern, I did not fall into the vices that tear that kind of life apart.

2 “And if my maidservants often said, ‘Who will grant us to be filled with his flesh?’ since I was very kind.” That is, to enjoy his life, because I was sweet to them. 3 “A stranger did not lodge outside, and my door was open to everyone who came.” For he did not serve them merely by receiving them. He also gave them provisions for the poverty that would follow.

Fragment 32

1 “And Job stopped speaking.” Job fell silent, giving them room to speak. But he saw what was happening, called God as witness, and laid a curse on himself, because the friends had been silenced. 11 “For I will speak while you listen, until you have examined my words, and I will understand as far as you are concerned.” Either he means this: that not even when you were refuting me did you refute me as you should have; or that afterward you fell silent. So it stands in relation to the words, “For I will speak while you listen.”

Fragment 33

12 “For how can you say, ‘I am righteous, and he has not listened to me’?” What then happened? Job did not think this. Elihu supposed it, but Job did not speak with the intention of saying that he was more righteous than God. He meant that these things had been done by him, yet he was not charging God with injustice. Elihu, however, took it that way. But he rightly accused those others, who had [taken up] God’s side and then denied it. 20 “I will speak, so that I may find relief, opening my lips.” A man who has an understanding listener and is full of words finds relief by speaking. He empties himself, as it were, of the excess and throws it off, and says, “I will speak so that I may find relief.”

Fragment 34

19 “He who is not ashamed before the face of an honored man, nor knows how to give honor to the great.” For even if you do not know, you ought to yield much to him and to his glory, so as not to seek to learn everything. 23 “For he will no longer lay anything upon a man.” He seems to mean this: that now good and evil lie in our hands, but in the age to come it will no longer be so. 31 “For to the mighty one he says: ‘I have taken, I will not take a pledge; without myself I will see; you show me.’” Some interpreted it this way: no one dares to say to someone stronger, “You have taken my things unjustly. You did not take them as a pledge, as though they were owed, but against my will. Show that you did this with good reason.” But if no one dares to say this to the powerful man, how, he says, can you be so bold against God? Symmachus rendered it this way: “I have taken up a speech before God; I will not [hold back], without hindrance; you make it clear to me.” And he understood it thus: since I have taken up speech on behalf of God, says Elihu, I do not hold back, but go on with my argument without hindrance. And if I am not speaking well, you make it clear, that is, refute the argument. I think, rather, that the text is to be understood like this: it is not because I chose to speak on behalf of God that you must therefore simply agree with me, as if I were demanding a debt. “Without myself I will see; you show me” means: apart from my own argument I want to know whether you have anything to say in reply. So say that I am keeping silent, and take hold of the argument, if you can.

Fragment 35

5 “Look up to heaven.” No lover of the world looks up to heaven. Let us not love the world, nor the things in the world. If we love the things down here, we do not look up to heaven. 6 “If you sinned, what will you do?” That is, you will not wrong him, and you will not benefit him either, if you are righteous. For since he was saying, “If I sinned, what can I do?”, he asks, “What shall I do?” He says this to make the point: “Why? Is he wronged, so that he worries about you when you sin? Is he suffering some harm?” 10 “He who appoints night watches.” Do you want to see how God appoints night watches? This whole age is night; it is darkness. The light is being kept for you. The light you see now, you see through a mirror. And it says, “In your light we shall see light”; so we are someday going to see it. Is the whole age, then, night? Since it is night, many enemies and many wild beasts go about. Since the affairs of this life, lived in darkness, are night, there is need of watchmen appointed for this night. These watchmen, who serve through the nights, guard those who are in the night. They come and protect us from robbers. Who, then, are the watchmen appointed by God for the night watches? “The angel of the Lord will encamp around those who fear him, and will deliver them.” These are the angels who guard us in the night.

Fragment 38

5 “Who set its measures, if you know? Or who stretched a line over it?” The Greeks wanted to say something about the measure of the earth. They say the diameter of the earth is 250,000 stadia. But the saying seems to show that the measure of the earth cannot be grasped by anyone. Only the Savior knows it, who is also the Creator. He said “measures,” not “measure,” to point out the differences within the earth. What is the measure of a land like the East, for example, which produces spices? What is the measure of the land that produces pepper, or of the one that produces animals? For not everything grows everywhere. These measures, then, are with the Word of God. Surely the earth has not become this size by chance or at random. It seems to me that if even the smallest thing were added, it would be out of place, and if anything were taken away, by the same reasoning it would ruin the whole. This is what the measures and the line hint at.

6 “And who is he who laid a cornerstone upon it?” Who laid a cornerstone upon it, so that it stands so firmly, as though he had built it on a secure and settled foundation? It is the will of God, for in his hand are all the ends of the earth. “Cornerstone” can also be understood of the only-begotten [Son] of God, who became flesh for us, in keeping with the saying in the Psalms: “The stone which they rejected has become the head of the corner.” For he came to earth by the good pleasure of the Father and joined the two peoples, Jews and Gentiles, together in himself, just as a cornerstone binds together the two walls. 11 “And I said to it, ‘You will come as far as this and you will not go beyond.’” Symmachus has: “Let the swelling of your waves be set as far as here.” In the one version he holds the sea securely, as if with bars; in the other he holds it easily, as if by an order. “For I spoke,” he says, “and there is no answering back,” when this happens with no necessity forcing it, even while great violence and strength lash the sea. For this is why he did not allow it to be calm or gentle: so that it might proclaim the power of God, with its nature fighting against the command and the command winning everywhere. If the water were gentle, many would credit its good order to the nature of water. But now, stirred up, lashed, driven from within, and unable to cross its boundaries, it proclaims the power of God through its turmoil.

41 “And who has prepared food for the raven?” It is said that ravens do not feed their young. The ravens themselves, being large, naturally find food for themselves. But who feeds the young? Is it not the word of God? As the Gospel also says: “The birds of heaven do not sow or reap, and your heavenly Father feeds them.”

Fragment 39

27 “Is it at your command that the eagle is lifted up? And does the vulture sit on its nest and lodge on a projecting rock and a hidden place?” .... If among flesh-eating creatures there is [some reasoning wisdom], present in each from natural knowledge, and directed toward knowledge, in some of war, in others of the dead, you also see the vulture, alone, borne along in the air. [The text is uncertain here.] 34 “Why am I still being judged, I who am corrected and who reprove the Lord, when I hear such things and am nothing?” Ibid. “Why,” he says, “am I still being judged?” This is by way of an introduction; from the start he yielded the first place. “I have been defeated,” he says, “the right is yours. Why do you carry the case further? What can I answer? How can anyone face such a Master eye to eye?” “I kept on,” he says, “looking for the reason for the blow that fell on me. But I brought no charge against the creation, and I have nothing to say to what has been said.” — [The text is incomplete here:] the poor man is not reproving the Lord, but is being corrected.

Fragment 40

2 “But gird up your loins like a man. I will question you, and you answer me.” Vat. 805, 2. Those who are confident in the abundance of their rights do not even let their opponents run away, so that the victory may be won out of that abundance. Then he also defends himself to Job, saying, “I care about human beings.” From this it is clear why I brought this trial on you. “I give you freedom of speech. I will question you, and you answer me.” 3 “Do you think I have dealt with you for any other reason than that you might appear righteous?” Vat. 805, 2. He means the present dealing. “I am not saying this in order to condemn you,” he says, “but to show that you are righteous.” Or he is speaking about the trial, using “dealing” for the permission given, that is, that I had arranged beforehand for this to happen for some other purpose. He did not say, “so that you might become righteous” (for you had practiced righteousness strictly), but “so that you might appear so.” Let us not turn out to be unrighteous or ungodly. Let us remember these things in times of trouble, and let us think we hear God present and saying to us, “Do you think I have dealt with you for any other reason than that your righteousness might become plain to those who do not know it?”

5 “Take up height and power, and clothe yourself with glory and honor.” Ibid. “Be crowned, put on glory, put on honor, put on splendor. The insolent man marched out against you, but you humbled the arrogant one and turned his armies back far away in shame. Reprove sinners, showing them to be sinners. Fill their faces with dishonor through the rebuke that is in you.” — So it was not for display [text corrupt: or for all the other things, or also for the knowledge of God]. See how much the lowliness of his own nature convicts him. God does not say, “You are lowly,” but “I am great, and you cannot do what I do.” 10 “But look, there are wild beasts beside you.” Like an athlete, learn about the dragon, your opponent. — “Beside you, then,” he says, “and beside everyone who is patient, these beasts are tamed and made subject. There is, however, etc.”

20 “Will you draw the dragon out with a hook, and put a muzzle around his nose?” “Can you, then, Job,” he says, “do what the Only-begotten did later? For he put out his own flesh as a kind of bait, and through his own nails, as through hooks, he caught the fish Leviathan. For this is how the Hebrew has it, and it means the dragon.” 27 “Will you lay a hand on him, remembering the war that takes place in his body [and let it happen no more]?” Vat. 806, 2. By “war” he means here the turmoil, the savagery, the attacking of him. “How does it happen?” he says. Such is this wild, powerful, and frenzied beast. “Can you bind him by your own power,” he says, “or even remember and take thought of the war that is going to take place in his body?” By his “body” he means the demons, since the dragon is their head. The Lord won this war by the trophy of the cross. [Then the text adds:] “Let it happen no more,” since the cross happened once for all. For “the one who died to sin,” he says, “died once for all.”

Fragment 41

1 Chapter 41, verse 4. “Who will uncover the face of his clothing?” Who is able to expose the face of what he has put on? Who is able to uncover and show what the dragon is on the inside? And a little later: I recalled the sacred writings contained in this divinely inspired book of Job. In them, as in a bodily form, the devil is described, the originator of evil among demons and wicked beings. His great ugliness and the variety of his schemes lie hidden, and so does the stripping away of the outer masks. For it says: “Who will uncover the face of his clothing?” And since the text had been speaking of this variety that appears on the outside, as though it rises from some depth of unseen wickedness, these words are added to what was said: “Who will uncover the face of his clothing?” That is, who is able to enter into the thoughts of his heart, since they are folded up and hidden?

2 Verses 24–25 (14–15 in the Greek numbering). “It will not be shaken. His heart is set like a stone, and he stands like an anvil that cannot be beaten.” His heart, it says, has turned to stone, and it cannot be beaten out. He is altogether hardened and reckless. He is not driven, he does not follow reason, he does not yield. He is hard, unbeatable, unyielding. And if anyone has drawn power from the devil, he too has the heart of this dragon, unbeatable and not to be driven. But if someone is gold and follows the word, he yields to the goldsmith until he becomes a sheet of gold and receives the impressions of God’s letters, in Christ Jesus, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

Fragment 42

Chapter 42, verse 10. “And the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before, doubling it.” Verse 12. “And the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than the former. His livestock were fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen.” Verse 13. “And seven sons and three daughters were born to him.” If the Lord gave Job double of everything he had before, after the blow, as the sacred writing says, then the children also ought to have been doubled. Look at the livestock. It says he had fourteen thousand sheep, for at the beginning he had seven thousand. He had six thousand camels, for at the beginning he had three thousand. He had a thousand yoke of oxen, for at first there were five hundred. The same holds for the wild donkeys. But it says seven sons and three daughters were born to him, as many as there were before. Yet there ought to have been fourteen sons and six daughters, so that they would be double the children who were lost. So we say this: the sheep and the livestock were lost, but the sons and daughters died; they were not lost. God therefore gave him the same number of other children, so that in the resurrection he would have them doubled. In this way God made him father of twice as many children as he had been father of before. But if the soul were extinguished after death, and the things of the resurrection were not true, fourteen sons and six daughters would have had to be given. So the Scripture has held faithfully to the fact that he received seven sons. If he had been given fourteen sons and six daughters, while the teaching about the resurrection still stood, the children would not have been given to him double, but triple, compared with what he had at first.

16. “After the plague Job lived one hundred and seventy years, and in all he lived two hundred and forty [eight] years.” How are we to understand that Job lived a hundred and seventy years after the plague, when all the years of his life total two hundred and forty-eight? Examining the matter closely, we say this. He received back all his good things doubled. If the years of his earlier prosperity were also received back doubled, then this is how the count should go. He lived seventy-eight years in his earlier prosperity, and from the time he received the plague he remained in suffering for fourteen years. So “after the plague” must be understood not as from the time the plague stopped, but from the time it began. After those fourteen years, the time of his sickness, he lived another one hundred and fifty-six. The years of his earlier prosperity came to seventy-eight, so the doubled time of his later well-being comes to one hundred and fifty-six years. When the fourteen years of the plague are added in front, the total is one hundred and seventy years. So he is found to have lived one hundred and seventy years “after the plague,” that is, from the time the plague was brought upon him, as the Scripture says. In this way the doubled repayment of his prosperity is also preserved. To sum up, then, you will count it like this: he lived seventy-eight years in wealth and with fine children; fourteen years in the loss of everything and the ruin of his body; and one hundred and fifty-seven years in his second prosperity. So the whole time of his life is two hundred and forty-eight years, as the sacred book about him says.

17. “And Job died, an old man and full of days. It is written that he will rise again with those whom the Lord raises up.” Aquila and Symmachus, when they came, concluded the book there, supposedly following the Hebrew. But Theodotion concludes in agreement with the Seventy, lacking nothing, neither time nor life. It is written that he will rise again with those whom the Lord raises, that is, with the righteous. For “the ungodly,” it says, “will not rise in judgment, nor sinners in the council of the righteous.” We accept these words too, even if they are not part of the whole fabric of the book, but were woven into it by one of the saints. Still, we accept everything, since we have received the book in this form from the fathers. 18. “This is translated from the book of the Lord.” Here he calls the Hebrew language “Syriac,” since many people call Judea “Syria” and the Palestinians “Syrians.” The historian Herodotus also says, “The Indians, the Egyptians, the Arabs, and the Syrians in Palestine are circumcised.” This is how they name the Jews.