On the Complaints of Job and David 4.27–4.36

Let us consider more attentively and carefully what these foreign signs are. Christ has set his sign on the foreheads of each; there too the Antichrist sets his signs, so as to recognize his own. But the one who is a Jew in secret, the true confessor, says to him: “They set up their signs as signs, and I did not know them.” The devil and his ministers set them up, but I did not know them, because I did not consent to his arts, did not yield to his commands. The Assyrian Nebuchadnezzar set signs on the Hebrew youths: he changed their names and ordered them to worship his image, to depart from the solemnities of their fathers, and, putting aside God’s law, to follow Chaldean rites. The king decreed this, but Daniel resolved in his heart to avoid the defilements of the king’s table. Rightly, then, it fits him to say that he did not know foreign signs. It was ordered that the Hebrew youths should worship the king’s image; they answered him: “We do not worship your image.” Fittingly, then, each of them said: “They set up their signs as signs, and I did not know them,” that is, I did not experience them, I did not accept them with any consent, I did not take them into myself by any fellowship. Hence of the Son of God too we read that he did not know sin. And elsewhere you have: “Whoever keeps the commandment does not know an evil word,” since it is quite clear that it is not knowledge of wickedness but criminal fellowship that is meant. David himself too later says: “The wicked who turned away from me I did not know.” And he declares where the adversaries wished to set these signs: “As on a way above the summit. As in a forest of trees they cut down its doors together with axes; with hatchet and adze they brought it down.” What does this mean but to show that our faith ought not to be as on a way, lest the birds of heaven come and carry it off, as the word which you read in the Gospel should not be sown along ways and paths?

So the adversaries, wishing to root out the faith of this saint, since they did not see their signs in his heart, tried to place them as on a way, that is, in a thoroughfare; but the heart is at the summit, because the eyes of the wise man are in his head. And they set up signs as in a forest of trees, which are quickly burned by fire or cut down with axes; for fire goes out of the forest and burns even the cedars of Lebanon. And they thought they should do this so as to defile the tabernacle of the divine name which is in us. For just as we are the temple of God, so we are also the tabernacle of God, in which the feasts of the Lord are celebrated. So you, O man, guard your summit, so that you may shatter the heads of the enemies, the crown of the hair of those who walk about (for they walk about in superfluous things, not in holy ones; in the crown of the hair, not in the crown of devotion and faith); and if the spirit of one who has power rises up against you, as you have it in Ecclesiastes, do not leave your place. For Christ has set you higher, whom he made in the image of God. Hold, then, the higher place of faith and piety, which you received from Christ, so that, made higher, you may easily repel the wicked spirit rising from below, that is, from earthly and worldly things, and not receive his signs in your breast. Let him not occupy the porches of your soul or the entrances of your mind, and, as in a forest of trees, ravage with his fires what is frail and perishable, or cut down the doors of your heart with his axes. Let there be in us, then, not a forest but a vineyard; let the door of our mouth and heart be shut more carefully, lest the enemy enter. He quickly splits the door if he finds it open; but Christ knocks, he does not break down, he who has strengthened, O Jerusalem, the bars of your gates. Christ knocks with his hand that you may open; the adversary cuts it down with axes; and therefore it is written that neither axe nor hammer should enter the house of God. Pride and deceit ought to be outside, not inside; for outside are battles, inside is peace, which is above all understanding. Let your soul not be cut by iron, but as iron passed through the soul of Joseph, so let it pass through yours, lest your ruling part, like a kind of tabernacle of the Word, be torn down at the very beginning of faith and at the entrance of spiritual teaching. For, founded by use and exercise, it remains immovable and gives no place to him who, transforming himself as it were into an angel of light, tries to climb to the summit. If he does not see his signs in us, he cannot have authority to resist. So, lest the enemy afflict us, lest he break our bones, let us not fail to persevere in Christ, so that he may say of us: “They have been with me three days now, and I do not wish to send them away fasting, lest they faint on the way.” Blessed is he to whom he himself has given firmness of heart, so that he cannot fail while placed on the path of this life. He does not fail who hopes in the Lord and praises him with inmost affection, since even that horseman whose horse’s heel the serpent bit, though he fell backward, was nevertheless not deceived, because he waited for salvation from the Lord.

There is also a third remonstrance: that, placed among men who practice wickedness, he desires that his cause be separated from their contagion. Many think this should be referred to the Lord Jesus, on the ground that it belongs to him alone not to fear judgment, who conquers when he is judged. For he has judgment from an unjust man, into which Christ willingly enters, as you have it written: “My people, what have I done to you, or how have I grieved you?” But since the Father has given him all judgment, surely not as to one weak but as to a Son, what judgment can he himself undergo? If they think the Son must undergo the Father’s judgment, the Father surely judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, so that all may honor the Son as they honor the Father. The Father honors the Son, and do you sit in judgment? We have set this down lest anyone think that, as if from fear of the question, we are substituting the person of the prophet in place of the Lord, since holy David, foreseeing in the Spirit that the Jews would rise against the Lord in his passion, does not fear the judgment of his own faith, and asks also that his cause be distinguished from the nation of the persecutors, lest the lineage of the whole Jewish race be entangled with the evil heirs of his race and posterity.

Not without reason, then, is he troubled, who sees that his struggle is against flesh and blood, and that within himself there is a grievous shipwreck, a tempest in his own body, which he cannot bear unless heavenly help supports him; for no enemy is more grievous to a man than those of his own household. And what is so much of one’s household as a man to himself and the weakness of his own flesh? And therefore the prophet hastens and prays with all his heart that Christ may come, the strength of all, who would take up all infirmities and make both one, and, removing the wall, dissolve the enmities of mind and flesh fighting against each other, which divided the inner affection so that it could not come into harmony. So, because there was a battle within himself, and another from his neighbors, who, forgetful of law and equity, were preparing snares of fraud and ambushes, and the hoped-for remedy was deferred, he thought himself cast off, as though the one who had promised to be his remedy refused to come; and, as if called back from the hope of dawning day into the depths of darkness, he prayed that the light might shine to drive away the squalor of this world, that the eternal truth might be present to abolish the deceitful image of this world.

God was present to his prayers, who is wont to stand by unexpectedly and to show himself to those who do not ask for him, as he himself says: “I have become manifest to those who did not seek me”; and, assenting to his devout prayers, he anticipated the course of his petitions with swift fulfillment, and suddenly in the Spirit led the holy prophet into the church and into his tabernacles, and set before his eyes the sacred altar, on which there was to be the redemption of the whole world and the remission of the sins of all throughout the whole world.

Seeing, then, in the Spirit that sweetness of the heavenly sacraments, that table which drives back the snares of those who would crush, as he himself said above: “You have prepared a table before me against those who trouble me,” he says: “And I will go in to the altar of my God, to God who gladdens my youth.” Beautifully he said, like Adam: “And I will go in.” For we had been cast out of the Lord’s paradise, from the time when Adam, conscious of his sin, turned away from the face of the Lord. Fittingly too he added: “And I will go in to the altar of God,” as though returning into the sight of God. For he had turned away from our gifts when he did not approve the gifts of Cain the fratricide. Cain lay hidden, estranged from the Lord’s sight; with the savage force of a raging mind, because the Lord had regarded his brother’s gifts, he left his heirs under offence. Abel was slain not for himself, whose blood also cried to the Lord, but he was slain for all of us. Almost no one’s sacrifice was any longer approved, because “there was none who did good, not even one,” since neither faith toward God nor affection toward a brother’s kinship was kept. The Lord Jesus came to raise up Adam; Abel too was raised up, whose gifts pleased God. The Lord Jesus offered himself, that is, the firstfruits of his body, in the sprinkling of blood that speaks better than the blood of Abel spoke on the earth. God regarded his gifts, from which time he left to good heirs the grace of divine reconciliation. Rightly, then, holy David, as in the person of reconciled man, says: “And I will go in to the altar of my God, to God who gladdens my youth.”

Let us establish this passage, if we can, by the example of another prophet too: how the Lord first turned away from man’s sacrifices and afterwards was reconciled to him. We have it written in the book of Isaiah, God saying: “To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me? says the Lord. I am full”; that is: I abound in my own, I do not seek yours; “burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of lambs, and the blood of bulls and goats, I do not want; do not come thus into my sight.” And yet Abel had offered a sacrifice from the young of the flock, in which he had pleased God. But he who was awaiting the truth of the sacrifice did not require the type; for the saving passion of the Lord was awaited. “For who,” he says, “has required these things from your hands? You shall not continue to tread my courts.” And further on: “When you stretch out your hands to me, I will turn my face from you. But wash, be clean, take away wickedness from your souls. Judge for the orphan and justify the widow, and come, let us reason together, says the Lord.” It is clear, then, that the Lord first turned away from man’s sacrifices and afterwards was reconciled, so as to deign to look upon our sacrifices.

Therefore one who enters into the Lord’s mercy enters securely. Indeed it is said to the good servant: “Enter into the joy of your lord,” but of the wicked servant it is said: “Take him into the outer darkness.” Therefore Adam too was cast out of the heavenly homeland and that seat of paradise and banished to the island of sin. Rightly, then, Scripture says: “Be renewed, you islands,” because we are surrounded by the waves of sins like islands in the strait of this world. These islands, then, have been renewed by the Lord’s coming through the remission of sins; that is, men placed in the middle of the waters in the washing like islands were beaten by the masses of the waves, like islands, by the sounding waves of sins dashing back, like islands on which before, as on rocks of deceit, the simple suffered frequent shipwrecks, because there was guile in the heart and flattery in the mouth. But after the Lord Jesus, in whom there is no guile, came into this world, he calmed the depths of human minds by the exposition of heavenly teaching and poured tranquillity back into the affections of each, taking away the hedge of discord; and as it were the aids of harbors began to be available to those approaching, so that each may anchor the ship of his rest in the affection of his neighbor or brother and cling to a kind of shore in the retreat of a devout mind.

Not without reason, then, does David, as one renewed, cry out: “And I will go in to the altar of my God, to God who gladdens my youth,” so that he who had said above that he had grown old among his enemies, as we read in the sixth psalm, here says that his youth has been renewed from the aged old age of human downfall. For we are renewed through the regeneration of the washing, we are renewed through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, we shall be renewed also through the resurrection, as he says later: “Your youth will be renewed like the eagle’s.” Hear how we are renewed: “You will sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; you will wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow.” And in Isaiah he says: “If your sins are like scarlet, I will make them white as snow.” Rightly is he renewed who is changed from the darkness of sins into the light of virtues and grace, so that he who before was filthy with foul pollution may shine above snow with exceedingly white brightness.

“I will praise you on the lyre, my God.” Our soul has its lyre; for Paul would not say, “I will pray with the spirit, I will pray with the mind also; I will sing with the spirit, I will sing with the mind also,” unless he had a lyre that resounded with the plectrum of the Holy Spirit. Our flesh is a lyre when it dies to sin so as to live to God; it is a lyre when it receives the sevenfold Spirit in the sacrament of baptism. For the tortoise, while it lives, is sunk in mud; when it has died, its shell is fitted for the use of singing and the grace of a devout discipline, so as to sound the differences of seven notes in modulated measures. Likewise our flesh, if it lives in bodily enticements, lives in a kind of mire and abyss of pleasures; if it dies to luxury and incontinence, then it takes up true life, then it begins to give forth the sweet melody of good works. Sweet is the sound of chastity, sweet the sound of those who fear God. Indeed “their sound has gone out into all the earth.” Sweet is the sound of faith, which is proclaimed, as it is written, in the whole world. Let this sound go out from us to God, as it went out also from the Thessalonians, so that even when not singing we may sing, and proclaim the Lord by the harmony of good works, to whom be honor, glory, everlastingness from the ages, and now and always, and for all ages of ages. Amen.