Second, he describes his conjugal relations. After listing the effects of the divine power on corporeal creatures he shows its effect on spiritual creatures which he calls the pillars of heaven, because their duty, in effect, is to preside over the movements of the heaven. The text next indicates the cause of the silence saying, because he seemed righteous to them. For Job had said many things in showing his own justice, which these men could not contradict. 6 Where is your courage, your patience, and the integrity of your ways?. Domesticated asses also seem to perish if they remain without shelters built by men, but the wild asses have a shelter prepared for them by divine providence, and so he says, I have given them in uninhabited places, to which man does not go, a home, a cave or cavern, and tents, for example, under grass and trees, in the land of salt waste, in some land not inhabited because of dryness and the burning of the sun. Sometimes other animals also desert their new born young from fear, but the ostrich does this, without being compelled by fear. She does this if not because of fear, because of a defect of natural instinct which other animals have for this care, and so he says, For God has deprived her, the female ostrich, of wisdom, to nourish and govern her young in an orderly way, nor did he give her intelligence, by which she has care for her young. He adds a third sin of deceit. Private All Boys Middle & High School | Saint Thomas Academy Respecting this merit he says, what the hypocrite collects is sterile, because what is gathered by the hypocrite bears no fruit, and fire will devour the tents of those who freely accepts gifts. For things acquired wickedly are sometimes easily destroyed according to divine judgment. After it has fallen, the air, which was first dark from the density of the clouds becomes bright by rarefaction. 21 Did you know where you were born then? Therefore, to determine the time in which God remembers the dead man is nothing else than to determine the time of the resurrection. 17 If suddenly the dawn should appear, they think of it as the shadow of death; and they walk in the darkness as though they were in the light. Lest anyone say this sealing excludes divine mercy he then says, But you cured my iniquity, as if to say: You lay up punishments for sins in such a way that you nevertheless cure my faults by penance. Man however because he had reason which enabled him to discover all the necessary aids to his life by his own effort, was naturally made without the aids which nature gives to the other animals, namely a covering, arms and other things of this kind which he can make for himself by the industry of his reason. from the state of adversity. 12 Truly God willnot condemn in vain, nor the Almighty overthrow his judgment. He places next his punishment as to what remains in his sons when he says, The seed of his house will be open, because his sons will be exposed to trials, and this seed, will be carried off, from this life on the day of divine vengeance, that is, on the day of divine vengeance although this can also refer to the final judgment, when the saints will reveal the evil of the sinners, and the whole earth, will wage war against the foolish. (5:21) The seed, that is, the works of sin, will be clearly seen At last the evil man will be carried off to hell. By the fact that he says, on him, that is, upon the strength of the sinner, he shows the impotence of the sinner to resist. He insinuates this when he says, Why do you hide our face? as though he hated Job secretly for a hidden motive. For supposing your position that sin alone is the cause of the present punishments, God cannot be the cause of this as he has already demonstrated. Among these he first excludes the hatred of enemies. To show that this is as effective as the first way he says, and he (God) will be pleased by him (man), according to the words of the prophet Joel, He is kind and merciful and placated about evil. (2:13) From this there follows in man a confidence in thinking about God with some spiritual joy, and so he says. So he continues, and returning you torment me wondrously, for you first came afflicting me taking away things and wounding my body and now you have returned again and torment me through my friends. For men who do not understand the minds of others speaking are usually deficient in two ways. Therefore, a burdensome counselor is someone who says things which aggravate the soul more. (15:32) Job however understood that the threats pronounced by the lips of Eliphaz were directed by the devil and so he said that he had growled at him with his teeth. In this way of speaking he assigns the explanation (ratio) of the resurrection, namely, that the soul does not always remain divested of its very own skin. Thing are commonly called vain when they are unstable because they have not been fixed in due ends. So he says, They will cry out, i.e. Note that there are two things which belong especially to living beings: to live and to know. As Proverbs says, Where there is humility, there is wisdom. (11:2) The foolishness of anger also corresponds with this because the angry man, as Aristotle teaches, uses even reason in searching for revenge for an injury, but he uses it wrongly when he does not guard the moderation of reason in his revenge. This seems to be the opinion of those who declare that all rewards and punishments are in this life. For just as they say that God only knows human things in universal, so they say that he governs human affairs, but through universal causes which he governs by himself. To praise Job even more the discipline of his house is described next, which was free from those vices which wealth usually produces. But the life of man can neither extend more nor less than the limits determined according to divine providence, under which everything falls. Sophar likewise gives one to understand that the downfall of the wicked is irreparable. As to action he continues, when the Almighty was with me, as though cooperating with me in doing good. 13 Now on a certain day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine, they were in their eldest brothers house; 14 a messenger came to Job and said: The oxen were plowing and the asses feeding beside them, 15 and the Sabeans fell upon them and took everything. News June 15, 2023 St. Thomas Aquinas College Announces New TESOL Programs Read More Latest News Filter By Category Campus Wide, School of Education St. Thomas Aquinas College Announces New TESOL Programs St. Thomas Aquinas College continues to expand its in-demand career-focused academic offerings with the launch Campus Wide For he is said to have a head so big that one can fill forty large jugs of fat with it. If he sinned living in this way then, he had sinned for a long time before he suffered adversity. For God has infused the seeds of wisdom and science naturally from to his reason in the knowledge of the first principles. He enlarges their fault from the condition of the persons on whom they inflict those injuries. For his trust seems to be related to rushes in two ways. Just as the movement of the clouds over the earth depends on divine disposition, so also the effects caused by the clouds depend on this disposition and so he says, to any place where he commands them on the face of the land, as if he said: The effect the clouds produce on the earth depends on divine precept. Just as frugality and concord flourished in the Jobs house, so a holy solicitude for the purity which riches frequently destroy or diminish floursihed in Job himself. Paul expresses this in 1 Corinthians, The figure of this world is passing away. (7:31) Therefore this change in the figure of the world can be understood here by the wearing away of heaven. St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church (Los Angeles) First, as to his domestics he says, If the men of my tent have not said: Who will give us his meats to satisfy us? When the meat of some animal is appetizing, men desire to eat their fill of it. He shows the effect that follows from this in the hearts of others when he then says, On his day, which is the day of his ruin, the youngest men will be astonished, i.e. He wants to convey a greater knowledge from a greater age, because a man is made wiser by long experience in years. May his roots be dried up, so that if he had sowed or planted anything it may be destroyed and does not bear fruit. The second is that he should examine the acts of his subjects and the third is that he should subject those whom he finds guilty to punishments. Another author says that in his throat he has some skin like a membrane, and it is perforated with many openings to not allow any large bodies to go down to his stomach, because his digestion would be blocked by it, if he swallowed some large animal whole. The third defect of human knowledge is the result of the nature of time, both because his knowledge increases from day to day and also because he forgets those things which he knows through a long period of time, so it is necessary for him to learn by repetition as it were. 12 Behold, all of you know; why do you speak foolishness before God without proof? Rushes require water hidden in moist earth and when this moisture is not present dries up. Note however that what we have now is not sufficient in this present life, but desire tends to the future for two reasons. St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church is a Roman Catholic church and parish in the Los Angeles Archdiocese, Our Lady of the Angels Pastoral Region. Perverse men, whose prince is Satan who here acts in their place, usually accuse holy men unjustly of not acting for a right intention because they cannot find fault with the life of the saints. For it seems foolish for someone to make a very strong tool to use it for only a short time and then throw it away for good. Second as to the old he says, The aged rose and stood, for they were subject to my judgment. A common danger threatens property either by the barrenness of the earth in time of famine, or by some devastation of the crops by the enemy. For man always desires the future as though he were not happy with the things he has in the present. 13 He has made my brothers far from me and my acquaintances turned from me like strangers. He understood Job to have said two things in these arguments. He takes this away when he says, Let the stars be blotted out in the darkness. Another quality is that it is bedecked with the hope of day, which he removes saying, let it hope for light, but not see it, as if to say: Although it is natural to hope for the light of day during the night, yet this night should have a darkness so great that it never ends with the coming of the light of day. So he uses the example of the hired man saying, or the workman, for the end to his work. For the perfect good is the end of man. For some things can be tolerated in young people which would be reprehensible in mature people. for those who assist in the presence of a Lord both see him and are seen by him. As Eliphaz said above, Is it s a great thing for God to console you. (15:11ff) So he intends to show the vain character of this consolation, and he begins with the words, My wordy friends, as if to say: They promise me empty words. First he argues against the fact that Job had said that he was just. As perhaps this might not seem an unfitting conclusion to someone, he carries the argument to another more apparently unfitting conclusion saying, Can a man be pure before his maker? Each thing has purity in that it conserves its own nature which it receives from its own causes. On the part of matter, the same impediment applies to each one, and so he says, and I too was formed from the same clay, whose coarseness darkens the light of truth. After he has shown that man cannot overcome the devil in any way by his own power, he says as a conclusion to all he has said, Put your hand over him, (if you can is implied) as if to say: You cannot put your hand over him in any way by your own power to subject him to yourself. The prattling friends of Job did not understand this spiritual consolation of Job, and so he then says, You have made their hearts far from learning, from your spiritual teaching through which you teach one to hope for spiritual goods and to hold temporal goods in contempt. On this subject one must consider that the South winds produce the rains and storms. For the phrase, those who dwell in houses of clay, seems to be placed in opposition to what he said in Those who serve him, (v. 18) cling to him and live spiritually in him. He shows the measure he should observe in answering when he says, I will not show respect of persons to any man. For one shows partiality in answering someone when he abandons the truth to defer to the man. This seems to answer by opposition what he had said before, I will die in my little nest. (29:18) After enumerating their miseries one by one, as an epilogue he summarizes what he has said then saying, The sons of fools, in mind, and of disreputable men, in birth, and not known on earth at all, conspicuous for no dignity or glory. In one way when they do not foresee the outcome of a situation. 24 His bowels are full of fat and his bones nourished with marrow. This is the good and evil which happens to irrational animals. 4 Are your eyes made of flesh? Or what will you give him if your life will be blameless, by abstaining from sin? false? From the consideration of the divine excellence he proceeds to consider his own fault when he says, So I have spoken foolishly, in not showing due reverence for divine excellence in my words, about things which far exceed by knowledge, in discussing divine judgments. 14 He encompassed me about with spears, he wounded my loins, he did not spare me and he poured forth my bowels on the earth. The third is when someone strengthens the arguments he uses against someone else with efficacious reasons. However Eliphaz had accused him of pride saying, Why do you puff up your heart? In this, then, he treats the fifth and the sixth trial. Aquinas developed a theological system that synthesized Western Christian (and predominantly Roman Catholic) theology with the philosophy of the ancient Greek thinker . 1 Then Job answered saying: 2 Would that my sins for which I have merited anger and the calamity which I suffer were weighed in a balance, 3 like the sands of the sea. Third, man must perservere in this and remain fixed in it totally, not in part, and so he then says, and I did not turn aside from it, i.e. 25 His flesh has been consumed by punishments, let him return to the days of his youth. St. Thomas Aquinas Roman Catholic Parish Avondale - Job Opportunities But corporeal punishments do not seem to be directly caused by the sins themselves expect perhaps some especially gluttony and lust in which someone sins in his own body, therefore he does not pursue corporeal punishments by denouncing him but more in threatening him. He expresses this saying, Who will be judged with me? that is, with whom may I debate about the truth? One may only do this through God or the holy ones of God according to Isaiah, And when they say to you, Consult the mediums and the wizards who hiss in their incantations, should not a people ask for insight from their God for the living or the dead. (8:19), The First Lesson: Only the Blameworthy are Punished. But there are also some spirits which are evil but not by nature or creation, because God is the author of the nature of each and the supreme good cannot be the cause of anything but good things, but these spirits are evil through their own fault. First, as to the order when he says, Let clouds dwell on it. For clouds dwell on a day when a day which dawned clear and beautiful is suddenly and unexpectedly overcast by clouds. In the same way, divine reason has disposed how great a quantity the earth should have, and not larger or smaller. Or what will you give him if your life will be blameless? As to this he says, and who broke their chains?, for wild asses do not have chains of this kind. Man attacks someone at close quarters or at a distance. Leviathan means the ancient serpent who is the devil, in the sense of Isaiah, On that day the Lord will punish Leviathan the twisting serpent with his hard, great and strong sword. (27:1) Those men then are prepared to haul out Leviathan who are eager to carry out the suggestions of the devil by devoting themselves to the works of iniquity. 21 If I have raised my hand against the orphan, even when they saw me at the gate, elevated, 22 let my shoulder fall from its joint and my arm be crushed with its bones. Eliud had spoken above (36:27-30) about the changes in the atmosphere: drought and rain, as a result of the covering of the clouds from which God produces lightning from his light. (cf. 18 While he was still speaking, another messenger entered and said: Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brothers house, 19 and a violent wind suddenly rushed in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. Therefore, he repeats a second time, God will thunder in his voice, in the command of his wisdom, wonderfully, by producing wonderful effects, and to express this he then says, and he does great, according to their nature, and unsearchable things, by human reason. 4 After him, the sound will roar, he will roar in the voice of his greatness and one will not investigate when he has heard his voice. Now he intends to demonstrate that the same consolation is unfitting considering his own individual condition. These three faults occur in the speech of someone who has a weak intellect; and so a confrontation with one lacking intelligence is useless, and so he continues, Understand first, and then we will speak, as if to say: From the fact that you speak inefficaciously, lightly and inordinately it is clear that you have weak intelligence, and so I insist first that you apply yourself to understand and afterwards we can converse with each other. 11 His fury has been roused against me, and so he has considered me his enemy. Omissions are properly called delinquencies.. Yet he says the days of man pass away more swiftly than the cloth is cut away because the weaver rests from time to time in the work of weaving, but the time of mans life slips away continuously without interruption. This is what Wisdom says, The sighing of the wind, the tuneful song of the birds in the spreading branches, all held them paralyzed with fear. (17:17). I have endured adversity, because of the darkness hemming me in, the errors and the sins which are said to hem one in when they are confirmed in the spirit of a man, for example, when he sins from malice. Divine power not only exceeds every being in producing them, but also in preserving them in being. The First Lesson: The Wisdom of the Almighty. And where is the place of understanding, from what source do men participate in the light of understanding? 9 If my heart has been deceived by a woman and if I have lain in wait at my neighbors door, 10 let my wife be the prostitute of another and others bend down over her.