Deep affect is tightly united with this verse. Not even at the time, he says, when the sweetness of the harp softened my ears did I allow any lustful feeling to dwell in my heart, even though the sounds tuned with art affected the senses. I have made a covenant with my eyes. After the search for justice and the feeling of mercifulness, he places the virtue of chastity in the highest position.

From this point to the end, [Job] describes his justice, and especially his mercifulness and virtues, which he enumerates to fifteen all in all, like a fully matured man, who, after organizing his progress in his heart, through different steps finally reaches the house of the Lord by his ascension. I, he says, have decided and decreed, through the guidance of his looks, that nothing impure or obscene and no pleasure of lust might ever slip into my thoughts.

Nobody can say, Job says, either that I was hankering after pleasures, luxuries and that kind of lustful life, or, on the other hand, that by becoming too hard and austere in my heart I finally fell into those vices that are contrary to that sort of life, that is, the vices of malice and deceit. No! I kept away from both of those two vices!

There is in my way of life, even in its details, as much exactness as in the arm [of a balance]. I have not overlooked the smallest detail. For this, I do not appeal to the testimony of a mortal, who may want to please and ignores many things, but to the testimony of God, who accurately knows all that is hidden and to whom nothing can escape. The Lord, he says, knows my innocence, if my foot has turned aside out of the way or if my heart has followed my eye. Is this a further detail? Yes, truly, it was important at that time as well as now. It is important, in fact, to overturn inordinate desires, and it is not less important, after receiving those desires, not to satisfy them. And proceeding further, he states something that is even more important, that is, that not even his eyes have ever accepted anything of that kind.

He did not say, my eyes, but, my heart; I never allowed, he says, my thoughts to become corrupted, or my body either. This is exactly what Christ says: He who has cast his glance upon a woman to desire her has already committed adultery in his heart.^[1]

For this is a heinous crime and the greatest iniquity. For it is a fire that consumes to destruction and that roots out all increase. There is this difference between sin and crime. All crime is sin, but not all sin is crime. And in this life there are numbers without crime, but no one can be without sins. And hence the holy preacher, when he was describing a person worthy of the grace of priesthood, never said, If any is without sin, but if any is without crime.^[1] Who can be without sin, when John says, If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us?^[2] In this same distinction of sins and crimes, it deserves to be considered that occasional sins pollute the soul, while crimes slay it. Hence, blessed Job in characterizing the crime of lust says, It is a fire that consumes to destruction. In this way, the heinousness of this atrocity not only stains to the length of defilement but also devours to the extent of destruction. And howsoever many other good deeds there may be, if the enormity of lust is not washed out, they are overwhelmed by the immensity of this crime. He added going on, and rooting out all offspring, for the offspring of the soul are good practices. The soul, nevertheless, if the right order is being reversed, then the flesh exercises dominion over it, and all the things that are put forth well are consumed by the fire of lust.

After describing his virtues of justice, mercifulness and chastity, he adds now a new one, that is, the virtue of moderation. Indeed, he does not defend himself against the complaints of his servants with the authority of a landlord but by satisfying the reasons of righteousness.

If I have withheld anything that the poor desired. In order that it might not appear that by humanely treating his servants, he did not practice a real liberality but only took care of his property, he says that he tended the hand of mercy and benevolence to strangers as well. In a different sense, one who does not wait to satisfy the desire of the needy donates without the slightest hesitation. Or if I have caused the eyes of the widow to fail. The caring affection of the merciful offers everything, because he thinks that everything must be asked of him.

Because he did not despise the poor, he displayed the virtue of humility; and he covered him out of pity. For these two virtues ought to be so linked together as to be even supported by reciprocal practice; that so neither humility, when it reverences a fellow creature, should abandon the grace of free giving, nor pity, when it gives, be made to swell high. Thus toward the need of a fellow creature, let pity sustain humility, humility sustain pity, so that when you see one who is a sharer of your own nature lacking the necessaries of life, you should neither through pitilessness cease to cover him nor from pride cease to reverence him whom you do cover. For there are persons who, the moment they are entreated for necessaries by their brothers in need, afterwards intending to bestow gifts on them, first let loose words of insult against them. These persons, though in things they execute the office of pity, yet in words lose the grace of humility, so that for the most part it seems they are now paying satisfaction for an injury inflicted when after abuse they bestow gifts. Nor is it a thing of high practice that they give the things that are begged for, because of the very boon of their giving they scarcely cover over that transgression of speech.

I have said that God can protect the orphans, destroy those who offend them and break their arms, because he hates the wicked. I certainly know this.

For I always feared God like waves swelling over me, and I could not endure the weight of him. Consider here that blessed Job says these things concerning himself after having been pained and smitten. If he had been stricken in order to increase his moral excellences by one he so feared, one need not despise the one who disciplines. How shall the judgments of God weigh down for a time [those] who always dread these things in humility? How shall he be able to endure the weight of God, who condemns, if this same weight even he underwent under the rod who foresaw it in fear. Hence, with the utmost earnestness, we ought to dread that inquest of so great strictness. Now it is plain that in this life, when he smites, if amendment follows the stroke, it is the discipline of a father, not the wrath of a judge, the love of one correcting, not the strictness of one punishing. And so by that very present scourge itself, the eternal judgments ought to be weighed. And we ought with the greatest pains to reflect how that anger may be borne that casts away, if that anger of his that purifies may scarcely now be borne.

Now what kind of fault can be detected there? You see that he is not keen on riches. Observe him, while he reflects and considers in truth the accidental, transitory, ephemeral and negligible character of human realities.

If I had looked at the sun when it shone or the moon moving in splendor, that is, if I had seen the rising sun and worshiped it or had embraced the moon and kneeled down before it, I would have certainly erred in worshiping them. ^[1] A GESTURE OF AFFECTION. ISHO‘DAD OF MERV: My mouth has kissed my hand. . . is said in analogy with those who have the habit to bring their hands [to their mouth] and to kiss [them] when they meet people who are dear to them. ^[1]

It is certainly admirable that one, even though he can, does not take revenge upon his enemies. But when he does not even rejoice in his heart for their ruin that is even more pleasing to God.

With my wisdom I loved to practice philanthropy above all, he says that he did that. And so his handmaids practiced it as well, and when they led a stranger, after receiving him kindly, to their rejoicing master, they considered that opportunity a great benefit. He was a model of godly philanthropy not only outside but also in his own house, like the holy Abraham.

Because I did not turn away, he says, from the great multitude of my people, that is, away from my subjects, from those who were aware, who knew even the character itself of my fault. This is real wisdom. First of all confess spontaneously your sins in order to be justified.^[1] So I took nobody as a witness of my good works, because I wanted everybody to be aware of my faults and errors. That is the summit of wisdom, that is the rule of virtue: to hide one’s good work and to expose one’s faults in public. But the people of today just do the opposite.

Since he had been driven to the confession of his virtues both by the accusations of his friends and his pious devotion to God [and from the fear of God his virtues had proceeded], he now chooses to add the testimony of the sentence of the Judge in support of his words, so that, after God had declared that he had said the truth, no one among his opponents may deny it.

I have torn all that was received unjustly.^[1] Without boasting, I have torn what I had received. And the expression on my shoulders suggests that some [of his friends] gloried in the afflictions of the others; and I did not content myself with giving it back simply, but I nullified it by tearing it. I have torn all that was received unjustly.

If my land has ever cried out against me, or if its furrows have wept together. Therefore, neither the land cries out nor weeps. What does he mean? Certainly the land does not really groan, but inanimate beings perceive injustices. As the prophet asserts, The earth stood up and shuddered.^[1] Now the earth moans every time we make an unjust use of its fruits.