The Purpose of Suffering and Divine Providence

The sins become visible through the wordrdrd, concerning heavenly matters and not through the senses. But hope, existing for those who are unable, is a reproof against the Novatians, who exclude repentance and cut off hopes. They ought to have been instructed even by Eliphaz, the one being rebuked, for there is hope of salvation with them.

'Let the mouth of the unrighteous be stopped' (Proverbs 10:14)—as it is said, 'all unrighteousness shall stop her mouth' (Proverbs 10:14), which is said instead of the unrighteous man. For often... If, indeed, Paul writes concerning love, the words are applied not to love itself but to the one possessing it. For he says, 'love does not wander, it is not puffed up' (1 Cor 13:5), and these things are spoken precisely concerning the one possessing it: 'love never fails' (1 Cor 13:8). Virtue does not fail, but the one possessing it.

Therefore, 'let the mouth of the unrighteous be stopped by unrighteousness,' that is, the unrighteous man, who is the devil, no longer having anything to say, just as Paul writes, saying, 'so that the one against you may be put to shame, having nothing to say concerning you' (1 Cor 16:11) instead of 'against us.' 'Blessed is the man whom the Lord reproves, and the instruction of the Almighty shall not offend' (Psalm 94:12). For He causes pain and again restores; He chastened, and His hands healed (Job 5:18). This is the most difficult thing in its delivery.

For it is said, 'and I will not visit their daughters when they whore, nor their virgins when they commit adultery' (Hosea 2:15). And observe that regarding the daughters, to whore is said, but regarding the virgins, to commit adultery. But also that which is said in Proverbs, 'Whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and scourges every son whom He receives' (Proverbs 3:12), subjects the mind to the same. And one of the saints, having this readiness and speaking boldly, offering words of repentance to God, said, 'I am ready for the lashes'; for I know that it happens profitably from You, just as one says to a wise physician, 'I am even ready for the incision, being confident in your skill.'

Therefore, still following the same principle, Job speaks in a certain way, as if toward a rebuke of a man (Job 16), as a type. For 'he causes pain and again restores' (Job 34:4). And regarding the words, they are authoritative concerning God. Moses himself says from the beginning: 'I kill and I will make live, I strike and I myself will heal' (Deut 32:39).

For it is not according to the Manichaeans that one causes pain and another heals; for there is one who is being afflicted, who has permitted the induction of evils for the purpose of leading through providence, the demons driving them; for they... are able... they lead the things of affliction toward health: 'six times out of necessity you shall be delivered, but in the seventh no evil shall touch you' (Job 36:15). If one were to stand upon what is said and consider, as Eliphaz is not of the holy ones, how such words are spoken by him, which might even be spoken to holy ones.

It must be said toward this, that the wise according to God, and before the law and the inscribed teaching, said many things unwritten with wisdom, which someone later handed down in written form by divine supply. It is therefore probable that even the friends of Job, having a well-ordered understanding, remembered the words arranged by the holy ones. This is that which leads them to bring forward sensible words, even if in some respects they erred.

What the laid out verses then suggest is this: to whatever extent someone possesses a world having come about in six days, the injustices and tribulations enduring in it. For even if someone is holy, he has the necessity of the need from the body, from which he is delivered, having surpassed the world and having come to a seventh rest. This is made clear from: 'pain and sorrow and sighing fled away' (Job 3:11).

And according to this thought, he did not refuse to take the literal sense. For affliction does not touch the one who has surpassed the world, since even one having a way of being not lover of silver and being unrighteous, loss does not touch him, as it is sensibly understood to touch, as we previously noted, more than the word signifies; for in 'touching all' it signifies the approach and the touch itself, but in 'he who touches you as one touches his eye' the striking and the impulse.