The Silence of Friends and Job's Outcry

Let no shameful word proceed from your mouths. God delivers the combatant into a second trial, not because He learns from the trial what the combatant was like, but to shame the devil through the trial. For God knows all things before they happen.

The devil went out from the presence of the Lord and struck Job with a wicked wound from head to foot. He made a single wound, a single boil, upon his whole body. For it was necessary that the combatant be crowned through his whole being. From head to foot, the wound is salvation. The wound is the victory; a wound that, according to appearance, is a flowing ulcer, but according to understanding, is a fullness of praise. The ulcers of the wound became in a short time, but the praises, which the struggle produced, are not consumed throughout all eternity. He struck him with a wicked wound from head to foot, so that he might be revealed as a crowned one through all his members.

Then, because the place could not receive one so afflicted in body, the whole household cast this man out, as one disgraced—for Job's wound was nothing other than a disgrace. The one who was a stranger to the world went out from the city; he went out from the city and sat on ashes; he went out from the city not having a worldly struggle, but surpassing the present condition. For being outside the city and the wall was an image of the Cross of Christ. For this reason Paul says: Just as the blood of animals is brought into the holy things, their bodies are burned outside the camp. For this reason also Jesus, in order to sanctify the people, suffered outside the gate. Christ outside the gate; Job sat on ashes outside the city. The seed of piety, the seed of endurance, being trodden upon by afflictions, sat on ashes, waiting for Him who raises the poor from the earth, and Him who raises the needy from the ash heap.

He saw, brothers, the body hemorrhaging, but the soul being strengthened; he saw the body bearing worms, but the soul producing piety; he saw the earthly vessel decaying, and he remembered the words of Paul; for it was necessary for him to say: Just as the man outside of us decays, so much the man within is renewed day by day. He took a potsherd, in order to scrape the ulcer...

The shard washes away the filth, and endurance defeats the adversary. It was fitting for him to say to the one holding the shard: 'We hold this treasure in a shard vessel.' He sat upon the dung-heap, which raises many from the dung-heap; he took a shard to wash the filth, so that the living clay might wash away the dead clay.

The three friends came; for misfortunes call friends to consolation. Eliphaz, Zophar, and Bildad came, three kings to one king. For he was a king before this, saying: 'I was among them as a king in single garments.' And they sat, he says, opposite Job for seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke. For moderate misfortunes receive consolation, but the greatness of misfortunes is honored by silence.

For, brothers, there is a time when suffering overcomes consolation; and just as in the height of sickness every treatment is sent away, so also sufferings in the height of misfortunes cast out every exhortation. They were silent, participating in the suffering through silence.

And what does he do? Since misfortune conquered them, and no one dared to cast a voice of consolation, he begins the words first. Job opens a door to those who do not suffer. For we know, brothers, that in misfortunes, or in mourning, or in any other state of degradation, each one is ashamed to be the first to cast a voice, lest someone might seem an unseasonable introducer of virtue or opinion; but if he sees another having begun, he follows without danger. This, brothers, experience teaches, and circumstances suggest.

As when he saw that suffering had shut out the consolation of the friends, the sufferer opens a door and immediately begins to lament the misfortune, fleeing everywhere from the suspicion of blasphemy. The first voice of Job: 'Cursed be the day on which I was born, and let that night be darkness.' He does not say these things as an impious man, but as a sufferer.

And see what he does: just as when someone, being seized by a terrible fit, is cut by iron by the physician, having no way to resist the cutter, he seizes those standing around and bites those present, having nothing to accuse them of, yet not being strong enough to stretch out his hand to the physician; so also Job, fearing the magnitude of blasphemy, insults the lifeless, and fills the fullness of his suffering, not of God.