My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as the stream of brooks that pass away;
All Commentaries on Job 6:15 Go To Job 6
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
30. Because the mind of the reprobate is set on present things alone, for the most part it proves a stranger to the scourge now, in proportion as hereafter it remains an exile from the inheritance. But oftentimes the lost hold the same faith by which we live, receive the same Sacraments of faith, are bound in the unity of the same religion, yet they are unacquainted with the bowels of compassion; of the force of that love, with which we are inflamed, both towards God and our neighbour, they know nothing. Therefore they are rightly called both ‘brethren,’ and those that ‘pass by,’ in that by faith they come forth from the same mother's womb with ourselves, but are not rooted in one and the same earnestness of charity towards God and our neighbour. Whence they are also fitly likened to a ‘brook which passes by rapidly in the valleys.’ For a brook flows from the highlands down below, and while it gathers its waters from the winter rains, is dried up by the summer heats; for they that from love of earthly objects quit the hope of the land above, seek the valley as it were from the uplands, and these are replenished with the winter season of the present life; but the summer of the Judgment to come dries them up, in that so soon as the sun of the rigour of the Most High waxes hot, it turns the joy of the reprobate into drought. Therefore it is rightly said, Rapidly passeth by in the valleys. Since for a torrent to pass by rapidly [c] to the valleys, is for the mind of the froward, without any pains or hindrance to descend to the lowest aims. For all ascending is in painstaking, but all descending is in pleasure, in that in effect the step is strained to reach a higher level, but in relaxation, it is let down to a lower one. For it is a matter of much toil to get a stone up to the top of a mountain, but it is no labour to let the same down from the top to the bottom. Surely, that same is propelled down without let, which did not reach the top without mighty pains. The crop is sown by long application, it is nourished by a long course of shower and sunshine, yet it is consumed by a single instantaneous spark. By little and little buildings mount to a height, but by instantaneous falls they come to the ground. A vigorous tree lifts itself in the air by slow accessions of growth, but all that it has in a long course reared on high, is brought down at once and together. Therefore forasmuch as ascending is with pains and descending with pleasure, it is rightly expressed in this place, My brethren have passed by me like a brook which passeth by rapidly in the valleys; which too may be taken in another sense likewise.
31. For if we understand the valleys to be the regions of punishment below, then all the unrighteous ‘pass away rapidly like a brook to the valleys,’ in that in this life, which; they go after with all the desire of their heart, they can never stay for long, since for all the days that they add to their age, they are as it were daily tending by so many steps to their end. They wish for the periods to be lengthened to them, but forasmuch as when granted they cannot hold; for as many additions as they are allowed to their life, they are losing just so many from their period of living; therefore the moments of time, in so far as they pursue, they are fleeing from; in so far as they get them, they are parting with them. Thus they ‘pass away rapidly to the valleys,’ who indeed draw out to a great length their desires for the pleasures, but on a sudden are brought down to the dungeons of hell. For because even that period which is protracted by any length of life whatever, if it be closed by an ending; is not long, those wretched persons learn from the end that: that was but short, which they held only in letting go. Whence also it is well said by Solomon, But if a man live many years and rejoice in them all; yet let him remember the days of darkness; for they shall be many: and when they have come, the past shall be convicted of vanity. [Eccles. 11, 8] For when the foolish mind meets on a sudden with evil which never passes away, it is made to understand by undergoing the eternal durations thereof, that the thing which could pass away was vain. But we should know that the greater number desire to do right, but there are some things calculated to cross and thwart their weak minds arising from the present life; and whereas they fear to undergo crosses in the lowest things, they offend against the rule of right set by the decree above.
