If he is destroyed from his place, then it will deny him, saying, I have not seen you.
All Commentaries on Job 8:18 Go To Job 8
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
85. The hypocrite is ‘destroyed from his place,’ when he is parted from the applause of the present life, by death intervening. But the interior Witness ‘denieth’ him, thus destroyed, and asserts that He knows him not, in that in justly condemning the life of the pretender, ‘Truth’ knows him not, nor recognises the good works he has done, in that he never put them forth in a right purpose of mind. And hence when He cometh to Judgment, He will say to the foolish virgins, Verily I say unto you, I know you not. [Matt. 25, 12] In which same whilst He sees corruptness of mind, He condemns even incorruptness in the flesh. But would that their own ruin alone were enough for hypocrites, and that their wicked pains did not vehemently urge others to a life [al. ‘a way’] of duplicity. For it is the way with everyone, to wish that, such as he is himself, others of a like sort should be joined with him, and to avoid difference in life, and to inculcate as a pattern for imitation the thing that he loves. Whence also according to the view of hypocrites every degree of simplicity of character is criminal. For they sit in judgment on open characters, and purity of heart they term stupidity; and all whom they desire to be attached to themselves, they turn out of the path of simplicity, and then, as though their folly were cast out, they reckon that they have enlightened those persons, in whom they force to a surrender that fortress of wisdom, purity of heart. But forasmuch as the hypocrite is condemned not for his own frowardness alone, but for the added ruin of his followers also, after that he is said not to be known by the Judge.
