If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands ever so clean;
All Commentaries on Job 9:30 Go To Job 9
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
56. For ‘snow water’ is the weeping of humility; which same, in that it excels all other virtues in the eyes of the strict Judge, is as it were white by the colour of preeminent merit. For there are some to whom there is lamenting but not humility, in that when they are afflicted they weep, yet in those very tears, they either set themselves in disdain against the life of their neighbours, or they are lifted up against the dispensation of their Maker. Such have water, but not ‘snow water,’ and they can never be clean, because they are not washed in the tears of humility. But he had washed himself clean from sin with snow water, who said with confidence, A broken and a humbled heart, O God, Thou shalt not despise. [Ps. 51, 17] For they that afflict themselves with tears but turn rebels by murmuring, ‘break’ their heart indeed, but disdain to be ‘humbled.’ Though ‘snow water’ may also be understood in another sense. For water of the spring and stream issues out of the earth, but snow water is let fall from the sky. And there are very many, who torment themselves in the wailings of supplication, yet with all their pains in bewailing they spend themselves upon earthly objects of desire alone. They are pierced with anguish in their prayers, but it is the joys of transitory happiness that they are in search of. And so these are not washed with ‘snow water,’ because their tears come from below. For it is as if they were bathed in water of earth, who are pierced with grief in their prayers, on account of earthly good things. But they who lament for this reason, because they long for the rewards on high [or ‘from on high’], are washed clean in snow water, in that heavenly compunction overflows them. For when they seek after the everlasting land by tears, and inflamed with longing for it lament, they receive from on high that whereby they may be made clean. Now by ‘the hands’ what else is denoted saving ‘works?’ Whence it is said to certain persons by the Prophet; Your hands are full of blood, [Is. 1, 15] i.e. ‘your works are full of cruelty.'
57. But it is to be observed, that the holy man does not say, And make my hands shine ever so clean, but as if never so clean. For so long as we are tied and bound by the penalty of a corrupt state, we never by whatsoever right works appropriate real cleanness to ourselves, but only imitate it, And hence it is fitly added, Yet Thou shalt stain me with filth. For God ‘to stain us with filth’ means His shewing us to be stained with filth; in that in proportion as we more truly rise up to Him by good works, the more exactly we are made to know the filthiness of our life, by which we are rendered at variance with His pureness. Thus he saith, If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands shine as if never so clean; yet shalt Thou stain me with filthinesses. As if it were expressed in plain words, ‘Though I be steeped in tears of heavenly compunction, though I be exercised in the courses of good works, yet in Thy pureness I perceive that I am not pure.’ For the flesh itself, which is still subject to corruption, beats off the spirit when it is intent on God, and stains the beauty of the love of Him by foul and unhallowed movements of thought.
58. Hence too it is added, And mine own clothes shall abhor me. For what is denoted by the name of ‘clothes’ saving this earthly body, with which the soul is endued and covered, that it may not be seen naked in the subtleness of its substance? For hence Solomon saith, Let thy garments be always white, [Eccl. 9, 8] i.e. the members of the body clean from filthy acts. Hence Isaiah saith, A garment mixed in blood shall be for burning. [Is. 9, 5. Vulg.] For to ‘mix garments in blood’ is to defile the body with fleshly desires; which same the Psalmist dreaded to be defiled with, when he said, Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, Thou That art the God of my health. [Ps. 51, 16] Hence it is delivered to John by the voice of the Angel, Thou hast a few names in Sardis, which have not defiled their garments. [Rev. 3, 4] But according to the way of Holy Writ, our clothes are said ‘to abhor us,’ in that they make us to be abhorred; in like manner as it is also said of Judas by Peter, Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity. [Acts 1, 18] For Judas never could have purchased the potter's field, which was bought with the price of blood, in that restoring the thirty pieces of silver, he straightway punished the guilt of the betrayal by a death with greater guilt inflicted on himself, but ‘he purchased’ is rendered, he ‘was the cause of purchasing.’ So in this place, Mine own garments shall abhor me, means, ‘shall make me to be abhorred.’ For whilst the members set themselves up against the spirit, whilst they break in upon the engagements of holy desire, ‘by the tumult of temptations that are caused by them, the soul being set in its own conflict learns how meanly it is still regarded by the Divine Being, in that while it fully desires to go through with the chastising of self and is not able, it is defiled by the dust of filthy thoughts. He felt this ‘abhorrence of the clothes,’ who said, But I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members. [Rom. 7, 23] These very garments, in which he could not be entirely pleasing, he anxiously desired to lay aside, one day to be resumed much better, saying, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? [Rom. 7, 24] Therefore let the righteous man say, If I wash myself as with snow water, and make my hands shine as if never so clean, yet shalt Thou still stain me with filthiness, and mine own clothes shall abhor me. In that howsoever he might have been transported on high in the compunctious visitings of contemplation, however he might have braced himself in practice by the exercise of pains, yet he is still sensible of somewhat unmeet derived from a body of death, and sees himself to be abominable in many things, which he bears about him from his load of corruption. And this too becomes a worse affliction to him, that he often cannot make out by what means he is an offender. He undergoes scourges, but knows nothing what in him is greater, or what less, that displeases the severe Judge. And hence it is added,
32. For He is not a man, such as I am, that I should answer Him, or that He can be heard with me in Judgment on an equal footing.
59. When we ‘contend with another in judgment on an equal footing,’ we both learn what is urged against us, and in all we allege we are heard, and in proportion as we apprehend the points openly objected, we reply with boldness to the points propounded. In this way forasmuch as the invisible Judge sees all that we do, it is as if He hears things that we say. But because we never know fully the thing that displeases Him, it is as if what He Himself says, we know not. Thus the holy man, considering the ‘abhorrence of his own clothes,’ is the more filled with fears, that he cannot ‘be heard with Him in judgment on an equal footing.’ In that so long as he is burthened with the load of his corruption, he meets with this worst evil in his punishment, that he does not even know the view that his Reprover takes. As though he said in plain words; ‘Herein I am not heard on an equal footing, in that while all that I do is open to view, yet I myself cannot tell under what liabilities I am arrested.’
