If I sin, then you mark me, and you will not acquit me from my iniquity.
All Commentaries on Job 10:14 Go To Job 10
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
83. The Lord ‘spareth sin at the hour,’ when the moment that we yield tears, He does away with the guilt of sin. But He doth not ‘let us be clean from our iniquity,’ in that of free will indeed we committed the sin, but sometimes against our will we undergo the remembrance of it with a sense of pleasure; for often that, which has been put away from the sight of the just Judge by tears intervening, recurs to mind, and the conquered habit strives to insinuate itself again for the entertaining of delight, and is renewed again in the former contest with revived assault, that what it once did in the body, it may afterwards go through in the mind by intruding thought; which same that spiritual wrestler knew how to regard with heedful eye, who said, My scars [V. cicatrices] stink, and are corrupt through my foolishness. For what are ‘scars’ but the healings of wounds? And so he who lamented his scars, beheld his pardoned wickednesses return to his remembrance for the entertaining of delight. Since for scars to grow corrupt is for wounds of sins, already healed, again to insinuate themselves in the tempting of us, and at their suggestions, after the skin of penitence has grown over; to be sensible of the stench and pain of sin again. Wherein there is at once both nothing done outwardly in deed, and sin is committed within in the thought alone, and the soul is laid under a close bond of guilt except it do away with it by heedful lamentation.
84. Whence it is well said by Moses, If there be among you any man that is not clean by reason of a dream that chanceth him by night, then shall he go abroad without the camp, he shall not come within the camp: but it shall be when evening cometh on he shall wash himself with water: and when the sun is down he shall come into the camp again. [Deut. 23, 10. 11.] For ‘the dream that chanceth by night’ is the secret tempting, whereby there is something foul conceived in the heart in dark thought, which nevertheless is not fulfilled in the deed of the body. Now, if there be any that is ‘not clean by reason of a dream that chanceth him by night,’ he is bidden to go abroad without the camp, in that it is meet that he that is defiled with impure thought, should look upon himself as unworthy the society of the faithful, that he should set before his eyes the deserts of his sin, and look down upon himself in the scale of good men. And so for ‘one unclean to go abroad out of the camp’ is for one hard bestead by the assaults of impurity, to look down upon himself by comparison with men of continency. And ‘when evening cometh on he washes himself with water,’ in that seeing his offence he has recourse to tears of penitence, that by weeping he may wash out every thing that hidden defilement brings home to the soul’s charge. ‘And when the sun is down he shall come into the camp again,’ in that when the heat of temptation has subsided, it follows that he should again take confidence to join the company of the good. For after washing with water, when the sun is set, he returns to the camp, who after tears of penance, when the flame of unlawful thought is quenched, is restored to assume the claims of the faithful, that he should not any longer account himself far removed from others, who rejoices that he is clean by the departure of the inward burning.
But herein be it known that it is for this reason that we are sometimes driven to straits by the impulse of unlawful thought, because we are ready to employ ourselves in certain courses of earthly conduct, though not unlawful. And when even in the very least things we come in contact with earthly conduct in desire, the might of our old enemy gaining strength against us, our mind is defiled by no little urgency of temptation. And hence the Priest of the Law is enjoined to consume with fire the limbs of the victim cut into pieces, the head, and the parts about the liver; but the inwards and the legs he is to wash with water first. [Lev. 1, 5. 12.] For we offer our own selves a sacrifice to God, when we dedicate our lives to the service of God, and we set the members of the sacrifice cut into pieces upon the fire, when we offer up the deeds of our lives dividing them in the virtues. The head and the parts contained about the liver we burn, when in our faculty of sense, whereby all the body is governed, and in our hidden desire we are kindled with the flame of divine love. And yet it is bidden, that the feet and the inwards of the victim be washed with water. For with the feet the earth is touched, and in the inwards dung is carried, in that it very often happens that already in the desire of our hearts we burn for eternity, already with an entire feeling of devotion we pant in longing desire for the mortification of ourselves; but whereas by reason of our frailty there is still a mixture of earth in what we do, even some of the things forbidden which we have already subdued, we are subject to in thought, and while unclean temptation defiles our thoughts, what else is this than that ‘the inwards’ of the victim carry dung? But that they may be fit to be burnt, let them be washed, in that it is necessary that tears of fear wash out the impure thoughts of the heart, for [o] love from on high to consume them in acceptance of the sacrifice, and whatever the mind is subject to, proceeding either from untried conflict, or from the remembrance of former practice, let it be washed, that it may burn with so much the sweeter odour in the sight of its Beholder, in proportion as when it begins to draw near to Him, it sets upon the altar of its prayer along with itself nought earthly, nought impure. Therefore let the holy man regard the wretchedness of the human mind, how often it defiles itself with unhallowed thoughts, and after the Judge's remission of the guilt of our doings, even whilst he bewails his own case, let him shew to us ours, for ourselves to bewail, saying, If I have sinned, and thou sparedst me at the hour, wherefore dost thou not let me be clean from mine iniquity? As if he said in plain words; ‘If Thy forgiveness has taken away my sin, why does it not sweep it from my memory also?’ Oftentimes the mind is so shaken from its centre at the recollection of sin, that it is prompted to the commission thereof far worse than it had been before subjected to it, and when entangled it is filled with fears, and being driven with different impulses, throws itself into disorder. It dreads lest it should be overcome by temptations, and in resisting, it shudders at this very fact, that it is harassed with the long toils of conflict.
