All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils;
All Commentaries on Job 27:3 Go To Job 27
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
5. What he first calls ‘iniquity,’ this repeating afterwards he calls ‘falsehood.’ For both all ‘falsehood’ is ‘iniquity,’ and all ‘iniquity’ ‘falsehood,’ because, whatever thing is at variance with truth is surely at odds with equity. But between this which he expresses, ‘to speak’ and that which he adds afterwards, to ‘meditate,’ there is a wide difference. For sometimes it is a worse thing to ‘meditate’ falsehood than to speak it. For to speak is very frequently a matter of precipitation, but to ‘meditate’ of purposed wickedness. And who could be ignorant by what great difference the sin is distinguished, whether a man tell a lie by precipitation or of set purpose? But the holy man, to be entirely attached to the truth, tells that he would neither lie of set purpose, nor by precipitation. For all lying is very seriously to be guarded against, though sometimes there is a certain sort of lying which is of lighter complexion, if a man lie in rendering good [b]. But seeing that it is written, The mouth that belieth slayeth the soul. [Wisd. 1, 11] And, Thou shalt destroy all them that speak leasing. [Ps. 5, 7] This kind of lying also those that are perfect eschew with the greatest care, so that not even the life of any man should by deceit of theirs be defended, lest they hurt their own souls, whilst they busy themselves to give life to another’s flesh; though the same particular kind of sin we believe to be very easily remitted. For if any sin is ‘by godly practice ensuing after to be done away, how much more is this easily wiped off, which pitifulness, the mother of good works, herself accompanies?
6. But there are some that from the deceit of the midwives endeavour to establish that this species of lying is not sin, chiefly because, upon those midwives lying, it is written, That the Lord made them houses. [Exod. 1, 21] By which mode of recompensing it is rather learnt what the offence of lying earns; for the profits of their kindness which might have been repaid them in everlasting life, on account of the sin of lying mixing in are diverted into an earthly recompense, that in their own life, which they were ready to defend by lying, they should receive back the good which they did, and not have any reward of their recompensing, that they might look forward to beyond. For if the thing be weighed with exactness, it was from the love of the present life they lied, not from the being bent on the recompense; for by the act of sparing, they endeavoured to protect the life of the infants; but by the act of lying, their own life.
7. And though in the Old Testament a few such cases may possibly be discovered, yet almost on no occasion will the attentive reader there find this or a like kind of lying practised by those that were perfect, although the lie might seem to bear some sort of semblance of truth; and perchance it might be an offence of a lighter complexion under the Old Testament, wherein by victims of bulls and goats, the sacrifice was not the very Truth itself, but a shadow of the truth. For in the New Testament, after Truth has been manifested by flesh, we are advanced by a higher scale of precepts, and it is meet and right that certain actions which in that People were instrumental to a shadow of the Truth, we should give over. But if there be any man, who would defend his lying by the Old Testament, because there perhaps it was less detrimental to particular persons, he must needs be compelled to say that the robbing of another’s property, and the retaliation of an injury, which were there allowed to those in a weak state, cannot be injurious to himself. All of which it is plain to all men with what severe strictures Truth doth visit. Which ‘Truth’ now henceforth, the shadow of the betokenment of Him set aside, is brought to light in very flesh. But as the holy man gives his word neither to ‘speak’ nor ‘meditate falsehood,’ these actual particulars, wherein he agrees with the truth, he subjoins.
