I went mourning but not in the sun: I stood up, and I cried in the congregation.
All Commentaries on Job 30:28 Go To Job 30
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
73. I see that it is a thing to be carefully noted historically considered, that the holy man who a little before said, Thou hast lifted me up, added below, I went mourning. For by a wonderful arrangement at one and the same time there is wont to meet together in the courses of good men, at once without, the honour of the highest pitch, and within, the mourning of afflicted abasement. Hence the holy man likewise, whilst lifted to a height by substance and by honours; ‘went mourning’; for though this man the high credit of power displayed advanced above his fellow-creatures, yet inwardly he offered to the Lord by his mourning the secret sacrifice of a contrite heart. Since the sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit. [Ps. 51, 17] Now all the Elect are taught by inward reflecting to fight against the temptations of outward superiority. Which persons, if they set their heart to their outward good fortune assuredly would cease to be righteous. But because it cannot be that upon the mere grounds of the successes of fortune alone the heart of man should never be at all tempted with however slight a degree of pride, holy men strive hard within against their very good fortune itself; I do not say, lest in self exaltation, but lest in the love of that prosperity at all events they should be brought to the ground. And it is most effectually to have been brought under this, to have surrendered the mind in a state of captivity to the desires thereof. But who that has a taste for earthly things, who that embraces temporal objects, would not look upon blessed Job as happy amidst so many circumstances of prosperity, when the health of the body, the life of his children, the preservation of his household, the completeness of his flocks, were all vouchsafed to him? But that in all these circumstances he did not take delight, he is his own witness, in that he says, I went mourning. For to the holy man still placed in this state of pilgrimage, all that is full of abundance, without the Vision of God, is destitution; because when the Elect see that all things are theirs, they lament that they do not see the Author of all things, and to them all this is too little, because there is still wanting the appearance of One. And in such sort does the grace of Heavenly Appointment exalt them without, that nevertheless, within, the sorrow of the instructress charity holds them under discipline. By which same they learn, that for the things which they receive outwardly, they should ever be the more humbled to themselves, should keep the mind under the yoke of discipline, should never by the liberty of power be made to break out into impatience. Whence also it is fitly subjoined, Without rage rising in the crowd, I cried out. For it often happens that the tumults of seditious men provoke the spirit of their rulers, and by disorderly emotions they transgress the limit of their orderliness.
74. And very often they who are set at the head, except in the mouth of the heart they be held in with the bridle of the Holy Spirit, leap forth into the fierceness of enraged retribution, and as much as they are able to do, reckon themselves to be at liberty to do with those under them. For impatience is almost always the friend of power, and that power when evil it even rules over as subject to it. For what that same feels, power executes. But holy men bow down themselves much more to the yoke of patience inwardly, than they are above others outwardly, and they exhibit without the truer governance, in proportion as they maintain within more lowly servitude to God: and they for this reason often endure persons the more fully, the more they have it in their power to revenge themselves upon them, and lest they should ever pass over into things unlawful, they very often will not put in execution in their own behalf even what is lawful; they are subject to the clamours of those under their charge, they rebuke in love those, whom they bear in mildness. Whence it is rightly said now, Without rage rising up in the crowd, I cried out; in this way, because against the clamours of the unruly the good have ‘crying out,’ but they have not ‘rage,’ because those whom they bear with gently they do not cease to teach.
But these particulars which after the historical view we have delivered concerning one individual, it remains that we understand after the allegorical view concerning diverse Elect ones of Holy Church. For she too in her Elect ‘goes mourning,’ even in prosperous circumstances. For she accounts nothing truly prosperous to her, until the good, which she is preeminently seeking after, she may lay hold of. Since her faithful ones enjoy temporal peace indeed, but sigh evermore; they are honoured, and afflicted: because very often they are seen at the highest pitch there, where they are not citizens. She too ‘rises in the crowd without rage, and cries out,’ because she presses upon the life of the evil doers with the eagerness of right jealousy, not with the frenzy of rage. She is angry and loving, she deals wrathfully and is tranquil, that so her weak members she may reform by zealousness, and cherish in pitifulness.
