And said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there: the LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.
All Commentaries on Job 1:21 Go To Job 1
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
Those who lost all their worldly possessions in the sack of Rome, if they owned their possessions as they had been taught by the apostle who himself was poor without, but rich within—that is to say, if they used the world as though not using it—they could say in the words of Job, heavily tried but not overcome, “Naked I came out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; as it pleased the Lord, so it has happened: Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Like a good servant, Job counted the will of his Lord his greatest possession and through obedience to that will his soul was enriched. It didn’t grieve him while he was still alive to lose those goods which he was shortly going to have to leave at his death. But as to those feebler spirits who, though they cannot be said to prefer earthly possessions to Christ, still hang on to them with a somewhat moderate attachment to them, they have discovered by the pain of losing these things how much they were sinning in loving them. For their grief is of their own making. In the words of the apostle quoted above, “They have pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” For it was well that they who had so long despised these verbal admonitions should receive the teaching of experience. For when the apostle says “They that will be rich fall into temptation,” and so on, what he blames in riches is not the possession of them but the desire for them. For elsewhere he says, “Charge those who are rich in this world not to be high-minded or trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.” They who were making such a use of their property have been consoled for light losses by great gains, and have had more pleasure in those possessions which they have securely laid past, by freely giving them away, than grief in which those they entirely lost by an anxious and selfish hoarding of them. For nothing could perish on earth except what they would be ashamed to carry away from the earth. Our Lord’s injunction runs, “Do not lay up treasures for yourselves on earth, where moth and rust corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust corrupt, and where thieves do not break through or steal: for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” And they who have listened to this injunction have proved in the time of tribulation how well they were advised in not despising this most trustworthy teacher and most faithful and mighty guardian of their treasure. For if many were glad that their treasure was stored in places which the enemy chanced not to light upon, how much better founded was the joy of those who, by the counsel of their God, have fled with their treasure to a citadel which no enemy can possibly reach!
