I am afraid of all my sorrows, I know that you will not hold me innocent.
All Commentaries on Job 9:28 Go To Job 9
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
For we say that “we never ought to speak this way” when we transgress the limits of our frail nature by excessive questioning. We reproach ourselves in dread and are restrained by reminding ourselves of heavenly awe, in which our mind’s face is altered. The mind, in the first instance, failing to comprehend its limits, is boldly investigating things above. Afterwards, discovering its own infirmity, it begins to entertain awe for what it is ignorant of. However, in this very change there is pain, for the mind is very greatly afflicted that, in payment for the first sin, it is blinded to the understanding of things touching it.… Therefore, because our very good actions themselves cannot escape the sword of ambushed sin unless they are guarded every day by anxious fear, it is rightly said by the holy man in this place, “I was afraid of all my works.” It is as if he said with humble confession, “What I have done publicly, I know, but what I may have been secretly subject to through this I cannot tell.” For often our good points are spoiled by deceit robbing us, in that the earthly desires unite themselves to our righteous actions. Oftentimes they come to nothing from sloth intervening, in that, when love grows cold, they are starved of the fervor in which they began. Therefore, because the stealth of sin has scarcely got the better of those even in the very act of virtue, what safeguard remains for our security? Even in our virtue, we always tread with fear and caution. What he adds after this presents itself as a very great difficulty to the mind: “I know that you would not spare one that offends.” For if there be no “sparing of one that offends,” who can be rescued from eternal death, seeing that there is no one to be found clear of sin? Or does this mean, alternatively, that God does spare one who repents but not one that offends (on the premise that when we bewail our offenses, we are no longer offending)?
