Caput IX
The Enemy's Deceptions Revealed
The wicked enemy attacks through deception and malice, yet the Lord exposes all his schemes to blessed Job, as seen in the exposition of Behemoth.
From the wicked enemy we suffer in so many ways — he presses on against us through our own deceptions, subtle by nature and untiring in malice. The Lord reveals every evasion, struggle, and scheme of that enemy to blessed Job. What he seizes by crushing, what he encircles by lying in wait, what he terrifies by threatening, what he flatters by persuading, what he breaks by driving to despair — he began by saying: 'Behold Behemoth, whom I made with you,' and so on.✦ All of this is laid open more fully in the exposition of those words.
Repeating the First Temptation
The enemy strives to repeat what he did in the first man — tearing God's words from hearts, replacing them with allurements, and whispering the serpent's promise: 'You will be like gods.'
Here, though, this one thing seems worth mentioning: in everything he does, he strives in general to repeat what he did in the first man. He works to tear the words of God out of their hearts and to plant his own allurements — which he craftily suggests — in their place. He urges them to forget the punishments God threatens, and he incites us toward the very deeds God forbids.1 Then he said: 'You will be like gods' (Gen.✦
The False Promise of Exaltation
Pretending that God is merciful, the enemy now lures us toward worldly exaltation and promises that our crimes will go unpunished, echoing 'You will certainly not die.'
III, 5). Now he says: Appear exalted in this world (Job 40:5).✦ Then he said: You will certainly not die (Gen.✦ III, 4). Now, pretending that God is merciful, he promises that your crimes will go unpunished.
Standing Firm in Holy Fear
Having learned from the first man's fall, we must fear God's judgment and stand firm against the enemy's deceit, heeding Job's fear of God's justice and the Psalmist's curse on those who stray.
But we, who have learned through the experience of the first man how severely the judge strikes down those who sin, must fear the threatening sentence of that same judge, and stand firm — more cautiously and more strongly — against the deceitful fraud of that same enemy, attending to this greater word of Job: I was afraid of all my works, knowing that you would not spare the one who offends (Job 9:28).✦ And the Psalmist likewise says: Cursed are those who turn aside from your commandments (Psal.✦ CXVIII, 21).
Read the original Latin
Ab hoste vero maligno tam multipliciter patimur, quam ille nostris deceptionibus, et per naturam subtilis, et per malitiam jugiter infatigabilis insistit. Cujus cuncta tergiversationum certamina atque machinationes Dominus beato Job insinuat. Et quod opprimendo rapit, quod insidiando circumvolat, quod minando terret, quod suadendo blanditur, quod desperando frangit, exorsus est dicens: Ecce Behemoth quem feci tecum, et caetera. Quae omnia in illorum verborum expositione plenius panduntur. Hic autem illud tantum commemorandum videtur, quia generaliter in omnibus agere nititur, quod in primo homine gessit. Verba Dei de cordibus eorum evellere, suaque blandimenta quae fraudulenter suggerit molitur infigere. Supplicia quae Deus minatur oblivisci suadet, et ad agenda quae perhibet nos instigat. Tunc dixit: Eritis sicut dii (Gen.
III, 5). Nunc dicit: In hoc mundo sublimes apparete (Job XL, 5). Tunc dixit: Nequaquam moriemini (Gen. III, 4). Nunc quasi misericordem Deum fingens, impunitatem scelerum promittit. Sed nos qui experimento primi hominis didicimus quam districte judex delinquentes feriat, oportet ut minacem ejusdem judicis sententiam extimeamus, et contra deceptionis fraudem ejusdem hostis cautius ac robustius consistamus, illud Job majus attendentes: Verebar omnia opera mea, sciens quod non parceres delinquenti (Job IX, 28). Et item dicit Psalmista: Maledicti qui declinant a mandatis tuis (Psal. CXVIII, 21).
Scripture echoes
- ↩Job.40.15 — Look now at Behemoth, which I made alongside you; it eats grass like an ox.
- ↩Gen.3.5 — for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.
- ↩Job.40.5 — Once I have spoken, and I will not answer; twice, and I will add no more.
- ↩Gen.3.4 — But the serpent said to the woman, 'You will not certainly die.'
- ↩Job.9.28 — I am afraid of all my pains, knowing that You will not acquit me.
- ↩Ps.119.21 — You have rebuked the arrogant, who are cursed—those who wander from your commandments.
Notes
- 1 ↩perhibet can mean 'declares' or 'forbids/prohibits'; here rendered as 'forbids' to fit the parallel structure with minatur (threatens) — the enemy urges forgetting divine threats and pushes toward what God prohibits. If perhibet is read as 'declares/commands,' the sense shifts: he incites us toward what God commands (i.e., twisting obedience).
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