Chapter XIV.
A person is born of a woman, living for a short time: filled with many miseries. They come forth like a flower, and are crushed, and flee like a shadow, and never remain in the same state. In this fleeting moment, let us understand the fragility of the human race, not the fragrant beauty and charm.
And you deem it worthy to open your eyes on such a matter, and bring him with you to judgment. Who can make the world out of unclean seed? Are you not the only one? The days of man are short, his number of months is with you. You have set his limits, which cannot be passed. This is worthy of you, that for the sake of the human race, you desire your Only Begotten Son to be born as a man. Or else, allow me to also speak with you, and recount my miseries.
Therefore, step back a little from him, so that he may rest, until the desired comes, and his days are like those of a hired man. This is, remove your whip from me, and do not allow me to be tempted in this way any longer.
The wood has hope. If it is cut, it grows again, and its branches sprout. If its root grows old in the earth, and its trunk dies in the dust, it will sprout with the scent of water, and it will produce foliage, as if it were newly planted. It is to be believed that the wood is reasonable, of which it is said: For it is the hope of the tree. Therefore, this wood was cut off through disobedience: when it dwelled among the trees of paradise, before the sentence of God's death, from which in baptism, oldness is cut off, so that it may revive in the new life of Jesus Christ, through the resurrection of faith, and its branches may sprout with virtues: that is, its works may advance by living holy lives.
But when a man dies and is stripped and consumed, where, I ask, is he? However, a man without hope in Christ, like the nations who do not know God, when he dies not having been reborn through baptism, destitute of life and stripped of present delight, undoubtedly he will receive the sentence of eternal damnation.
Just as the waters depart from the sea and a dried-up river dries up, so a man, when he sleeps, will not rise again. Until the heavens are destroyed, he will not wake up, nor will he rise from his sleep. Who will grant me this, that you may protect me in the underworld and hide me until your wrath passes, and that you may establish a time for me to be remembered? Do you think a dead man will live again? All the days that I now serve in the military, I await the change that will come. If it can happen, he says, that the waters of God's salutary precepts cease to recede from the sea of holy Scriptures, to which they do not fail in perpetual abundance; and if it can happen that the river of sacred baptism is dried up by a certain lack of divine mercy, and the grace of God is not full, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit do not overflow: in this way it can happen that when a man has died, he does not rise again.
You will call me, and I will answer you. You will stretch out your right hand to the work of your hands. All the dead will be called in the last age, and they will be awakened from the tombs by the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God. And all will respond in this manner, with the word of his majesty and power. The ash and dust of human bodies will be brought to life, and the incorruptible will rise from the dead.
Indeed, you have counted my steps; but forgive my sins. The thoughts and actions of my youth.
You have sealed my sins as in a bag, but you have cared for my wickedness. The bag, with its telling name, can be seen as the entire mass of the sinful generation of Adam: in which, as if under the seal of his image, Adam begot his offspring in his own image and likeness, all of whom became transgressors. God held this offspring, bound by sin, captive for many ages, and yet in the last times of the world, he healed the wounds of their sins through his redemption. But if Job seems to have said this about himself, as I think, this is the understanding: If, therefore, I have committed any sins against God throughout the entire course of my life, you have gathered them all together in different periods of time, so that according to the strictness of your justice, you may repay all things to me simultaneously.
The falling mountain collapses, and the rock is transferred from its place. Water erodes stones, and gradually the land is consumed by alluvium, and thus likewise do you destroy men. Therefore, we must consider this mountain as a devil, or as a man inflated with pride, who, going against God, swells up like a mountain in the exaltation of his mind, and thus, by elevating himself, falls headlong, to flow away, and is reduced, having been loosed, to dust, to nothingness. Truly, I think these are likened to stones, who, when they should have remained alone with similar steadfastness in the good of nature, have been changed by their own will into a certain foolishness and hardness of heart, and thus they are to be cast down from the dwelling of their detestation, because they presumed to have, like stones, a dwelling from their own merits. But these waters, which always seek the lower places, through which destruction also once came, signify opposing powers, and the storms and whirlwinds of the world. These waters, therefore, I say, wear down those men who presume themselves to be the bravest and strongest, and confident in their own virtue, as stones are compared to them, with unceasing decline. But I believe that these are the people who, not removing temptations and dangers, allow themselves to be weakened. Therefore, you will likewise destroy men: that is, your saints, who keep your image in themselves.
You have strengthened him a little, so that he may endure forever. This is, in this life you have not allowed your saints to be overcome by temptations.
You will change his face, and you will send him forth. That is, when this mortal has put on immortality and incorruption, or in another sense, we understand the face as the soul, which, when it has received its natural serenity, contemplates the glory of the divine majesty, which, together with its body, will rejoice, not being wounded by any disturbance of any vice.
Whether his children are noble or ignoble, he will not understand. This is to say, not children of the flesh, but children of the mind: that is, the works of virtues. Therefore, the saints in this life before the day of judgment do not understand for certain what kind of children they have: whether they are pleasing to God or not pleasing. You have strengthened him for a little while, so that he may pass on forever, according to the form of a servant that he assumed. I think that these things cannot be attributed to Christ as God. For when, in the part in which he is a man, his neighbor was weakening in his passion, the evangelist says: But an angel of the Lord appeared from heaven, strengthening him. Therefore, for a brief time, our redemption, administered in perpetuity, passed through the heavens, reaching the eternal age. You will change his face: that is, when the whole man passed into God. However, save the property of both substances in the unity of the person.
However, while his flesh is alive, it will suffer, and his soul will mourn for himself. Thus our Savior assumed true flesh, so that he could feel pain. Or his soul suffered, as he said: My soul is sorrowful even unto death. Likewise, the Church, which is his flesh, grieves when it is pressed by the troubles of the world: because the Church herself is a daughter in him, who is initiated into Christ through the faith of baptism. And again, she is a mother, when he who is incorporated into the members of Christ takes up the ministry of baptism.