Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 6:39pm

Lent With Job and Saint Thomas Aquinas: Chapter Sixteen

Job unloads on Eliphaz:

Eliphaz had spoken harshly against Job in his answer, and so Job accuses him of unfitting consolation in the beginning of his speech. First, because both he and his friends frequently repeat the same things and so he says, “I have often heard such things,” as if to say: Your speech is always about the same subject. For with different words they really intended to prove the same things, namely, that Job had fallen into adversities because of his sins. So he then says, “You are all burdensome counselors.” For the duty of a counselor is to say something by which suffering will be mitigated. Therefore, a burdensome counselor is someone who says things which aggravate the soul more. Yet one could excuse these things if the irritating words were uttered for some use and contained truth or even if they were spoken only briefly in passing. But if someone uses language which is calculated to sadden another falsely, uselessly, and over a lengthy period of time, he seems to be a burdensome counselor. So he says, “When then will these hollow words end?” In saying, “When will these hollow words end,” he shows here that they have dwelled for a long time on irritating words. When he says “hollow words”, he shows that they were useless and false, because they were without foundation.

He shows in what follows that there is not equality on both sides in this dispute because the friends of Job spoke without being troubled, and so he says, “What trouble is there for you if you speak?” as if to say: You speak for such a long time in deprecating me because you are not troubled by this situation. Job, however, was annoyed. To preclude anyone thinking that ease in argumentation was attributed to the prominence of the friends in knowledge, Job shows that if adversity had not deprived him and he were in the condition of the friends, he would speak with the same confidence. So he says, “I myself could also speak like you,” if I were not weighed down with adversity. He wants for them the opportunity to feel the same thing as he does saying, “would that your souls were in place of mine,” in that you suffered the adversity I do. He does not say this because of a feeling of hatred or with ill will seeking revenge, but to recall them from the cruel approach they were using in exasperating Job by their words when they realized that similar words would be rough on them if they were spoken to them. So he then says, “I too would console you with words,” like those which you used to console me, “and I would shake my head over you,” as a sign of compassion or reprobation like you censure me. Also, “I would encourage you with my mouth,” lest you should despair in your impatience, “and I would move my lips,” to speak, “and appear to console you,” by pretending to speak from pity which I had for you, just as you are doing to me.

It would be easy for me to speak like this just as you did if I were in your condition. But now I am impeded by a pain which neither speech nor silence does not take away, and so he continues,” But what am I to do? If I speak, my pain will not be stilled and if I keep silence, it will not go away from me.” For there are two kinds of pain. One is interior and is called sadness. This proceeds from the experience of a present evil. The other is external pain and this is pain according to sense, for example a pain which comes from the dissolution of something joined together or something of the sort. The first kind of pain can be taken away by conversation, but not the second. He shows as a result what he understands about this second pain which cannot be taken away by words when he says, “now my pain has oppressed me,” i.e. impeded me so that I cannot easily or freely reason like I did before. For when sensible pain is violent, the attention of the soul is distracted and is impeded from the consideration of intellectual things. He shows what he understands about corporeal pain adding, “and all my limbs have been reduced to nothing.” This is because all his members were infected with sores as the text says above “Satan afflicted Job with sores which were most loathsome from the sole of his feet to the top of his head.” (2:7)

Go here to read the rest.  In our times of affliction it is good to have friends to console us.  Job’s buddies fail at this task miserably.

Discover more from The American Catholic

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading

Scroll to Top