Job's Wisdom and the Soul's Departure

Having touched the four corners of the house and having struck it down, one should investigate whether it was an excessive storm that thus battered the house and brought it down, or a spirit serving the devil, or the devil himself. For this is a great, evil spirit, having touched the four corners of the house and having brought it down. For either of these is possible if one seeks it, if the reporter was able to know whether this was a spirit serving the devil or the devil himself.

If the spirit thought it to be a storm, this should be said as being like the descent of fire from heaven against the sheep (Job 1:6), and what is said regarding it and fitting to it. For the devil is not able to move the wind. It also applies as an immediate, emphatic indication that one cannot escape the fall when such a thing happens, perhaps found outside the reporter.

“Thus Job arose, tore his clothes, and shaved the hair of his head, and falling to the ground, he worshiped and said: ‘Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall depart there. The Lord gave, and the Lord took away; blessed be the name of the Lord’” (Job 1:20-21). The divine spirit and that of the devil forestall the maliciousness of evil men. For perhaps one of such people would say that Job was not fond of children, since he did nothing worthy of sympathy. But his feeling and his manliness are shown together, that he received the terrible horror and grief of the death of the children neither unfeelingly nor ungenerously; for through “tearing the clothes and shaving the head”—for the ancients were accustomed to do this at deaths—he shows sympathy and familial love. And the following things bring forth a sign of manliness and surpassing wisdom in advance.

For if he says, 'and having fallen to the ground' (Job 1:21), he did not despair, nor did he leave an unseemly word to a wise man, but he worships the Originator of all, being persuaded that these things happen not outside of divine judgment, and that they happen from the beginning followingly and according to some correct reason.

For he also brings forth after the worship: 'Naked I came out from my mother's womb, naked and I will depart there. The Lord gave, the Lord took away. As it pleased the Lord, so it happened. Blessed be the name of the Lord' (Job 1:21).' For understand, how after courage and prudence is found in the blessed Job, through which divine teaching introduces doctrines through the words that are profitable to all the race of humans.

'Naked,' he says, 'I came out from my mother's womb, naked and I will depart there.' Concerning which those deliberating on nothing divine regarding the immortality of the soul ought to be questioned. For where will Job depart naked? Perhaps in the womb of the mother? For from there he went out naked according to what is said. But away with this false thought. It is evident that this was said for the instruction of not letting the soul be scattered, as it seemed to some.

For the blessed Paul also writes something similar, saying: 'For we have brought nothing into the world, and we are able to bring nothing out' (1 Timothy 6:7). For just as the bringing out implies the dead person existing, so the one not having brought in is existing and enters from some place bringing nothing of that kind.

And that doctrine, being unknown to many, he introduces saying: 'The Lord gave, the Lord took away' (Job 1:21), presenting after this, that his possession did not happen to be unjust and having taken its beginning from some unbefitting assistance. 'The Lord makes poor and makes rich' (1 Samuel 2:7), not by any irrational whim, as those introducing fate deliberate, but so that it may be known that the one stretched out in these things, whether he carries them appropriately, along with...