The Unawareness of the Virtuous in Suffering

The subject at hand is: 'Many are the lashes of the sinner.' Here, lashes and evil powers may be said to be meant. 'They seized him, and he did not know' is similar to what was said: 'While the evil one was turning away from me, I did not perceive him.' The evil one was approaching; he provided no place for himself, having been persuaded by the apostolic opinion which says: 'Do not give place to the devil' (Eph 4:27).

I have not exhausted his examples. One of the ancient philosophers is said to have scourged himself so that he might fall from his own city, so that he might be accused by his fellow citizens. Fearing lest he should even utter a single word in pain, he bit his own tongue and cut it and threw it to the one who was assaulting him. That man was not able to say 'I did not know'; for indeed he knew a little, unless he had secured safety from some other source. But the holy man did not. Isaiah was sawn with a wooden saw.

And behold the wickedness of Manasseh the apostate, who practiced idolatry. And when the idol that he himself had set up fell, after Isaiah looked upon it and other things, they set forward accusers and two charges were brought against him: one, that, saying Moses said, 'No one has seen my face and shall live,' this man says, 'He saw the Lord of Sabaoth sitting upon a throne' (Isa 6:1). But if he stood precisely in the truth, I perceived his slandering. He did not say at all that he did not see his face. He saw it concealed, so that we might show them to be slanderers according to the word.

This, therefore, was the charge brought against him, and a second, that, regarding the ruler of the discerning race, of the holy priesthood, of the royal people, he said, 'Ruler of Sodom,' and regarding the people whom God loved and whom God honored, he said, 'People of Gomorrah.' Because of these two charges they slandered him, even though they previously knew that he did not say such things about him, but when the idol fell, they acted so that they might not appear as if they were avenging a god who was not manifest, but instead they attached a charge to him.

Isaiah might also say, 'whips were drawn against me, and I did not know.' Consider the malice of Manasseh; so that he might remain suffering for a long time, he was sawed with a wooden saw, so that the flesh being removed by those mills might prepare more pain and more duration.

Regarding the question: do they present punishments as if for a wrongdoer, and because of this they are whips? But I did not know them as whips, for I struggled and was crowned through them. Then I tested them, to see if I was such a person as those seemed to punish. Hypothetically: perhaps they also whipped Susanna, those who worked the slander against her; for there was such terror in her falling, as to say, 'distress is all around me.' If they offered these atrocities as if for an adulteress, they were whips. But she did not know them; for she was not lawless.

Let virtue, therefore, be like fish-glue to the saints. Let fire be offered, such as the burnings of shameful passion. She did not know that the present thing is a burning, that is, she was not tested; but the fish-glue, being bodily, is consumed by the fire, and then the fire of Him who was anointed is poured out, and he was not previously harmed. But for him whose virtue is a bonfire, the fish-glue-like substance remains always, and the fire never prevails against the one possessing virtue.

Regarding: 'He set the Most High as his refuge, and no whip shall strike his tent' (Ps 91:7): we find many having been whipped and having died in the whipping. If, therefore, we say that the one being whipped with sensible things does not feel their pains, it is not a struggle. This is not a great thing, and anyone could endure this. But they did not know, and this happens while being forced by the whips into being tested and being made to do something against their will. Behold, the examples of Susanna have become manifest; let the example of Joseph also be taken: how whips were presented as if for a lawless person, and neither of the two knew anything.