^10:1 My soul is weary of my life; I will let loose my speech against myself; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
^10:2 I will say to God: Do not condemn me; show me why you judge me thus.
^10:3 Does it seem good to you if you calumniate and oppress me, the work of your hands, and assist the counsel of the impious?
^10:4 Do you have eyes of flesh, or do you see as man sees?
^10:5 Are your days like the days of man, and are your years like human times,
^10:6 that you should seek out my iniquity and scrutinize my sin?
^10:7 And you know that I have done nothing impious, since there is no one who can rescue from your hand.
^10:8 Your hands have made me and fashioned me wholly all around, and so do you suddenly cast me down?
^10:9 Remember, I pray, that you made me like clay and will bring me back into dust.
^10:10 Did you not milk me like milk and curdle me like cheese?
^10:11 With skin and flesh you clothed me; with bones and sinews you joined me together.
^10:12 Life and mercy you granted me, and your visitation preserved my spirit.
^10:13 Although you conceal these things in your heart, nevertheless I know that you remember all things.

174. My soul is weary of my life, etc. After Job proposed above that both the innocent and the impious are troubled in this age, and touched upon one cause of the punishment of the innocent that could be supposed, namely, that the earth, as though abandoned by God, is exposed to the will of an iniquitous power, as it were, punishing the innocent at pleasure, yet with this removed because it contains a manifest unfittingness, he inquired who the punisher of the innocent might be and for what cause; and he intends here to pursue this question. But before he proceeds to the investigation, he shows with what mind he speaks here: for he speaks in the person of an afflicted man, according to the conceptions that sadness supplies to him. Hence first he sets down the weariness that he suffers in this life because of the tribulations that he suffers, which are so grave that they render even life itself wearisome: for although to live is delightful, nevertheless to live in anguish is wearisome; whence he says: My soul is weary of my life. But just as a man to whom his life is delightful wishes to live, so one to whom his life is wearisome wishes to be deprived of life, and therefore he adds: I will let loose my speech against myself; for that is against someone which is destructive of him. Therefore a man speaks against himself when he desires to be deprived of life.

But he says pointedly, I will let loose: for many times a man suffers certain movements in his heart because of some passion, whether of sadness, concupiscence, anger, or any other, but nevertheless by reason so restrains all the movements that they do not proceed to an outward word. But when reason, wishing to show what it suffers inwardly, brings hidden movements forth into words, then it is said to let loose speech, as though previously held back; and on account of this he adds: I will speak in the bitterness of my soul, as if to say: the words that I utter outwardly show the inward bitterness, so that he may give it to be understood that he speaks in the person of an embittered man. But lest it again be understood that this letting loose of speech happens because reason is overcome by sadness, he adds: I will say to God: Do not condemn me; for when reason is overcome by passion, man murmurs against God and sometimes proceeds even to blasphemy; but when, amid a man’s tribulations, reason remains upright, it subjects itself to God and awaits a remedy from him, saying to God: Do not condemn me. At the same time he also approaches the question in this: for since above he had asked who was the cause of the punishment of the innocent in this world, here he now confesses that God is the author of punishment when he asks that he not be condemned by him, according to 1 Samuel 2:6: The Lord brings death and brings life; from this the heresy of the Manicheans is refuted.

175. With these things set forth, then, supposing that God is the author of punishment, he inquires into the cause of his punishment, speaking to God: show me why you judge me thus, that is, make me know the cause on account of which I am punished by you; for he knew that the investigation of reason cannot arrive at the term of truth unless it is taught divinely. But to know the cause of his punishment is necessary for man either for correction or so that he may bear scourges more patiently. Now he proceeds to the investigation of this question under a certain disjunction: for it is necessary that the one who is punished be either innocent or a sinner. First, however, he proceeds on the supposition that he is innocent;

and because we arrive at the knowledge of divine things through human things, he sets forth two ways in which, in human judgment, the innocent are sometimes punished.

176. The first way is because of the malice of the one punishing, from which it happens in three ways that punishments are inflicted on the innocent: sometimes, indeed, when by cunning they heap calumnies upon the innocent, and with regard to this he says: Does it seem good to you if you calumniate; but sometimes they oppress them by power, and with regard to this he adds: and oppress me, the work of your hands; sometimes, however, they do not punish the innocent from their own movement, but because they love certain impious men in a disordered way, they assist them even in the oppression of the innocent, whence there is added: and assist the counsel of the impious? But it must be considered that sometimes one and the same thing can be good and evil for different natures, just as to be irascible is good for a dog but evil for a man. Now no one of sound mind brings this into question, whether God does anything from malice: for in the highest good there cannot be any evil;

but it can happen that something is evil in man which pertains to divine goodness, just as not being moved to mercy, insofar as mercy has the character of a passion, is indeed blamed in man, yet divine goodness requires this from its perfection. Now it is manifest that the three things mentioned above—calumniating, oppressing, and assisting the counsel of the impious—are evil in men; hence he brings into question whether they can be good in God, and so he does not ask: Do you calumniate and oppress? but: Does it seem good to you to calumniate and oppress? As though supposing as firm that God never does anything except what seems good to him, and this is truly good. Again, it must be considered that the things that are natural are imputed to no one as fault or as evil; but it is natural that each thing should destroy its contrary, whence also God, who is supremely good, hates those things that are done against him and destroys them, according to that saying of the Psalm: You have hated all who work iniquity; you will destroy, etc. Therefore, if men had not been made by God but by a contrary principle, as the Manicheans fable, it would seem good that God should oppress men on account of themselves:

therefore, to exclude this, he does not simply say that you oppress me, but adds: the work of your hands. Again, it seems good that God should fulfill the wills of the just; but those who wish to calumniate or oppress the innocent are not just but impious, and especially if they wish this not ignorantly or by chance but from counsel and deliberation. Hence, since he supposes himself innocent in the first part of the question, it follows that those who would wish to oppress or calumniate him by deliberate counsel are impious, and therefore he says pointedly: and assist the counsel of the impious.

177. Therefore, with this cause removed, because this cannot seem good to God, since he himself is the work of God’s hands and since his enemies who had oppressed him are proved to be impious, he consequently proceeds to the second way in which, in human judgment, the innocent are sometimes afflicted. For it sometimes happens that when someone innocent is falsely accused before a judge, the judge, acting according to justice, subjects him to torments in order to search out the truth,

but the cause of this matter is the defect of human knowledge, which is threefold:

one, indeed, is that all human knowledge proceeds from sense, and because the senses are bodily and of bodily things, the judge cannot know the interior conscience of the accused; therefore, to exclude this from God, he says: Do you have eyes of flesh? As if he were saying: do you know through bodily senses, so that you see only bodily things and cannot know interior things? But he sets down eyes because sight excels among the other senses.

The second defect is that through the bodily senses man cannot even behold all bodily things: for he cannot know the things that happen from afar and in hidden places; this he removes from God, saying: or do you see as man sees?, namely, so that you cannot know the things that happen everywhere, even hidden things?

The third defect of human knowledge is from time, both because man knows more things day by day and also because through length of time he forgets the things that he knows, so that he has, as it were, to learn them again. Therefore he removes this from God, saying: Are your days like the days of man, namely, so that your knowledge increases day by day; and are your years like human times, namely, so that through the course of time something decreases from your knowledge? And he adds: that you should seek out my iniquity and scrutinize my sin, that is, that through scourges you should inquire whether I have sinned in deed and am iniquitous in mind, as men seek out sins through torments? And thus, after an inquiry of this kind, finding no sins in me, you know that I have done nothing impious, as though you could not know this from elsewhere unless you sought out my sins through scourges; and that you do this freely, without contradiction, since there is no one who can rescue from your hand: for sometimes judges fail in this inquiry that is made through torments, when those who ought to be tortured are rescued from their hands.

178. And because above he had said that he is the work of God’s hands, so as to show from this that it cannot seem good to God to oppress him on account of himself, as though delighted in his oppression, he makes manifest what he had supposed, whence he adds: Your hands have made me. And lest someone believe, according to the heresy of the Manicheans, that the soul of man was made by God but the body was formed by a contrary author, he adds: and fashioned me wholly all around. All around he says because the body seems to be around the soul as clothing around the one clothed, or as a house around the inhabitant; wholly he says so that it may be referred to the individual members of the body; fashioned he says to allude to the fact that man is said to have been formed from the slime of the earth. By hands, however, the divine operation is understood, whence he says hands in the plural, because although the divine power operating is one, nevertheless its operation is multiplied in its effects, both because of the diversity of effects and also because of the variety of intermediate causes through whose mediation he produces his effects.

But he adds: and so do you suddenly cast me down? For it seems sudden that someone who produced a thing should corrupt it without a manifest cause: for one who makes something wills that it be—for he makes it for this, that it may be—but one who corrupts something wills that it not be. Therefore, if someone destroys what he had previously made, there seems to be a sudden change of will, unless some manifest cause newly arises from which it appears that what previously was to be made should now be corrupted. But such a sudden change of will cannot fall upon God, and therefore he asks, as though in wonder: and so do you suddenly cast me down? As if to say: this seems unfitting, if you now destroy without cause the one whom you previously made. Or what he said, they have made me, can be referred to the constitution of substance, but what he said, and fashioned me wholly all around, can be referred to the things that come to the substance, whether they are goods of the soul, or of the body, or of exterior fortune.

179. And because he had set down in general that he was made and fashioned by God, he pursues in particular the mode of his making, after the likeness of someone who wishes to bring back to someone’s memory something that he seems to have forgotten: he explains all the details to him so that, even in this way, it may be brought back to his memory. Now God seems to forget the benevolence that he has toward his own workmanship when he exposes it to corruption: for he conducts himself after the manner of one forgetting, and according to this mode it is said in the Psalm: How long, O Lord, will you forget me unto the end? And therefore he says: Remember, I pray, that you made me like clay.

Here it must be considered that he recalls a twofold making of man,

first, indeed, that which pertains to the first institution of nature, alluding to what is said in Genesis 1: God formed man from the slime of the earth, and therefore he says: that you made me like clay, where he seems also to touch upon the composition of man from the first elements. And because it was also said to the first man: You are dust, and unto dust you shall return, he consequently adds: and you will bring me back into dust, which also belongs to natural matter: for the things that are generated from the earth are consequently, according to the order of nature, resolved into earth. But someone can wonder about this, since it seems a greater thing to form man from the earth than to preserve formed man from being reduced to dust; whence is it that God, who formed man from clay, permits him to be reduced into dust: whether, namely, this is solely from the necessity of matter, so that in this man has nothing more than other things that are formed from earth, or whether this is from divine providence punishing some fault of man.

180. Consequently, he touches upon the making of man with regard to the work of propagation, according as man is generated by man. Here it must be considered that he attributes all works of nature to God, not so as to exclude the operation of nature, but in that way in which the things done through secondary causes are attributed to the principal agent, as the operation of a saw is attributed to the craftsman: for the very fact that nature operates, it has from God, who instituted it for this.

Now in this generation of man, first there occurs the resolution of seed, and with regard to this he says: Did you not milk me like milk? For just as seed is a superfluity of nourishment, so also is milk.

Second, there occurs the compacting of the bodily mass in the womb of the woman, and with regard to this he adds: and curdle me like cheese? For the seed of the male is related to the matter that the female supplies in the generation of man and of other animals as rennet is related in the generation of cheese.

Third, there occurs the distinction of the organs, whose consistency and strength indeed come from sinews and bones, but they are surrounded outwardly by skin and flesh; whence he says: With skin and flesh you clothed me; with bones and sinews you joined me together.

The fourth is the animation of the fetus, and especially with regard to the rational soul, which is not infused until after organization; but together with the rational soul certain seeds of virtues are divinely infused into man, some indeed common to all, but others especially to certain persons, according as some men are naturally disposed to one virtue and some to another. But Job says below: from infancy compassion grew with me, and from the womb it came forth with me; whence also here he says: Life and mercy you granted me.

The last is the preservation of life, both in the mother’s womb and after the departure from the womb; this preservation is indeed partly through natural principles, and partly through other benefits of God added above nature, whether they pertain to the soul or to the body or to exterior goods. With regard to this he adds: and your visitation preserved my spirit: for just as God is said in the Scriptures to withdraw from someone when God withdraws his gifts from him, so he is said to visit him when he bestows his gifts upon him.

181. But lest, from the fact that he had said to God, Remember, I pray, that you made me like clay, someone might believe that he was of the opinion that forgetfulness could fall upon God, he excuses himself from this, adding: Although you conceal these things in your heart, nevertheless I know that you remember all things. Now God is said, after the likeness of man, to conceal something in the heart when he does not show by an effect what he has in knowledge or affection. Thus, therefore, he says that God conceals the aforesaid things in his heart because it is not shown in effect that he recognizes him as his own workmanship, since he seems so suddenly to cast him down.