Job 2:12

MORAL INTERPRETATION. And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice, and wept. For the vices do not know us in our afflictions, in that so soon as they have knocked at the dejected heart, being reproved they start back, and they, which as it were knew us in our joy, because they made their way in, cannot know us in our sadness, in that they break their edge on our very rigidity itself. But our old enemy, the more he sees that he is himself caught out in them, and that with a good courage, cloaks them with so much the deeper disguise under the image of virtues; and hence it is added, They lifted up their voice, and wept; and they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven. For by the weeping pity is betokened, discretion by the cutting of the garments, the affecting of good works by the dust upon the head, humility by the sitting. For sometimes the enemy in plotting against us feigns somewhat that is full of pity, that he may bring us down to an end of cruelty. As is the case, when he prevents a fault being corrected by chastisement, that that, which is not suppressed in this life, may be stricken with the fire of hell. Sometimes he presents the form of discretion to the eyes, and draws us on to snares of indiscretion, which happens, when at his instigation we as it were from prudence allow ourselves too much nourishment on account of our weakness, while we are imprudently raising against ourselves assaults of the flesh. Sometimes he counterfeits the affecting of good works, yet hereby entails upon us restlessness in labours, as it happens, when a man cannot remain quiet, and, as it were, fears to be judged for idleness. […]

What provoked these signs of compassion is now introduced. "When they saw him from afar, they did not recognize him," for his face was changed by sores, his clothing and his refinement gone because of the loss of his possessions. The term "from afar" should …

HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION. And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice, and wept; and they rent everyone his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven. Because the scourge had altered the appearance of the stricken man, his friends 'lift up their voice and weep,' 'rend their garments,' 'sprinkle dust upon their heads;' that seeing him altered to whom they had come, their voluntary grief might likewise alter the very appearance even of the comforters also.

ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION. And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice, and wept. All heretics, in contemplating the deeds of Holy Church, lift up their eyes, in that they are themselves down below, and when they look at her works, the objects, which they are gazing at, are set high above them. Yet they do not know her in her sorrow, for she herself covets to 'receive evil things' here, that so being purified she may attain to the reward of an eternal recompence, and for the most part she dreads prosperity, and joys in the hard lessons of her training. Therefore heretics, who aim at present things as something great, know her not amidst her wounds. For that, which they see in her, they recognise not in the reading of their own hearts. While she then is gaining ground even by her adversities, they themselves stick fast in their stupefaction, because they know not by experiment the things they see. And they rent everyone his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven. Like as we take the garments of the Church for the whole number of the faithful; (and it is hence that the Prophet saith, Thou shalt clothe thee with them all as with an ornament;) so the garments of heretics are all they that attaching themselves with one accord to them are implicated in their errors. But heretics have this point proper to themselves, that they cannot remain stationary for long in that stage wherein they leave the Church, but they are day by day precipitated into further extremes, and by hatching worse opinions they split into manifold divisions, and are in most cases parted the wider from one another by their contention and disorderment. […]

They said nothing to that purport to which afterwards they said much--nothing to grieve him ( ch. iv. 2 ), because they saw his grief was very great already, and they were loth at first to add affliction to the afflicted. There is a time to keep silence, when either the wicked is before us, and by speaking we may harden them ( Ps. xxxix.

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