"Job on the Ash Heap," by José de Ribera, c.1630. Via Wikimedia Commons.
This kind of shrewdness the young acquire by practice, and children pay for the learning it. Those who are good at this look down upon their neighbours; those who are bad at it are humble and timid, and wonder at it in others. They regard this astuteness too, wrong though it be, with wistful admiration, under softened epithets.
Unstraightforwardness is called good breeding. The principles of the world teach those who entertain them, to try and rise to distinction, and when they have attained the bubble of glory which is so soon to pass away, to feel it sweet to have at their feet them on whom they may wreak rich revenge.
These principles teach a man, as long as he is strong enough, to give way to nobody else, and, if he hath no chance by force, to try and attain his object by diplomacy.
The wisdom of the righteous is the contrary of all this. They seek to avoid deception, to give their thoughts a clear expression in their words, to love the truth because it is the truth, to avoid falsehood, and rather to suffer than to inflict evil.
Such are they who seek not to avenge themselves for wrong, and deem it gain to be despised for the truth's sake. This their simplicity is made a subject of derision, for such as are wise in this world believe the purity of their virtue to be simple foolery. Whatsoever is done innocently, they consider without doubt stupid. Such works as the truth approveth are idiotic, when tried by carnal standards of wisdom. After all, what stupider thing is there in this world than to express our real thoughts in our words, to keep nothing quiet by skilful tact, to repay no injuries, to pray for them which curse us, to seek poverty, to give up property, to strive not with such as take from us, to turn the other cheek to the smiter?
From the Book of Moral Reflections upon Job, written by Pope St. Gregory the Great.
{Bk. x. Chap. xvi. on Job xii.)
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