Original Douay–Rheims AnnotationsJob 42

You have not spoken right, as my servant Job.

Holy Job being throughly tried in the furnace of tribulation, & by divine instruction confirmed in perfect patience, and other virtues, God at last gave sentence, condemning the guilty, ^◦ and justifying the innocent: in plain terms pronouncing that Eliphaz, Baldad, & Sophar had not spoken right before him, as his servant Job. And so these three being convinced, that notwithstanding their former pretence of defending God's cause, they had erred, and Job had maintained the truth, they submitted themselves as faulty, and humbly did penance, bringing their oblations for sacrifice to Job, as they were commanded. v. 8. & 9.

As for Eliu the last disputer, persisting more vehement in his error when the others ceased from contention, he was sufficiently condemned in his fellows. And the rather for that true point of his own doctrine (ch. 33. v. 14.) that God speaketh once, and repeateth not the same the second time. For it was ever a general rule, that when God once revealed any thing by public fact, or unto competent witnesses, it sufficed for ever, to all reasonable men, ^[1] and so Eliu might apply the sentence to himself, which God had denounced to his three friends, in the same cause. Much less are Protestants excusable, which not only persist in errors condemned in their own fellows, as in Luther, Calvin, Beza, and others, but also in other old heresies: ^[2] as their doctrine of justification by only faith condemned in the Apostles' time: their denying the ceremonies of Baptism, and the Sacraments of Confirmation, and of Penance, condemned in the Novatians: or that patient sustaining of worldly losses, and other afflictions, such as Job suffered, are not satisfactory, or meritorious works. ^[3]

• 1 Errors ought not to be holden still, being once condemned.
• 2 Much less raised again being heretofore buried.
• 3 S. Aug. de fide & oper. S. Cyprian. li. 4. ep. 2. Apud Euseb. l. 6. c. 35.
• ◦ God by his sentence condemned the error of Job's friends, and justified his assertion.

Take seven oxen, and seven rams.

^[1] In the number of seven is a mystery of perfection and fullness, often used in holy Scripture. ^[2] For God creating the world & all things therein in six days, rested the seventh. ^[3] Sevenfold punishment was required for Cain. ^[4] Seven pairs of clean beasts were conserved in Noe's ark. ^[5] And in the law the ground rested from tillage the seventh year. With innumerable the like. As S. Gregory in this place, and other Fathers note in their works. Also twice seven victims offered in sacrifice, ^[6] import the greatness of these men's offence in accusing Job, and in avouching their false opinion.

• 1 Numbers mystical.
• 2 Gen. 2.
• 3 4
• 4 7
• 5 Exo. 23. Deut. 15.
• 6 Great or many sacrifices for great offences.

Job shall pray for you.

Neither had so many sacrifices sufficed, as S. Chrysostom observeth, Orat. 5. in Iudæos, unless Job also had prayed for the offenders. ^[1] Where we see that both Sacrifice, and the devotion of him that offereth it, have their effects: whereof cometh the distinction used in Schools, of opus operatum, and opus operantis. As it is manifest likewise, that mediation of one man for another, did not derogate from God's benign mercy in the law of nature, ^[2] wherein these men lived. Nor now from Christ's mediation, in the law of Grace. 2. Cor. 1. v.

• 1 Devotion of him that offereth sacrifice increaseth the effect.
• 2 Prayers of holy men or Saints derogate not from Christ.