Fathers

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What the Fathers say

Job 1:21

Eastern Fathers

Desert Fathers

When Macarius was living in Egypt, one day he came across a man who had brought a donkey to his cell and was stealing his possessions. As though he was a passer-by who did not live there, he went up to the thief and helped him to load the beast, and sent him peaceably on his way, saying to himself, 'We brought nothing into this world (1 Tim. 6:7) but the Lord gave; as He willed, so it is done: blessed be the Lord in all things.'

The Desert Fathers, Sayings of the Early Christian Monks ↗

Western Saints

Augustine of Hippo

Those who lost all their worldly possessions in the sack of Rome, if they owned their possessions as they had been taught by the apostle who himself was poor without, but rich within—that is to say, if they used the world as though not using it—they could say in the words of Job, heavily tried but not overcome, "Naked I came out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. …

City of God 1.10 ↗

Gregory the Dialogist

ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION The mother of our Redeemer, after the flesh, was the Synagogue, from whom He came forth to us, made manifest by a Body. But she kept Him to herself veiled under the covering of the letter, seeing that she neglected to open the eyes of the understanding to the spiritual import thereof. Because in Him, thus veiling Himself with the flesh of an human Body, she would not see God, she as it were refused to behold Him naked in His Divinity. …

Morals on the Book of Job, Book II ↗

Thomas Aquinas

Job revealed the state of his mind not only by deeds, but also by words. For he rationally demonstrated that although he suffered sadness, he did not have to yield to sadness. First, he demonstrated from the condition of nature so the text said, "He said: Naked I came forth from my mother's womb," namely, from the earth which is the common mother of everything, "and naked shall I return there," i.e., to the earth. …

Commentary on Job ↗