Fathers

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What the Fathers say

Job 30:15

Western Saints

Gregory the Dialogist

I was reduced to nought. As the wind thou didst take away my desire. And as a cloud my health hath passed away. For in the reckoning of the wicked we are 'brought to nought,' when those temporal goods, which they themselves love as chief, we do not retain in our bands. Because the promises from Above being disregarded they desire the things of earth, and if ever aught rises up in the mind of those persons in the way of longing after the Eternal world, it is quickly done away by transitory gratification springing up. …

Morals on the Book of Job, Book XX ↗

Thomas Aquinas

Third, he shows that adversities of this kind are sent by God from their effect, because he had been left totally destitute by them; and so he says, "I have been reduced to nothing," because nothing remained for him from his former prosperity. This consisted in two things. First, in exterior goods, which he lost by violence, and so he says, "like the wind he took away," through violence, "my desire," everything which I found I had desirable in exterior things. …

Commentary on Job ↗