2 October 2018
Memorial of the Guardian Angels
As the trials of Job mounted up against him, he “opened his mouth and cursed his day,” saying “perish the day on which I was born” (Job 3:1, 3). This behavior is remote from us. We do not feel tempted to curse our day, nor does cursing seem to be an acceptable practice for any Christian, given the strictures of the New Testament (Cf. Luke 6:28, Romans 12:14, and James 6). The Old Testament, on the other hand, accepts and even encourages cursing as a normal part of life, Job being only one example. Is there anything that the Christian can learn from Job’s cursing behavior, or must it be set aside in toto?
Gregory the Great studied this text carefully in the fourth book of his Moralia. He was convinced that Job was a saintly man who can serve as a role model even for Christians, but he was puzzled by the morality of Job’s curse, especially in light of the teaching of the New Testament, so he considered the matter from several angles. He noticed that, technically speaking, the day on which Job was born no longer existed. It existed decades before Job’s calamities, so Job was not technically cursing an existent thing. But what could such a curse mean? Perhaps, Gregory suggests, Job’s curse means something like this: “may the day of change perish, and the light of eternity burst forth.”
To assess the validity of Gregory’s interpretation, you would have to read book four of his Moralia. Or you could pray with this text yourself, asking the Holy Spirit to unveil for you its hidden truth, because “all scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching” (2 Tim 3:16).