Chapter XVI.—(37.) The Sixth Passage.

He has also adduced this passage of Scripture, which is very commonly quoted against his party: “For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.”176    Eccles. vii. 20. And he makes a pretence of answering it by other passages,—how, “the Lord says concerning holy Job, ‘Hast thou considered my servant Job? For there is none like him upon earth, a man who is blameless, true, a worshipper of God, and abstaining from every evil thing.’”177    Job i. 8. On this passage we have already made some remarks.178    See above, ch. xii. (29). But he has not even attempted to show us how, on the one hand, Job was absolutely sinless upon earth,—if the words are to bear such a sense; and, on the other hand, how that can be true which he has admitted to be in the Scripture, “There is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.”179    Eccles. vii. 20.

CAPUT XVI.

37. Item sibi opposuit testimonium Scripturarum, quod eis dici solet, Quia non est homo justus in terra qui faciat bonum, et non peccet (Eccle. VII, 21). Et quasi respondit aliis testimoniis, quia «Dominus de sancto Job ait: Numquid considerasti servum meum Job? Non enim est ei similis quisquam in terris, homo sine querela, verus Dei cultor, abstinens se ab omni malo» (Job I, 8). Unde jam superius disseruimus. Nec tamen ipse ostendit nobis quomodo et Job, si haec verba ita intelligenda sunt, sine ullo peccato fuerit in terra, et verum sit quod scriptum esse dixit, Non est homo justus in terra qui faciat bonum, et non peccet.