Job

A very great road toward the discovery of one's duty is also the study of the inspired Scriptures.

Therefore in all things we ought to revere His love for mankind and not be vexed, remembering that great and celebrated utterance which the great athlete Job sent forth, when he saw at a single table ten children crushed in a brief moment of time:

who, if He sees us receiving the present circumstances with thanksgiving, will either remit the things that grieve us, as in the case of Job, or will reward us with the great crowns of endurance in the condition that follows after this our life.

he will bless when tested, like the noble Job;

"No one is clean from filth," says Job, "not even if his life be one day.

And yet Job too, by surpassing continence and excellence of faith, having become poor from rich, dishonoured from honoured, ugly from comely, and sick from healthy, is set down for us as a good example, abashing the tempter, blessing his Maker, bearing the latter state as he had borne the former, teaching very well that the gnostic can in all circumstances make good use of them.

Or is he himself perchance the one who also gave Satan power over the body of Job, that virtue might be approved in weakness?

You have the example of Job, on whom the devil could inflict no temptation, unless he had received the power from God—not even upon his substance, until the Lord had said, "Behold, all that he has I give into your hand;

— whom neither the herds driven off, nor those riches in cattle, nor sons carried away in one onslaught of ruin, nor finally the torment of his own body in its wounds, shut out from the patience and faith yielded to the Lord;