A Treatise Concerning Man’s Perfection in Righteousness 26
26 Why Job Was So Great a Sufferer PL 44, 305
And when he says concerning the Lord, “For many bruises hath He inflicted upon me without a cause,” observe that his words are not, He hath inflicted none with a cause; but, “many without a cause.” For it was not because of his manifold sins that these many bruises were inflicted on him, but in order to make trial of his patience. For on account of his sins, indeed, without which, as he acknowledges in another passage, he was certainly not, he yet judges that he ought to have suffered less.
Et quod dicit de Domino, Multas enim contritiones meas fecit sine causa : non ait, Nullas fecit cum causa; sed, multas sine causa. Non enim propter multa peccata ejus factae sunt ei multae contritiones, sed propter probationem patientiae. Nam propter peccata, sine quibus, ut alibi confitetur, non fuit, pauciora se pati debuisse judicat .