Miscellanies 4.5.19

It is worth wondering at the Stoics too, who say that the soul is in no way affected by the body, neither toward vice by disease nor toward virtue by health, but they say both are indifferent. Yet Job, by excess of self-control and preeminence of faith, having become poor from rich, dishonored from glorious, ugly from beautiful, and sick from healthy, has been recorded as a good example for us, shaming the tempter, blessing the one who formed him, bearing the latter things as the former, teaching very well that the one who knows can use all circumstances well. And that the ancient righteous deeds are set out as images for our corrections the apostle shows when he says: “so that my bonds became manifest in Christ in the whole praetorium and to all the rest; and most of the brothers, trusting in the Lord because of my bonds, dare more boldly to speak the word of God without fear”; since martyrdoms too are gloriously sanctified examples of conversion. “For whatever was written,” he says, “was written for our instruction, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” of encouragement.