Gregory the Great, on Job 31:14

“For what shall I do when God shall rise to judge? and when he shall examine, what shall I answer him?”

“For what shall I do, when God riseth up to judge; and when He seeketh, what shall I answer Him? He who thinks on the Judge to come, is unceasingly day by day preparing the cases of his accounts for the better: he who views the Eternal Lord with trembling of heart, is forced to abate the rights of temporal lordship over those under him. For he considers well that it is nothing that he is set above others in time, when for the rendering account he is beneath Him, Who exercises dominion without end. For oftentimes transitory power hurries away the soul along the sleeps of self-exaltation. And because every one is lifted up in the degree that he sees that he is himself above any persons, it is needful that he ever have regard to Him, Who is above himself, that by the fear of Him, Who is above all things, he may keep down the growing inflation of mind within. For he knows who they are beneath himself, but let him consider under Whom he himself is, that by the considering of the true Lord, the swelling of counterfeit lordship may die off. Hence blessed Job, because he feared the Judgment of Him, Who is above all things, here comes to temporal judgment the equal of servants, saying, If I despised to submit to judgment with my man-servant or with my maid-servant, when they contended with me. For what shall I do, when God riseth up to judge? and when He seeketh, what shall I answer Him? Which same, that he might always keep down the heart in humility, never in these servants sees that the condition is unlike to himself, but that the nature is common...”

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.