Job 8:14

"The spiders will fill his house. These are the useless works. He seems to speak here of the Jews and of our Lord.

His own folly shall not satisfy him, and whose trust shall be a spider's web. For it is infinite folly to labour painfully, and pant after the breath of applause, to apply one's self to the heavenly precepts with hard toil, but to aim at the reward of an earthly kind of recompense. For that I may so express myself, he that in return for the good that he practises looks for the applause of his fellowcreatures, is carrying an article of great worth to be sold at a mean price. From that whereby he might have earned the kingdom of heaven, he seeks the coin of passing talk. His practice goes for little, in that he spends a great deal, and gets back but very little. Whereunto then are hypocrites like but to luxuriant and untended vines, which put forth fruit from their fertility, but are never lifted from the earth by tending? All that the rich branches bud forth, stray beasts tread under foot, and the more fruitful they see it is, the more greedily they devour it, thus cast away and laid low, in that the works of hypocrites while they shew fair, come forth as if rich, but whilst they aim at human praises, it is as if they were left forsaken upon the ground. And the beasts of this world, i.e. the evil spirits, devour them, because they turn them to account to the end of perdition, and they seize upon them with greater avidity, in proportion as great things are more clearly known. Hence it is well said by the Prophet, The standing stalk, there is no bud in them, and they shall yield no meal; if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up. For the stalk is without a bud, when the life lacks the merit of virtuous habits. The stalk yieldeth no meal, when he that thrives in this world understands nothing refined, and yields no fruit of good practice. But very often even when it has yielded meal, strangers eat it up, in that even when hypocrites do shew forth good works, the wishes of evil spirits are satisfied therewith. For those who do not aim to please God by them, do not feed the Owner of the land, but strangers. Thus the hypocrite, like a fruitful and neglected vine, cannot keep his fruit, because the cluster of good works lies prone upon the ground. Yet he is fed by his very own insanity itself, in that on the score of good practice he is esteemed of all men, he is set before others, he holds the minds of men in subjection, he is raised to the higher…