Moralia in Job 1068

Verse 30. — That he may recall their souls from corruption, and enlighten them with the light of the living. The present light is the light of the dying; the eternal light is the light of the living. — For the light which we perceive with bodily eyes is the light of the dying. But those who as yet live to this world are darkened by the light of the dying. They, however, are enlightened with the light of the living who, despising the temporal light, have recourse to the splendor of inward brightness, so that they may live there where by perception they may see the true light, where there is not one thing light and another thing life, but where the light itself is life, where the light so encircles us outwardly that it fills us inwardly, and so fills us inwardly that, being itself uncircumscribed, it circumscribes us outwardly.

They are enlightened, then, with this light of the living, which they behold so much the more subtly then, as they now live the more purely toward it. The proud are wont to mingle empty and swollen things with what is true and mystical. — Great things and exceedingly strong Elihu uttered, but this every arrogant man is wont to have as his own: that, while he speaks things true and mystical, suddenly, through the swelling of the heart, he mingles in certain empty and proud things. For he desires to please outwardly in that which he truly perceives; and thereupon he presently grows empty of the truth, in that, through the pomp of elation, he departs from what is inmost. For because he, being learned, seeks to be approved outwardly, he loses inwardly the fullness by which he was being taught.

Whence Elihu also, whom we have already often said to hold the type of the arrogant, after he had set forth many profound things of wisdom, suddenly, after those same truthful and mystical sentences, is puffed up and exalted by the pride of knowledge; and presently, by the desert of his inflation, his mind is diverted to empty words. For he added, saying: