Moralia in Job 1179

(VERSE 18) 'Did you perhaps with Him fashion the heavens, which are most solid as though cast of brass?' (65) By the heavens, as though cast of brass, the holy angels and the minds of the elect are signified. — By the heavens can be designated those angelic spirits who are established among the heavenly things. Whence we are instructed to say in our prayer by the voice of Truth: 'Your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.' So that assuredly the will of God, just as it is carried out by the higher creation, may thus in all things be observed even by human weakness. Of whom it is well said: 'Which are most solid as though cast of brass' (cf. Matt. 6:10). For it is the nature of brass to be consumed with difficulty by rust.

And the angelic virtues, which stood firmly fixed in the divine love, received this in reward of their warning — when the proud angels had fallen — that they should now be gnawed by no rust of creeping fault, that they should remain in the contemplation of their Creator without end of felicity, and should subsist in that which they were created with eternal stability. This is well attested by the very words of the history concerning the origin of the world in Moses (Gen. 1:6), where both the heaven is said to have been made first, and this same thing is afterwards called the firmament; because assuredly the angelic nature was both first created more subtly in the higher regions, and afterwards, that it might never be able to fall, was more marvelously confirmed.

Also by the heavens, as we have often said, can be expressed the minds of the elect, suspended by inmost love from all earthly contagions. Who, although they dwell in body among the lowest things, yet because in heart they already cling to the highest, truly say: 'Our conversation is in heaven' (Phil. 3:20). Who are most solid as though cast of brass, because from the integrity of the fortitude they have undertaken they are consumed by no rust of changeableness. And to them, enduring bravely against adversities, it is said by the voice of the Author: 'You are My friends, who have remained with Me in My temptations' (Luke 22:28). But although the learned and arrogant man strives to mock the holy man, and mingles brave sayings with his mockery, nevertheless from brave sayings he always slides back into superfluous words.

For again, mocking, he adds: (VERSE 19) 'Show us what we may say to Him; for we ourselves are wrapped in darkness.' (66) As if he should say: You, who now enjoy the great light of understanding, ought to teach us who are wrapped in the darkness of ignorance. Who, at once recoiling from mockery, adds contemptuously: (VERSE 20) 'Who shall relate to Him the things I speak?' As if he were openly to say: Since I, keenly perceiving concerning His praises, speak things unheard, who can relate these, even after he has heard them? But because doctrine and arrogance clash together in the dwelling of one mind, from the mouth of the speaker there sounds forth not only levity but also gravity of sentiment; after Elihu had lightly swelled through arrogance, saying: 'Who shall relate to Him the things I speak?'

he at once added through doctrine: