Moralia in Job 1191

VERSE 4-6. — 'Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare unto me, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are its bases made fast?' 14. By the foundations of the Church the apostles are to be understood; by the one foundation, Christ alone. — Behold, all these things are woven together as if in an historical narration concerning the origin of the world. But suddenly there is subjoined something which seems to be said not of the world, but of the Church. For it is said: 'Or who hath laid its cornerstone?' For by this — that it was not done at the origin of the world — that former thing also is shown, namely that it was not said concerning the origin of the world.

For this reason indeed certain obscure and discordant things are mingled with plain and evident matters, so that by that which is at variance with the understanding of the letter, that also may be sought mystically which sounds when spoken according to the letter. For just as by other things that are open we come to know other things that are closed, so by other things closed we are compelled to knock also at those things by a higher understanding which we had believed to be open. Let it say therefore: 'Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?' In Holy Scripture what else do we take the foundations to be but the preachers? Whom, when the Lord placed first in the holy Church, the whole structure of the following fabric rose up upon them. Whence also the priest, when he enters the tabernacle (Exod.

XXVIII, 17) is commanded to bear twelve stones on his breast, because indeed our High Priest, offering Himself a sacrifice for us, while He set forth strong preachers at the very beginning, bore twelve stones beneath His head in the first part of His body. The holy apostles therefore are both stones on the breast for the first display of ornament, and foundations on the ground for the first solidity of the building. Whence David the prophet, when he beheld the holy Church placed and built up in the sublime minds of the apostles, says: 'Its foundations are in the holy mountains' (Ps. LXXXVI, 1).

But when in the sacred discourse not 'foundations,' but in the singular number a 'foundation' is spoken of, none other is designated but the Lord Himself, through the power of whose divinity the wavering hearts of our infirmity are made solid. Of whom also Paul says: 'Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus' (1 Cor. III, 11). For He is the foundation of foundations, because He is both the origin of those beginning, and the constancy of the robust.

Since therefore our foundations are these who bore the weights of our iniquities, lest blessed Job be lifted up into pride over the power of his virtues, in the very first part of the Lord's discourse he is examined by a commemoration of the holy preachers, so that by however much he beheld them coming forth admirable, by so much in comparison with them he might esteem more meanly of himself. And this is therefore described by the Lord as it were already past, because whatever is to be future in the work has already been done within in predestination. It is said to him therefore: 'Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?' As if it were plainly said: Consider the virtue of the strong, and weigh Me as their Author before the ages;

and when thou lookest up to those admirable ones whom I created in time, ponder how greatly thou oughtest therein to be subject to Him whom thou knowest to be the Author of the admirable without time. There follows: