Moralia in Job 1208

VERSE 12. -- 'Didst thou since thy birth command the daybreak, and show the dawn its place?' 2. The Lord having risen, the Church is as a dawn turned from darkness into light. -- Understand: as I did. For the rising of His divinity has neither before nor after. He who, while He is ever being through eternity, while He circumscribes all that glides away, encloses within Himself the courses of the times. But the rising of His humanity, because it both began and ceased, received from time both to have a before and an after. But because, while He Himself took on the shadows of our temporality, He poured into us the light of His own eternity, rightly after this rising which the Creator fashioned for Himself in time, the dawn knew its own place without time.

For because the daybreak or dawn is turned from darkness into light, not without reason is the whole Church of the elect designated by the name of daybreak or dawn. For she herself, while she is led from the night of unbelief to the light of faith, is opened up, after the manner of the dawn, into day after darkness by the splendour of supernal brightness. Whence too well is it said in the Song of Songs: 'Who is she that cometh forth as the rising dawn?' (Cant. 6:9). For holy Church, longing for the rewards of the heavenly life, is called dawn, because while she forsakes the darkness of sins, she shines with the light of justice. [Book II.] 3. As long as we live, it is dawn, not perfect day. -- Yet we have something more subtle which we may weigh, when the quality of daybreak or dawn is considered.

For the dawn or daybreak announces indeed that the night has passed, yet does not display the full brightness of day; but while it drives away the night, and takes up the day, it holds a light mingled with darkness. What therefore in this life are all of us who follow the truth, but dawn or daybreak? For we both do certain things now that are of the light, and yet in certain things we are not without the remnants of darkness. For through the prophet it is said to God: 'In thy sight shall no man living be justified' (Ps. 143:2). And again it is written: 'In many things we all offend' (James 3:2). Paul too says:

'I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind, and captivating me in the law of sin, that is in my members' (Rom. 7:23). Where therefore the law of sin contends with the law of the mind, assuredly it is still dawn, since the light that has now shone forth has not yet utterly pressed down the passing darkness. It is still dawn, because while the law of the flesh smites the law of the mind, and the law of the mind the law of the flesh, light and shadow contend by turns between themselves. Whence again Paul, when he had said, 'The night is passed' (Rom. 13:12), by no means subjoined, 'The day is come,' but 'The day is at hand.'

(Rom. 13:12), he by no means subjoined 'The day is come,' but 'The day is at hand.' For he who intimates that, after the departure of the night, the day has now not come but is at hand, shows himself beyond doubt to be still in the dawn, before the sun, after the darkness. 4. It will be day, when no darkness of sin shall remain. -- But then fully will the holy Church of the elect be day, when there shall no longer be any shadow of sin mingled with her. Then fully will it be day, when she shall shine with the perfect fervour of the inward light. Then fully will it be day, when, bearing no tempting memory of her evils, she shall hide from herself even all the remnants of darkness. Whence too well is this dawn shown as though still in transit, when it is said: 'And thou hast shown the dawn its place.'

For whoever is shown his own place is surely called from one thing to another. What is the place of the dawn, if not the perfect brightness of the eternal vision? When she has been brought and comes to it, she now retains nothing of the darkness of the night that is past. But now, still enduring the vexations of temptations, because through the intention of the heart the Church hastens to another thing, the dawn tends toward her own place. If she did not behold that place in her mind, she would remain in the night of this life. But since daily she strives to be perfected, and daily to grow into the light, she now beholds her place and seeks that the sun may fully shine upon her. The dawn considers her place when the holy soul burns to contemplate the beauty of her Creator.

The dawn was striving to reach her own place when David said: 'My soul thirsted for the living God; when shall I come and appear before the face of God?' (Ps. 41:3). The truth was showing the dawn her place when it said through Solomon: 'What hath the wise man more than the fool, and what the poor man, but to go thither where life is?' (Eccles. 6:8). And indeed the Lord showed this place even to the fathers who preceded His incarnation, after His rising; for unless through the spirit of prophecy they had known the King of the heavenly fatherland who was to be made flesh, they would not have seen how desirable were the goods of that same fatherland. The truth revealed to the dawn her place when it asked the Father in the presence of the disciples, saying:

'Father, those whom Thou hast given Me, I will that where I am, they also may be with Me' (John 17:24). It showed the dawn her place when it said: 'Wheresoever the body shall be, there shall the eagles also be gathered together' (Matt. 24:28). The dawn hastened to reach this place which she had come to know, when Paul said that he had a desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ: and again, 'To me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain' (Phil. 1:21). And again: 'We know that if our earthly house of this habitation be dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens' (2 Cor. 5:1).

Well is it declared that after His rising He showed the dawn her own place; for the blessedness of the future reward, before He Himself became known through the body, He kept within the understanding of a few. But when He took upon Himself the weaknesses of human birth, He enlarged into the love of an innumerable multitude the knowledge of the glory to come. But since divine mercy so accomplishes the mystery of His work that yet wrath also accompanies it—so that the hidden Judge, regarding some, redeems them, and forsaking others, destroys them—since we have learned how through His incarnation He enlightens the elect, let us now hear how He condemns the reprobate. There follows: