Moralia in Job 1313

94. What Sacred Scripture signifies by the name of the eagle: the spirits that lie in wait, earthly power, the subtle understanding of the saints, or the ascension of Christ. — In Sacred Scripture, by the word 'eagle' sometimes the malign spirits, ravishers of souls, sometimes the powers of the present world, but sometimes either the most subtle understanding of the saints, or the incarnate Lord swiftly flying across the depths and soon seeking again the heights, is designated. By the name of eagles the spirits that lie in wait are expressed, Jeremiah attesting, who says: Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of heaven (Lam. IV, 19).

For our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of heaven, when malignant men do such great things against us that they seem to outstrip even the aerial powers themselves in the inventions of malice. By the word 'eagle' too earthly power is figured. Whence it is said through the prophet Ezekiel: A great eagle, of great wings, with a long extent of members, full of feathers and of variety, came to Lebanon, and took the marrow of the cedar, and plucked off the top of its foliage (Ezek. XVII, 3). By which eagle who else is designated than Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon?

Which, for the immensity of his army, is described as of great wings; for the long duration of his times, with a long extent of members; but for his many riches, full of feathers; and for the innumerable arrangement of his earthly glory, full of variety. Who came to Lebanon, and took the marrow of the cedar, and plucked off the top of its foliage, because, seeking the loftiness of Judaea, he bore away the nobility of its kingdom, as it were the marrow of the cedar; and while by taking captive he removed the most tender offspring of the kings from the summit of his kingdom, he plucked off, as it were, the top of its foliage. The subtle understanding of the saints, or the ascension of Christ. The eagle gazes on the sun with fixed eyes. — By the word 'eagle' either the subtle understanding of the saints, or the flight of the Lord's ascension, is expressed.

Whence the same prophet, when he described that under the appearance of living creatures he had seen the four evangelists (Ezek. X, 1), testifies that in them the face of a man, of a lion, of an ox, and of an eagle appeared to him, designating without doubt the fourth living creature, John, by the eagle, who by flying deserted the earth, because by subtle understanding, by beholding the Word, he penetrated the inner mysteries. With which prophetic sentence John himself too, in his revelation, is not out of accord concerning himself, saying: The first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like a calf, the third living creature having a face as of a man, the fourth living creature like a flying eagle (Rev. IV, 7).

And although the several things rightly agree with each individual evangelist—since one intimates the order of the human nativity, another the mactation of the sacrifice for the world, as it were the death of the calf, another the fortitude of power, as it were the roar of the lion, another, beholding the nativity of the Word, gazes like an eagle upon the risen sun—yet these four living creatures can signify their own Head Himself, whose members they are. For He Himself is both man, because He truly took on our nature; and calf, because He patiently lay down for us; and lion, because through the fortitude of His divinity He burst the bond of the death He had taken on; and lastly eagle, because He returned to the heaven from which He had come.

Man, therefore, He was called in being born; calf, in dying; lion, in rising again; eagle, in ascending to the heavens. But in this place, by the name of the eagle the subtle understanding of the saints and their sublime contemplation is figured. For the sharpness of the eagle's sight surpasses that of all birds, so that the sun's ray, reverberating with no coruscation of its light against his eyes fixed upon it, does not close them. At the command of God, therefore, we are lifted up as an eagle, when, obeying the divine commands, the life of the faithful is suspended in the heights. Which is also said to place its nest in lofty things, because, despising earthly desires, it is already nourished by hope of heavenly things. It places its nest in lofty things, because it does not construct the habitation of its mind in an abject and lowly manner of life.

Hence it is that it is said, by Balaam prophesying to the Kenite: Robust indeed is your dwelling-place, but if you set your nest in the rock (Num. XXIV, 21). For 'Kenite' is interpreted 'possessor.' And who are they who possess present things, except those who are skilled in the ingenuity of secular wisdom? Who truly construct for themselves a robust dwelling-place in this, if, made little in their own eyes through humility, they be nourished in the sublimity of Christ; if they feel themselves weak, and, recognized in a lofty humility, place the confidence of the mind to be cherished in the Redeemer; if they do not crave low things, if by the flight of the heart they transcend everything that passes away. 95. Paul is like the eagle. — Let us behold the eagle constructing for itself in lofty things the nest of hope. He says:

Our conversation is in heaven (Phil. III, 20). And again: Who raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places (Eph. II, 6). He has his nest in lofty things, because assuredly he fixes his counsel in the heights. He does not wish to cast down his mind into low things, he does not wish to dwell in the lowest places through the abjection of a human manner of life. Paul was perhaps then held in prison, when he testified that he sat together with Christ in the heavenly places. But he was there where he had already fixed his ardent mind, not there where the still sluggish flesh necessarily retained him. 96. The elect despise all earthly things.

For this is wont to be the special mark of the elect: that they so know how to travel the road of the present life that, through the certainty of hope, they know themselves already to have arrived at the heights, so that they see all things that flow past to be beneath them, and out of love for eternity they trample down whatever is exalted in this world. Hence it is that the Lord says, through the prophet, to the soul that follows Him: 'I will lift thee up above the heights of the earth' (Isaiah 58:14). For there are, as it were, certain lower things of the earth — losses, insults, want, contempt — which even the lovers of this world, while they walk along the level of the broad way, never cease to avoid treading upon.

But the heights of the earth are: gains of possessions, the flatteries of subordinates, abundance of riches, honour, and the loftiness of dignities. Whoever still walks amid base desires reckons these things lofty precisely because he thinks them great. But once the heart is fixed upon heavenly things, straightway it is perceived how abject are the things that seemed lofty. For just as one who climbs a mountain looks down more and more upon the other things lying beneath as he stretches his step ever higher, so he who strives to fix his intention upon the highest things, while by that very effort he discovers that no glory of the present life exists, is raised above the heights of the earth; and what before, set amid base desires, he believed to be above himself, afterward, advancing by his ascent, he recognizes to be beneath him.

What therefore the Lord there promises He will do, saying, 'I will lift thee up above the heights of the earth' (ibid.), this He testifies before blessed Job that He alone can do, saying: 'Will the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high?' As if He said: at My command — I who inwardly, by the grace of My hidden bounty, breathe in what I outwardly enjoin. There follows: 'On the rocks' — that is, on the loftiness and steadfastness of the holy fathers — 'they place their nest.' In sacred Scripture, when 'rock' is named in the singular, who else is understood but Christ? As Paul attests, who says: 'And the rock was Christ' (1 Corinthians 10:4).

But when 'rocks' are named in the plural, His members are expressed, that is, the holy men who are made solid by His strength. These indeed the apostle Peter calls stones, saying: 'You also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house' (1 Peter 2:5). This eagle, then, which has lifted the eyes of its heart to the rays of the true Sun, is said to abide in the rocks, because it is placed in the sayings of the ancient and mighty fathers by a settled repose of the mind. For it recalls to memory the life of those whom it beholds to have gone before it in the way of God, and by striving after the loftiness of their fortitude it builds itself a nest of holy meditation.

And when it silently ponders their deeds and doctrines, when it considers how abject is the glory of the present life in comparison with eternal excellence, then, resting upon the rocks, it observes the lowest things of the earth to be, as it were, beneath itself. By the name of rocks the powers of heaven are designated. — The rocks can also be understood as the sublime powers of the heavenly virtues, whom no wind of our mutability, as it does with trees, bends this way and that; because, like rocks set upon steep heights, they are estranged from all movement of changeableness, and, fixed in the solidity of an unshaken loftiness, they have grown hard with the very eternity to which they cleave.

The holy man, therefore, when he despises earthly things, after the manner of the eagle raises himself to higher things, and, uplifted by the spirit of contemplation, he awaits the everlasting glory of the angels; and, being a sojourner in this world, by longing for the things he beholds, he is already fixed among the sublime realities. Rightly therefore is it said: 'She abides in the rocks' — that is, by the intention of the heart she rests among those heavenly virtues, which, by the fortitude of their eternity, are now fixed with such solidity that in no side of guilt are they bent by the variety of changeableness. Whence also it fitly follows: