Moralia in Job 1345

He sets forth the exposition of the fifteenth verse and the rest of chapter 40, as well as of the first twelve verses of chapter 41, where the various arts of the demon are laid bare, and it is taught that predestination is gratuitous and is reconciled with free will. The proud serve the devil as his familiars. To the ancient enemy, who is described under the name of Behemoth by the Lord's voice, all the proud serve so much the more familiarly, the more highly they swell within themselves by the successes of this life. For to these, as glory increases, elation increases; and with elation, care is added; the mind is stretched this way and that, because desires also grow with possessions.

And when they bring forth innumerable thoughts like the hay of the field, with those same thoughts, as with desired fodder, they feed the hunger of this Behemoth. Whence it is now rightly said: What a mountain, and what mountains, signify in Sacred Scripture. In Sacred Scripture, when 'mountain' is put in the singular number, sometimes the incarnate Lord, sometimes the holy Church, sometimes the testament of God, sometimes the apostate angel, sometimes any heretic is designated. But when mountains are named in the plural number, sometimes the loftiness of the apostles and prophets, sometimes indeed the swelling of secular powers is expressed. For a mountain designates the Lord, as it is written:

And it shall come to pass in the last days, the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of the mountains (Isaiah 2:2). For the mountain on the top of the mountains is the incarnate Lord, transcending the loftiness of the prophets. Again, by 'mountain' the holy Church is designated, as it is written: They that trust in the Lord shall be as mount Sion (Psalm 124:1). For Sion is interpreted 'watching,' by which watching, that is, the Church contemplating God is figured. Again, by 'mountain' the testament of God is expressed, as Habakkuk says: God will come from Libanus, and the Holy One from the shady and thick mountain (Habakkuk 3:3). For He who promised through the pages of His testament that He would come, came as it were from thence, whence He held Himself as under a promise.

Which testament is well called a shady and thick mountain, because it is overshadowed by the dense obscurities of allegories. Again, by 'mountain' the apostate angel is designated, as under the figure of the king of Babylon it is said to the preachers concerning the ancient enemy: Upon the dark mountain lift up a sign (Isaiah 13:2). For the holy preachers lift up a sign upon the dark mountain, when against the pride of Satan, who is often hidden under a mist of dissimulation, they exalt the power of the Cross. Again, by 'mountain' any heretic is expressed, as by the voice of the Church the Psalmist says: In the Lord I trust; how do you say to my soul, Migrate to the mountain like a sparrow? (Psalm 10:1-2).

For when, the unity of the faithful soul being abandoned, the heretic is said to trust in the swelling doctrine of the preacher, he is persuaded, as it were, to migrate to a mountain, the Lord being forsaken. Again, by 'mountains' the loftiness of the apostles and prophets is designated, as it is written: Your justice is like the mountains of God (Psalm 35:7). And by the voice of Paul it is said: That we might be made the justice of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21). Or again, by the voice of the hoping Church, the Psalmist says: I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains, whence help shall come to me (Psalm 120:1). Again, by 'mountains' the swelling of secular powers is expressed, of which the Psalmist says: The mountains flowed like wax before the face of the Lord (Psalm

96:5), because many who before had swelled with lofty rigidity, when God appeared in the flesh, were melted with great fear through penance. Or as the same Prophet again says: The mountains ascend, and the plains descend (Psalm 103:8). For very many, proud persecutors of the Lord, come against Him, but return from Him humbled. Who ascend as mountains through the swelling of power, but descend as plains, made level, that is, through the knowledge of their fault. The proud, by working evil, feed the demons. But because some remain in the height of their elation, and disdain to be humbly bent to divine obedience, in that they cease not to devise and perpetrate perverse things according to the desire of the ancient enemy, it is rightly said in this place concerning Behemoth:

To him the mountains bring forth herbs. For the exalted of the world bring forth herbs to this Behemoth, because they refresh him by that which they wickedly work. To this Behemoth they bring forth herbs, because they offer him their fluid and slippery pleasures. For men shall be, says the Apostle, lovers of themselves (2 Timothy 3:2). Whose description he embraced, saying: Lovers of pleasures more than of God (ibid., 4). What then is the herb of the mountains, but the fluid pleasure that is begotten from the heart of the proud? Who, unless they contemned God by being proud, would by no means perpetrate so many slippery things in wantonness. By which herbs indeed this Behemoth is fed, because in them, hungering for the penalty of eternal death, he is sated by their lost morals.

For the proud of this world, even when, hindered by the order of the supernal dispensation, they cease from the fulfilment of perverse works, nevertheless multiply perverse things in thought—now that they may show themselves more powerful than the rest in possessions and honours, now that they may exercise that same power of theirs in the zeal of harming another, now that, led by slippery motions, they dissolve themselves through frivolous deeds and pleasures. Who, while they have received things divinely but by no means do what is right, but always think to do perverse things, what else do they but fight against God with their own gifts? Since therefore this Behemoth always recognizes his own desires in the minds of the proud, he finds as it were herbs in the mountains, with which he distends the belly of his malice, being refreshed. But it is well added: