Moralia in Job 1422

47. Who are said in the sacred writings to be 'full of days.' Job, restored to his former state with his goods even increased, is a type of the Church. — In Holy Scripture no one is easily set down as full of days, save he whose life is praised through that same Scripture. For he is empty of days who, however long he has lived, has consumed the times of his age in vanity. But on the contrary he is called full of days to whom his days by no means pass away by perishing, but from the daily wage of good work are reserved with the just Judge even after they have been transacted.

But because there are those who desire to interpret these things also in a type of the Holy Church — to whose wishes we must obey the more, the more we should rejoice together in their spiritual understanding — if we multiply fourteen by ten, we arrive at the number a hundred and forty. And rightly is the life of the Holy Church reckoned multiplied by ten and four, because, keeping both Testaments, and living both according to the decalogue of the Law and according to the four books of the Gospel, it is extended even to the summit of perfection.

Whence also the apostle Paul, although he wrote fifteen Epistles, yet Holy Church holds no more than fourteen, so that from the very number of the Epistles he might show that this excellent teacher had searched out the secrets of the Law and of the Gospel. And well is blessed Job said to live after his scourges, because Holy Church also is first smitten by the scourge of discipline, and afterward is strengthened by the perfection of life. Which also beholds her sons and the sons of her sons even to the fourth generation, because in this age, which revolves in the four seasons of the year, she contemplates unto the end of the world, through the mouths of preachers, the offspring daily born to her.

Nor is it repugnant to the truth that by generations we say times are designated. For what is each succession, save a certain propagation of the race? And the butler of the king of Egypt, when he had seen a dream that he was drawing three shoots (Gen. 40:12), Joseph, gifted in the interpretation of dreams, declares the three shoots to designate three days. If therefore by three shoots the space of three days is expressed, why should not also by four generations the four seasons of the year be figured? Thus Holy Church sees her sons, when she beholds the first offspring of the faithful. She sees the sons of her sons, when she recognizes also the sons begotten to the faith by those same faithful ones.

Which also dies old and full of days, because, with light following from the reward of daily works, the weight of corruption being laid aside, she is changed to the incorruption of the spiritual country. Full of days indeed she dies, to whom the fleeting years do not pass away, but are made solid by the retribution of standing deeds. Full of days she dies, who through these transient times hopes for that which passes not away. Whence also it is said to the apostles: 'Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth unto everlasting life' (John 6:27). Thus Holy Church, even when she leaves the present life, loses not her days, because in her elect she finds her light so much the more manifoldly, the more now she keeps guard in them, more warily and anxiously against every temptation.

The Church loses not her days, because she neglects not to weigh herself vigilantly each day in this life, and grows torpid with no sluggishness toward all things that she may rightly do. For hence it is that concerning her it is said through Solomon: 'She hath considered the paths of her house, and hath not eaten her bread idle' (Prov. 31:27). She considers the paths of her house, because she subtly investigates all the thoughts of her conscience. She eats not her bread idle, because that which she has perceived by understanding from the sacred word, she shows forth by exhibiting it in works before the eyes of the eternal Judge. And she is said to die, because when the contemplation of that eternity has absorbed her, from this changeableness of hers.

she wholly extinguishes it, so that in her there now lives nothing in any way that may impede the keenness of the inmost vision. For she then beholds inward things so much the more truly, the more fully she sets in all outward things. This death therefore, this fulness of days, let us believe to have been wrought in blessed Job, that is, in one member of the Church, and let us hope that it is to be wrought in the whole Church together, so that thus the truth of the deed done may be held, and yet the prophecy of the deed to be done may not be voided. For the good things which we know of the life of the saints, if they lack truth, are nothing; if they have not mysteries, are trifling.

That therefore which is described through the Holy Spirit as the life of good men, let it shine to us in spiritual understanding, and yet let the sense not depart from the faith of the history; so that the mind may remain the more fixed in its understanding, the more it is bound, as it were placed in a certain middle, both by hope toward things future and by faith toward things past. 49. Conclusion of the whole work. How greatly it is to be feared lest they who speak of God should either speak evils incautiously, or good things not well. The intention of pleasing men insinuates itself into the intention of pleasing God. — This work therefore being completed, I see that I must return from myself to myself. For our mind is much scattered outside itself, even when it strives to speak rightly.

For while words are pondered as to how they should be uttered, they diminish the integrity of the mind, because they draw it outward. Therefore we must return from the public place of speech to the court of the heart, that, as it were in a certain council of consultation, I may summon together the thoughts of the mind to discern myself, so that there I may see whether I have said either evils incautiously, or good things not well. For then a good thing is well said, when he who says it, through that which he says, seeks to please Him alone from whom he received it. And indeed, although I do not find that I have said any evils, yet, because I have not said them at all, I do not defend. But if I have said any good things receiving them from God, I confess that by my own fault I have said them the less well.

For returning inward to myself, the leaves of words being set aside, the branches of sentences being set aside, when I subtly inspect the very root of my intention, I recognize that I indeed willed above all to please God by these things; but into that same intention by which I strive to please God there stealthily insinuates itself, I know not how, the intention of human praise. And when I discern this at length and too late, I find that I am doing otherwise than I know myself to have begun otherwise. For thus often our intention, while it is rightly begun before the eyes of God, is secretly subjoined by the intention of human praise, and, as it were catching it on the way, overtakes it; just as food indeed is taken for necessity, but in the very eating, while gluttony stealthily creeps in, the delight of eating is mingled.

Whence it often happens that the refreshment of the body, which we began for the sake of health, we complete for the sake of pleasure. It must therefore be confessed that our right intention, which seeks to please God alone, is sometimes accompanied by ambush from a less right intention, which seeks to please men from the gifts of God. But if we are strictly examined by God concerning these things, what place of salvation remains amid them, when both our evils are pure evils, and the good things which we believe ourselves to have can by no means be pure good? But I believe this to be worth my while, that whatever I secretly reprove in myself, I unhesitatingly disclose to fraternal ears. For since in expounding I have not concealed what I felt, in confessing I do not hide what I suffer.

Through exposition I have laid open gifts, through confession I disclose wounds. And because in this so great human race neither are the small lacking who ought to be instructed by dry words, nor are the great lacking who may be able to have mercy on my known weakness, through both these I bestow, as much as I can, care upon some, and I hope for care from others. To those I have said, in expounding, what they should do; to these I open, in confessing, what they should spare. To the former I withhold not the medicines of words; to the latter I hide not the laceration of my wounds. Therefore I beseech that whoever shall read these things may bestow on me before the strict Judge the solace of his prayer, and may wash away with tears whatever he finds sordid in me.

But prayer and exposition being alike bestowed, my reader surpasses me in recompense, if, when through me he receives words, he renders tears for me. I. After the exposition of Saint Gregory on the book of Job, the order of the Holy Scriptures being preserved, there ought to follow the Homilies of the same holy Doctor on the prophet Ezekiel, which, although afflicted with diseases, and almost immersed in most difficult affairs, and vexed with countless cares, he delivered to the people. The mournful aspect of the City and of all Italy at that time he himself depicts in the sixth homily of the second book, which was formerly inscribed as the eighteenth: 'Everywhere,' he says, 'we behold mourning, everywhere we hear groanings.'

Cities were destroyed, camps overthrown, fields laid waste, the land reduced to a wilderness. He saw some being led into captivity, some beheaded, some slain. We pass over the rest, in which he mourns the calamities of Rome, of the Roman countryside, and of all Italy. Things not unlike these are read in the Preface to Book II, and especially at the end of the last homily. 'On every side,' he says, 'we are hemmed in by swords; on every side we dread the imminent peril of death. Some return to us with their hands cut off; others are reported to us as captives, others as slain. Now I am compelled to hold my tongue back from the exposition.' Such were the leisures of our Gregory in interpreting Holy Scripture. Bernard, marvelling that amid so many and indeed the greatest affairs he could do this, writes thus to Eugenius the Supreme Pontiff:

The siege of the city and the barbarian sword hung over the necks of the citizens. Yet did this at all deter the blessed Pope Gregory from writing wisdom in his leisure? For at that very time (as is clear from his own preface) he expounded the most obscure and the final part of Ezechiel as diligently as he did elegantly (Book I On Consideration, chap. 9). II. Indeed, Jerome was once forced to beg off the most difficult task of explaining this prophecy, because of the siege of the city of Rome that had been announced to him. 'After,' he says, 'the most illustrious light of all lands had been extinguished, nay, rather the head of the Roman Empire had been cut off, and, to speak more truly, the whole world had perished in a single city, I fell dumb and was humbled, and I kept silence from good things' (Epist.

to Eustochium, which is prefixed to the commentary on Ezechiel). Jerome brings forward another reason for shrinking from this task, namely the difficulty of understanding and explaining it, which, he says, the tradition of the Hebrews confirms; for among them, unless a man has completed the age of priestly ministry, that is his thirtieth year, he is not permitted to read the beginning of Genesis, nor the Canticle of Canticles, nor the beginning and end of this volume, so that only when the full span of human nature has been reached may one attain to right knowledge and mystical understandings. III. But in order that our Gregory might happily carry through so weighty a work, he experienced the most present divine power.

For when he was interpreting the last vision of the prophet Ezechiel, Peter the deacon, whom he used as his amanuensis and notary, saw the Holy Spirit, in the form of a white dove, settling upon his head and putting its beak to his mouth, from which he might learn as it were and drink in the loftiest mysteries, as Paul the Deacon relates near the end of his Life, and John the Deacon confirms in Book IV, chapters 69 and 70. Nor indeed ought it to seem strange that the Holy Spirit was so singularly present to Gregory at that very time when he gave the greater proofs of humility, since, as Isaiah testifies (Isaiah 66:2), we have learned that the Spirit of God is the consoler and the indweller of the humble. Let us hear the most holy Doctor in the eleventh homily, number

5, deploring with most bitter tears even his lighter faults: 'O how hard are these things which I speak, for in speaking I strike my own self. Whose tongue neither holds fast his preaching as is fitting, nor does his life follow after in so far as it suffices to hold it fast. I who am often entangled in idle words, and who, sluggish and negligent, desist from the exhortation and edification of my neighbours. I who, made a watchman in the sight of God, am wordy. Dumb in things necessary, wordy in things idle.' The rest we pass over, which display an astonishing lowliness of soul in so great a man. And as though something were still lacking to this humble confession, he further below pronounces himself guilty thus (number 26): 'But meanwhile, while I speak, I wish to turn my eyes away from my own self;

and behold, again the divine word dashes me against my own self, so that I may see my negligence, and may dread that these things which I hear are said to me. For as I said above, whose heart, being torn apart in countless cares, can gather itself together to itself?' and so forth. IV. As the assiduity of the most holy pastor in delivering these discourses is seen to be worthy of boundless praise, with so many cares and so many hardships standing in the way, so too the burning zeal of the Roman people to hear Gregory, and their insatiable hunger for the divine word, merits no small commendation. For it was at the request of the Romans that Gregory undertook the exposition of Ezechiel, as he himself teaches in the preface to the second book, and John the Deacon confirms in Book IV, chap. 76. V.

Since these homilies of which we are speaking are said to have been begun when the siege was threatening the City, and were completed—or rather interrupted—while Agilulf, king of the Lombards, was already surrounding the walls, we must inquire at what time Rome suffered this siege. It is indeed usually referred to the year 593. But that it rather pertains to the year 592 we have shown by almost certain and indubitable arguments in the Life of Saint Gregory, Book II, chapter 1. VI. Concerning the number of these homilies there is no controversy; for two-and-twenty are found both in manuscript and in printed books; but the manner of numbering them is not the same.

Indeed in the printed editions they are all reckoned in the same way, as if they all belonged to one and the same book, so that the one which is first of the second book is called the thirteenth in the Vulgate editions. But it is otherwise in the manuscript codices, which, after the twelfth of the former book, call the one that next follows the preface of the latter book the first, and so on in order up to the tenth. To this usage we have chosen to conform. John the Deacon, however, follows another method of numbering, who in Book IV, chapter 66, calls the eighteenth the homily which we, with the manuscript books, call the sixth of the second book. But concerning these matters, which seem of slighter and almost no importance, let it suffice merely to have given notice. VII.

As to the manner of speaking and writing which this holy Doctor observed, while we do not contend that it is more polished or more elegant, so neither do we allow it, as though lowlier or more subdued, to be despised. In these discourses it is certain that Gregory took more care for the matter and the meaning than for the choice of words. And although he is indeed compelled first to establish the literal sense as the foundation of all the rest, yet he chiefly bends himself to searching out the mystical and moral senses. The first homily is set before the others as a prologue, in which Gregory sets forth many things worthy to be known and needful concerning the prophets and the spirit of prophecy. [The temple] is the Synagogue; it has a door, that is, the understanding of the heavenly kingdom;

and it goes toward the North, because it does not despise any sinners, but in receiving them mercifully attends to them unto repentance. Now let there be said four tables on this side, and four tables on that side, along the sides of the gate; for while faith and life, patience and kindness are guarded in the interior understanding, our gate has four tables in the inner vestibule, in which, while from the former part we behold the doctrine of the law and the prophecies of the former time, and weigh in the carnal people what were the bonds of circumcision and of sacrifice, likewise four tables are shown, as it were from the other side, outwardly in the vestibule. Which things, etc., as in the printed editions. In the Longipont Codex, after these words, 'mercifully attends to them,' there follows:

Rightly is it said that it goes toward the North. For in the outer keeping of the letter the law was held as given. But the door of the gate is the historical understanding itself of the law, which leads to the fear of the Lord. This gate is said to go toward the North, because that same law, under the fear of punishments, bound fast the cold hearts of the Jewish people; for that people would have run as if through warmth, had it kept the Lord's precepts out of love; but because under fear of the death set before it it kept the letter, it remained as it were in the numbness of cold. Hence to the new peoples, who love the eternal rewards and do not fear the temporal torments, and who are now warm, it is said:

For you have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption of sons, in whom we cry, Abba, Father. Now let it be said: Four tables on this side, etc. These things indeed are either Gregory's own, or most like Gregory's. The former context, 'and again,' etc., afforded to other manuscript copies the occasion for being omitted, as one may conjecture, because the word 'are described,' immediately preceding, was repeated twice within a few lines. For, the first 'are described' being passed over, together with the rest that follow, the copyist incautiously turned his eyes to the second, and to the lines below, not to those above.

We are afraid to say more by way of preface, lest the time which ought to be more usefully spent in unrolling and continually consulting Gregory be wasted in vain upon reading our little writings.