Moralia in Job 363

Same place: 'Nor shall his place know him any more' (Job 7:10). 35. Man's place is God, forsaken through disobedience. He will not, in judgment, be known who here have despised him. — For the place of man — but not a local place — is the very Creator himself, who created him so that he might subsist in Him. Which place indeed man then forsook when, hearing the words of the seducer, he departed from the love of the Creator. But when almighty God showed himself to man, in redeeming, even bodily, he himself — so to speak — following the tracks of his fugitive, came as a place to hold back the man he had lost. For if the Creator could in no way be called a place, the Psalmist, praising God, would not say: 'The children of your servants shall dwell there' (Ps. 101:29).

For we do not say 'there' except when we specifically designate a place. But there are very many who, even after having received the help of the Redeemer, sink down into the darkness of despair; and they perish the more wickedly, in proportion as they hold in contempt the offered remedies of mercy. Rightly therefore is it said of the damned man: 'Nor shall his place know him any more,' because he is then the more strictly not known by his Creator in judgment, in the measure that now he is not recalled to the grace of restoration even by gifts. Whence too it is most especially to be noted that he does not say, 'Nor shall he know his place any more,' but says, 'Nor shall his place know him any more.'

For while knowledge is attributed not to the man, but to the place, plainly the very Creator himself is designated by the name of place, who, coming strictly to the last examination, will say to those persisting in iniquity: 'I know not whence you are' (Luke 13:25). But the elect, in the measure that they consider how strictly the reprobate are driven away, in that same measure daily purge themselves the more anxiously from the filth of wickedness committed. And when they behold others, who are to perish, growing cold from the love of life, they zealously kindle themselves to the lamentations of penitence. Whence it is fittingly subjoined: