Moralia in Job 374

Verse 19. 'How long dost thou not spare me, nor let me alone, that I may swallow down my spittle?' 49. The savour, not the satiety, of contemplation is here given. Spittle glides into the mouth from the head, but from the mouth it is led down to the belly when it is swallowed. What therefore is our head save the Godhead? through which we take the beginning of existing, that we may be creatures, as Paul attests, who says: 'The head of the man is Christ, but the head of Christ is God' (1 Cor. xi, 3). But what is our belly, save the mind? which, while it receives its food, namely the supernal understanding, being refreshed, without doubt governs the members of all its actions. For unless sacred utterances sometimes expressed the mind by the name of the belly, Solomon surely would not have said:

'The lamp of the Lord is the breath of man, which searcheth all the secret places of the belly' (Prov. xx, 27), because assuredly while the grace of the supernal regard illumines us, it manifests to us even all things hidden of our mind. What therefore is received by the name of spittle, save the savour of inmost contemplation? which flows down to the mouth from the head, because it touches us, yet placed in this life, with scarcely a taste of revelation concerning the brightness of the Creator. Whence also the Redeemer coming mingled spittle with clay, and repaired the eyes of the man born blind (John ix, 6), because the supernal grace irradiates our carnal thought by the admixture of His contemplation, and reforms man from his original blindness to understanding.

For because nature brought him forth, cast out from the joys of paradise, into this exile now, man came forth as it were without eyes from his nativity. But as the holy man intimates, this spittle glides indeed to the mouth, yet is not swallowed so as to reach the belly, because the contemplation of the Godhead touches the sense, but does not fully refresh the mind, since the soul is not perfectly able to behold that which as yet, because the darkness of corruption impedes, it sees but snatchingly. 50. The mind, pressed by the mass of the body, is not able long to cling to the supernal light.

For behold, the mind of the elect now subjects earthly desires, now transcends all things that it considers as passing away, now is suspended from the delight of outward things, and searches out what are the invisible goods; and doing these things it is for the most part rapt into the sweetness of supernal contemplation, and now beholds something of the inmost as it were through a fog, and with ardent desire strives to be present at the spiritual ministries of the angels; it is fed with a taste of the uncircumscribed light, and, carried beyond itself, disdains to slip back to itself; but because as yet the body that is corrupted weigheth down the soul (Wisd. ix, 15), it is not able long to cling to the light which it sees but snatchingly.

For the very infirmity of the flesh draws back the soul that transcends itself, and leads it back, sighing, to thinking on things low and necessary. The spittle therefore flowing down from the head touches the mouth, but by no means reaches the belly, because our understanding is now indeed suffused with the liquor of supernal contemplation, but the mind is by no means fully satisfied. For in the mouth is the taste, in the belly is the satiety. We are therefore not able to swallow the spittle, because we are not permitted to be satisfied with the good of supernal brightness, which as yet we taste from its thinness. But since this very thing, which in some fashion we now know from above, is of the piety of the One who spares, but that we are not able perfectly to perceive this is still from the punishment of the old condemnation, rightly is it now said:

'How long dost thou not spare me, nor let me alone, that I may swallow down my spittle?' As if it were plainly said: Then dost thou fully spare man, when thou admittest him to the perfection of thy contemplation, that being rapt he may inwardly see thy brightness, and the corruption of his flesh may not outwardly repel him. Then dost thou permit that I swallow the spittle, when thou hast suffused me with the savour of thy brightness even to the abundance of satiety, so that I may by no means any longer hunger through want by the taste of the mouth, but, made solid in thee, may subsist with the belly of the mind irrigated. But he who wishes to merit the good which he seeks after, ought to confess the evil which he has done. There follows: