Moralia in Job 834

Verse 19. — Let him pass to excessive heat from the waters of the snows. 81. How difficult it is to be wise unto sobriety. — Iniquity is therefore compared to cold, because it binds the mind of the sinner with numbness. Whence it is written: As the cistern maketh its water cold, so hath she made her malice cold (Jeremiah vi, 7). Whereas, on the contrary, charity is heat, because, namely, it kindles the mind which it fills. Of which heat it is written: Iniquity shall abound, the charity of many shall grow cold (Matthew xxiv, 12). And there are some who, while they shun the colds of their iniquities, come to the true faith, or to the habit of holiness.

But because they presume upon their own understanding more than is needful, they often wish to search out, in the faith which they receive, the things which they do not grasp, so that they are held in God by reason rather than by faith. But because the human mind cannot search out the divine secrets, they scorn to believe everything which they cannot search out by reason, and through excessive inquiry they slip into error. And so those men, while they did not yet believe, or as yet were at leisure for the works of iniquity, were the waters of the snows. But when, forsaking carnal deeds, in the faith to which they have been brought they seek to search out more than they grasp, they assuredly grow hotter than they ought to have grown. Well, therefore, of any such perverse man is it said—by way of one prophesying, not of one wishing:

Let him pass to excessive heat from the waters of the snows. As if it were openly said: He who is not restrained humbly under the bond of discipline slips, from his unbelief or from the cold of perverse work, through immoderate wisdom into error. Whence well also that excellent preacher, warding off from the hearts of his disciples this excessive heat of an over-refined wisdom, says: Not to be more wise than it behoveth to be wise, but to be wise unto sobriety (Romans xii, 3). Lest perchance the excessive heat should destroy those whom before the waters of the snows, that is, the colds of unbelief or of torpid actions, held ready to die.

And because it is very difficult that he who esteems himself wise should bring back his mind to humility, and believe those who preach right things, and cast away the perception of his own perversity, it is rightly subjoined: