Moralia in Job 862

36. By the name of clouds are designated the Apostles and preachers.—What in this place does he call water but knowledge, what the clouds but preachers? For because in sacred eloquence water is sometimes called knowledge, we have learned by Solomon's testimony, who says: 'The words from the mouth of a man are deep water, and the fountain of wisdom is an overflowing torrent' (Prov. XVIII, 4). That knowledge is signified by water, the prophet David testifies, saying: 'Dark water in the clouds of the air' (Psalm XVII, 12 [Vulg.]). That is, hidden knowledge in the prophets, who, before the coming of the Lord, while, being pregnant with hidden sacraments, they bore immense mysteries, their understanding was dark to the eyes of those beholding.

But by the name of clouds what else in this place are designated but the holy preachers, that is, the apostles, who, sent through the parts of the world round about, knew both to rain in words and to flash in miracles? Whom the prophet Isaiah, beholding long before, said: 'Who are these who fly like clouds?' Since therefore this man, full of the prophetic spirit, in this his discourse desires to begin, to the praise of God, with the beginnings of the nascent Church, he is eager to narrate its order from the preaching of the apostles, who took the utmost care to preach to the untaught peoples plain and comprehensible things, not lofty and arduous ones.

For if the holy knowledge, which is here designated by the name of water, they were to pour out from the mouth just as they drew it in from the heart, they would overwhelm their hearers by its immensity rather than water them. Whence, with the knowledge bound up within, so that it might not burst forth downward all at once, nourishing its hearers by a distillation of words, that cloud spoke, saying: 'I could not speak to you as to spiritual persons, but as to carnal, as to little ones in Christ I gave you milk to drink, not meat' (1 Cor. III, 1, 2). For who could have borne it, if the one caught up to the third heaven, caught up into paradise, hearing even secret words which it is not permitted to man to utter, had opened such immense bosoms of supernal knowledge (2 Cor. XII, 2)?

Or whose strength as a hearer would it not overwhelm, if those things which he could draw within, in so far as the tongue of the flesh sufficed, the immensity of this water had flowed forth flooding without? 37. Untaught hearers are to be watered not by an inundation but by a distillation of knowledge.—But that the untaught hearers may be cherished not by an inundation of knowledge, but by a moderate distillation of preaching, God binds the waters in the clouds, that they may not burst forth downward all at once, because he tempers the preaching of teachers, so that the infirmity of the hearers, nourished by the dew of words, may grow strong. Which is well narrated in the Gospel by a mystical description, when it is said:

'Jesus went up into Peter's little boat, and asked that he would draw back a little from the land, and so sitting he preached to the crowds' (Luke V, 3). By Peter's boat what else is designated but the Church committed to Peter? From which, that the Lord might preach to the flocking crowds, he bids it be drawn back a little from the land. Which he commands neither to be led into the deep, and yet to be removed from the land, surely signifying that his preachers ought to the untaught peoples to preach neither things too lofty about heavenly matters, nor yet earthly things. The water therefore is bound in the clouds, because the knowledge of the preachers, speaking to the minds of the weak, is forbidden to teach as much as it is able to perceive. 38. From weak minds the higher knowledge is to be concealed.

—For very often, if the heart of the hearers is corrupted by the immensity of the word, the tongue of the teachers is punished by the penalty of indiscretion. Whence it is written: 'If anyone opens a cistern and digs, and does not cover it, and an ox or an ass falls into it, the owner of the cistern shall render the price of the beasts' (Exod. XXI, 33). For what is it to open a cistern, but with a strong understanding to penetrate the secrets of Holy Scripture? And what by the ox and the ass, namely the clean and the unclean animal, is taken but every believer and unbeliever?

He therefore who digs a cistern, let him cover it, lest an ox or an ass fall into it, that is, he who in sacred eloquence already understands lofty things, let him by silence cover the sublime senses before those who cannot grasp them, lest through the scandal of the mind he destroy either the faithful little one, or the unbeliever who could have believed. For from the death of the beasts a price is due, because he is convicted of having admitted that whereby he is held guilty to the doing of penance. The cistern therefore is to be covered, because before little minds the high knowledge is to be hidden, lest from whence the heart of the teachers is raised to the highest things, thence the infirmity of the hearers slip down to the lowest. Let it therefore rightly be said: 'Who binds the waters in the clouds, that they may not burst forth downward all at once.'

For the waters would burst forth all at once, if before weak hearers all that knowledge which is from the mouth of the speaker were to flow forth, if the whole fullness of preaching poured itself out at once, and reserved nothing for itself along with those making progress. For it is fitting that he who preaches should consider the measure of the hearer, so that the preaching itself may grow with the increments of its hearer. For thus ought every preacher to act, just as it is dealt with him by God, that he by no means insinuate to the weak all that he perceives, because even so long as he himself is weak in the flesh of mortality, he does not perceive all those things which are supernal. He ought not therefore to preach to the untaught as much as he knows, because he himself is not able to know how great are the supernal mysteries.

For hence it is that Paul the apostle, after he had been present at the heavenly mysteries, says: 'We now see through a glass in a riddle, but then face to face' (1 Cor. XIII, 12). Whence also immediately here there follows: