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Verse 8. — Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a simple and upright man, and fearing God, and departing from evil? 8. The various modes of speech of God and of the spirits. — That blessed Job is by the divine voice called simple and upright, and fearing God, and departing from evil, since we have subtly and piece by piece expounded this above, we avoid repeating what we have said; lest, while we go over things already discussed, we come more slowly to things not yet discussed. This, therefore, must be attentively considered by us: what it means that the Lord is said either to speak to Satan, or that Satan is reported to answer the Lord. For it must be examined what sort of speech this is.
For neither by the Lord, who is the supreme and uncircumscribed Spirit, nor by Satan, who is clothed with no fleshly nature, is airy breath drawn in from the bellows of the belly in human fashion, so as to be rendered through the organ of the throat by the utterance of a voice. But when the incomprehensible nature speaks to the invisible nature, it is fitting that our mind, transcending the quality of bodily speech, should be lifted up to the sublime and unknown modes of inward speech. For we, in order to express outwardly the things we perceive within, cast them forth through the organ of the throat, by the sound of the voice. For to the eyes of others we stand, as it were, behind the wall of the body, within the secret of the mind;
but when we desire to make ourselves manifest, we go forth as it were through the door of the tongue, that we may show of what sort we are within. But the spiritual nature is not so, which is not doubly composed of mind and body. But again it must be known that even this incorporeal nature, when it is said to speak, its speech is by no means formed of one and the same quality. For God speaks to the angels in one way, the angels to God in another; God to the souls of the saints in one way, the souls of the saints to God in another; God to the devil in one way, the devil to God in another. 9. God speaks to the angels in one way.
— For since nothing from bodily opposition stands in the way of the spiritual nature, God speaks to the holy angels by this very fact, that He displays His hidden invisible things to their hearts: so that whatever they ought to do, they may read in the very contemplation of truth, and the very joys of contemplation may be, as it were, certain precepts of a voice. For that is spoken to them, as it were hearing, which is breathed into them as beholding. Whence, when into their hearts God poured forth against human pride the attention of vengeance, He said: Come, let us go down, and there confound their tongue (Gen. xi. 7). It is said, Come, to those who cleave to Him; because indeed this very thing, never to decrease from divine contemplation, is always to increase in divine contemplation;
and never to depart in heart is, as it were, by a certain stable motion, always to come. To whom He also says: Let us go down and confound their tongue. The angels ascend, in that they behold the Creator. The angels descend, in that they press with the scrutiny of strictness the creature raising itself in unlawful things. Therefore, for God to say: Let us go down and confound their tongue, is to show them in Himself this, that it be rightly done, and through the power of inward vision to breathe into their minds by hidden motions the judgments to be exhibited. 10. The angels to God in another way. — The angels speak to God in another way, as also through John's Apocalypse they say: Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and divinity, and wisdom (Rev. v. 12).
For the voice of the angels in the praise of the Creator is the very admiration of inmost contemplation. To have been astonished at the miracles of divine power is to have spoken, because the movement of the heart aroused with reverence is a great cry of the voice to the ears of the uncircumscribed Spirit. Which voice unfolds itself as it were through distinct words, while it forms itself through innumerable modes of admiration. God, then, speaks to the angels when His inmost will is made manifest to them to be seen. But the angels speak to the Lord, when, by the fact that they look upon what is above themselves, they rise into a movement of admiration. Otherwise God speaks to the souls of the saints, and they to God. — God speaks to the souls of the saints in one way, the souls of the saints speak to God in another.
Whence also in John's Apocalypse it is again said: I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held; and they cried with a loud voice, saying: How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? Where it is immediately added: White robes were given to every one of them; and it was said to them, that they should rest yet a little time, until the number of their fellow-servants and their brethren should be fulfilled (Rev. vi. 9-11). For what is it for the souls to speak the petition of vengeance, but to desire the day of the last judgment, and the resurrection of the bodies that had been extinguished? For their great cry is a great desire.
For each one cries the less, the less he desires; and expresses the greater voice to the ears of the uncircumscribed Spirit, the more fully he pours himself out in desire for Him. The words of the souls, therefore, are their very desires. For if desire were not speech, the Prophet would not say: Thy ear hath heard the desire of their heart (Ps. ix. [x.] 17). But since the mind that petitions is wont to be moved otherwise, and that which is petitioned otherwise, and the souls of the saints so cleave to God in the bosom of the inner secret, that in cleaving they rest; how are they said to petition, who are agreed to differ in no way from the inner will? how are they said to petition, who are certain both of the will of God, and are not ignorant of the things that are to come?
But being placed in Him, they are said to petition something of Him, not that they desire anything that is discordant from the will of Him whom they behold: but that the more ardently they cleave to Him in mind, the more also they receive of Him, so that they petition of Him what they have known Him to will to do. Of Him, therefore, they drink what they thirst from Him; and in a manner still incomprehensible to us, in this, that in petitioning they hunger, by foreknowing they are satisfied. They would therefore be discordant from the will of the Creator, if they did not petition the things they see Him to will; and they would cleave to Him less, if with a lazier desire they knocked upon Him who is willing to give. To whom it is said divinely in answer: Rest yet a little time, until the number of your fellow-servants and brethren be completed.
For to say to the desiring souls, Rest yet a little time, is amid the ardour of desire to breathe out from that same foreknowledge the solace of consolation; so that both the voice of the souls is this, which the loving ones desire; and the word of the responding God is this, which confirms them amid their desires by the certainty of recompense. To answer, therefore, belongs to Him, so that they ought to await the gathering of the brethren, to pour willingly into their minds the delays of awaiting; that when they long for the resurrection of the flesh, they may also rejoice at the increase of the brethren to be gathered. 12. God to the devil in one way, and he to God in another. God speaks to the devil in one way, the devil to God in another.
For for God to speak to the devil is to rebuke his ways and dealings by the animadversion of hidden strictness, as here it is said: Whence comest thou? But for the devil to answer Him is to be able to conceal nothing from His omnipotent majesty. Whence here he says, I have gone round the earth, and walked through it. For it is, as it were, for him to say what he has done, to know that he cannot hide his acts from His eyes. But it must be known that, as we learn in this place, God speaks to the devil in four modes; in three modes the devil speaks to God. In four modes God speaks to the devil;
because He both censures his unjust ways, and sets forth the justice of His elect against him, and by conceding permits their innocence to be tempted, and sometimes forbids him, lest he dare to tempt. For He censures his unjust ways, as has already been said: Whence comest thou? He sets forth the justice of His elect against him, as He says: Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him upon the earth? He permits by conceding their innocence to be tempted, as He says: Behold, all that he hath is in thy hand. And again He forbids him from temptation, when He says: Only put not forth thy hand upon him.
But the devil speaks to God in three modes, when he either intimates his own ways, or accuses the innocence of the elect with feigned charges, or demands that same innocence to be tempted. For he intimates his own ways, who says: I have gone round the earth, and walked through it. He accuses the innocence of the elect, who says: (Verses 9, 10) Doth Job fear God in vain? Hast thou not made a hedge about him, and his house, and all his substance round about? He demands that same innocence to be tempted, when he says: Put forth thy hand, and touch all that he possesses, unless he bless thee to thy face. But to say, Whence comest thou? belongs to God, as we intimated above, to rebuke by the force of His justice the journeys of his malice.
To say, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him upon the earth? belongs to God: by justifying to make His elect such as the apostate angel might indeed envy. To say, Behold, all that he hath is in thy hand, belongs to God: for the proof of the faithful, to relax against them by hidden power that assault of his malice. To say, Only put not forth thy hand upon him, belongs to God: by permitting also to restrain him from the onset of immoderate temptation. But to say, I have gone round the earth, and walked through it, belongs to the devil: that he cannot conceal the cunning of his malice from His invisible eyes. To say, Doth Job fear God in vain? belongs to the devil: to complain against the good within the hiding-places of his own thoughts;
and to envy their advancements, and in envying to search out the chinks of reprobation. To say, Put forth thy hand a little, and touch all that he possesses (Verse 11), belongs to the devil: to pant with the heats of malice for the affliction of the good. For by that which, envying, he seeks their temptation, by that same, as it were beseeching, he petitions their probation. Since, therefore, we have briefly spoken of the modes of inward speech, let us return to the order of exposition which was interrupted for a little.