Moralia in Job 992

The understanding of the sacred word is to be weighed with so great a balance between the text and the mystery, that, the scale of either part being kept even, neither may the weight of excessive discussion press it down, nor again may the torpor of carelessness leave it void. For many of its sentences are so pregnant with a conception of allegories, that whoever strives to hold them only to the history is deprived, through his own carelessness, of the knowledge of them. But some so serve the outward precepts, that if anyone desires to penetrate them more subtly, he finds indeed nothing within, but hides even this which they speak outwardly. i. The former proposition is proved. — Whence well also, in the historical narrative, it is said by way of signification:

'Jacob, taking green rods of poplar and of almond and of plane trees, peeled them in part, and, the bark being stripped off, in those parts which were bared a whiteness appeared; but those which were whole remained green; and after this manner the colour was made various' (Gen. 30:37). Where it is also subjoined: 'And he set them in the channels where the water was poured out, that when the flocks should come to drink, they might have the rods before their eyes, and in the sight of them might conceive. And it came to pass that in the very heat of coition the sheep beheld the rods, and brought forth spotted, and party-coloured, and sprinkled with divers colours' (Gen. 30:38,39).

For what is it to set green rods of poplar, of almond, and of plane trees before the eyes of the flocks, but to present, through the series of Sacred Scripture, the lives and the sayings of the ancient Fathers as an example to the peoples? Which, indeed, because according to the examination of reason they are right, are named rods. From these he strips the bark in part, that in those which are bared the inmost whiteness may appear; and in part he keeps the bark, that they may remain, as they were outwardly, in their greenness; and a various colour of the rods is produced, while the bark is in part withdrawn, in part retained. For before the eyes of our consideration the sayings of the preceding Fathers are set like various rods.

In which, while for the most part we flee the understanding of the letter, we, as it were, withdraw the bark; and while for the most part we follow the understanding of the letter, we, as it were, keep the bark. And while from these the bark of the letter is withdrawn, the inner whiteness of allegory is displayed; and while the bark is left, the green examples of outward intelligence are shown. Which rods Jacob well placed in the channels of water, because our Redeemer also fixed them in the books of sacred knowledge, whereby we are inwardly watered.

Beholding these, the rams couple with the ewes, because our rational spirits, while they are fixed in the contemplation of them, are mingled with each several action, so that they may procreate such offspring of works as are the examples of those who went before which they see in the words of the precepts; and the offspring of good work may have a diverse colour, because sometimes, the bark of the letter being withdrawn, it more keenly considers the inward things, and sometimes, the covering of the history being kept, it forms itself well in outward things. 3. The other is proved. — For because the divine sentences are sometimes to be searched within, sometimes to be observed without, it is said also by Solomon: 'He who strongly presses the udders to draw out milk squeezes out butter;

and he that vehemently wrings brings forth blood' (Prov. 30:33). For we strongly press the udders when we weigh the words of the sacred word with a subtle understanding; and by this pressure, while we seek milk, we find butter, because while we seek to be nourished even with a slight understanding, we are anointed with the richness of inward fatness. Which, nevertheless, is to be done neither too much nor always, lest, while milk is sought from the udders, blood should follow. For very often certain persons, while they discuss the words of the sacred word more than they ought, fall into a carnal understanding. Indeed, he draws out blood who vehemently wrings, because that becomes carnal which is felt from too great a discussion of the spirit.

Whence it is necessary that the works of blessed Job, which he therefore narrates among the words of his reproving friends lest his afflicted mind should fail in despair, we should search out according to the weight of the history, lest, if the mind investigate these more spiritually than is necessary, blood should answer us instead of milk from the udders of his words. But if at any time he mingles certain mystical things in the narration of his works, to these it is necessary that the roused mind return, to which the order of the speaker himself, as it is given to understand, calls it. For the holy man, after he had narrated those things which had been inflicted upon him by the scourge of the Lord, now, enumerating in order his own virtues, makes known of what sort he was before the scourge;

so weaving the history of his life that he interweaves into it something very rare which can be understood allegorically, so that both for the most part the things he mentions may be historical, and yet sometimes through these same things he may rise to a spiritual understanding. With what fortitude, therefore, he restrained his outward parts from every fall by the discipline of inward custody, he intimates, saying: