約伯倫理 第 906 章

60. To the sacred doctors God read the deep and hidden things, and revealed the things of the prophets. — For what else are here called rivers but the sayings of the ancient Fathers? For who can suffice to weigh how mighty a river, while he framed the law, burst forth from the breast of Moses; how mighty a river flowed down from the heart of David; how great streams of rivers issued from the mouth of Solomon and of all the prophets? But Judaea held the outward appearance of these rivers, while, keeping the surface of the letter, she knew not their depths. But we who, at the Lord's coming, seek in them the inward spiritual things, do search out their depths. Which the Lord Himself is said to do, because by His gift we prevail to do it.

Through us therefore who follow not the letter that killeth, but the spirit that quickeneth, the Lord searches the depths of the rivers, and brings the hidden things into the light, because the sayings of the law, which too obscure a history darkens, now the spiritual exposition illumines. Whence also, speaking in parables through the Gospel, the Truth commanded His disciples, saying: 'What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in the light; and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops' (Matt. X, 27). For the plainly spoken words of the expositors have made the sentences of the ancient Fathers now conspicuous to us. Whence the prophet Isaiah, beholding the plain words of the holy Church's exposition, and not those obscured by the darkness of allegories, cried out, saying:

'A place of rivers, of streams very broad and open' (Isa. XXXIII, 21). For the sayings of the Old Testament had been as it were narrow and closed streams, which bound together the immense sentences of their knowledge in a most obscure compression. But on the contrary the doctrine of the holy Church are streams broad and open, because her sayings are both many to them that find, and plain to them that seek. He says therefore: 'He searched out the depths of the rivers, and brought the hidden things into the light,' because while He infused into His expositors the spirit of understanding, He opened up the ancient obscurities of those who prophesied. And this the holy Church now recognizes through the spirit, which the synagogue formerly was wholly unable to understand through the letter. Whence also, when Moses spoke with the people (Exod.

XXXIV, 33), he veiled his face, that he might plainly designate that that people of the Jews knew the words of the law, but by no means saw the very brightness of the law. Whence also it is rightly said through Paul: 'Even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is put upon their heart' (2 Cor. III, 15). But because the sayings of God are in no wise penetrated without His wisdom (for unless one has received His Spirit, he in no way knows His words), the holy man subjoins words concerning the searching out of that same wisdom of God, saying: