約伯倫理 第 949 章

51. The Church always applies her mind to spiritual knowledge. — 'For near the waters is the root laid open' (Job 29:19), when the thought of the mind is secretly spread out to receive the streams of truth. For as we have already said in a higher book (Bk. VIII), it is wont in sacred eloquence for hidden thought to be designated by the name of root. Therefore we lay open our root beside the waters, when we intend the thought of a silent heart to the inmost infusion. Which words indeed, if we lead them to the voice of holy Church, that root of hers ought to be understood as the very incarnation of the Redeemer. Which was laid open beside the waters, when the invisible God, through the assumption of His humanity, lay open to the gazes of our vision.

For the Creator, who in His divinity could not be seen, assumed from us that whereby He might be seen by us. The root, therefore, is laid open beside the waters, because the Author of the human race is shown to men through His humanity. Whence it is also rightly said through the Psalmist: 'And he shall be like a tree which is planted beside the running of the waters' (Ps. 1:3). For the runnings of the waters are the daily passages of the failing peoples. And of Himself the Truth says: 'If in the green wood they do these things, what shall be done in the dry?' (Luke 23:31).

The tree, therefore, is beside the runnings of the waters, because, offering us the fruit and the protection of His shade, the Creator appeared in the flesh, that He might fix the human race through resurrection, which through failing was daily going into death. There follows: