And his sons went and feasted in their houses, every one on his day; and sent and called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them.
All Commentaries on Job 1:4 Go To Job 1
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
27. The sons went to feast at their houses, when the Apostles as preachers, in the different regions of the world, served the banquet of virtue to hearers as it were to eaters. And hence it is said to those very sons concerning the hungering multitude, Give ye them to eat. [Mat. 14, 16] And again; And I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint by the way [Mat. 15, 32]; that is, let them by your preaching receive the word of consolation, that they may not by continuing to fast to the food of truth, sink under the labours of this life. Hence again it is said to the same sons, Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life. [John 6, 27] And how these feasts were set forth is added, whereas it is forthwith subjoined,
Everyone in his day.
28. If without any doubt the darkness of ignorance is the night of the soul, the understanding is not improperly styled the day. And hence Paul says, One man esteemeth one day above another; another esteemeth every day alike. [Rom. 14, 5] As, if he had said in plain words; ‘One man understands some things so as that some are left out, and another acquaints himself with all things that are possible to be understood, in such sort as they may be seen. Thus each son sets forth a feast in his day, in that every holy preacher, according to the measure of the enlightening of his understanding, feeds the minds of his hearers with the entertainments of Truth. Paul made a feast in his own day, when he said, But she is happier if she so abide according to my judgment. [1 Cor. 7, 40] He bade each to take account of his own day; when he said, Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. [Rom. 14, 5] It goes on;
And sent and called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them.
29. The sons call their sisters to the feast, in that the holy Apostles proclaim to hearers that are weak the joys of the refreshment above, and inasmuch as they see their souls to be starved of the food of truth, they feed them with the feast of God's Word. And it is well said, to eat and to drink with them. For holy Scripture is sometimes meat to us, and sometimes drink. It is meat in the harder parts, in that it is in a certain sense broken in pieces by being explained, and swallowed after chewing; and it is drink in the plainer parts, in that it is imbibed just as it is found. The Prophet discerned holy Scripture to be meat, which was to be broken in pieces in the explaining, when he said, The young children ask, and no man breaketh it unto them [Lam. 4, 4], i.e. the weak ones sought that the stronger declarations of holy Scripture might be crumbled for them by explanation, but he could no where be found who should have explained them. The Prophet saw that holy Writ was drink, when he said, Ho, everyone that thirsteth come ye to the waters. [Isa. 55, 1] Had not the plain commandments been drink, Truth would never have cried out with His own lips; If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. [John 5, 37] The Prophet saw that there was, as it were, a lack of meat and drink in Judaea, when he declared, And their honourable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst. Isa. 5, 13] For it belongs to the few to attain a knowledge of the mighty and hidden meanings, but to the multitude it is given to understand the plain sense of the history. And therefore he declares that the honourable men of Judaea had perished not by thirst, but hunger, in that those who seemed to stand first, by giving themselves wholly to the outward sense, had not wherewithal to feed themselves from the inward parts by sifting their meaning, but forasmuch as when loftier minds fall away from the inward sense, the understanding of the little ones even in the outward meaning is dried up; it is rightly added in this place, And the multitude dried up with thirst. As if he said in plainer words, ‘whereas the common sort give over taking pains in their own lives, they now no longer seek even the streams of history.’ And they bear witness that they understood both the deep and the plain things contained in divine Writ, who in complaining to the Judge that rejects them, say, We have eaten and drunk in Thy presence [Luke 13, 26]; and this they subjoin in plain terms by explaining it; And thou hast taught in our streets. Therefore because the sacred oracles are broken in the more obscure parts, by the explanation thereof, but in the plainer parts are drunk in just as they are found, it may be truly said, And they sent and called for their three sisters, to eat and to drink with them. As though it were said in plain terms, they drew every weak one to themselves by the mildness of their persuasions, that both by setting forward great truths contemplatively, they might feed their minds, and by delivering little things historically, they might give them nourishment.
