They have gaped upon me with their mouth; they have smitten me upon the cheek reproachfully; they have gathered themselves together against me.
All Commentaries on Job 16:10 Go To Job 16
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
12. What else are all wicked men but members of the devil? Therefore he himself does by them, whatever he puts it into their hearts that they ought to do. For the devil even now entertains fury against Holy Church, but his fury is scattered, in that he sets afoot his secret temptations through the agency of individuals; but when he bursts out against her in open persecution, ‘he gathers his fury against her,’ in that in the afflicting of her he knits up himself with the entire bent of his efforts. But his members in this time of peace have not ‘fury gathered’ against the Elect in this way, because they feel that they have less power to fulfil their wickedness than they have will; but when they see full range of wickedness at their command, they smite at her the more boldly, in proportion as they are drawn to a head against her in unanimity. And so it is rightly said now; He gathered up his fury against me. And that his fury might be still more fully set forth, it is said, And threatening me, he gnashed upon me with his teeth. Of whom too it is added, mine enemy looked on me with terrible eyes. For that ancient enemy of the Church ‘gnashes against her with the teeth,’ and ‘looks on her with terrible eyes,’ in that he executes cruelties by one set, and by another provides cruelties to execute.
13. For ‘the teeth’ of this enemy are the persecutors and executioners of the good who mangle her members, while they distress her elect ones by their persecutions. But the ‘eyes’ of this enemy are those, that provide measures to her hurt, which they may put in practice, and by their counsels light up the cruelties of her persecutors. Thus her old enemy ‘gnashes upon her with his teeth,’ so long as by the cruel children of perdition in her he hunts down the life of good men within her. He ‘looks on her with terrible eyes;’ in that, by the counsels of bad men, he never ceases to make out schemes of mischief, by which he may torment her even worse and worse; for as Incarnate ‘Truth’ in His preaching chose poor common persons and simple men, so on the other hand that accursed man, whom the Apostate Angel will take on him at the end of the world, shall choose for the preaching of his falsity, the cunning and doubleminded, and such as have this world’s knowledge. Hence it is said by Isaiah, Woe to the land, the cymbal of wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia. Which sendeth ambassadors by the sea even in vessels of papyrus upon the waters. For the land, that has woe pronounced against it, is principally that accursed man, who is called a ‘cymbal of wings,’ in that they who in pride soar up into the height of imagination, by preaching sound forth that man of iniquity. Which same land is rightly described as being ‘beyond the rivers of Ethiopia,’ for Ethiopia sends forth a black people, and whereas this world brings forth every man a sinner, Ethiopia as it were bears a black people. And the land that has woe pronounced against it, is described as being ‘beyond the rivers of Ethiopia,’ in that that accursed man is so exceedingly and beyond all measure bad, that he goes beyond the sins of all that commit iniquity; and he ‘sends ambassadors by the sea,’ in that he spreads his preachers over the world; and it is rightly told of them how they are sent, when it said, in vessels of papyrus upon the waters, for from the ‘papyrus’ paper is made. What then is denoted by the ‘papyrus’ but secular knowledge? and so the vessels of papyrus are the hearts of the learned of the world. Therefore ‘to send ambassadors upon the waters in vessels of papyrus,’ is to put the preaching of him in the brains of the carnally wise, and to call the people running out into sin. Those very persons then who are there denoted by ‘vessels of papyrus,’ here, in that they see with a carnal sight, are denoted by ‘eyes.’
