Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him:
All Commentaries on Job 23:8 Go To Job 23
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
38. For the Creator of all things is not in a part, inasmuch as He is every where. And then He is found the less, when He, That is whole every where, is sought in a part. For the Incomprehensible Spirit containeth all things within Itself, Which at the same time both while filling encompasseth, and while encompassing filleth, both in supporting overtops, and in overtopping supports; and it is well that after it had been said, if I go to the East, He appeareth not; if I go to the West, I shall not understand Him; if I go to the left hand, what shall I do? I shall not comprehend Him; if I turn myself to the right hand I shall not see Him; he thereupon added, But He knoweth the way that I take. As if he said in plain words, ‘I am unable to see Him, Who seeth me, and Him that beholdeth me most minutely, I have no power to behold:’ that is to say, that he might shew that He is so much the more heedfully to be feared, in proportion as He is not discernible. For He Who so beholds us that He may not be by us beheld, is so much the more to be dreaded in proportion as in seeing all things He is not seen in the least degree. For when we believe that there is anyone hidden in ambush to assault us, we dread him the more that we do not at all see him; and when we do not at all discover his ambush where it is placed, we apprehend it even there where it does not exist. And our Creator, Who is whole every where, and while discerning all things is not discerned, is the more to be dreaded in proportion as continuing invisible, what He may determine concerning our actions and at what time is not known. Which words, too, may be understood in another sense also. For we ‘go to the East,’ when we lift up our mind in thinking of His Majesty. But ‘He appeareth not,’ seeing that such as He is in His own Nature, by mortal thought He cannot be seen to be. If I go to the West, I shalt not understand Him; we ‘go to the west,’ when the eye of the heart that is lifted up in God, but made to recoil by the mere immensity of the light, we bring back to our own selves, and being spent with labour, we learn that the thing is very much above us which we were seeking; and viewing our own mortal condition find out that as yet we are creatures unfit to have the power to behold One that is Immortal. If I go to the left hand what shall I do? I shalt not comprehend Him. To ‘go to the left hand’ is to yield one’s self to the enjoyments of our sins. And it is surely plain, that he cannot ‘apprehend God,’ who still in the gratification of sin lies prostrate along the left side. If I turn myself to the right side I shall not see Him. He truly is ‘turned to the right hand,’ who is lifted up on the ground of virtuous attainments. But he cannot see God, who is glad with selfish joy for his good deeds; because in that man the swelling of pride weighs down the eye of the heart. Whence it is well said elsewhere, Thou shalt not decline to the right hand nor to the left. [Deut. 17, 11] In all which particulars the soul very often searches out itself, nor yet is able perfectly to find out itself.
