Why, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty, do they that know him not see his days?
All Commentaries on Job 24:1 Go To Job 24
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
54. What are called ‘the days’ of God, save His very Eternity itself? which is sometimes described by the announcement of ‘one day,’ as where it is written, For one day in Thy courts is better than a thousand. [Ps. 84, 10] But sometimes on account of its length it is represented by the expression of a number of days, whereof it is written, Thy years are throughout all generations. [Ps. 102, 24] We then are wrapped up within the divisions of time, through this that we are created beings. But God, Who is the Creator of all things, by His Eternity encompasses our times. And so he says, Times are not hidden from the Almighty; they that know Him, know not His days; seeing that He, indeed, sees all of ours to the comprehending thereof, but all that is His we are in no degree able to comprehend. But whereas the nature of God is simple, it is very much to be wondered at why he should say, They that know Him, know not His days. For it is not that He Himself is one thing and His ‘days’ another; since God is that thing which He hath. For He hath eternity, yet He is Himself Eternity. He hath Light, yet He is Himself His own Light. He hath brightness, yet He is Himself His own Brightness. And so in Him it is not one thing to be, and another thing to have. What does it mean then to say, They that know Him, know not His days, except that even they that know Him, do not know Him as yet? For even they who already hold Him by faith, as yet know Him not by appearance. And whereas He, Whom we truly believe, is Himself eternity to Himself, yet in what way there is that eternity of Him we know not. For in the thing that we hear touching the power of the Divine Nature, we are sometimes used to imagine such things as we know by experience. Thus every single thing that begins and ends, is bounded by the beginning and ending. And if it be by any little delay stayed from being ended, it is called long; on which same length whilst a man carries back the eyes of his mind in recollection, and stretches them out before in anticipation, as it were over a space of time he expands them in imagination. And when he hears the eternity of God mentioned in human sort, to his mind on the stretch he sets forth long spaces of life, in which same he may ever measure both what has gone away in the rear as a thing to be retained in the memory, and what remains before as a thing to be looked forward to in the intention.
55. But as often as in the case of eternity we have such thoughts, we do not as yet know eternity. For that which is neither commenced by a beginning nor finished by an ending, is there, where neither is there looked forward to that which shall come, nor does there pass by that which may be recalled to mind, but that alone is, which is everlasting BEING. Which though we and the Angels with a beginning begin to see to be, yet we see it to be without beginning, where it is to be always without end, in such a way, that the mind never extends itself to things following in a sequence, as if things that are were multiplied and made long. For though by the Spirit of Prophecy it is said, The Lord shall reign for ever and [LXX so.] for worlds and further [Exod. 15, 18]; after the manner of Holy Writ, the Spirit spoke in man’s way to men, so as to speak of ‘further’ there, where looking forward could not enter. For eternity has no ‘further,’ which has it always to be, wherein no part of its length goes by that another part should take its place, but the whole at once is Being, that nothing should seem to be wanting to it, which it may not see, in which eternity every thing that is the mind sees to be at once not slow and long. But in speaking such things of the days of eternity we are trying to see something more than we do see. And so let it be rightly said, They that know Him know not His days; in that though we already know God by faith, yet how His Eternity is at once without a past before all ages, without a future after all ages, long without delay, and everlasting without looking forward, we do not see. Thus blessed Job, whilst bearing a type of Holy Church, (because he restrains himself under a great bridling of knowledge, so as not to be wiser than he ought to be,) and testifying that the days of God can never be understood, directly brings back the view of the mind to the pride of Heretics who aim to be deeply enlightened, and what they are incapable of taking in at all, they boast that they know in perfect measure.
