He holds back the face of his throne, and spreads his cloud upon it.
All Commentaries on Job 26:9 Go To Job 26
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
39. In the face there is wont to be shewn forth acquaintanceship. Thus ‘the face of His Throne is held back,’ in that by us in this life the gloriousness of His kingdom is not perceived, so great as it is had within; ‘upon which the cloud’ is rightly said ‘to be stretched;’ because that glory of the heavenly kingdom is not seen such as it is. For the corruptible body presseth down the soul; and the earthy tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth upon many things. [Wisd. 9, 15] And so against seeing it we are besprinkled with a mist, for we are darkened by the mere cloudiness of our ignorance. Whence it is rightly said by the Psalmist, And darkness was under His feet; and He rode above the Cherubim, and did fly; He did fly above the wings of the wind: He made darkness His secret place. [Ps. 18, 9–11] For there is ‘darkness to Him under His feet,’ in that by those beneath He is not seen in that brightness, wherewith He exercises dominion among those above. For He ‘rode above the Cherubim, and did fly;’ since the ‘Cherubim’ is a term used for the fulness of knowledge. By consequence he is said above the fulness of knowledge to have ‘ridden, and to have flown,’ because the loftiness of His Majesty there is no knowledge doth compass. ‘He did fly,’ because He transported Himself on high, far from the reach of our understanding. ‘He did fly above the wings of the wind,’ because He transcended the knowledge of souls. He made darkness too His secret place, because whereas we are dimmed with the mists of our infirmity, by virtue of our ignorance He is hidden from us, that He should not be seen by us now in eternal and interior Brightness. Hence in the Song of Songs also it is said to Him by the Spouse, Escape, my Beloved, escape. [Cant. 8, 14] ‘It escapes us,’ we say, as often as that does not occur to our minds which we wish to remember. ‘It escapes us,’ we say, when that which we wish we do not retain in our recollection. So Holy Church, after that she sets forth the Death and Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord, cries out to Him, full of the Spirit of Prophecy, Escape, my Beloved, escape. As though she said; ‘Thou That art made by the flesh comprehensible, do Thou by Thy Divine Nature transcend the comprehension of our perception, and in Thine own Self remain to us Incomprehensible.’ And so He ‘holdeth back the face of His throne,’ because He hideth the power of His Majesty from mortal beings.
40. But if we render His ‘throne’ the Angelical Powers, for on these same Powers He sitteth enthroned as on a royal seat, ‘He keeps back the face of His Throne’ from us, because so long as we have our subsistence in this mortal flesh, what and how wonderful those ministrations of the Angels are, we do not perceive. ‘And He spreadeth His cloud upon it’ assuredly because He both lifts up our heart for making search, and yet it is brought to pass by a secret mode of control, that by the very endlessness of its searching it is kept back. Whence it is written, The deep uttered its voice at the loftiness of its imagining. [Hab. 3, 10] For the mind of man is forced to cry out in admiration, when, in loftiness of survey, it is straitened in its searchings by the very act by which it is enlarged. Or, surely, because we are ourselves the ‘throne’ of God, He is said not unjustly to ‘keep back the face of His throne,’ when our knowledge is prevented advancing to things of a higher range. Upon which same throne God is said ‘to spread His cloud,’ because remaining Himself invisible, He puts forth secret judgments upon us, that at once a thing should be done in prominency, that we should be able to see, and yet the origin of the deed be hidden in concealment, so that the reason wherefore it be done, we should needs not know.
