Destruction and death say, We have heard the fame of it with our ears.
All Commentaries on Job 28:22 Go To Job 28
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
4. Who are denoted by the title of ‘destruction and death,’ save the evil spirits, who proved the inventors of ‘destruction and of death,’ as of their leader himself under the appearance of his minister it is said by John, And his name was Death. [Rev. 6, 8] Unto whom all spirits of pride being subject, say concerning this ‘Wisdom,’ Which is God, we have heard the fame thereof with our ears, in this way, that the vision thereof doubtless they could not have with complete blessedness. For perfectly to see the Wisdom coeternal with God, is the same thing as to ‘have.’ Hence it is said to John of the reward of one conquering, I will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it. [Rev. 2, 17] For in this life we are able either to know or see sometimes a thing even which we have not received; but to have ‘a new name written on a white stone’ is in an eternal recompense to have the knowledge of God strange to the faculties of men, which no man can know saving he that receiveth it. Therefore as we have said, because to see God is the same thing that it is to have, therefore the evil spirits do not see this ‘Wisdom,’ because being cast off through pride they were never able to have It. For they shut the eyes of the heart to the light of It, resisting the rays thereof shed abroad over them, as that may be also understood of the same evil spirits, which is written, They are of those that rebel against the light. [Job 24, 13] And so for evil spirits to have ‘heard of the fame of Wisdom,’ but not to have seen that Wisdom, is at once to have ascertained the power thereof by its efficacy, and yet to have been unwilling to stand humbly under it. Hence it is said by the voice of Truth of the actual head of evil spirits, He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth. [John 8, 44]
