As I was in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tent;
All Commentaries on Job 29:4 Go To Job 29
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
19. As of each individual man, so is the age of Holy Church described. For she was a little one, when fresh from the birth she was unable to preach the Word of Life. Hence it is said of her, My sister is a little one, and she hath no breasts; [Cant. 8, 8] in this way, that Holy Church, before she made progress by accessions of virtue, was not able to yield the teats of preaching to the weak ones her hearers. But the Church is called ‘adult’ when being wedded to the Word of God, filled with the Holy Spirit, by the office of preaching she is with young in the conception of children, with whom by exhorting she travails, whom by converting she brings forth. Of this age of hers it is said to the Lord; The young maidens have loved Thee. [Cant. 1, 3] For all the Churches, which constitute one Catholic Church, are called young maidens, not now aged by sin, but young ones by grace, not barren by old age, but by the age of the soul fitted for spiritual fruitfulness. Accordingly then, when in those days being as it were enfeebled by a kind of old age she hath not strength to bring forth children by preaching, she calls to mind the bygone fruitfulness, saying, As I was in the days of my youth. Though after those days wherein she is borne down, yet, this notwithstanding, now at length towards the actual end of times, she is empowered with a mighty efficacy of preaching. For the Gentiles being taken in to the full, all the Israelitish people that shall then be found she draws into the bosom of the faith. Since it is written; Until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in, and so all Israel shall be saved. [Rom. 11, 25. 26.] But before those times there shall be days, in the which she shall appear for a little while borne down by her adversaries, when too she remembers these days, saying,
As I was in the days of my youth; when God was secretly in my tabernacle.
20. What in this place do we take the ‘tabernacle’ for but the dwelling-place of the mind? Because by all that we do with taking thought, we dwell in the counsel of our heart. But whoever in silence thinks of the precepts of God, to him ‘God is secretly in his tabernacle.’ For he had seen the dwelling-place of his heart to be before the eyes of God, who said, And the meditation of my heart always in Thy sight. [Ps. 19, 14] For outward deeds are open to the eyes of men, but widely and incomparably more our interior and minutest thoughts are open to the eyes of God. For, as it is written, all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him. And oftentimes in the outward deed we are afraid to appear disordered before the eyes of men, and in the interior thought are not afraid of the regard of Him, Whom, whilst He sees all things, we see not. For we are much more discernible by God within than we are by men without. And hence all the Saints scan themselves both within and without on every side, and are in fear of either shewing themselves blameworthy outwardly, or wicked inwardly to the invisible seeing. It is hence that the living creatures, which are seen by the Prophet, are recorded to be ‘full of eyes round about and within.’ [Ez. 1, 18. &10, 12. Rev. 4, 6. & 8.] For he that orders his outward circumstances respectably, but disregards the inward, has eyes ‘round about’ but not ‘within.’ But all the Saints, because they at once scan their exterior ways round and round that they may furnish good examples in themselves to their brethren, and watchfully mark their interior ways, because they are providing themselves irreproachable for the regarding eye of the Interior Judge, are described as having eyes both ‘round about and within;’ and that they may please God, even more do they make themselves complete within their interior self, as it is said by the Psalmist as well of Holy Church, All the glory of her, the king’s daughter, is from within. [Ps. 45, 13] But because she keeps her outward things also irreproachable, he added with justice concerning her; Clothed about in clothing of wrought gold with embroidery. That she should be at once beautiful to herself ‘within,’ and to others ‘without,’ both advancing herself by interior glory, and instructing others by the outward examples of deeds. Thus then let blessed Job say in himself, yea, let him say in the person of the Church Universal, When God was secretly in my tabernacle. For that he may make it evident how much he had advanced within, he tells, that ‘God was secretly in his tabernacle.’ That he may also shew the deeds of righteousness to what extent he outwardly kept them.
