Whose house I have made the wilderness, and the barren land his dwellings.
All Commentaries on Job 39:6 Go To Job 39
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
52. Ought we in this place to understand the solitude of the body, or the solitude of the heart? But what avails the solitude of the body, if the solitude of the heart be wanting? For he who lives bodily removed from the world, but yet plunges into the tumults of human conversation with the thoughts of worldly desires, is not in solitude. But if any one be bodily oppressed with crowds of people, and yet suffers from no tumults of worldly cares in his heart, he is not in a city. To those therefore of good conversation solitude of mind is first granted, in order that they may keep down within the rising din of worldly desires, that they may restrain by the grace of heavenly love the cares of the heart which bubble up from its lowest depths, and drive away from the eyes of the mind with the hand of gravity, all the motions of trifling thoughts which importunately present themselves, as flies which are flitting around them: and may seek for themselves some secret spot with the Lord within, there to speak with Him silently by their inward longings, when the noise is still from without.
53. Of this secret place of the heart it is said elsewhere; There became silence in heaven for about half an hour. [Rev. 8, 1] For the Church of the Elect is called ‘heaven,’ which, as it rises to eternal and sublime truths by the elevation of contemplation, abates the tumults of thoughts which are springing up from below, and makes a kind of silence within itself for God. And since this silence of contemplation cannot be perfect in this life, it is said to have been made for half an hour. For whilst the tumultuous noises of thoughts force themselves into the mind against its will, they violently draw the eye of the mind, even when steadily fixed on things above, to view again those of earth. Whence it is written; The corruptible body presseth down the soul, and the earthly habitation weigheth down the sense that museth on many things. [Wisd. 9, 15] This silence is therefore well described as having been made not for a whole, but for ‘a half hour:’ because contemplation is never perfected here, however ardently it be begun. Which is also suitably described by the Prophet Ezekiel, who witnesses that he saw in the hand of a man, for the measure of the city built on the mountain, a reed of six cubits and a span. [Ez. 40, 5] For the Church is in truth situated on the mountain of the Elect, because it is not founded on the lowest desires. But what is pointed out by the cubit, except work, and what by the number six but the perfection of the work, because the Lord also is said on the sixth day to have completed all His works? What therefore does the span beyond the six cubits suggest, but the power of contemplation, which shews to us already the beginning of the eternal and seventh rest? For because the contemplation of eternal things is not here perfected, the measure of the seventh cubit is not completed. Because therefore the Church of the Elect completes all things which require to be done, the city presents itself as placed in six cubits on the mountain. But because it here beholds as yet only the beginnings of contemplation, of the seventh cubit it reaches only the span.
54. But it ought to be known that we do not at all reach the height of contemplation, if we cease not from the oppression of outward care. We do not at all look into ourselves, so as to know that there is within us one rational part that rules, another animal part which is ruled, unless we are made dead to all outward disturbance by returning to the secresy of this silence. Which silence of ours Adam also when sleeping rightly typified, out of whose side the woman presently came. [Gen. 2, 21. 22.] Because, whoever is hurried forward to the understanding of things within, closes his eyes to visible objects: and he then distinguishes in himself those qualities which ought either to rule manfully, or those which, as being weak, can submit: that there is one part of him which has power to rule as a man, another to be ruled, as a woman. In this silence of the heart, then, while we are awake inwardly by contemplation, we are sleeping, as it were, outwardly. Because then men who are separated, that is who are freed from carnal desires, inhabit this silence of the heart, the Lord gave to this wild ass a house in the solitude, that he might not be oppressed with a crowd of temporal desires.
55. It follows, And his tabernacles in the land of saltness. Saltness is wont to kindle thirst. And because holy men, as long as they dwell in the tabernacles of this life, are inflamed by the daily warmth of their desire to seek their heavenly country, they are said to have their tabernacles in the land of saltness. For they are in truth incessantly inflamed, in order to thirst, they thirst to be satisfied, as it is written, Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. [Matt. 5, 6]
