Behold, the hope of subduing him is in vain: shall one not be cast down even at the sight of him?
All Commentaries on Job 41:9 Go To Job 41
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
“Will you fill nets with its skin and the cabin of fish with its head?” What is designated by “nets” or a “cabin of fish” except the churches of the faithful that make one universal church? Hence it is written in the Gospel, “The kingdom of heaven is like a net cast into the sea and gathering of every kind of fish.” “Will you fill nets with its skin and the cabin of fish with its head?” What is designated by “nets” or a “cabin of fish” except the churches of the faithful that make one universal church? Hence it is written in the Gospel, “The kingdom of heaven is like a net cast into the sea and gathering of every kind of fish.” The church is in truth called the kingdom of heaven, for while the Lord exalts its conduct to things above, it already reigns herself in toward the Lord by heavenly conversation. And the church is also rightly compared with a net cast into the sea, gathering every kind of fish, because when cast into this Gentile world, it rejected no one but caught the wicked with the good, the proud with the humble, the angry with the gentle and the foolish with the wise. By the “skin” of this Leviathan, we understand the foolish, and by “its head,” the wise ones of its body. Or certainly by the “skin,” which is outermost, are designated those who serve it as inferiors in these lowest offices, but by the “head” those placed over them. And the Lord observing the proper order rightly declares that he will fill these “nets” or “cabin of fish,” that is, his church, and the wishes of the faithful with its “skin” first and then with its “head.”
