God thunders marvelously with his voice; great things does he, which we cannot comprehend.
Read Chapter 37
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
42. God thunders marvellously with His voice, because He penetrates our hearts incomprehensibly with His secret might. For while with its secret motions it overpowers us with fear, and fashions us in love, it proclaims in some silent manner how eagerly He is to be followed, and a violent impulse arises in the mind, though nothing sounds in the voice. And it sounds the more loudly within us, the more completely it deadens the ear of our heart to every outward sound. Whence also the soul, as soon as it is brought back to itself by this inward call, wonders at what it hears, because it feels the force of unknown compunction. And this its admiration is well signified in Moses by the manna coming from above. For the sweet food which is received from above is called ‘manhu.’ For manhu means, What is this? [Ex. 16, 15] And we say, ‘what is this,’ when we ignorantly wonder at that which we behold. The soul then perceives the manna from above, when, roused by the voice of compunction, it is surprised at this unusual kind of inward refreshment; so that filled with Divine sweetness, it rightly responds, What is this? For while it is kept from the thought of lower objects, it feels unusual wonder at what it beholds from above. But because the habit of our former life is immediately changed, when the deafness of our slumber is burst through, by this voice; so that the soul, inspired by the Spirit from above, desires as highest the things which it had despised, and contemns as lowest what it used to desire, it is rightly subjoined,
Who doeth great things and inscrutable.
43. For that a man who was given up to earthly objects, and overpowered by sinful desires, becomes suddenly ardent for new pursuits, and cold to his former habits, that he renounces outward cares, and is eager for inward contemplation; who can be sufficient to consider this power of the voice from above? who can comprehend it on consideration? Great are the things which God effects by His voice; but they would be less great, if they could have been searched out. He doeth, therefore, great things and inscrutable: because He exhibits outwardly the result of His work, but the nature of the work is itself concealed within. He sounds abroad with His voice, even by Apostles, but He illumines the hearts of the hearers within, by Himself: as Paul bears witness, who says, I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. For neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase. [l Cor. 3, 6. 7.] But though they do not themselves confer on our minds the hearing of the Divine voice, they are yet sent to condescend to us by words from without.
