Morals on the Book of Job: Complete in Five Volumes
Morals on the Book of Job: Complete in Five Volumes
Holy Scripture is like a river, both shallow and deep, wherein the lamb may find a footing and the elephant may swim.
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On release, each volume is ordered separately, and orders are placed and shipped through IngramSpark. This page is a catalogue listing.
About this edition
Saint Gregory the Great (c. 540–604), monk, then Pope, and Doctor of the Church, began the Morals on the Book of Job while he was the papal representative at Constantinople, and finished it after he became Pope. It is his longest work, and the fullest of his mind: a verse-by-verse exposition of the whole Book of Job, in thirty-five books.
Gregory reads Job in three senses at once: the plain history; the allegory, by which Job and his friends foreshadow Christ and His Church; and the moral sense, by which every verse becomes a mirror for the soul. Holy Scripture, he says, is like a river, both shallow and deep, wherein the lamb may find a footing and the elephant may swim. From this vast work the Latin Church drew much of its moral and spiritual teaching for a thousand years.
This Sanctified Souls Press edition gives the text complete, in the thirty-five books and the dedicatory Epistle to Leander, in the public-domain English of the Library of the Fathers. The single work is issued in five volumes on account of its length.
The volumes
The Epistle to Leander opens the work, with Gregory's account of the three senses of Scripture; then Job in his prosperity, the trial, the loss of all, and the coming of his friends. Paperback and hardcover, 390 pages.
The long contention with the friends, and Gregory's teaching on the temptations of the holy, on patience, and on the discernment of the heart. Paperback and hardcover, 378 pages.
The middle of the disputation, with the great passages on the preachers of the Church, on hypocrisy, and on the hope of the resurrection: I know that my Redeemer liveth. Paperback and hardcover, 420 pages.
The close of the friends' speeches and Job's last defence, with Gregory on the active and the contemplative life and on the ordering of the soul. Paperback and hardcover, 358 pages.
The words of Elihu, the voice of the Lord out of the whirlwind, Behemoth and Leviathan, and the restoration of Job at the last. Paperback and hardcover, 338 pages.
Details
- Saint Gregory the Great (c. 540–604), Pope, Father and Doctor of the Church
- Translated in the Library of the Fathers, Oxford, 1844–1850
- One work complete in five volumes: the thirty-five books entire, with the dedicatory Epistle to Leander
- Sanctified Souls, Heritage Editions · Saint Gregory the Great, Book Three
- Paperback and hardcover, 6 × 9, cream paper
Cover: Saint Gregory the Great surrounded by Saints by Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577–1640), oil on canvas, 1606–07; Musée de Grenoble. Public domain. The five grounds are drawn from the painting and run from the red of the robes through wine, plum, and indigo to the slate-blue of the dress.
