Lecture 1 — God cannot be reproached

^41:1^ I am not cruel in sustaining him. For who can resist my glance?

^41:2^ And who gave something first to me that I must repay him? Everything under heaven belongs to me.

^41:3^ I will not spare him for his powerful or cajoling words.

^41:4^ Who will uncover the face of his clothing? And who will go into the midst of his mouth?

^41:5^ And who will open the doors of his face? Terrible is the contour of his teeth.

^41:6^ His body is like a row of shields welded together, compact with scales closely joined together.

^41:7^ One is joined to another, nor can sweet breath pass between them.

^41:8^ One will adhere to another and they hold themselves together and cannot be separated in any way.

554. I am not cruel in sustaining him. After the Lord had enumerated the power of Leviathan, in that man cannot conquer him but only God, now he tells of his power to act against others. Since there is no power unless it comes from God (Rom 13:1), someone could ascribe cruelty to God, in the sense that he gave such great power to so harmful a creature. So to exclude this, he says, I am not cruel in sustaining him; that is, I am permitting him to be exalted by the power I gave him. This seems to answer what Job had said already, you are changed for me into someone cruel (Job 30:21).

He shows that this must not be attributed to him as cruelty for three reasons.

First, because of the power of God himself, and so he says, for who can resist my glance, that is, my providence? This is as if he should say, “Even though Leviathan is as powerful as could be, he cannot resist my providence, so that he only uses his power as I will. My will does not tend to the destruction of men, but to their salvation.”

Second, he shows the same thing from the bestowing of his goodness, by which he distributes his good things freely to everyone. So he says, and who gave something first to me that I must repay him, implying the answer, no one. From this, it is clear that I love everything which I made and I freely communicate my good things to them. Therefore, I do not have any cruel intention against anything I have made. This relates to the next verse, everything under heaven belongs to me, because they are created, conserved, and governed by me, and no one wants to do evil to his own things.

Third, he shows that he is not cruel in permitting Satan to be raised up in his power, because he defers to him in nothing. For it is a characteristic of cruelty that when someone wants to favor a tyrant, he tolerates patiently the afflictions of many people. Men favor the power of another for two reasons. In one way, because of fear of his threats, but the Lord excludes this from himself, saying, I will not spare him, that is, I will defer to him in nothing, but rather, I will resist him as is necessary, for his powerful words, because of the threatening words he used, as though trying to show his power. In another way, someone favors a powerful person when he is chosen by him with flattering words, and to exclude this he says, or his cajoling words, saying in effect, “Although he should threaten powerfully or cajole with flattery, I still will not defer to him in anything,” because there is no compatibility between light and darkness (cf. 2 Cor 6:14).

555. After he has said these things to remove the aspersion of cruelty against himself, he proceeds to describe the power of Leviathan, and first he describes his appearance beginning with his head. For it is said that above the eyes of whales there are certain horns, in the form of a great pruning hook. There are two hundred fifty over each eye, and the whale uses them to cover his eyes during great storms (St. Albert the Great). To express this, he says, who will uncover the face of his clothing? That is, what man can approach so near to the whale that he can move these coverings from his face? By this, we are given to understand that no man can sufficiently reveal the cunning ways of the devil. Another author says that in his throat he has some skin like a membrane, and it is perforated with many openings to not allow any large bodies to go down to his stomach, because his digestion would be blocked, if he ate some large animal whole. To show this he says, and who will enter in the middle of his mouth? that is, to scrutinize the narrow channel by which small fish descend to his stomach? He shows by this that no one can know the intention of the devil which moves him to absorb men spiritually.

Another author says that the whale has a large mouth provided with teeth which are very large and very long, and he has two especially large teeth which are longer than the others, like elephants or boars. Thus, to show these two extremely large teeth he says, will you open the doors of his face? for those two great teeth seem like two doors by which the mouth of the whale is opened. In this image, he shows that no man can open the mouth of the devil to extract sinners from his power, whom he absorbs as though through the two doors of violence and cunning. As for the other teeth of the whale, he says, terrible is the contour of his teeth, because he has teeth around his mouth so great that he can strike terror into those who see him. By this image he expresses the terror that the devil inspires in men to push them to sin. One can also interpret his teeth as the rest of the demons, or even as evil men who induce others to evil by their power.

556. When the Lord has described these characteristics of the head of Leviathan, he proceeds to the order of his body, which he describes as like a fish having scales. So according to the great size of his body, he should have great scales as large as shields, so he says, his body is like a row of shields welded together, which are continuous, for shields are joined in a line by tying them together. But the devil is compared to all evildoers as the head to the body, and so, sinners who defend others in evil are like the shields of the body of the devil. He shows as a consequence that his scales are not only large but also pressed together like a fish with many scales. So he shows this, saying, compact with the scales closely joining each other, by which he shows the great number of evil men. He shows their complexity in the perversity of evil when he says, one is joined to another, because as in the body of some fish, each scale is not joined to the other at random but there is an order among them; so also in the crowd of evildoers, all do not form a society with all of them, but they form groups. As long as the fish is alive and strong, his scales are full of life, so thus they adhere so close to each other and to the skin of the whale that not even air can come between them. But when the fish either dies or is sick or his scales dry out for some reason, then this adherence is relaxed, little by little, so that the scales themselves become curved and something rather large can even enter between them.

To show, then, the strength of the scales of Leviathan, he says, nor can sweet breath pass between them, that is, between the scales. By this he means that the evil are not separated in their complicity to evil by some spiritual persuasion or internal inspiration. Therefore, to show the obstinance of their consent in evil, he says, one will adhere to another, by mutual favor and consent, they hold themselves together and cannot be separated in any way, because of their obstinate consent in evil, like the scales of Leviathan cannot be separated from each other by human power.