Fathers

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What the Fathers say

Job 37:16

Western Saints

Gregory the Dialogist

Dost thou know the mighty paths of the clouds, and their perfect knowledge? These clouds have most subtle paths, namely, the ways of holy preaching. For narrow is the gate, which leadeth unto life. [Matt. 7, 14] They confine then those by paths, who do not depart from the track of their purpose by wandering through the wide desires of the world. For the strict censure of holy living is not a broad way, but a path, in which each preacher is studiously confined: because he is carefully hemmed in by the defence of precepts. …

Morals on the Book of Job, Book XXVII ↗

Thomas Aquinas

He speaks about their motion saying, "Do you know the paths of the clouds?" namely, how and from what cause they are propelled to various regions by the breath of the winds? The knowledge of clouds is the source of knowing all atmospheric changes — for example, winds, rain, snow, hail, thunder, and other like things; and so he says, "great and perfect science?" They are great because the phenomena are formed on the higher body, perfect because the knowledge of the clouds includes all knowledge of these phenomena previously cited and …

Commentary on Job ↗

Bonaventure

"Do you know the paths of the clouds, the great paths and perfect sciences?" He says "great paths," that is, philosophical and theological knowledge, which are called "great paths," because they comprehend many sciences; he says "perfect paths" with respect to gratuitous and glorious knowledge. The "paths of the clouds" are the sciences of perfect men, because, just as clouds are drawn upward by the power of heat, so perfect men are elevated in the abstraction of the mind.

Collationes de Septem Donis, Collation 4 ↗