Job 13:14

"And my teeth have torn my flesh. I do not wish to spare myself, accusing myself as I accuse you. "I will take my soul in my hand," to look at it, to hide nothing and count the number of my faults.

Hear also from him what tribulations he bore and yet did not depart from the love of God: "Why have I taken my flesh in my teeth, and why is my soul laid in my hands? Even if He slay me, it is for Him only that I will wait," as if a man were to say, Even though He love me not, yet will I not depart from His love. God punished him like an enemy, yet he cried out, "I am smitten by a friend," and he denied not the love of Him that punished him.

Wherefore do I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in my hand? In Holy Scripture 'teeth' are sometimes used to be understood for the holy preachers, and sometimes for the interior senses. Thus of the holy preachers it is said to the Bride, Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing. And hence it is said to one of them, when the Gentiles were represented to him in a figure, Kill and eat, i.e. 'crush their oldness, and convert it into the body of the Church, i.e. into your own members.' Again, that 'teeth' are wont to be understood of the interior senses, is testified by the Prophet Jeremiah, when he says, He hath broken my teeth by number. For by the 'teeth' the food is broken in pieces, to allow of its being swallowed. Hence we not unjustly understand the interior senses by 'teeth,' which as it were chew and mince small the several particulars that occur to the mind, and transfer them to the belly of the memory, which the Prophet declares to be 'broken by number,' in that according to the measure of each particular sin there is blindness of understanding engendered in our perception, and in proportion to that which each person has committed outwardly, he is made dull of sense in that, which he might have understood of the inward and invisible. Whence too it is rightly written, Everyone that hath eaten the sour grape, his teeth shall be numbed. For what is 'the sour grape,' saving sin? for a 'sour grape' is fruit before the time. So whosoever desires to be satisfied with the enjoyments of this present life, is as it were in a hurry to eat fruit before the time. Thus 'the teeth of him that eateth the sour grape are numbed,' in that he who feeds in the gratification of the present life, has the interior perceptions tied fast, that they should no longer be able to eat, i.e. to understand spiritual things; in that from the very self-same cause that they gratify themselves in outward things, they are rendered dull in those of the interior. And whereas the soul is fed with sin, it is unable to eat the bread of righteousness, in that the teeth being tied fast by the custom of sin, can never at all chew such good, as has a relish in the interior. In this place then, because, as we have said, we understand 'the teeth' to be the interior perceptions, we ought to consider very heedfully what the righteous are wont to…