Job 39:6

"I gave him for habitation the wilderness, and for retreat the arid plains. This is why he exclaims, "My soul is thirsty for you." "

[ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION OF THE WILD ASS AS CHRIST - continued] To Whom I have given a house in the solitude, and His tabernacle in the land of saltness. 68. For in the Gentile world, in which there was no Patriarch, no Prophet, there was hardly a man to exercise his reason to gain a knowledge of God. Of this solitude it is said by Isaiah; The desert and the pathless land shall rejoice, and the solitude shall exult and blossom as the lily. [Is. 35, 1] And again it is said of the Church; He will make her desert as delights, and her solitude as the garden of the Lord. [Is. 51, 3] But this same solitude, which, before it knew the true wisdom of God, had brought forth saltness, is mentioned again as a land of saltness; because it produced no verdure of good understanding, and savoured only of what was wrong. He receives therefore his house in the solitude, and His tabernacle in the land of saltness, because God when Incarnate for men, forsook Judaea, and possessed the hearts of the Gentiles. Whence it is said to Him by the voice of the Father, through the Prophet; Ask of Me, and I will give thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Thy possession. [Ps. 2, 8] Who, as He is God, gives all things with the Father, as He is Man, receives of the Father among all things, as it is written; He hath given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of man. [John 5, 27] And it is written again; Knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands. [John 13, 3] Or as He Himself says; All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me. [John 6, 37] But if it is now asked what is the difference between a house and a tabernacle; a house is for a dwelling place, a tabernacle for a journey. He possessed therefore on His coming the hearts of the Gentiles as if they were tabernacles, but, strengthening them by righteousness, He made them His house by inhabiting.

To whom I have given a house in the solitude, and his tabernacles in the land of saltness. 52. Ought we in this place to understand the solitude of the body, or the solitude of the heart? But what avails the solitude of the body, if the solitude of the heart be wanting? For he who lives bodily removed from the world, but yet plunges into the tumults of human conversation with the thoughts of worldly desires, is not in solitude. But if any one be bodily oppressed with crowds of people, and yet suffers from no tumults of worldly cares in his heart, he is not in a city. To those therefore of good conversation solitude of mind is first granted, in order that they may keep down within the rising din of worldly desires, that they may restrain by the grace of heavenly love the cares of the heart which bubble up from its lowest depths, and drive away from the eyes of the mind with the hand of gravity, all the motions of trifling thoughts which importunately present themselves, as flies which are flitting around them: and may seek for themselves some secret spot with the Lord within, there to speak with Him silently by their inward longings, when the noise is still from without. 53. Of this secret place of the heart it is said elsewhere; There became silence in heaven for about half an hour. [Rev. 8, 1] For the Church of the Elect is called 'heaven,' which, as it rises to eternal and sublime truths by the elevation of contemplation, abates the tumults of thoughts which are springing up from below, and makes a kind of silence within itself for God. And since this silence of contemplation cannot be perfect in this life, it is said to have been made for half an hour. For whilst the tumultuous noises of thoughts force themselves into the mind against its will, they violently draw the eye of the mind, even when steadily fixed on things above, to view again those of earth. Whence it is written; The corruptible body presseth down the soul, and the earthly habitation weigheth down the sense that museth on many things. [Wisd. 9, 15] This silence is therefore well described as having been made not for a whole, but for 'a half hour:' because contemplation is never perfected here, however ardently it be begun. Which is also suitably described by the Prophet Ezekiel, who witnesses that he saw in the hand of a man, for the measure of the city built on the mountain, a reed of six…