Learning And Darkness

Dum essem Romae puer, et liberalibus studiis erudirer, solebam cum caeteris ejusdem aetatis et propositi, diebus Dominicis sepulcra apostolorum et martyrum circuire; crebroque cryptas ingredi, quae in terrarum profunda defossae, ex utraque parte ingredientium per parietes habent corpora sepultorum, et ita obscura sunt omnia, ut propemodum illud propheticum compleatur: 'Descendant ad infernum viventes' : et raro desuper lumen admissum, horrorem temperet tenebrarum, ut non tam fenestram, quam foramen demissi luminis putes: rursumque pedetentim acceditur, et caeca nocte circumdatis illud Virgilianum proponitur: 'Horror ubique animos, simul ipsa silentia terrent.' Hoc mihi dictum sit, ut prudens lector intelligat, quam habeam sententiam super explanatione templi Dei in Ezechiel, de quo scriptum est: Nubes et caligo sub pedibus ejus. Et rursum: Tenebrae latibulum ejus: Unde et Moyses nubem ingressus est et caliginem, ut posset Domini mysteria contemplari, quae populus longe positus, et deorsum manens, videre non poterat, Denique post quadraginta dies, vultum Moysi vulgus ignobile, caligantibus oculis, non videbat, quia glorificata erat, sive ut Hebraico continetur, cornuta facies Moysi. Ita et mihi legenti descriptionem templi mystici (quod Judaei secundum litteram in adventu Christi sui, quem nos esse Antichristum comprobamnus, putant aedificandum, et nos ad Christi referimus Ecclesiam, et quotidie in sanctis ejus aedifacari cernimus) accidit, ubicumque oculus cordis aperitur, et me aliquid videre aestimavero et tenere sponsum, et gaudens dixero: Inveni quem quaesivit anima mea, tenebo eum, et non dimmitam eum; rursum me deserit sermo divinus, fugitque sponsus e manibus, et clauduntur oculi caecitate, ita ut cogar dicere: O profundum divitiarum sapientiae et scientiae Dei! quam inscrustabilia sunt judicia ejus, et investigabiles viae illius! Et quod alibi scriptum est: Judicia Domini abyssus multa. Et: De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine, Domine exaudi vocem meam.  Sanctus Hieronymus, Commentarium in Ezechielem Prophetam, Lib XII, Cap XL  Source: Migne PL 25 375

When I was a boy at Rome learning the liberal arts, with others of the same age and inclination, on the days of the Lord, I used to wander around the tombs of the Apostles and Martyrs; and I would enter the narrow crypts which were dug deep in the earth, with both walls holding the bodies of the dead, and everything was so dark that it was as the Psalmist's words were almost fulfilled, 'Let them go down alive into Hell.' 1Very infrequently light was admitted from above, tempering the horror of the darkness, not passing through windows but filtering down from shafts. But again, as one cautiously moved on, blinding night surrounded, so that as Vergil revealed: 'Everywhere horror and the silence itself terrified.' 2 This said, may the prudent reader understand, that I had a sense of the explanation of the temple of God in Ezekiel, of which it is written, ' Clouds and darkness beneath his feet.' 3 And again, 'Darkness is His dwelling' place' 4 Whence even Moses entered into the cloud and darkness that he contemplate the mystery of God, the being people placed far off, remaining behind him, unable to see, and then after forty days the common folk with darkened eyes could not see the face of Moses because it was glorified, or as the Hebrew has it, the face of Moses was horned. It occurred to me on reading of the mysterious temple (which according to the writing of the Jews they think will be built on the advent of their own Christ which we would prove Antichrist, and we have it that it refers to the Church of Christ and daily we observe the building up his saints) that whenever the eye of the heart is open and I judge to have seen something and to grasp the bridegroom and rejoice saying, ' I have discovered what my soul sought, I shall cleave to it, and I shall not lose it,'  5 the Divine word again deserts me, and the bridegroom flees from my hands and my eyes are enclosed in darkness, so that I am forced to say, ' O deep riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How inscrutable his judgements and inaccessible his ways.' 6 And elsewhere it is written, 'The judgements of God are a great abyss.' 7 And, ' From the depths I have cried to you, O Lord. Lord, listen to my voice.'8 Saint Jerome, from the Commentary on Ezekiel, Bk 12, Ch 40 1 Ps 54.16 2 Aeneid, 2.755 3 Ps 17.10 4 Ps 17.12 5 Song 3.4 6 Rom 11.13 7 Ps 35.7 8 Ps 129.1