18. The saints attribute their wisdom to God, the proud to themselves. — Thus blessed Job speaks with his own words, so as to signify something concerning us. For holy Church, in teaching, hides nothing of the truth, in so far as it is expedient to know. For because the Son is called the hand of God (indeed all things were made through Him (John 1:3)), through the hand of God He shows that He teaches those whom He sees to remain fools in their own wisdom. As if He plainly said: 「Of Myself I know nothing; but whatever I perceive of the truth, this I grasp from the bounty of that same Truth. You therefore do not savour what is right, because you give this very wisdom of yours not to the hand of God, but to yourselves.」
For the enemies of holy Church, if at times they perceive something true, they attribute it to their own powers; and by so much the more do they deprive themselves of heavenly wisdom, by how much they wish to possess it as it were their own private property from their own genius. To such, sometimes, it is granted for their judgement that they may indeed know some things rightly, but from this very knowledge become more liable to punishment. Whence it is fitly added: