Hebrew text with the Greek translation known as the Septuagint (LXX.),
which, undertaken and completed in Alexandria between the beginning of
the third and the close of the second century B.C., offers the first
recorded instance of an entire national literature being rendered into a
foreign tongue. The extrinsic value of this work is obvious from the fact
that it enables us to construct a text which is centuries older than that
of which all our Hebrew manuscripts are servile copies, and is over a
thousand years more ancient than the very oldest Hebrew codices now
extant.[39] Not indeed that the poem of Job had undergone no changes
between the time of its composition and the second century B.C. On the
contrary, some of the most important interpolations had already been
inserted[40] and various excisions and transpositions made before the
translator first took the work in hand. But at least the ground is
cleared considerably, seeing that no less than four hundred verses which
we now read in all our present Bibles, Hebrew and vernacular, were tacked
on to the poem at a date subsequent to the Greek translation and
therefore found no place in that version. These additions may, on the
faith of the Septuagint, be struck out with all the less hesitation that
both metre and parallelism confirm with their weighty testimony the
trustworthy evidence of the orthodox translation that the strophes in
question are insertions of a later date.
But the value of the Septuagint depends upon its greater or less immunity
from those disfiguring changes which render the Hebrew text
incomprehensible and from which few ancient works are wholly free. And
unfortunately no such immunity can be claimed for it. What happened to
the original text likewise befell the Greek translation. Desirous of
putting an end to the disputes between Jews and Christians as to the
respective merits of the two, a proselyte from Ephesus, Theodotion by
name, undertook to do the Bible into Greek anew somewhere between 180-192
A.D. The basis of his work was the Septuagint, of which he changed
nothing that in his opinion could stand; but at the same time he
consulted the Hebrew manuscripts and vainly endeavoured to effect a
compromise between the two. Among other innovations, he inserted in his
translation the four hundred interpolated verses which, having been added
to the Hebrew text after it had been first rendered into Greek, could not
possibly have formed part of the Septuagint version. Later on (232-254
A.D.) Origen, anxious to throw light upon the cause of the divergences
between existing translations and the original text, and to provide the
means of judging of the respective merits of these, undertook one of
those wearisome works of industry, which later on constituted a special
feature of the activity of the Benedictine monks. The result of his
researches was embodied in the Hexapla--a book containing, in six
parallel columns, the original text in Hebrew and in Greek letters, the
Greek translation by Aquila, another by Symmachus, the text of the
Septuagint edited by himself, and Theodotion's version. Now Origen,
acting upon the gratuitous assumption that the passages wanting in the
Septuagint had formed part of the original Book of Job and had been
omitted by the translators solely because they failed to understand their
meaning, took them from Theodotion and incorporated them in his edition
of the Septuagint as it appeared in the Hexapla, merely distinguishing
them by means of asterisks. Unfortunately, in the course of time these
distinctive marks disappeared partially or wholly, thus depriving the old
Greek translation of its inestimable value as an aid to text criticism;
and there remained but five manuscripts in which they were to some extent
preserved.[41]
Until recently it was generally taken for granted by Biblical scholars
that there were no codices extant in the world but these five, which
contained data of a nature to enable us to reconstruct the text of the
Septuagint. And the assistance given by these manuscripts was dubious at
best, for they included the misleading additions incorporated in the text
by Origen, merely marking them with asterisks, which were not only
insufficient in number, but oftentimes wrongly distributed. No one
ventured to hope that there was still extant a version from which the
spurious verses were rigorously excluded. And the discovery of such a
text by my friend, Prof. Bickell, marks a new epoch in the history of
Biblical criticism.
One day that distinguished scholar, while sauntering about Monte Pincio
with the late Coptic Bishop, Agapios Bsciai, was informed by this
dignitary that he had found and transcribed a wretched codex of the
Saidic[42] Version of Job in the Library of the Propaganda. Hearing that
numerous passages were wanting in the newly discovered codex, Prof.
Bickell at once conjectured that this "defective" version might possibly
prove to be a translation of the original Septuagint text without the
later additions; and having studied it at the bishop's house saw his
surmise changed to certainty; the text was indeed that of the original
Septuagint without the disfiguring additions inserted by Origen. The late
Prof. Lagarde of Göttingen then applied for, and received, permission to
edit this precious find; but owing to the desire conceived later on by
Pope Leo XIII. that an undertaking of such importance should be carried
out by an ecclesiastic of the Roman Catholic Church, Lagarde's hopes were
dashed at the eleventh hour, and Monsignor Ciasca, to whom the task was
confided, accomplished all that can reasonably be expected from pious
zeal and patient industry.
The Saidic version, therefore, as embodying a purer and more ancient text
of the Book of Job than any we had heretofore possessed, is one of the
most serviceable of the instruments employed in restoring the poem to its
primitive form.[43] It frequently enables us to eliminate passages which
formerly rendered the author's meaning absolutely incomprehensible, and
at other times replaces obscure with intelligible readings which, while
differing from those of the Massoretic manuscripts, are obviously the
more ancient.
Footnotes:
[31] Fourth century A.D.
[32] Fifth century A.D.
[33] Fourth century A.D.
[34] A.D. 117-138.
[35] The Hagiographa--or, as the Hebrews term them, _Ketubim_--include
Job, Proverbs, the Psalms, the Canticle of Canticles, Ruth, the
Lamentations, Koheleth, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and
Chronicles.
[36] As distinguished from the pre-exilian people. Before the Captivity
the Israelites lived the political life of all independent nations.
After the Exile they were but a religious community--a Church. It was
for this Church that the "Mosaic" legislation of the Priests' Code
was written and the ancient historical records retouched.
[37] Completed probably in the second century B.C.
[38] Ewald and others had conjectured long before that the colloquies of
Job were in verse, but their attempts to reduce them to strophes
were of a nature to weaken rather than confirm the theory. That
the strophes consisted of four lines is a discovery of Prof.
Bickell's. At first listened to with scepticism, it is now accepted
by some of the leading critics of Germany, and received with favour
by such English scholars as Prof. Cheyne.
[39] St. Paul in his quotations from the Old Testament usually follows
the Septuagint. But the poem of Job he quotes from a lost version,
some traces of which are to be found in the works of Clement of
Alexandria.
[40] "Inserted" is the strongest term that can be applied to editors who
lived in a time when to foist one's own elucubrations upon a
deceased genius was a work of piety deserving praise. Some of the
acts which were virtues in Job's days have assumed a very different
aspect in ours; but good intentions are always at a premium, and the
Jewish interpolators were animated by the best.
[41] Two Greek, two Latin, and one Syriac.
[42] Also called the Thebaic Version.
[43] As a translation it is a poor performance.
* * * * *
INTERPOLATIONS
Having thus briefly sketched the instruments by means of which the
reconstruction of the poem of Job was undertaken, it may not be amiss to
illustrate the manner in which they are employed in the light of a few
examples. To begin with the structure of the metre. In the Authorised
Version we find (chap. xii. 12) the words: "With the ancient is wisdom,
and in length of days understanding." This in Hebrew is
Bishíshim chókhma
Veórekh yámim t'búna.
The first line therefore has five instead of seven syllables and is
consequently defective; something must have fallen out. This conclusion,
based upon the laws of the metre, is fully borne out by a study of the
context; for it is enough to read Job's reply from the beginning to see
that he could not have set himself to prove, as he is here made to do,
that God is as wise as man; his contention really being that man's
knowledge is ignorance compared with the wisdom of the Being who governs
the universe. For he is arguing against the traditionalists who assert
that justice is the essential characteristic of the conduct of the world,
a thesis refuted by almost everything we see and hear around us. Bildad
besought his sorely tried friend to learn of bygone generations and to
view things through their eyes. "Shall they not teach thee?" he asks
(viii. 10), to which Job's reply is an emphatic negative: "There is
_no_ wisdom with the ancient, nor understanding in length of days."
To agree with his "friend" would be to throw up his case, and this the
Authorised Version makes him do. God alone is endowed with wisdom; but is
He likewise good? To this question His government of the universe alone
can furnish an answer. There must evidently then have been a negative
particle in the text which a copyist, shocked at the seemingly rash
assertion, expunged. If now we add the words "for not" the metre is in
order and the sense perfect:
Ki én bishíshim chókhma
Veórekh yámim t'búna.
Take another instance. The first part of v. 14, chap. xiv. is rendered in
our version as follows: "If a man die shall he live again?" and the
translation would be faithful enough if the Hebrew word were
_hayichyä_, as our MSS. testify, but as an interrogation would
destroy the parallelism of the strophe, it is evident that the syllable
_ha_, which in Hebrew consists of one and not two letters, is an
interpolation, and the word should be _yichyä_ and the strophe
(composed of v. 13 and 14a).
"Oh, that thou wouldst hide me in the grave!
That thou wouldst secrete me till thy wrath be passed!
That thou wouldst appoint me a set time, and remember me!
If so be man could die and yet live on."
Again starting from the recognised principle that the entire poem is
composed on a regular plan and consists exclusively of four-line
strophes, it is obvious that all the tristichs in chapters xxiv. and xxx.
must be struck out. The circumstances that their contents are as
irrelevant to the context as would be a number of stanzas of "The Ancient
Mariner" if introduced into "Paradise Lost," that in form they are wholly
different from the strophes of the poem of Job, and that there is
obviously a sudden break in the text of the latter just when heterodoxy
merges into blasphemy, have forced critics to the conclusion--about which
there is hardly any difference of opinion--that these tristichs are
extracts from a very different work, which were inserted to fill up the
void created by orthodox theologians of a later date.[44]
Besides the four hundred verses which must be excluded on the ground that
they are wanting in the Septuagint Version, and were therefore added to
the text at a comparatively recent period,[45] the long-winded discourse
of Elihu[46] must be struck out, most of which was composed before the
book was first translated into Greek. Common sense, unaided by any
critical apparatus, suffices to mark this tedious monologue as an
interpolation. The poet knew nothing of him who is supposed to have
uttered it. In the prologue in prose where all the actors in this
psychological drama are enumerated and described, Elihu is not once
alluded to; and in the epilogue, where all the debaters are named and
censured, he alone is absolutely ignored. Nay, it is evident that when
Jahveh's discourse was written, the poet had no suspicion of the
existence of this fourth friend; for at the conclusion of the "fourth
friend's" pretentious speech, composed of scraps borrowed from those of
the other actors in the drama, Jahveh addressed all present in a form of
words which implies that not Elihu but Job was the last speaker, and had
only that instant terminated his reply. This fact alone should be
conclusive. But it is confirmed by other weighty considerations which
leave no place for doubt: Thus, Elihu's style is _toto coelo_
different from that of the other parts of the poem: artificial, vague,
rambling, prosaic, and strongly coloured by Aramaic idioms, while his
doctrinal peculiarities, particularly his mention of interceding angels,
while they coincide with those of the New Testament, are absolutely
unknown to Job and his friends. Moreover, if Elihu had indeed formed one
of the _dramatis personae_ of the original work, the _rôle_ he
would and should have assumed is not dubious; he must be the wise man
according to the author's own heart. This he is or nothing. And yet, if
he were really this, we should have the curious spectacle of the poet
developing at great length an idea which runs directly counter to the
fundamental conception underlying the entire work. For Elihu declares
Job's sufferings to be a just punishment for his sins; whereas the poet
and Jahveh Himself proclaim him to be the type of the just man, and
describe his misery as a short, unmerited and exceptional probation.
Evidently then Elihu is the elaborate production of some second-rate
writer and first-class theologian awkwardly wedged into the poem perhaps
a century or more after it had been composed, and certainly before the
work was first translated into Greek.
The confusion introduced into the text by this insertion is bewildering
in the extreme; and yet the result is but a typical specimen of the
inextricable tangle which was produced by the systematic endeavours of
later and pious editors to reduce the poem to the proper level of
orthodoxy. Another instance is to be found in Job's reply to the third
discourse of Bildad: in two passages of this discourse the hero
completely and deliberately gives away the case which he had been
theretofore so warmly defending, and accepts--to reject it later on as a
matter of course--the doctrine of retribution.[47] Now, on the one hand,
if we remove these verses, Job's speech becomes perfectly coherent and
logical, and the description of wisdom falls naturally into its right
place; but, on the other hand, we have no reason whatever to call their
authenticity in question and to strike them out. The solution of this
difficulty is that Zophar who, in our versions, speaks but twice, really
spoke three times, like each of his three colleagues, and that the verses
in question were uttered by him, and not by Job. His discourse was
intentionally split up into two portions, and incorporated in a speech
delivered by Job, in order to represent the hero as an advocate of the
dogma of retribution.
Another example of obviously intentional transposition occurs in chap.
xl. where two verses are introduced as one of Job's replies to God, so as
to allow of the latter delivering a second speech and utilising therein a
fine description of the hippopotamus and the crocodile. Lastly, it needs
little critical acumen to perceive that the scraps of dialogue attributed
to Jahveh in the Hebrew text and Authorised Version are, in so far as
they can claim to be regarded as authentic, but fragments of a single
discourse. It would be preposterous to hold a poet or even an average
poetaster responsible for the muddle made by the negligence of copyists
and the zeal of interpolators who sought thus awkwardly to improve the
author's theology at the cost of his poetry. But it is enough to consider
the elements of this particular question for a moment to perceive that
there can be but one solution. Jahveh makes a long and crushing reply to
Job, gradually merges into fine descriptive but irrelevant poetry, and
then suddenly calls for a rejoinder. The hero, humbled to the dust,
exclaims[48] that he is vile and conscious of his impotence, and will lay
his hand upon his mouth and open his lips no more. Here the matter should
end, for Job has confessed himself vanquished. But no, Jahveh, instead of
being touched by this meek avowal and self-humiliation, must needs
address the human worm as if he had turned against his Creator, and asks
such misplaced questions as "Hast thou an arm like God?" As a matter of
fact, Jahveh, whose apparition is but a poetic symbol of the sudden flash
of light which illumined the mind of the despairing hero, spoke but once.
For Job, one glimpse through the veil was enough, one rapid glance at the
realm where all is dark, and deep lies
"under deep unknown,
And height above unknown height."
Footnotes:
[44] Chap. xxiv. 5-8, 10-24 and chap. xxx. 3-7 take the place of Job's
blasphemous complaint about the unjust government of the world.
[45] For the benefit of readers who shrink from making any alteration in
the Bible, and who are mostly unaware that innumerable and
wide-reaching changes were effected in it by the negligence or
design of scribes, theologians, and others, it may be well to point
out that none of the changes rendered necessary by the reconstruction
of the Books of Job and Ecclesiastes in any way affects whatever
degree of inspiration they feel disposed to attribute to the Bible as
a whole, or to the interpolations in particular. The point of view of
the critic, if by no means identical with that of the pious
worshipper, need not to clash with it. An interpolation may be--and
as we here see very often is--much more orthodox than an original
text, and the more recent its origin the greater the chances that it
will be so.
[46] xxxii.-xxxvii. In the Septuagint Version Elihu's discourse occupies
but little more than half the number of verses to be found in the
Hebrew manuscript and in the Authorised Version.
[47] xxvii. 8-10, 14-23.
[48] xl. 4-5.
* * * * *
JOB'S THEOLOGICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTIONS
Although the main object of the poet is to present in a clear,
comprehensive and palpable form the sphinx riddle of human existence, his
work abounds nevertheless in a variety of interesting data, which throw
considerable light upon the philosophical and theological theories in
vogue among the thoughtful spirits of the Jewish community. Their
"natural philosophy" offers little that is likely to interest and nothing
of a nature to instruct the well-informed reader of to-day. But the
mythological concreteness and palpitating vitality of all its elements
profoundly impress us, less because of the curious standard they supply
by which to gauge the intellectual level of that age than as the symbols
chosen by the poet to express the identity and nothingness of all things
living and inanimate. Before God, all creatures think, reason, speak,
like man, because all are equal to him and he is but a breath. The stars,
which are relatives of the Satan and of God's own children, wax
enthusiastic and shout for joy; the lightning hearkens to the voice of
its Creator and, flashing athwart the heavens, announces its presence.
The sun is in continual danger of being devoured by a rapacious monster
upon whom a watch has to be set; and all things live and move in the same
way and by exactly the same force that dwells and acts in man with whom
they are one in essence; and he himself is but a flower that sprouts,
fades and dies.[49] Death is the end of man and beast and flower and
grass alike; and after death comes dismal darkness. There is no
difference among them. Man is no more and no less than all the rest.
_Sheol_, or the realm of the dead, is a murky, silent and dreary
abode, the shadowy inmates of which are as if they were not, unconscious
as infants "which never saw the light."
This state, which is not perhaps absolutely equivalent to complete
annihilation, is yet identical with that of "an hidden untimely birth."
Translated into the language of philosophy this somewhat vague notion
might be expressed as follows: All things, past, present and to come,
which flit as unreal shadows on the wall of time and space, are
manifestations of the one sole force which is everlasting and
omnipresent. They are not parts of a whole which is one and divisible:
all that we see and know of them in life is nothing; and after death they
are what they were before--identical with the one.
"One life through all the immense creation runs,
One spirit is the moon's, the sea's, the sun's;
All forms in the air that fly, on the earth that creep,
And the unknown nameless creatures of the deep--
Each breathing thing obeys one mind's control,
And in all substance is a single soul."
For Job's theory of the universe is dynamic and recognises but one force,
which is so vague and indefinite that he hesitates to bestow upon it the
name of the concrete God of the Jews.[50] There is no multiplicity, no
duality, no other substance, no other cause. The One is and does alone.
All things are shadowy delusions; He alone is real. We are nothing except
in Him. Evil as well as good is His work. The Satan who tortures Job is
one of the sons of God to whom special power is exceptionally delegated;
but, as a rule, God Himself punishes the just and showers His blessings
on the wicked. Everything that happens is the outcome of His will. There
is no nature, no causation, no necessary law in the physical world; every
event is the embodiment of the one will which is absolutely free, and
therefore, neither to be foreseen nor explained.
Like Koheleth, Job seems to hold that intelligence is something secondary
not primordial. Man, who is richly endowed with it on earth, knows really
nothing, never can know anything, about the origin and reason of things.
They are absolutely unknowable. He finds abyss yawning under abyss,
height towering above height, and dark mysteries encompass him
everlastingly.
"But wisdom--whence shall it come?
And where is the place of understanding?
It is hid from the eyes of all living" (cxxxiv.).
And if there be at most but will-o'-the-wisps on this side of the shadow
of Night, there is nought but absolute darkness beyond.
These considerations would seem to offer a very satisfactory explanation
of the monotheism of the poet which is far in advance of that of his
contemporaries, to whatever age we may assign him. It is a purely
philosophical conception which never was and never can be enshrined in a
theological dogma, and to seek for its genesis in the evolution of the
Jewish religion is far less reasonable than to derive it from the
philosophy of the Greeks or the Hindoos.
Job's theory of ethics differs widely from that of his friends and
contemporaries, and indeed from that of the bulk of mankind of all times.
The Jews believed in fleeting pleasures and pains in this life as the
sole recompense for virtue and sin; their modern heirs and successors
hope for eternal bliss or fear everlasting suffering in the next. The
motives deducible from both creeds are identical, and philosophy connotes
them as egotism. Whether the meed I long for or the pain I would shun be
transitory or everlasting, the moment my individual well-being becomes
the motive of my conduct it is not easy to perceive where morality comes
in. And so universally is egotism to be found at the root of what appear
to us to be the most generous actions, that the Adversary was right
enough in refusing, without conclusive proof, to enrol Job's name in the
short list of exceptions. But Job's ethics were many degrees above proof.
In no book of the ancient Testament and in no religion or philosophy of
the old world, if we except Buddhism, do we find anything to compare with
the sublime morality inculcated in the poem that bears his name. It
utterly ignores the convenient and profitable virtue known as "duty to
one's self" and bases all the other virtues on pity for our fellows, who
are not merely our brethren but our very selves. The truly moral man
should be able to say with Job:
"I delivered the poor that cried aloud,
And the orphan and him that had none to help him;
And I gladdened the heart of the widow (ccxlvii.).
I became eyes to the blind,
And I was feet unto the lame (ccxlviii.).
If I saw one perish for lack of clothing,
Or any of the poor devoid of covering;
Then surely did his loins bless me,
And he was warmed with the fleece of my sheep (cclxix.).
I have never made gold my hope (cclxxi.).
Never did I rejoice at the ruin of my hater,
Nor exult when misery found him out (cclxxiii.).
Did not he that made me in the womb, make him? (cclxvii.)
Did I not weep for him that was in trouble?" (cclix.).
And having accomplished all this without fear of pain,
"Gaze onward without claim to hope,
Nor, gazing backward, court regret."
This is the only system of morality deserving that much-abused name; it
was preached and to a great extent practised in India by the Jainists and
the Buddhists, and for the first time in the Old Testament by the author
of our poem.