THE TRADITIONAL BASIS AND THE PURPOSE OF JOB.
I.
_Did Job really live?_
This is widely different, remarks Umbreit,[69] from the question whether
Job actually said and did all that is related of him in our book. It is
scarcely necessary, he adds, in the present day to disprove the latter,
but we have no reason to doubt the former (the theory as to the
historical existence of a sort of Arabian king Priam, named Job). In
truth, we have no positive evidence either for affirming or denying it,
unless the ‘holy places,’ each reputed to be Job’s grave, may be
mentioned in this connection. The allusion in Ezek. xiv. 14 to ‘Noah,
Daniel, and Job,’ proves no more than that a tradition of some sort
existed respecting the _righteous_ Job during the Babylonian Exile: we
cannot tell how much Ezekiel knew besides Job’s righteousness. In later
times, Jewish students do appear to have believed that ‘Job existed;’
but the force of the argument is weakened by the uncritical character of
the times, and the extreme form in which this belief was held by them.
How early doubts arose, we know not. The authors of _Tobit_ and
_Susanna_ may very likely have been only half-believers, since they
evidently imitate the story of Job in their romantic compositions. At
any rate, the often-quoted saying of Rabbi Resh Lakish, איוב לא היה ולא
נברא אלא משל היה, ‘Job existed not, and was not created, but he is
(only) a parable,’[70] shows that even before the Talmud great freedom
of speech prevailed among the Rabbis on such points. In Hai Gaon’s time
(d. 1037), the saying quoted must have given offence to some, for this
Rabbi not only appeals for the historical character of Job to the
passage in Ezekiel, but wishes (on traditional authority) to alter the
reading of Resh Lakish’s words, so as to read איוב לא היה ולא נברא אלא
למשל, ‘Job existed not, and was not created, except to be a
parable.’[71] (See note 7, Appendix.)
The prevailing opinion among the Jews doubtless continued to be that the
Book of Job was strictly historical, and Christian scholars (with the
exception of Theodore—see Chap. XV.) found no reason to question this
till Luther arose, with his genial, though unscientific, insistence on
the right of questioning tradition. In his _Tischreden_ Luther says,
‘Ich halte das Buch Hiob für eine wahre Historia; dass aber alles so
sollte geschehen und gehandelt sein, glaube ich nicht, sondern ich
halte, dass ein feiner, frommer, gelehrter Mann habe es in solche
Ordnung bracht.’[72] Poetically treated history—that is Luther’s idea,
as it was that of Grotius after him, and in our own country of that
morning-star of Biblical criticism, Bishop Lowth.[73] It is acquiesced
in by Schlottmann, Delitzsch, and Davidson, and with justice, provided
it be clearly understood that no positive opinion can reasonably be held
as to the historical origin of the tradition (_Sage_, Ewald) used by the
author. I have said nothing of Spinoza and Albert Schultens. The
former[74] pronounces most unfavourably on the religious and poetical
value of the book which he regards as a heathenish fiction, reminding us
somewhat (see elsewhere) of the hasty and ill-advised Theodore of
Mopsuestia. The latter[75] actually defends the historical character
both of the narratives and of the colloquies of Job in the strictest
sense. Hengstenberg, alone perhaps among orthodox theologians, takes a
precisely opposite view. Like Reuss and Merx, he regards the poem as
entirely a work of imagination. We may be thankful for his protest
against applying a prosaic standard to the poetical books of the Hebrew
Canon. Those who do so, he remarks,[76] ‘fail to observe that the book
stands, not among historical, but among poetical books, and that it
would betray a very low grade of culture, were one to depreciate
imaginative as compared with historical writing, and declare it to be
unsuitable for sacred Scripture.’
I entirely agree with the eminent scholar, whose unprogressive theology
could not entirely extinguish his literary and philological sense. But I
see no sufficient reason for adopting what in itself, I admit, would add
a fresh laurel to the poet’s crown. Merx indeed assures us[77] that the
meaning of the name ‘Job’ is so redolent of allegory that it must be the
poet’s own invention, especially as the name occurs nowhere else in the
Old Testament. He adds that the story of Job is so closely connected
with the didactic part of the book that it would be lost labour to
separate the legendary from the new material. All was wanted; therefore
all is fictitious. This is not, however, the usual course of procedure
with poets whether of the East or of the West, whose parsimony in the
invention of plots is well known. As for the name Job (_Iyyób_) it may
no doubt be explained (from the Arabic) ‘he who turns to God,’[78] and
in other ways, but there is no evidence that the author thought of any
meaning for it. When he does coin names (see Epilogue), there is no room
for doubting their significance. Ewald may, certainly, have gone too far
in trying to recover the traditional element: how difficult it would be
to do so with _Paradise Lost_, if we had not Genesis to help us! But the
probability of the existence of a legend akin to the narrative in the
Prologue, is shown by the parallels to it which survive, e.g. the
touching Indian story of Harischandra,[79] given by Dr. Muir in vol. 1.
of his _Sanskrit Texts_. The resemblance may be slight and superficial,
but the sudden ruin of a good man’s fortunes is common to both stories.
Had we more knowledge of Arabic antiquity, we should doubtless find a
more valuable parallels.[80]
The story of Job had a special attraction for Mohammed, who enriched it
(following the precedent of the Jewish Haggada) with a fresh detail
(Korán, xxxviii. 40). To him, as well as to St. James, Job was an
example of ‘endurance.’ The dialogue between Allah and Eblis in Korán,
xv. 32-42, may perhaps have been suggested by the Prologue of our poem.
‘Did then, Job really live?’ That for which we most care comes not from
‘Tradition, Time’s suspected register,’[81] but from an unnamed poet,
who embellished tradition partly from imagination, partly (see next
section) from the rich and varied stores of his own experience.
2.
_The Autobiographical Element in its Bearing on the Purpose of the
Poem._
A German critic (Dillmann), in speaking of _Job_, has well reminded us
that ‘the idea of a work of art must reveal itself in the development of
the piece: it is not to be condensed into a dry formula.’ Least of all,
surely, is such formulation possible when the work of art is an
idealised portraiture of the author himself, and such, I think, to a
considerable extent is the Book of Job. Those words of a psalmist,
Come and hear, all ye that fear God,
and I will declare what he hath done for my soul
(Ps. lxvi. 16, R. V.)
might be taken as the motto of _Job_. In short, the author is thoroughly
‘subjective,’ like all the great Hebrew and especially the Arabian
poets. ‘In the rhythmic swell of Job’s passionate complaints, there is
an echo of the heart-beats of a great poet and a great sufferer. The cry
“Perish the day in which I was born” (iii. 3) is a true expression of
the first effects of some unrecorded sorrow. In the life-like
description beginning “Oh that I were as in months of old” (xxix. 2),
the writer is thinking probably of his own happier days, before
misfortune overtook him. Like Job (xxix. 7, 21-25) he had sat in the
“broad place” by the gate and solved the doubts of perplexed clients.
Like Job, he had maintained his position triumphantly against other wise
men. He had a fellow-feeling with Job in the distressful passage through
doubt to faith. Like Job (xxi. 16) he had resisted the suggestion of
practical atheism, and with the confession of his error (xlii. 2-6) had
recovered spiritual peace.’
The man who speaks to us under the mask of Job is not indeed a perfect
character; but he does not pretend to be so. How pathetic are his
appeals to his friends to remember the weight of his calamity—‘therefore
have my words been wild’ (vi. 3)—and not to ‘be captious about words
when the speeches of the desperate are but for the wind’ (vi. 26). He
was no Stoic, and had not practised himself in deadening his sensibility
to pain. Strong in his sense of justice, he lacked those higher
intuitions which could alone soothe his irritation. But he was
throughout loyal to the God whom his conscience revered, and, even in
the midst of his wild words, he let God mould him. First of all, he
renounced the hope of being understood by men; he ceased to complain of
his rather ignorant than unfeeling friends. He exemplified that Arabic
proverb which says, ‘Perfect patience allows no complaint to be heard
against (human creatures).’ Then he came by degrees to trust God. There
is a kernel of truth in that passage of the Jerusalem Talmud
(_Berakhoth_, cix. 5) where, among the seven types of Pharisees, the
sixth is described as ‘he who is pious from fear, like Job,’ and the
seventh, as ‘he who is pious from love, like Abraham.’ Job’s religion
was at first not entirely but still too much marked by fear; it ended by
becoming a religion of trust, justifying the title borne by Job among
the Syrians, as if in contradiction to the Talmud, of ‘the lover of the
Lord.’[82]
So far as the author of _Job_ has any direct purpose beyond that of
giving a helpful picture of his own troubles, it is no doubt principally
a polemical one. He has suffered so deeply from the inveterate error
(once indeed a relative truth) so tenaciously maintained by the wisest
men that he would fain crush the source of so much heart-breaking
misery. But that for which we love the book is its φιλανθρωπία, its
brotherly love to all mankind. No doubt the author thinks first of
Israel, then (as I suppose) suffering exile; but the care with which the
poem is divested of Israelitish peculiarities, seems to show that he
looks beyond his own people, just as in his view of God he has broken
the bonds of a narrow ‘particularism.’ ‘I can see no other explanation
of those apparently hyperbolical complaints, that strange invasion of
self-consciousness, and that no less strange ‘enthusiasm of
humanity’[83] ... than the view expressed or implied by Chateaubriand,
that Job is a ‘type of righteous men in affliction—not merely in the
land of Uz, nor among the Jews in Babylonia, nor yet, on Warburton’s
theory of the poem, in the Judæa of the time of Nehemiah, but wherever
on the wide earth tears are shed and hearts are broken.’ This is the
truth in the too often exaggerated allegorical view[84] of the poem of
_Job_. According to his wont, the author lets us read his meaning by
occasional bold inconsistencies. No individual can use such phraseology
as we find in xvii. 1, xviii. 2, 3, xix. 11, and perhaps I may add xvi.
10, xxvii. 11, 12. And yet the fact that Job often speaks as the ‘type
of suffering humanity’ no more destroys his claim to be an individual
‘than the typical character of Dante in his pilgrimage and of Faust in
Goethe’s great poem annuls the historical element in those two great
poetical figures.’[85]
3.
_The Purpose of Job as illustrated by Criticism._
More precise definitions of the purpose of Job depend on the acceptance
of a critical analysis of the book. Some suggestions on this subject
have been already given to facilitate the due comprehension of the poem.
I must now offer the reader a connected sketch of the possible or
probable stages of its growth. This, if it bears being tested, will
perhaps reveal the special purpose of the several parts, and above all
of that most precious portion—the Colloquies of Job and his friends.
(Compare below, Chap. XII.)
I. The narrative which forms the Prologue is based upon a traditional
story which represented Job as hurled from the height of happiness into
an abyss of misery, but preserving a devout serenity in the midst of
trouble. It is impossible to feel sure that this Prologue is by the same
author as the following Colloquies. It stands in no very close
connection with them; ‘the Satan’ in particular (an omission which
struck William Blake[86]), is not heard of again in the book; and there
is abundant evidence of the liking of the pre-Exile writers for a
tasteful narrative style. It is not a wild conjecture that the first two
chapters originally formed the principal part of a prose book of Job,
comparable to the ‘books’ once current of Elijah, and perhaps one may
add of Balaam and of Daniel—a book free from any speculations of the
‘wise men’ and in no sense a _māshāl_ or gnomic poem, but supplying in
its own way a high and adequate solution of the great problem of the
suffering of the righteous. The writer of this Prologue, whether he also
wrote the Colloquies or not, firmly believed that the calamities which
sometimes fell on the innocent were both for the glory of God and of
human nature. It was possible, he said, to continue in one’s integrity,
though no earthly advantage accrued from it. If the Prologue once formed
part of a distinct prose ‘book’ of Job, one can hardly suppose that the
same author wrote the Epilogue; for while the Colloquies _do_ contain
hints of Job’s typical character (as to some extent a representative of
humanity), the Prologue does not, and it is only the typical or
allegorical interpretation which makes the Epilogue tolerable. In fact,
the Epilogue must, as it seems to me, have been written, if not by the
author of the Colloquies, yet by some one who had this work before him.
The prose ‘book’ of Job, if it existed, and if it originated in Judah,
cannot have been written before the Chaldæan period. This period and no
other explains the moral purpose of the ‘book,’ precisely as the age of
the despotic Louis XIV. is the only one which suits the debate on the
disinterested love of God with which the name of Fénelon is inseparably
connected. The Chaldæan period, however, we must remember, did not begin
with the Captivity, but with the appearance of the Babylonian power on
the horizon of Palestine. We must not therefore _too hastily_ assume
that the Book of Job is a monument of the Babylonian Captivity, true as
I myself believe this hypothesis to be.
We are, however, of course not confined to this hypothesis of a prose
‘book’ of Job. The author of the Colloquies may have been equally fitted
to be a writer of narrative, and may have felt that the solution
mentioned above, although the highest, was not the only one admissible.
We may therefore conceive of him as following up the solution offered in
the Prologue by a ventilation of the great moral problem before himself
and his fellow ‘wise men.’ He throws the subject open as it were to
general discussion, and invests all the worthiest speculations of his
time in the same flowing poetical dress, that no fragment of truth
contained in them may be lost. He himself is far from absolutely
rejecting any of them; he only seems to deny that the ideas of the three
representative sages can be applied at once, as they apply them, to the
case of one like Job.
[Böttcher, however, regards Job as the work of one principal and several
subordinate writers. It was occasioned, he thinks, by a conversation on
the sufferings of innocent men, at that time so frequent (i.e. in the
reign of Manasseh). See his _Achrenlese_, p. 68.]
II. The completion or publication of the colloquies revealed (or seemed
to reveal) sundry imperfections in the original mode of treating the
subject. Some other ‘wise men,’ therefore (or possibly, except in the
case of III., the author himself), inserted passages in the poem with
the view of qualifying or supplementing its statements. These were
merely laid in, without being welded with the rest of the book. The
first in order of these additions is chap. xxviii., which cannot be
brought into a logical connection with the chapters among which it is
placed, in spite of the causal particle ‘for’ prefixed to it (‘_For_
there is a vein’). It is possible, indeed, that it has been extracted
from some other work. The hypothesis of insertion (or, if used without
implying illicit tampering with the text, ‘interpolation’) is confirmed
by the occurrence of ‘Adonai’ in ver. 28, which is contrary to the
custom of the author of Job, and by its highly rhetorical character. If
the passage was written with a view to the Book of Job, we must suppose
the author to have been dissatisfied with the original argument, and to
have sought a solution for the problem in the inscrutableness of the
divine wisdom. Zophar, it is true, had originally alluded to this
attribute, but with a more confined object. According to him, God, being
all-wise, can detect sins invisible to mortal eyes (xi. 6):—it is
needless to draw out the wide difference between this slender inference
and the large theory which appears to be suggested in chap. xxviii.
III. One of the less progressive ‘wise men’ was scandalised at the
irreverent statements of Job and dissatisfied with the three friends’
mode of dealing with them (xxxii. 2, 3). Hence the speeches of Elihu,
the most generally recognised of all the inserted portions (chaps.
xxxii.-xxxvii.) The author partly imitates the speeches of Jehovah.
IV. In another inserted passage (ch. xxxviii.-xl. 14, xlii. 1-6), the
Almighty is represented as chastising the presumption of Job, and
showing forth the supreme wisdom by contrast with Job’s unwisdom. It is
clear that the copy in which it was inserted was without the speeches of
Elihu, for the opening words of Jehovah (xxxviii. 2) clearly have
reference to the last discourse of Job, which they must have been
intended to follow. The effect of this fine passage is much impaired by
the interposition of the speeches of Elihu.
V. The description of the behémoth and the leviathan (xl. 15-24, xli.)
seems also to be a later insertion, and somewhat more recent than the
speeches of Jehovah. It is a ‘purple patch,’ and the appendix last
mentioned gains by its removal.
VI. An editor appended the epilogue. He must have had the prologue
before him, but took no pains to bring his own work into harmony with
it, except in the one point which he could not help adopting, namely the
vast riches of his hero. He agreed with Job’s friends on the grand
question of retribution, though he would not sanction their line of
argument. Job’s doubts, according to him, contained more faith than
their uncharitable dogmatism.
Can we feel grateful to this writer? He has at any rate relieved the
strain upon the imagination of the reader, and possibly, if we assume
him to be distinct from the author of the Prologue, carried out an
unfulfilled intention of that author (note the words in i. 12, ‘only
upon himself put not forth thy hand’). But he did so in a prosaic
spirit, and made a sad concession to a low view of providential
dealings. He has also, I think, caused much misunderstanding of the
object of the book. Thus we find Dr. Ginsburg saying,[87]
The Book of Job ... only confirms the old opinion that the righteous
are visibly rewarded here, inasmuch as it represents their
calamities as transitory, and Job himself as restored to double his
original wealth and happiness in this life.
Against which I enter a respectful protest.
The view here adopted of the gradual growth of the book seems important
for its right comprehension. In its present form, it seems like a very
confused theodicy, designed to justify God against the charge of
bringing misfortune upon innocent persons. But when the disturbing
elements are removed, we see that the book is simply an expression of
the conflicting thoughts of an earnest, warm-hearted man on the great
question of suffering. He protests, it is true, against the rigour and
uncharitableness of the traditional orthodox belief, but is far more
aspiring to solve the problem theoretically. This is one chief point in
which he differs from his interpolators (if the word may be used), who
mostly appear to have had some favourite theory (or partial view of
truth) to advocate.
Footnote 69:
_Book of Job_ (1836), E. T. i. 7.
Footnote 70:
_Baba Bathra_ § 15, 1. Comp. Frankl in Grätz’s _Monatsschrift_, 1872,
pp. 309-310.
Footnote 71:
Ewald and Dukes, _Beitrage zur Gesch. der ültesten Auslegung_, ii.
166.
Footnote 72:
_Werke_ (Walch), xxii. 2093.
Footnote 73:
_De sacrâ poesi_ (1753), Prælect. xxxii.
Footnote 74:
_Tractatus theologico-politicus_, c. x.
Footnote 75:
_Liber Jobi_ (1737), vol. i., _in fine Praf._
Footnote 76:
_Das Buch Hiob_ (1870-75), i. 35.
Footnote 77:
_Das Buch Hiob_, Vorbemerkungen, p. xxxv.
Footnote 78:
In Korán, xxxviii. 16, 29, 44, David, Solomon, and Job are all called,
one after another, _awwāb_, i.e. not ‘penitent,’ but ‘ever turning to
God.’ Hitzig remarks that Iyyób (Arabic Ayyàb) will thus be equivalent
to the mythic prophet Saleh (= ‘pious’) in the Korán (_Das Buch Hiob_,
Einl., S. x.), on whom see Palmer, _Desert of the Exodus_, p. 50,
where he is identified with Moses. This is bold, and, in any case,
must not such a name be comparatively modern?
Footnote 79:
This was perhaps first pointed out by Schlottmann, in chap. 1. of the
Introduction to his Commentary.
Footnote 80:
Nothing can be built upon the occurrence of the name Ayyûb in
pre-Islamic times, for Jews and Arabs were in frequent intercourse
before Mohammed.
Footnote 81:
Davenant.
Footnote 82:
Hottinger, referred to by Delitzsch, Iob, p. 7. In the Peshitto, Heb.
xii. 3-11 has for a sub-title, ‘In commemoration of Job the
righteous.’ The choice of the section shows in what sense Job’s
‘righteousness’ is affirmed—not the Talmudic.
Footnote 83:
See especially Job vi. 2, 3, vii. 1-3, xiv. 1-3.
Footnote 84:
This view goes back to the last century (Warburton, Michaelis, &c.) It
has been remodelled by Seinecke and Hoekstra, who regard Job, not as
the people of Israel in general, but the idealised Israel or ‘Servant
of Jehovah.’ See especially Hoekstra’s essay, _Theologisch
Tijdschrift_, 1871, p. 1 &c., and Kuenen’s reply, _Th. Ti._, 1873, p.
492 &c.
Footnote 85:
Quoted from Essay ix. in vol. ii. of _The Prophecies of Isaiah_.
Footnote 86:
Blake’s 16th design is devoted to the defeat of Satan. Beneath the
enthroned Jehovah and his angels, ‘the Evil One falls with tremendous
plummet-force. Hell naked before his face, and Destruction without a
covering.’ Another point in which Blake corrects his author is the
introduction of Job’s wife into the illustrations of the Colloquies.
Footnote 87:
Art. ‘Ecclesiastes,’ _Ency. Brit._, 9th ed.