THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
sally known, but who, in the midst of an unwonted accumulation of misfortunes inflicted by divine decrees which deprive him of his dearest and best, after he has bowed to the stroke and has been afflicted personally with a terrible illness, appears to man to be delivered over to judgment, whose faith even brings a conflict into his own soul, which faith, short and defective as it was, is given up for a better. The problem before the author therefore took flesh and blood; Job appears as the
4. Genu- hero and is himself the problem. Whoineness ever has caught the connection of the of the seven days of silence of the introduc-
Prologue. tion and the seven days of the dialogue w^ill be prepared to see in the introduction and in the poem the work of a single hand. A recent hypothesis sees in chaps, i.-ii. and xlii. the remains of an independent " folk-book." And this view has led to interesting developments, in the course of which attempts were made to discover how this book handled the problem. It has been thought that Ezekiel knew it, while it was held that the poet of the dialogue was later than Ezekiel. Parts of this theory are not entirely new. While Pseudo-Origen regarded the poem as older than Moses, who (according to him) wrote the prologue, it wTas probably the authority of Theodore which led Junilius to place Job among the historical books. Theodore thought that the historical Job could not have spoken the irrational curses of chap. iii. nor have given to his daughter the heathen name Kerenhappuch. Yet it seems impossible for a right understanding of the speeches to take the two parts for anything but the necessary work of the same author. The opening of the drama in the changing of scene between heaven and earth, the presentation of the secret divine counsel preceding the events, and the conduct of men following them betray the same hand as the dialogue. Evidences of the intent of the author to model the narrative after the mashed exist in the monotony of the reiteration of the four misfortunes by the messengers (i. 13 sqq.), and in the repetitions of i. 6, and ii. 1, of i. 11, and ii. 5, of 1, 7. and ii. 2, while the introduction of the reader to the scenes in heaven serves the same purpose as the prologues of Euripides in giving him the key to the action of the persons in the drama. There is a correspondence also in the religion of Job and his friends in the dialogue and the position assigned them as Edomites, therefore nearly related to Israel, with an ancestor brother to Jacob, consequently heir of Abraham and his religion, but without the special promises which were Israel's, while the hero as a shepherd-prince reproduces the life of the patriarchs. Further correspondence is found in particular incidents, such as the sin-offering of Job for his children (i. 5) and the curt rejection by Job of his wife's advice to curse God and die (ii. 9), with Job's reiterated claim to right speech (vi. 10, xxiii. 11-12) and with Bildad's statement that the death of Job's children was punishment for the sin they had committed (viii. 4).
A large element in the supposition that prologue and epilogue are from a folk-book is doubtless the figure of Satan which corresponds to the Satan of folk-lore, the thought that as Goethe drew his Faust
from the book of Dr. Faustus, so our poet borrowed his figure. But the analogy does not hold. Job and his friends know nothing of a Satan or that he is Job's foe. The friends think that God is Job's foe, and so thinks Job; they know nothing of the council in heaven. But the heavenly council and the figure of Satan correspond to the representation of Hebrew prophecy, while the relations of God to man, spirit, and the world at large are those of the Old Testament. Not folk-lore, but the current ideas of revelation in Israel are the basis of the presentation. So the creation of man and his expulsion from Eden were the result of a heavenly council (Gen. i. 26, iii. 22). But Job and Adam may be regarded as counterparts. Job recognizes that God has simply used the rights of a creator in depriving him of the free gifts bestowed (i. 21) ; Adam yielded
to his wife's suggestion, Job refused
5. Satan the leading of his wife toward the same
in the end (ii. 10) . The Fall was the work of
Prologue the serpent who would persuade man
and in that the creator was a jealous tyrant
Other and would also destroy God's pleasure
Scripture, in his creation; in Job Satan begrudges
Yahweh the joy he has in his pious servant and seeks to produce in Job the same idea of God as a tyrant; the purpose, however, is exposed in the prologue in the part Satan takes in the heavenly council. In any case the magnificent view of the world, one which entirely lacks the qualities of folk-lore presentations, which makes God's manysided wisdom crown the climax of creation in the creation of man, which he justifies to the spirits who watch the work in wonder, is rooted in Gen. i.-iii. Inherent in the contest between Satan and God is the assumption of partiality in deity in that he sought by unearned gifts to win man for himself (Adam), in that he guards from attacks of misfortune by prosperity the man representedvas pious (Job), when man has fallen he saves him as a brand from the burning (Joshua in Zech. iii.), aid that now his impartiality must come out in the calamities of Job that the enemy may be silenced. Indeed, there is a reminiscence of the creation story in the " enmity " between the seed of the woman and of the serpent in the play upon the name of Job (3VN) and TIN, "enemy" of Job xiii. 24 (cf. xix. 11); but the prologue shows that the enemy is not God but Satan. The marks of derivation of the prologue from folk-lore are wholly lacking.
Are the sorrows of Job a punishment, a chastisement, or a trial? and what would the poet teach by them ? Since the prologue ascribes to God knowledge' of Job's purity, to Satan doubt of it, it might be held that the purpose is to use Job as a witness to show the lying nature and impotence of Satan (cf. Budde). It is a curiosity that some have seen in the book of Job the question opened whether there is an unrewarded piety. But men believe in God because faith makes them blessed; blessedness 1 is not the wages of faith, but the living 6. The v activity of the God set forth in faith, Purpose, the very essence of which is that he is
the cause of blessedness in man. It is the greatest folly to speak of an uninterested piety, since piety is the prophecy of the highest interest of