one; the hero first loses and then recovers his peace of mind; it is the counterpart in pantheistic humanism of what St. Paul terms working out one's own salvation. But there are great and most instructive divergences between the two writers. Observe, first, the complete want of sympathy with positive religion-with the religion from which Faust wanders-on the part of the modern poet. Next, a striking difference in the characteristics of Job and Faust respectively. Faust succumbs to his boundless love of kuowledge, alternating with an unbridled sensual lust; Job is on the verge of spiritual ruin through his demand for such an absolute correspondence of circumstances to character as can only be realized in another world. The greatness of Faust lies in his intellect; that of Job (who in Chap. 28 directly discourages speculation) in his virtue. Hence, finally, Faust requires (even from a pantheistic point of view) to be pardoned, while Job stands so high in the Divine favor that others are pardoned on his account,

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A third great poem which deserves to be compared with “Job" is the Divina Commedia. Dante has the same purpose of edification as the author of Job" and even of Faust," though he has not been able to fuse the didactic and narrative elements with such complete success as Goethe. Nor is he so intensely autobiographical as either Goethe or the author of Job," his own story is almost inextricably interlaced with the fictions which he frames as the representative of the human race. He allows us to see that he has had doubts (Parad. iv. 129), and that they have yielded to the convincing power of Christianity (Purgat. iii. 34-39), but it was not a part of his plan to disclose, like the author of Job," the vicissitudes of his mental history. In two points, however-the width of his religious sympathies and the morning freshness of his descriptions of nature he comes nearer to the author of "Job" than Goethe or even Milton, while in the absoluteness and fervor of his faith his only modern rival is Milton.

So much for the general literary affinities of the Book of Job. It is analogous to the three great moral and religious efforts of the western imagination, from which it differs mainly in the greater simplicity of the moral problem discussed, in the greater originality of the poet, and above all in his fuller consciousness of inspiration. For the literary form of Job" it is more difficult to find a western parallel. Bishop Lowth, and after him Delitzsch, maintain that it is a drama, not indeed in the European style (for the Israelites had no theatre), but in its vivid presentation of several distinct characters in a tragic situation. The view that it is an epic has been rarely held, but found favor, as we have seen, with one no less than John Milton. Something is to be said for this opinion, if Milton's two great works are specimens of epic poetry. But considering the preponderance of dialogue over narrative in

the former we shall do best to consider it a germinal dramatic poem, a stage or two behind the passion-plays of Persia, Tyrol, and Spain; though indeed a closer parallel will be found in the singular Makámas or Sessions" of Hariri, translated by Mr. Chenery, late Lord Almoner's Professor at Oxford.

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The next important point to be determined is the circle from which the Book of Job proceeded. The author evidently belonged to the so-called "wise men," or moral teachers, to whom so important a part was allotted by Providence in the religious education of their people, and who were as distinctively Jewish as the philosophers were characteristically Greek. It was the custom of the wise men" to sit in the gate or broad place," and there to give advice to the men and women who consulted them on points of moral practice-to individuals, be it observed, and not, like the prophets, to a whole assembly. There appears to have been two classes of wise men," just as there were two classes of prophets; and as Jeremiah calls his opponents (and could not but call them, if his own spiritual experiences were well-founded)" prophets that prophesy lies" (Jer. 23:26), so there was a class of wise men' who received the opprobrious title of the mockers," which not improbably includes the notion of free-thinking. It is easy to understand how this came to pass. One characteristic of Hebrew wisdom" is its tendency to attach but little weight to religious forms in comparison with moral practice. To a really religious man this tendency might be harmless, and even positively beneficial; we see how even the prophets were compelled to accuse their countrymen of empty formalism. But to a worldly-minded man it might be extremely dangerous; who has not seen how the omission of special forms of worship speedily revenges itself on the average moral character? Even now we are told that an Arab who pretends to philosophy (or what the Hebrews would call wisdom") is generally three parts a free-thinker. Islam is of as little importance to him as Mosaism was to these "mockers" in the age of the Book of Proverbs. Both classes of Israelitish wise men" agreed, however, in this, that they planted their moral teaching on the firm basis of experience; but, whereas the " scoffers" either ignored or denied the Jehovah of the true prophets, the true wise men" (if the phrase may be used) were always respectful, and sometimes warm and hearty adherents of true religion. A great part of the Book of Proverbs may with justice be described as simply respectful to religion, but that glorious little treatise (Prov. 1-9), which now introduces the work, is colored by a religious emotion which the great prophets would not have disowned. The author of Prov. 1-9 adopts a more free and flowing style than was customary among the "wise men," who indeed were not, generally speaking, literati. He addresses by

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preference the wealthier class, to which he seems himself to have belonged; and his favorite images are drawn from the life of the merchant. Evidently he lived in a prosperous age, when it was not difficult to receive the doctrine that outward prosperity attends the righteous. The exhortations to follow after wisdom are entirely based upon the assumption that the wise (and pious) man must also be prosperous. And yet there is evidence even in Prov. 1-9 of the ingress of scepticism, caused probably by some recent events in Israelitish history. In words which remind us of Psalms 37 and 73 the writer exclaims

10

"Envy thou not the man of violence,

And have thou pleasure in none of his ways

The curse of Jehovah is in the house of the ungodly,

But the habitation of the righteous He blesseth" (3: 81-83) ;

and looking back from his haven of rest on the storms which had taken the Jewish state

"Truly, whom Jehovah loveth, He correcteth

And as a father the son in whom He delighteth" (3:18).

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There are such manifest resemblances of thought, of general style, and of phraseology between the Book of Job" and the introduction to Proverbs, that we can hardly be wrong in suppos ing that they proceeded from the same circle. A comparison of the two works seems to me to warrant the conjecture that the latter is the older. The writer of Job" has read and admired the Introduction to Proverbs, and this noble work is the channel through which the inspiring impulse reached his own mind. He heartily accepts the proverb-writer's doctrine of the Divine origin of true wisdom (see chap. 28); but God has revealed to him a deeper view of the problem of evil. The earlier writer had said that trouble is to be accepted thankfully as a paternal discipline. Sad experience, under a higher guidance, has taught the author of "Job" that this is not to be taken as unconditionally correct-that it is, in fact, but a fragment of the truth; and hence he puts the statement of Prov. 3:11, 12 into the mouth of one of Job's friends (Eliphaz), who, though pious and intense, was certainly narrowminded in a degree, perhaps, proportionate to his admirable intensity. A doctrine which at one time had done good service as an expression of religious moral philosophy had now become an obstacle to faith, and needed widening. This widening was committed, in God's educative providence, to the author of "Job." His talent was not that of a prophet, but partly that of a moralist or ́ ́ wise man," and partly that of a poet. Hence he makes the problem of the unmerited suffering of the righteous the subject of a reflective poem, with a slight dramatic tinge. He exchanges the vague treatment of the consulting moral physician for an imagina

tive reproduction of concrete facts. There seems to have been an ancient tradition alluded to by Ezekiel (14 : 14, 20), of a righteous and much-tried man, whose name, like that of Priam among the Greeks, had become the symbol of immeasurable woe. This our poet adopted as the framework of a comprehensive discussion of tr his problem, at the same time imbuing it with a new and higher significance. And be it remarked in passing, that the treatment of this ancient tradition by the author of Job' is a sufficient warrant for the illustrative use which Christian preachers make of the Old Testament narratives, infusing into them an even higher meaning than was possible to the author of "Job." The question which arose before the mind of the latter was this: How could it be that an innocent man like Job was overtaken by such an awful calamity; and more than this, how can there be so large a class of innocent unfortunate ones consistently with the Divine righteousness? For Job, like Dante in his pilgrimage, and like Goethe' Faust, has a twofold character, individual and typical. As an individual, he is one of the most striking figures of the Old Testament. He is not merely a patriarch in the already remote youth of the world, but the idealized portrait of the author himself. 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" (3:3), is a true expres sion of the first effects of some unrecorded sorrow. In the lifelike description beginning Oh that I were as in months of old": (292), the writer is thinking probably of his own happier days, before misfortune overtook him. Like Job (29: 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 (21: 16), he had resisted the suggestion of practical atheism, and with the confession of his error (42; 2-6), had recovered spiritual peace. But there is yet another aspect to the personality of the author of "Job"--his open eye and ear for the sights and lessons of external nature. He might have said with a better right than Goethe, "What I have not gained by learning I have by travel." He is such a one as Sirach describes (Ecclus. 39: 4), He will travel through strange countries, for he hath tried the good and the evil among men. From a wide observation of nature he derived the magnificent scenery-scenery, however, which is much more than scenery, for it furnishes important elements of his sacred philosophy. Not that the imagination is allowed to be inactive; indeed, one may ask, Where in the Bible is the imagination allowed to be dormant, and would the Bible have conquered its place in the world's respect had it been otherwise? No; our

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poet devoted his imagination, as his next precious offering, in the service of religion. For the full and free consideration of his subject, he felt that he required an absolutely clear medium, disengaged from the associations even of the true, the revealed religion. And is he not in this point also a warrant for the "apologetic" treatment to which we, like the author of Job," though in other forms, are obliged to subject our religion? With a poet's tact, and with a true sympathy for doubters, he created an ideal medium in which hardly anything Israelitish is visible. The elements which he fused together came from the three countries with which he seems to have been best acquainted- Arabia, Judah, Egypt. From Arabia he takes the position which he assign to Job, of a great agriculturist-chieftain. The stars of the Arabian sky must have deepened his unmistakable interest in astronomy (9:9; 38:31-33). Personal knowledge of caravan-life seems to have suggested that most touching figure which our own Cowper has so finely though so inaccurately paraphrased (6: 15-20). And the same desert regions doubtless inspired those splendid descriptions of the wild goat, the wild ass, and the horse (chap. 39), which extorted a tribute of admiration from the traveller Humboldt. But neither agricultural life alone nor the phenomena of the desert have furnished him with sufficient poetical material. He who would rise to the height of this great argument" must have gained his experience of life on a more extensive and changeful theatre. From Judah, then, the poet borrows his picture of citylife, which presupposes a complex social organism,_with_kings, priests, judges, physicians, authors, and wise men. This description of the sessions of Job in the gate (chap. 29) is distinctly Judæan in character. It was the Nile valley, however, which supplied the most vivid colors to his palette. He is acquainted with the Nile and its papyrus-boats (9:26), with the plants which grow on its banks (8: 11; 40: 21), and with the habits of the two wonderful animals ("Behemoth,' or the hippopotamus, and the Leviathan," or the crocodile *), which frequent its banks (40: 15; 41:34). He is no less familiar with mining operations (28: 1-11), such as were practised since the earliest times by the Egyptians. But the author of "Job" is no mere observer of details. Phenomena are in his eyes but manifestations of the perfect and all-ruling but incomprehensible wisdom of God (chaps. 28, 38-41). "From us, a great preacher has said, "the wonder of these things [in too many of our moods] is gone. We have entered the

*Such at least is the prevalent view of these animals. To M. Chabas, the Egyptologist, however, the descriptions seem to have a fabulous tinge, which contrasts with the accurate pictures of the desert animals. He also remarks that the Egyptians often represented animals which can never have existed out of wonderland. (Etudes sur l'antiquité historique, prem. éd., pp. 391-8.)