Slike strani
PDF
ePub

bosoms with all the tenderness of a fellow sufferer. This was nature: this was history. And shall we suppose the feelings of true friendship to be inferior to those of family affection? David thought otherwise, where, speaking of Jonathan, he declares their mutual love was wonderful, surpassing that of the strongest natural affection, the passion between the two sexes. The same have always been the friendships of good men, when founded on virtue, and strengthened by a similitude of

manners.

So that it appears, these three friends were of a singular complexion; and deservedly gave occasion to a proverb which sets them in no very honourable or advantageous light.

But suppose now the work to be dramatical, and we immediately see the reason of their behaviour. For had they not been indulged in their strange captious humour, the author could never have produced a piece of that integrity of action, which a scenic representation demanded: and they might as well have held their tongues seven days longer, as not contradict, when they did begin to speak.*

This, as to what the drama in general required. But had this been all we could say for their conduct, we should needs confess that the divine writer had here done, what mere mortal poets so frequently do; that is, had transgressed nature (in such a representation of friendship) for the sake of his plot. But we shall show, when we come to examine the MORAL of the poem, that nature is exactly followed: for that under these three miserable comforters, how true friends soever in the fable, certain false friends were intended to be shadowed out in the moral.†

But now the dispute is begun and carried on with great vehemence on both sides. They affirm, they object, they answer, they reply; till, having exhausted their whole stock of arguments, and made the matter more doubtful than they found it, the author, in this embarrassment, has recourse to the common expedient of dramatic writers, to draw him from his straits, – Θεὸς ἀπὸ μηχανῆς. And if ever that precept of the masters of composition,

"Nec deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus,"

was well followed, it was here. For what can we conceive more worthy the presence of a God, than to interfere, with his authority, to silence those frivolous or impious disputes amongst men concerning the MYSTERIOUS WAYS OF PROVIDENCE? And that this interposition was nothing more, I think, is evident from hence: The subject, as we observe, was of the highest importance, namely, whether, and why, good men are unhappy, and the evil prosperous. The disputants had much perplexed the question by various answers and replies: in which each side had appealed to reason and experience: so that there wanted a superior wisdom to moderate and determine. But to the surprise of all who consider this attentively, and consider it as a strict history, they find GOD introduced to do this in a speech which clears up no difficulties: but † See note F. at the end of this book.

* See note t the end of this book. VOL. IL.

2 в

makes all hopes of deciding the question desperate, by an appeal to his Almighty power.* A plain proof that the interposition was no more than a piece of poetical machinery. And in that case we see the reason why the knot remains untied: for the sacred writer was no wisert when he spoke poetically in the person of God, than when he spoke in the person of Job or his friends.

On these accounts, and on many more, which will be touched upon in the course of this dissertation, but are here omitted to avoid repetition, I conclude, that those critics who suppose the book of Job to be of the dramatic kind, do not judge amiss.

Nor does such idea of this truly divine composition at all detract from the proofs we have of the real existence of this holy patriarch, or of the truth of his exemplary story. On the contrary, it much confirms them: seeing it was the general practice of dramatic writers, of the serious kind, to choose an illustrious character or celebrated adventure for the subject of the piece, in order to give their poem its due dignity and weight. And yet, which is very surprising, the writers on both sides, as well those who suppose the book of Job to be dramatical, as those who hold it to be historical, have fallen into this paralogism, that, if dramatical, then the person and history of Job are fictitious. Which nothing but inattention to the nature of a dramatic work, and to the practice of dramatic writers, could have occasioned. Lactantius had a much better idea of this species of composition: "Totum autem, quod referas, fingere, id est, ineptum esse, et mendacem potius quam poetam."

But this fallacy is not of late standing. Maimonides, where he speaks of those whose opinion he seems to incline to, that say the book of Job is parabolical, expresses himself in this manner. You know there are certain men who say, that such a man as Job never existed. And that his HISTORY is nothing else but a parable. These certain men were (we know) the Talmudists. Now, as, by his history, he means this book of Job, it is evident he supposed the fabulosity of the book concluded against the existence of the patriarch. Nay, so insensibly does this inveterate fallacy insinuate itself into our reasonings on this subject, that even GROTIUS himself appears not to be quite free from the entanglement. Who, although he saw these two things (a real Job and a dramatic representation of him) so reconcilable, that he supposed both; yet will not allow the book of Job to be later then Ezekiel, because that prophet mentions Job. Which argument, to have any strength, must suppose Job to be unknown until this book was written: consequently that his person was fictitious; contrary to his own supposition, that there was a real Job living in the time of Moses.|| After this, it is no wonder that the author of the Archæologiæ Philosophica, whose talent was not critical acumen, should have reasoned so grossly on the same fallacious * See note G, at the end of this book. † See note H, at the end of this book. † Nosti quosdam esse, qui dicunt Jobum nunquam fuisse, neque creatum esse; sed HisTORIAM illius nihil aliud esse quàm parabolam. Chap. xiv. ver. 14. || Vid. Grotii Pref, in Librum Job.

*

principle. These learned men, we see, would infer a visionary Job from a visionary history. Nor is the mistake of another celebrated writer less gross, who would, on the contrary, infer a real history from a real Job. Ezekiel and St James (says Dr Middleton, in his Essay on the Creation and Fall of Man) refer to the BOOK OF JOB in the same manner as if it were a real history. Whereas the truth is, they do not refer to the BOOK OF JOB at all.

II. The second question to be considered, is in what age this book was composed.

1. First then we say in general, that it was written some time under the Mosaic dispensation. But to this it is objected, that, if it were composed in those times, it is very strange that not a single word of the Mosaic law, nor any distant allusion to the rites or ceremonies of it, nor any historical circumstance under it, nor any species of idolatry in use during its period, should be found in it.f

I apprehend the objection rests on one or other of these suppositions, either that the book is not a work of the dramatic kind: or that the hero of the piece is fictitious. But both these suppositions have been shown to be erroneous; so that the objection falls with them. For to observe DECORUM is one of the most essential rules of dramatic writing. He therefore who takes a real personage for the subject of his poem will be obliged to show him in the customs and sentiments of his proper age and country; unmixed with the manners of the writer's later time and place. Nature and the reason of the thing so evidently demand this conduct, and the neglect of it has so ungracious an effect, that the polite Roman historian thought the Greek tragic writers were to blame even for mentioning the more modern name of Thessaly, in their pieces of the Trojan war. And he gives this good reason for his censure, Nihil enim ex persona poëtæ, sed omnia sub eorum, qui illo tempore vixerunt, dixerunt.‡

But to lay no greater stress on this argument than it will bear; I confess ingenuously, that were there not (as the objection supposes) the least distant relation or allusion to the Jewish law or history throughout the whole book, it might reasonably create some suspicion that the author lived before those times. For though this rule of decorum be so essential to dramatic writing, yet, as the greatest masters in that art frequently betrayed their own times and country in their fictitious works,§ we can hardly suppose a Jewish writer more exact in what only concerned the critical perfection of his piece. But as DECORUM is one of the plainest and simplest principles of composition, we cannot suppose a good writer ignorant of it; and so are not to look for such glaring absurdities as are to be found in the dramatic writings of late barbarous ages; but such only as might easily escape the most exact and best instructed writer.

* See note I, at the end of this book.

† Jobus Arabs πολυκλειτὸς καὶ πολυμαθὴς, in cujus historia multa occurrunt antiquæ sapientiæ vestigia, antiquior habetur Mose. Idque multis patet indiciis: Primo, quòd nullibi meminerit rerum à Mose gestarum sive in Ægypto, sive in exitu, sive in deserto.. Secundo, quòd, cùm vir pius et veri Numinis cultor fuerit, legi Mosaicæ contraiverit, in sacrificiis faciendis. -Tertio, ex ætatis et vitæ suæ mensura, in tertio, plus minus, à diluvio sreculo collocandus esse videtur: vixit enim ultra ducentos annos. Cùm de idololatria loquitur, memorat primum ipsius genus solis et lunæ adorationem. Neque sabbathi neque ullius legis factitiæ meminit. - His omnibus adducor ut credam, Mosi Jobum tempore anteisse.- Archæol. Philos. pp. 265, 266.

See note K, at the end of this book.

$See note L, at the end of this book.

Some slight indecorums therefore we may reasonably expect to find, if the author were indeed a Jew: and such, if I am not much mistaken, we shall find Job, speaking of the wicked man, says, He that speaketh flattery to his friends, even the eyes of his children shall fail*-GOD layeth up iniquity for his children. And in the couse of the dispute, and in the heat of altercation, this peculiar dispensation is touched upon yet more precisely. Job, in support of his doctrine, paints at large the happy condition of prosperous wicked men; a principal circumstance of whose felicity is, that they spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave, ‡ i. e. without sickness, or the terrors of slow approaching death. The lot which prosperous libertines of all times, who believe no future reckoning, most ardently wish for. Now in the declining times of the Jewish economy, pious men had always their answer ready. The prosperous wicked man, say they, shall be punished in his posterity, and the afflicted good man rewarded in them. To the first part of the solution concerning the wicked, Job answers thus, God layeth up his iniquity for his children; he rewardeth him, and he shall know it.§ As much as to say, the evil man sees and knows nothing of the punishment; in the mean time, he feels and enjoys his own felicity, as a reward. To the second part, concerning the good, he answers thus, "His eyes shall see his destruction, and he shall drink of the wrath of the Almighty: for what pleasure hath he in his house after him, when the number of his months is cut off in the midst?" i. e. The virtuous man sees and feels nothing but his own miseries; for what pleasure can the good things reserved for his posterity afford to him who is to taste and enjoy none of it; being not only extinct long before, but cut off untimely?

In another place, Job says, That idolatry was an iniquity to be punished by the judge. Now both this and the former species of punishment were, as we have shown, peculiar to the Mosaic dispensation. But a Jew might naturally mistake them for a part of the general law of God and nature: and so, while he was really describing the economy under which he lived, suppose himself to be representing the notions of more ancient times: which that it was his design to do, in the last instance at least, appears from his mentioning only the most early species of idolatry, the worship of the sun and moon.** Again, the language of Job with regard to a future state is the very same with the Jewish writers. He that goeth down to the grave, says this writer, shall come up no more: they shall not awake or be raised out of their sleep. Thus the psalmist, In death there is no remembrance of thee. - Shall the dead ARISE and praise thee! And thus the author of Ecclesiastes, The dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a REWARD. And we know what it was that hindered the Jews from entertaining any expectations of a future state of rewards and punishments, which was a popular doctrine amongst all their pagan neighbours.

* Chap. xvii. ver. 5. † Chap. xxi. ver. 19. See note M, at the end of this book ‡ Chap. xxi. ver. 13. Chap. xxi. ver. 19. Chap. xxxi, ver. 28. Sce note N, at the end of this book.

|| Ver. 20, 21.

** Ver. 26.

*

But there is, besides this of customs and opinions, another circumstance that will always betray a feigned composition, made in an age remote from the subject: and that is, the use of later phrases. These are more easily discovered in the modern, and even in what we call the learned languages: but less certainly, in the very ancient ones; especially in the Hebrew, of which there is only one, and that no very large volume, remaining. And yet even here, we may detect an author of a later age. For, besides the phrases of common growth, there are others, in every language, interwoven alike into the current style, which owe their rise to some singular circumstance of time and place; and so may be easily traced up to their original: though, being long used in common speech in a general acceptation, they may well escape even an attentive writer. Thus Zophar, speaking of the wicked man, says; he shall not see the rivers, the floods, the BROOKS OF HONEY AND BUTTER.† This in ordinary speech only conveyed the idea of plenty in the abstract; but seems to have been first made a proverbial saying from the descriptions of the holy land. Again, Eliphaz says, Receive, I pray thee, THE LAW FROM HIS MOUTH, and lay up his words in thine heart.§ That is, be obedient: but the phrase was taken from the verbal delivery of the Jewish law from mount Sinai. The Rabbins were so sensible of the expressive peculiarity of this phrase, that they say the LAW OF MOSES is here spoken of by a kind of prophetic anticipation. Again, Job cries out, O that I were as I was in the days of my youth, when the SECRET OF GOD WAS UPON MY TABERNACLE,|| that is, in full security: Evidently taken from the residence of the divine presence or SHEKINAH, in a visible form, on the ark, or on the tent where the ark was placed. And again-O that one would hear me! Behold my desire is that the Almighty would answer me, and that mine adversary had written a book. Surely I would take it upon my shoulder and bind it as a CROWN to me. A phrase apparently taken from the use of their PHYLACTERIES; which at least were as ancient as their return from captivity, and coeval with their scrupulous adherence to the law.

A third circumstance, which will betray one of these feigned compositions, is the author's being drawn, by the vigour of his imagination, from † Chap. xx. ver. 17.

* See the preceding book, p. 334.

See Exod. iii. 8.-xiii. 5.-xxxii. 3.-Deut. xxxi. 20.-2 Kings xviii. 32.
Chap. xxii. ver. 22. || Chap. xxix. ver. 4.

Chap. xxxi, ver. 35, 36,

« PrejšnjaNaprej »