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 (which even permits him to borrow from the rich legendary material of heathendom[133]) and the morning freshness of his descriptions of nature—he comes nearer to the author of _Job_ than either Goethe or Milton, while in the absoluteness and fervour of his faith Milton is in modern times his only rival.

The preceding comparison will, it is hoped, leave the reader with a sense of our great literary as well as religious debt to the author of _Job_. His gifts were varied, but in one department his originality is nothing less than Homeric; his Colloquies are the fountain-head from which the great river of philosophic poetry took its origin. He is the first of those poet-theologians from whom we English have learned so much, and who are all the more impressive as teachers because the truths which they teach are steeped in emotion, and have for their background a comprehensive view of the complex and many-coloured universe.

Footnote 126:

Migne, _Synes. et Theod._, col. 698. Comp. Kihn, _Theodor von Mopsuestia_, p. 68 &c.

Footnote 127:

_The Reason of Church Government_, Book II.

Footnote 128:

Comp. Bateson Wright, _The Book of Job_, pp. 29-31.

Footnote 129:

Bunsen observes, not badly, ‘Hiob ist ein semitisches Drama aus der Zeit der Gefangenschaft. Das Dramatische windet sich aber erst aus dem Epos heraus, ohne eine selbstständige Gestalt zu gewinnen.’ _Gott in der Geschichte_, i. 291.

Footnote 130:

Compare Satan after his overthrow with Tasso’s Soldan (_Gerus. Lib._, c. ix., st. 98.)

Footnote 131:

Mr. Sutherland Edwards (_Fortnightly Review_, Nov. 1885, p. 687) states that Hebrew etymologies have proved failures. But the steps of the change from _mastema_ to Mephistopheles are all proved, beginning with the name Mastiphat, for the prince of the demons, in the chronographers Syncellus and Georg. Cedrenus (comp. Μαστιφαάτ = Mastema in the Book of Jubilees). Comp. Diez, _Roman. Wörterbuch_, i. pp. xxv., xxvi.

Footnote 132:

Turner and Morshead, _Faust_ (1882), pp. 307-8.

Footnote 133:

On the parallel phenomena in Job, see Chap. IX.

NOTE ON JOB AND THE MODERN POETS.

Job, like Spenser, should be the poet of poets; but though Goethe has imitated him in royal fashion, and here and there other poets such as Dante may offer allusions, yet Milton is the only poet who seems to have absorbed Job. _Paradise Regained_ is in both form and contents a free imitation of the Book of Job, the story of which is described in i. 368-370, 424-6, iii. 64-67. The following are the principal allusions in _Paradise Lost_:—i. 63, comp. Job x. 22; ii. 266, comp. Job iv. 16; ii. 603, comp. Job xxiv. 19 Vulg.; iv. 999, comp. Job xxviii. 25; vii. 253-4 (Hymn on the Nativity, st. 12), comp. Job xxxviii. 4-7; vii. 373-5, comp. Job xxxviii. 31; vii. 102, comp. Job xxxviii. 5. Shelley, too, is said to have delighted in Job; I must leave others to trace this in his works. I conclude with Thomas Carlyle. The words—‘Was Man with his Experience present at the Creation, then, to see how it all went on? System of Nature! To the wisest man, wide as is his vision, Nature remains of quite _infinite_ depth, of quite infinite expansion’[134]—are at once a paraphrase of the questions of Eliphaz, ‘Art thou the first man that was born?... Didst thou hearken in the council of Eloah?’ (xv. 7, 8), and a suggestive statement of the problem of _Job_ as a challenge to limited human ‘experience’ to prove its capacity for criticising God’s ways.

Footnote 134:

_Sartor Resartus_ (‘Natural Supernaturalism’).

NOTE ON THE TEXT OF JOB.

That the received text of our Hebrew Bible has a long history behind it, is generally recognised; and few will deny that its worst corruptions arose in the pre-Massoretic and pre-Talmudic periods (comp. _The Prophecies of Isaiah_, vol. ii., Essay vii.) The popularity of the Book of Job may not have been equal to that of many other books, but we have seen reason to suppose that within the circles of the ‘wise men’ it was eagerly studied and imitated. In those early times such popularity was a source of danger to the text, and hasty copyists left their mark on many a corrupt passage. Is there any remedy for this?

Dr. Merx’s book, _Das Gedicht von Hiob_ (1871), has the merits and defects of pioneering works, but his introduction should by all means be studied. Two points in it have to be examined, (1) the relative position given by Merx to the chief ancient versions, and (2) the use which he makes of his own strophic arrangement for detecting interpolations or gaps in the text. More, I think, is to be gained from his discussion of the use of the versions than from his strophic arrangement; and yet before quite so much importance is attached to the text of the Septuagint, ought we not to be surer than we are of the antiquity and of the critical value of the Septuagint _Job_? That version may not be of as recent origin[135] as Grätz would have it, but can hardly be much earlier than the second century B.C. Before this date the text of _Job_ had time to suffer much from the usual causes of corruption. Besides this, there are special reasons for distrusting the literal accuracy of the translator. He seems to have been in his own way an artist, and to have sought to reproduce poetry in poetical language. In this respect his vocabulary differs from that of all the other Septuagint translators; he thinks more of his Greek readers than of his Hebrew original. Had he been more mechanical in his method, the critical value of his work would have been greater. I agree therefore with H. Schultz that even where the Septuagint and the Peshitto are united against the Massoretic reading, the decisive arguments for the reading of the former will be, not the external one of testimony, but the internal one (if so be it exists) of suitableness.

Mr. Bateson Wright goes almost farther than Dr. Merx in his opinion of the corruptness of the received text. His work on _Job_ (1883), however unripe, shows remarkable independence, and contains, among many rash, a few striking emendations. That he does not restrict himself to corrections suggested by the versions, is not in the least a defect; the single drawback to his work is that he has not pondered long enough before writing. Purely conjectural emendation was doubtless often resorted to by the old translators themselves; it was and still is perfectly justified, though to succeed in its use requires a singular combination of caution and boldness which even older critics have not always attained. Special attention is devoted by Mr. Wright to the poetical features of the speeches in _Job_. Dr. Merx had already observed that most of the στίχοι contain eight syllables, to read which, however, it is often needful to dispense with Metheg and with the Chateph vowels, and contract the dual terminations. Mr. Wright, building upon Dr. Merx’s foundation, offers a more elaborate scheme, which cannot be discussed here. It was a misfortune for him that he had not before him the ambitious metrical transliteration of _Job_ by G. Bickell, in his _Carmina Vet. Test. metrice_, of which I would rather say nothing here than too little.

Subsequent editors of the text of _Job_ will have one advantage, which will affect their critical use of the Septuagint. It is well known that the Alexandrine version was largely interpolated from that of Theodotion. The early Septuagint text itself can however now be reconstructed, through a manuscript of the Sahidic or Thebaic version from Upper Egypt. (Comp. Lagarde, _Mittheilungen_, pp. 203-5; Agapios Bsciai, art. in _Moniteur de Rome_, Oct. 26, 1883.) Dr. Merx was well aware of the necessity of expurgating the Septuagint, and would have hailed this much-desired aid in the work (see p. lxxi. of his introduction).

So much must suffice in my present limits on the subject of metre and textual emendation. I need not thus qualify the list which follows of gaps and misplacements of text in our Book of Job. Observe (1) that Bildad’s third speech (chap. xxv.) is too short. Probably, as Mr. Elzas has suggested,[136] the continuation of it has been wrongly placed as xxvi. 5-14; the affinity of this passage to chap. xxv. is obvious. Probably the close of Bildad’s speech is wanting. If so (2), something must have dropped out of Job’s reply, since xxvi. 4 has no connection with xxvii. 2. (3) Zophar’s third speech appears to be wanting, but may really be contained in chap. xxvii. (ver. 8 to end). The student should not fail to observe that xxvii. 13 is a repetition of xx. 29. As the text stands, Job is made to recant his statements in chaps. xxi., xxiv., and to assert that there is (not merely ought to be) a just and exact retribution. The tone, moreover, of xxvii. 9, 10 is not in accordance with Job’s previous speeches. If this view be correct, an introductory formula (‘And Zophar answered and said’) must have fallen out at the beginning of ver. 7, and probably one or more introductory verses.[137] (4) The verses which originally introduced chap. xxviii. must (on account of the causal particle ‘for’ in ver. 1) either have dropped out, or else have been neglected by the person who inserted the chapter in the Book of Job. (5) The passage xxxi. 38-40 has at any rate been misplaced (Delitzsch), and probably, as Merx has pointed out, should be inserted between ver. 32 and ver. 33. Thus verses 35-37 will furnish an appropriate and impressive close to the chapter. (6) xxxvi. 31 should probably go after ver. 28 (not ver. 29, as Dillmann misstates the conjecture); verses 30, 32 have a natural connection (Olshausen). (7) The passage xli. 9-12 destroys the connection, and should probably be placed immediately before chap. xxxviii. 1, as an introductory speech of Jehovah. In that case, we must, with Merx, supply the words, ‘And Jehovah said,’ before ver. 9.

Footnote 135:

‘A child of the first Christian century,’ Grätz’s _Monatsschrift_, p. 91. Nöldeke dates this version about 150 B.C. (_Gott. gel. Anzeigen_, 1865, p. 575).

Footnote 136:

Elzas, _The Book of Job_ (1872), p. 83; Grätz inclines to a similar view.

Footnote 137:

A similar view has been propounded by Kennicott, and also more recently by Grätz (_Monatsschrift_, 1872, p. 247). But Kennicott regarded chap. xxviii. as Job’s reply to Zophar, while Grätz would include it in the speech of Zophar.

AIDS TO THE STUDENT.

There are many books and articles of importance besides the commentaries. Among these are Hupfeld, _Commentatio in quosdam Jobeïdos locos_ (1855); Bickell, _De indole ac ratione versionis Alexandrinæ in interpretando libro Iobi_ (1862); G. Baur, ‘Das Buch Hiob und Dante’s Göttliche Comödie,’ _Theol. Studien und Kritiken_ (1856), p. 583 &c. (with which may be grouped Quinet’s splendid chapter, in his early work on religions, entitled Comparaison du scepticisme oriental et du scepticisme occidental’); Seinecke, _Der Grundgedanke des Buches Hiob_ (1863); Froude, ‘The Book of Job,’ _Short Studies_, Series 1 (1867), p. 266 &c.; Reuss, _Das Buch Hiob_ (1869); Plumptre, ‘The Authorship of the Book of Job,’ _Biblical Studies_ (1870), p. 173 &c.; C. Taylor, ‘A Theory of Job xix. 25-27,’ _Journal of Philology_ (1871), pp. 128-152; Godet, ‘Le livre de Job,’ _Etudes bibliques_, prem. partie (1873), p. 185 &c.; Turner, ‘The History of Job, and its Place in the Scheme of Redemption,’ _Studies Biblical and Oriental_ (1876), p. 133 &c.; Grätz, chapter on Job in _Geschichte der Juden_, Bd. iii.; Studer, ‘Ueber die Integrität des Buches Hiob,’ _Jahrbücher für protestant. Theologie_ (1875), p. 688 &c., comp. 1877, p. 540 &c.; Budde, _Beiträge zur Kritik des Buches Hiob_ (1876), reviewed by Smend in _Studien u. Kritiken_ (1878), pp. 153-173; Giesebrecht, _Der Wendepunkt des Buches Hiob_ (1879); Derenbourg, ‘Réflexions détachées sur le livre de Job,’ _Revue des études juives_ (1880), pp. 1-8; Claussen, ‘Das Verhältniss der Lehre des Elihu zu derjenigen der drei Freunde,’ _Zeitschr. f. kirchl. Wissenschaft und Leben_ (1884), pp. 393 &c., 449 &c., 505 &c.; W. H. Green, _The Argument of the Book of Job Unfolded_ (1881); Cheyne, ‘Job and the Second Part of Isaiah,’ _Isaiah_, ii. 259 &c., with which compare the very full essay of Kuenen, Job en de lijdende knecht van Jahveh,’ _Theologisch Tijdschrift_ (1873), p. 492 &c.; Delitzsch, art. ‘Hiob,’ Herzog-Plitt’s _Realencyclopadie_, bd. vi. (1880).

THE BOOK OF PROVERBS.