Heresy X, Of the Book of Job

OF THE BOOK OF JOB — Heresy X (De Libro Iob. Haeresis X)

That the history of the book of Job is a fiction; and that Job himself never existed among men [in human affairs].

ASSERTORES HVIVS HAERESEOS [The Assertors of this Heresy]

This also is a heresy of the Anabaptists of our age, who, deriding this book, call it a Tragicomedy of the Hebrews — that is, a fable [fiction], put forth partly according to the laws of comedy, partly according to [the laws] of tragedy: because at the beginning of the history itself the slaughter of the sons and daughters of Job is related (which is customary in tragedies), but at the end (which is proper to comedy) the happy outcomes of Job are set down.

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IMPVGNATIO [The Refutation]

And this (Atque) impious error the re-dipped [retincti — a pun: the “re-dyed,” i.e. re-baptized] Anabaptists received from the circumcised Jews out of בבא בתרא (Baba Bathra) — that is, from the third part of the fourth order of the Talmudic books. To which the divine scripture wholly contradicts, which testifies not only that Job existed among men [in humanis], but numbers him among the men foremost in sanctity. For in Ezekiel God says: “If (Si) Noah [Nohe], Daniel, and Job shall have stood in the midst [of a sinning land], they in their [own] justice shall free their souls.” And James, in his catholic [epistle], proposing the admirable patience of Job for imitation in adversities: “The endurance (Sufferentiam) of Job,” he says, “you have heard, and you have seen the end of the Lord.” Who, if he had nowhere existed in the universe of things, scripture surely would not have so diligently noted his name, and [that] of his city, the number of his sons and of his daughters, his wife too, and the number — item by item — of all his goods, from oxen down to asses, likewise the days of his life, and the names of his friends, and their race, household, and fatherland. ¹ To this accedes, that Paul and the rest of the apostles borrowed from this holy history many illustrious sentences — not as from a fabricated fable, but as from a most true scripture — such as these: “We brought NOTHING (Nihil intulimus) into this world,” etc.; and, “I will COMPREHEND (Comprehendam) the wise in their own craftiness”; and, “God is NOT (Non est) a respecter of persons”; and, “God spared NOT (Deus… non pepercit) the sinning angels,” and several others of this kind similar. Most true, therefore, and most holy, is this history, and worthy to be held before the eyes by all the pious throughout their whole life — inasmuch as in it is set before us the perfect form of a religious man, and truly wise, who is neither puffed up by prosperous things, nor broken by adverse, nor in either deserts his God, but, immovable in faith and constant in hope, perseveres through all kinds of temptations. ² Wherefore rightly Moses translated this holy history — written first in Syriac, whether by Job or by his friends — into the Hebrew tongue, for the consolation of his Hebrews when they were being oppressed in Egypt by Pharaoh: so that, while they read those vehement sorrows of the blessed man, they might mutually console one another, and with patience and thanksgiving bear the evils which had surrounded them; and, hearing of the remuneration which God bestowed on blessed Job after [his] endurance, might themselves also hope for liberation, and expect the reward of their labors. And so this holy book — which the Councils so often mentioned received into the Canon, and the perpetual consensus of the Church has approved — is to be received by all the faithful with all veneration. ³

OBIECTIONES HAERETICORVM [The Objections of the Heretics]

1. That the argument [plot] of the book of Job is comic, and fabricated according to the laws of the stage [scene], appears from this: that nothing certain can be had concerning the persons, nor the place, nor the time, nor the author of this history — the writers, no less Hebrew than Greek and Latin, dissenting among themselves. And first, concerning Job himself — who holds the chief part in this history, and on whom the argument of the whole narration leans — there is no small controversy. Origen, in the first chapter of the commentaries on Job, writes that this Job was an Arab, of the race of Esau, born in the land of Uz [Vsitis] — moved by certain words which are read in the common Greek edition toward the end of that book, where Job is said to have dwelt in the land of Uz, in the confines of Arabia, whose name before had been Iobab, and [who] was son of Zareth [Zerah], of the sons of Esau, of the mother Bozra, fifth from Abraham, fourth from Esau. To whom Augustine, in the eighteenth book On the City of God, consents. But Ambrose, in the commentary on the epistle to the Romans, thinks he was a king in Edom — from the fact that in Genesis it is read that kings once reigned in Edom, of whom the first was Balach [Bela] son of Beor, after whom Iobab reigned; whom Ambrose believed to be Job, deceived by the affinity of the words [names], which nevertheless among the Hebrews differ much, not only in the beginning, but also in the end of the word. For Job, from the letter א (aleph) with a hiriq point subscribed, is thus written איוב (Iyyob); but Iobab, beginning from the letter Iod, is thus written יובב (Yobab). But Jerome, in the Hebrew Questions, esteems those to judge falsely who believe Job to have been of the seed of Esau, asserting that he descended from the stock of Nachor [Nahor] the brother of Abraham. But others, whom Jerome cites in the same book, said Job to be that Iasub [Jashub] who, in the beginning of Paralipomenon [Chronicles], after Thola [Tola] and Suhal [Shuah], is numbered in the catalogue of the sons of Israel. But all the most ancient of the Hebrews — who, as more skilled concerning their own genealogies, are the more to be believed — hand down that Job never existed among men, but that this book was fabricated by an uncertain author under the person of Job: namely, as an example of patience, unto the instruction of endurance in adversities, and unto the solace of oncoming calamities. To which argument [design] they wish all the persons of the present book aptly to correspond. For there is set, in the first place, a man tossed through all kinds of evils, and oppressed with pains intolerable to human patience, on whom, from the outcome of his own misery, is imposed the name IOB — that is, “grieving, groaning, and howling, and afflicting himself.” He is feigned also, not ineptly, [to be] of the land of Hus [Uz], which is interpreted “counsel,” that we may learn that by counsel and prudence every kind of misfortune and hardship is easily overcome. But there are sent against so great a man — as if about to contend in the wrestling-school [palaestra] — not any sort of manikins from the lowest commons, but [men] distinguished by splendid names: Eliphaz, Baldad [Bildad], Sophar [Zophar], and Heliu [Elihu]. For Baldad is interpreted “ancient secrets”; Sophar, “watchman, or trumpet”; Eliphaz, “the gold of God”; but Heliu, “God himself”: that in these it may be shown that against a man of Uz — that is, [a man] armed with counsel and prudence — no riches of men, however great, nor power, nor wisdom, prevails. Whence also, in the last act of this fable — in which the matter obtains a happier issue, as is wont to happen in comedies — God himself is brought in, who, as the best judge, restored to the most valiant man double for all [the things] which he had lost. And that the fable might be more delightful by the variety of speech, its single parts are so disposed by a certain comic method that its exordium begins in loose [prose] speech; then there follow acts, described after the manner of a drama in hexameter and pentameter verses, sometimes also with certain jingling rhythms [rhymes] interposed; and just as in the comedies, as well of the Greeks as of the La-[tins]

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the diverse kinds of languages of the Latins are sometimes wont to be mixed [in], for the greater delight of the hearers — as in Aristophanes, in the comedy which is entitled Acharnians, a certain barbarian is brought in speaking the Persian tongue; and in Plautus, in the Poenulus, a certain African, Hanno, speaks in Punic — so in this fable [of Job] various kinds of languages are brought in. And [they say] one part of the narration, Jerome himself being witness, is digested in the Arabic speech, another in Syriac, another indeed written in Hebrew eloquence. And this is the opinion of the ancient Jews concerning the argument [plot] of this book. To the confirmation of which makes [also] the uncertainty of the place and of the time in which Job is reported to have lived — some, with Origen, affirming him to have been contemporary with Moses; others (among whom is Augustine) believing him to have lived long before the giving of the Law. Concerning the place likewise the opinion is varied. The author of this book relates that he was born in the land of Uz [Vsitis]; Augustine [says he was] born in Idumaea, and there brought up and dead; Ambrose [that he] reigned in Edom; Origen writes that he lived in Arabia and was an Arab. Concerning the author of the present book, similarly, no one of the writers agrees with another. For — as Gregory in the preface to Job, and Isidore in the sixth book of the Etymologies, relate — some judge Moses to be its author; others think that Job himself wrote it after the stroke of his passion [suffering]; others [that it was] the companions of Job; others, one of the prophets. Wherefore, since concerning the argument, the persons, the place, the author, and the time of the book nothing stands [established], it seems to be judged that the present history was written not according to the truth of the deed, but for the sake of example and imitation, unto the commendation of patience. ⁴

2. But however the matter itself may stand, the author of this narration could not be so Lynceus [sharp-eyed] but that he strayed much from the aim [σκοπός] of his proposed argument. For he, when he had set out to fashion the person of a perfect man, and above all a most enduring one — whom neither prosperous things should lift up into pride, nor adverse cast down into desperation — nevertheless, in the very course of the narration, against the order of his own design, and against all the laws of patience, more than once draws that most patient man into the crime of impatience and of blasphemy: charging him that he cursed the day of his birth, saying, “He cursed (Maledixit) his day,” and says: “Let the day perish in which I was born, and the night, in which it was said, A man is conceived.” And, as if this were a light crime, he describes his indignation against God — that he brought him out of the womb, and that, [Job] having come forth from the womb, he did not straightway slay him. Thereupon feigning him [to be] driven by desperation — indignant words too being premised — to run to the halter [noose], saying: “My soul (Suspendium) has chosen hanging, and my bones death; I have despaired, neither shall I now live any longer.” He makes him also a boaster of his own justice, and an accuser of the justice of God, when he says: “Would that (Utinam) my sins were weighed in a balance! — as [if] the sand of the sea, [my] punishment which I suffer would be found heavier than my iniquity.” Than which — what more iniquitous can be devised against the justice of God? or what more arrogantly could be pronounced than what the author here brought forth out of the mouth of Job? “My heart (Non… cor meum) does not reprehend me in all my life” — whereas, on the contrary, it is written: “There is not (Non) a holy [man] on earth, who sins not.” And in another place, accusing the providence of God through the mouth of that blessed man — that his patience is not a care to him: “Where (Ubi) now,” he says, “is my expectation, and who considers my patience?” Nor content with this alone, he casts him headlong into that desperation, that he should object cruelty to God — no otherwise than to some most cruel torturer — with reproach, saying: “Thou art turned (Versus es) to me into a cruel [one]: if thou scourgest, slay [me] at once; or at least laugh not at the punishments of the innocent.” Which words indeed, and others of this kind — which everywhere in the book of Job are read, full of indignation, impatience, and desperation — manifestly convince [prove] that the author of this history so far digressed from his own aim that, in place of a most pious and most valiant man, he set before us a most impatient one. ⁵

DILVTIO OBIECTORVM [The Dissolution of the Objections]

1. If it be permitted us, by conjectures so light, to pronounce concerning the holy letters — [so] that those histories in the sacred volumes be judged false which consist of a variety of languages, of verses [meters], of names, and of persons — no part of divine scripture, in which these and things similar to these are found, will be true. For by this reason the book of Psalms, the Lamentations of Jeremiah, the end of the book of Proverbs, the Canticle of Canticles of Solomon, and the great Canticle of Moses, will have to be reckoned among fables; and all the volumes, as well of the Old as of the New Testament, will be believed to be fabricated — because so many names are read set down in them according to the properties of the persons. Let the insane Re-baptizers turn over the book of Genesis, and they will find how nearly all human names are mystical, and how, by a certain prophetic spirit and a certain hidden disposition of God, they were imposed by the ancient fathers upon their sons from the very [moment of] birth, so that, from the appellation of the names, the future outcomes of the sons might in some way be fore-noted before they came to pass. Thus the first of all women [was called] Eve — that is, “of [all] the living” — because she was to be the mother of all living, [and] because she was to be such, she was so called. Thus Abraham — because he was to be the author of so numerous a seed — was called Abraham, that is, “father of many nations.” Thus the younger son of Rebecca, by a certain hidden mystery, was called Jacob — that is, “supplanter” — that in the name the supplanting of the brother deceived by him might be noted; and truly of him his brother Esau at some time said: “Rightly (Recte) is his name called Jacob: for he has supplanted me now this second time.” Thus the two sons of David, by [reason of] the future successes of [their] life, thus God inspiring, obtained names of diverse omen: this one, Solomon [Scelomo], that is, “peaceable,” was so called on account of the future peace under his reign; but this other, Absalom — namely, “the father’s bitterness” — was named by an unhappy augury, that the name might portend the bitterness of sorrow which the rebel son was to bring upon [his] father. And, that I may not wander further afield — thus in the New Testament Simon, by a most happy omen, received the name of Peter, and the sons of Zebedee the surname Boanerges, from Christ: that in him [Peter] the first rock of the Church to be built, [and] in these [the sons of Zebedee] the eminence of [their] future preaching, might be shown. To the likeness of these, then, Job — by a certain secret presaging of his calamities and sorrows, before he suffered them — obtains the name of one “grieving and howling”; just as also his companions, either because they were to have a life like [their] names, thus [it being] wil-[ling] ⁶

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God willing [it], they were named; or that they might commend the memory of their progenitors to posterity — so, perhaps, were Eliphaz, Baldad, and Sophar named. For we read that some of those who are reckoned in the genealogy of Esau — whence these [men] drew their origin — were called by these very names. There is taken away, therefore, out of these [considerations], all suspicion of a fabricated name. But concerning the variety of languages, by which the most unskilled Anabaptists judge the diverse parts of the book to be written, it must be known that the author of the present history — whoever he was, whether Job, or some one of his friends — was an Idumaean [Edomite] by race, as the history itself testifies, and wrote this book in the Idumaean tongue, as being natural to him. But just as the Idumaean region — Pliny being witness — is partly mingled with Syria (whose farthest part toward the setting sun it is), partly indeed with Arabia Petraea, to which it is contiguous and into which it runs out — so it is to be judged that the Idumaean tongue was compounded partly of the Syriac, partly of the Arabic language; and that the writer of this book used this [tongue], which, when afterward Moses (as it pleases Origen) had turned into the Hebrew speech, and had rendered word for word rather than sense for sense, it came to pass that the book, turned into Hebrew, so abounded in Syriac and Arabic idioms that it seems to be written in a triple tongue. ⁷ And so, when Jerome, in the preface to Job, writes that his translation, out of the Hebrew, Arabic, and Syriac speech, sounds now the words, now the senses, now both together — his words are not so to be referred to the diversity of three languages that we should believe him to have derived his edition from three fountains of diverse languages, but [are to be understood] as directed [aimed] at the manifold variety of the Hebrew diction, stuffed with innumerable Syriasms and Arabisms. Which Jerome himself also indicated in the preface to Daniel, when he said that the book of Job has very much fellowship with the Arabic tongue — by this saying expressing rather that the book of Job has a likeness to the Arabic, than that any of its parts was written in Arabic. Now indeed, as to what they say — that the writers disagree among themselves concerning the author of this history, and its fatherland — it has so little moment for shaking the truth of the history that it is altogether unworthy of consideration. For, as the blessed Gregory in the preface to Job says: “Who (Quis) wrote these things is very superfluously asked, since the Holy Spirit is faithfully believed [to be] the author of the book: he wrote these things, who dictated these things to be written; he wrote [them], who in this work stood forth [as] inspirer, and through the voice of the writer transmitted his words to us, to be imitated.” Besides this too, neither are the fathers, [when] diligently considered, at variance among themselves concerning the author of the book and its fatherland. For the same [things] concerning these the author of the book of Job — and Origen, and Ambrose, and Augustine — affirm, although the one may say he lived in the land of Uz [Vs], another in Arabia, another in Edom, another in Idumaea. For the same is the land of Uz and Edom, Jeremiah saying in the Lamentations: “Rejoice (Gaude) and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz” — and each is in Idumaea, which is joined partly (as we said) to Syria, partly to Arabia. Whence also Origen, in the first chapter on Job, says: “The Uzzites (Vssitidae) are of the race of Esau, the posterity and tribe of Edom.” For the Uzzites, and the Minaeans, and the Eubeans, and the Temanites, and all the rest of the tribes were of the kindred and lineage of Esau, who was also surnamed Edom. ⁸ And all those tribes were called Idumaeans; but now they are all called by one name, Arabs. Concerning the stock of Job also — which Jerome derives from Abraham through Nachor [Nahor], but Origen, and Ambrose, and Augustine, and Gregory from the same Abraham through Esau — if the mind of each be attentively attended to, either they do not differ at all, or [but] little: since all these spoke according to the sentence [reading] of the old, and of the common Greek and Latin edition, in whose foot [appendix] these words were formerly read: “And Job was (Erat autem Iob) the son of Zareth [Zerah], of the sons of Esau a son, and of the mother Bozra.” But Jerome, as he himself confesses, spoke according to the sentence of the Hebrews, among whom those words are nowhere read in the volume of Job. Nor yet did Jerome wish those to have erred who believed Job to have descended from Esau, but he believed those to be deceived who, to assert this, were moved by no other cause than by the aforesaid words, which the Hebrew verity knew not.

2. I pass now to the execrable blasphemies which the wicked impute to that most holy man — wishing the mentioned sentences to be understood according to the dead letter, which without any doubt are to be expounded according to the mystical understanding of the vivifying Spirit. The very context of the words openly convinces [of this], the preceding and following discourses compelling [us] to it — [discourses] which by no means permit the aforesaid sentences to be understood according to the letter. For how can it be that Job, out of anger and indignation, cursed the day of his birth (as his words outwardly seem to indicate) — [Job] who, after the death of [his] sons, daughters, and all his goods, after the stroke of an incurable plague, answered his ill-counseling wife: “If we have received GOOD (Si bona) from the hand of the Lord, why should we not sustain evil?” Or how would it be verisimilar that he decided, out of the desperation of [his] soul, to end his life by hanging — [Job] who with so great confidence exclaims: “Even if (Et si) he shall slay me, I will hope in him”? And how credible [is it] that he wished to proclaim his life clean from every stain — when he said, “My heart does NOT (Non) reprehend me in my life” — [Job] who confesses with public voice that he sinned, saying: “I have SINNED (Peccavi); what shall I do to thee, O keeper of men? why dost thou not take away my sin, and remove my iniquity?” And by what means shall we dare affirm that Job complained of the injustice and severity of God — [Job] who, proclaiming the justice of God, says: “If (Si) the equity of his judgment be sought, no one can speak testimony for me: for if I shall wish to justify myself, my own mouth will condemn me”? Since, therefore, these words, compared [collated] according to the letter, cannot agree with themselves, they show something else hidden in themselves, which is to be sought. Therefore, if first we understand the words of blessed Job by which he cursed his day according to the outward sound of the voice — as Origen expounds — they suffer no absurdity. For that curse is not of such [weight] that for its sake that holy man should be accused. Since, when he cursed his natal day — which had already passed away, and no longer was — he truly cursed nothing: for a past day is neither in nature, nor in act, nor in its own power, but only an empty name, and altogether nothing. He, therefore, who cursed nothing, sinned nothing. But if we follow the mystical [exposition of Gre-] ⁹

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[if we follow the mystical] exposition of Gregory, we shall recognize that a curse of this kind is holy, not depraved — inasmuch as it arises not from a wish of vengeance, but from the rectitude of judgment, and from tranquillity of soul: so that thence we may learn that there is a twofold day of our life. The one, of the first condition and of the human creation, in which man was created in justice and sanctity — that is, the day of justice, of innocence, of sanctity, and of grace. But the other, an execrable day, and obnoxious to malediction — namely, the day of the latter [second] birth, in which man is born in sin and iniquity, the day of sin and of human corruption. When, therefore, Job cursed his day, he did not say: “Let the day perish in which I was created [conditus],” but “the day in which I was born [natus].” As if he openly said: Let the day of sin and of fault perish, [let] the day of our mortality [perish], and let the day of innocence, of sanctity, and of grace — the day of glory and of immortality — break forth. And according to this sense it is to be understood that Job wished he had perished as an abortive [birth], and had not come into this life — namely, into the life of sin, iniquity, and fault. ¹⁰ Similarly, that which he says: “My soul (Suspendium) has chosen hanging, and my bones death” — is expounded of a spiritual kind of hanging and of death: so that by “the hanging of the soul” we understand its elevation from earthly things to heavenly, from carnal to spiritual. For thus also Paul chose hanging, when he says: “With CHRIST (Christo) I am fixed to the cross.” But by “desperation” are to be understood the renouncing of earthly pleasures, and the casting-off of worldly hope. ¹¹ That also, which he adds: “Would that (Utinam) my sins were weighed in a balance,” etc. — is said mystically of Christ hanging on the cross for our sins. For Job, wishing to show the gravity of the Lord’s passion: “Would that,” he says, “my sins were weighed in the scale of the divine justice — mine, indeed, not by [my] fault, but by the assumption of a penalty, by which I merited the wrath of the Father; [and] the punishment which I suffer would certainly be found much heavier than the fault of man for which I suffer: because he who suffers is infinite, but he for whom he suffers, finite.” ¹² But when Job said: “My heart does NOT (Non) reprehend me” — we ought to consider that there are two kinds of sins: some which can be avoided by the just; but some which cannot be avoided even by the just. And these indeed are the perverse thoughts of sins; but those [others] are the consent and the executions of the perverse thoughts. He, therefore, who slips in the thoughts of sins, if he resists them, and repairs himself before he slips, through consent, into depraved operations, has nothing whereby he may afterward, weeping, be reprehended by his own heart. Thus, then, Job — who according to the sentence of Solomon had confessed himself a sinner — then confesses that he is not reprehended by his own heart: because, even if perhaps by thinking he failed in something unlawful, yet, resisting the thought, he failed nothing either by consenting or by working. ¹³ Finally, when we hear the words by which he seems to reproach cruelty to God, we ought to believe that they were brought forth by blessed Job not out of anger and indignation. For just as the holy scriptures call God, after the human manner, “zealous without zeal, angry without anger” — so by the holy man Job, after the human manner, God was called “cruel without cruelty.” For he is called “cruel” who, striking strictly, spares not: so that, namely, in this place “cruel” may be understood [as] “striking strictly.” As also Isaiah — wishing to show that the last day of judgment is to come not now with pardon, but with strictness — said: “Behold (Ecce), a cruel day shall come, and full of indignation.” But those [words] which he subjoined, saying, “If (Si) thou scourgest, slay at once,” etc., were likewise sent forth not out of hatred and reproach, but out of an ardent desire of human redemption [directed] to God the Father, by a certain prophetic spirit. And that the sense of these may become clearer, it must first be noted what is signified by “the punishment of the innocent,” and by “the laughter of God.” ¹⁴ Accordingly, the laughter of God — or [for God] to laugh — is [for him] to be unwilling to pity human affliction; but the punishment is the deferral of desire, Solomon saying: “Hope (Spes) that is deferred afflicts the soul.” The “punishments of the innocent,” therefore, are those most ardent desires of the ancient fathers, by which, their soul glowing, they longed to see the mysteries of the Incarnation. But for God “to laugh” was not to fulfill their desires. For, so long as, not compassionating, he deferred the vows of his elect, what else was it than to laugh at the punishments of the innocent? And so the holy man, considering the gifts of the coming Redeemer, and patiently tolerating the deferral of his vows, says: “If (Si) thou scourgest, slay at once, and laugh not at the punishments of the innocent” — as if he openly prayed, saying: Since our life is daily worn away by the scourge of vengeance for [our] fault, let him now come who may once for us die without fault, that God may no longer laugh at the punishments of the innocent, if he himself appear passible in the flesh, in whose desires our mind chastens itself. Enough, therefore, out of these [things], let the blasphemies of the Anabaptists be confuted. ¹⁵