Be charitable to the poor and do not disregard the feeble.
Take not unto yourselves wives from strangers." Testament of Job
A portrait of Gelasius I in St Thomas's Abbey, Brno
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View full-sizeDownload Pope Gelasius I was the bishop of Rome from 1 March 492 to his death on 21 November 496. Gelasius was a prolific author whose style placed him on the cusp between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Some scholars have argued that his predecessor Felix III may have employed him to draft papal documents, although this is not certain.
TheTestament of Job,said to have been condemned by pope Gelasius as Apocryphal, regards the prophet Job as having belonged to the approximate time of the patriarch Jacob,
a view against which I have firmly argued in my article:
…. Greek apocryphal book, containing a haggadic story of Job.
It was first published by Angelo Mai in the seventh volume of the "Scriptorum Veterum Nova Collectio" (pp. 180-191, Rome, 1833), and was translated in Migne's "Dictionnaire des Apocryphes" (ii. 403), but remained unnoticed by critics until Montague Rhodes James, in his notes to the "Testament of Abraham" (in "Texts and Studies," p. 155, Cambridge, 1892), called attention to it.
Kohler, in the "Kohut Memorial Volume" (1897, pp. 264-338), republished and translated Mai's text, with introduction and notes, and about the same time M. R. James reedited the work, after a Paris manuscript (which gives a text by no means superior in value to Mai's), in "Apocrypha Anecdota" (pp. 104-137, Cambridge, 1897, with an introduction).
The book was condemned as apocryphal by Pope Gelasius I., about 496, in his decree concerning canonical and noncanonical books.
In Mai's version it has a double title:
"Testament of Job the Blameless, the Conqueror in Many Contests, the Sainted" (which seems to be the older title) and "The Book of Job Called Jobab, and His Life, and the Transcript of His Testament."
For the identification of Job with Jobab (Gen. xxxvi. 33) see Septuagint, Job xlii.; also, Aristeas, in Eusebius, "Præparatio Evangelica," ix. 25; comp. Kohler, l.c. pp. 267 et seq., and James, l.c. p. lxxxv.).
Contents of the Book.
Like the Patriarchs (comp. Test. Patr., Adam, 14, and Tan., Wayeḥi, 8, ed. Buber, and Bo, 2), Job in a farewell address to his children reviews his life, telling them that he is of the generation of Abraham, a descendant of Esau (Gen. l.c.), and was known as "Jobab," a rich ruler of the land of Uz (Ausitis), before God called him "Job" because of his martyrdom (see Job, Critical View); that his second wife, their mother, was Dinah, the daughter of Jacob (comp. B. B. 15b).
My comment:
I would be far more comfortable, though, with the Rabbinic traditions according to which Dinah’s daughter would become Joseph’s wife, Asenath:
“The traditions that trace Asenath to the family of Jacob relate that she was the daughter born to Dinah following her rape by Shechem son of Hamor.”
Like Abraham, [Job] had changed from idolatry to the worship of the true God, the Maker of heaven and earth (comp. Num. R. xiv.); yet as he had set out to destroy the idols of the land, the work of Satan, he had been told by the archangel of God to prepare for a life-long battle with Satan, but at the same time he had been promised lasting renown as a great spiritual athlete and a crown of amaranth in the world to come, after the resurrection.
Job said, and received from the angel the seal of life (comp. Soṭah v. 5, and Kohler, l.c. pp. 271, 316).
Satan, after having first attempted, in the guise of a beggar, to get Job into his power, but without success, secured from God permission (comp. Targ. Job i. 12) to take away all his possessions (ch. i.-ii., ed. Kohler; ch. i.-viii., ed. James).
My comment:
According to my “Prophet Job” article above, Job was Tobias the son of Tobit.
Tobit chapter 1 (vv. 3-7) informs us that Tobit, unlike his fellow Naphtalian Israelites, had never apostatized.
Nor had his devout son, Tobias, who would become the righteous Job.
Hence there was no need whatsoever for Job to have:
“changed from idolatry to the worship of the true God, the Maker of heaven and earth.”
His Wealth and Charity.
Job then relates how he used his great wealth for the benefit of the poor; how of the 130,000 sheep he owned he separated 7,000 for the clothing of orphans and widows, of poor and sick; 800 dogs watched his sheep (comp. Job xxx. 1), and 200 his house.
Of his 9,000 camels he caused 3,000 to work for the poor; and he sent out ships laden with goods for the feeble, sick, and unfortunate.
Of the 130,000 (340,000, Mai's text) wild asses in his possession he set 500 aside, and the offspring and all the proceeds therefrom were given to the needy.
The four doors of his house were opened to the poor, who came from all parts of the country to enjoy his hospitality (comp. Gen. R. xlviii., lxix.; Ab. R. N., ed. Schechter, i. 7, ii. 14).
….
After each feast held by his children in turn, to atone for any possible offenses committed by them through pride, he not only offered sacrifices (Job i. 5) but also gave gifts of charity to the poor.
My comment:
In general terms, this could just as easily be a description of the unfailingly charitable Tobit, father of Job (cf. Tobit 1:8, 17-18).
Satan's Mischief.
These things, however, Satan begrudged Job, so he destroyed his sheep and camels and herds by fire or had them taken by marauders.
Finding that Job in his piety still gave praise to God, instead of blaspheming, he came in the guise of the King of Persia and besieged his city, capturing all the goods thereof; then he overthrew the house of Job and killed all his children, and everything he possessed was taken.
My comment:
This was not the time of “the King of Persia”, but, rather, of the king of the Chaldeans, Nebuchadnezzar ‘the Great’, who did indeed “besiege” (and conquer) the “city” dear to the Tobit family (viz., Jerusalem).
His “Chaldeans” had attacked and slain Job’s servants and had taken away his camels (Job 1:17):
“While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The Chaldeans made out three bands, and fell upon the camels, and have carried them away, yea, and slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.”
Yet under all these sad happenings Job bravely spoke the words:
"The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord" (Job i. 21).
While Job sat on his throne mourning over his children, Satan came in the form of a great hurricane (comp. "ruaḥ ḳozmiḳon," Gen. R. xxiv.; Yer. Ber. ix. 13d; Mek., Beshallaḥ, to Ex. xiv. 24), threw him upon the ground, and smote him from head to foot with leprosy, so that his whole body was covered with sores and worms (comp. Ab. R. N. l.c.; Tischendorf, "Apocalypses, Apocrypha," p. 67).
My comment:
It was actually the all-powerful God, and not Satan, who (Job 38:1):
“[Then the Lord] answered Job out of the whirlwind … [var. hurricane, storm]”.
For seven years (48 years; Paris MS.) he sat on a dunghill outside of the city, while his wife, Sitis, who had been brought up in royal luxury, served as water-carrier to win bread for herself and him.
Afterward (after 15 years; Paris MS.), when she was no longer allowed to take him bread, Satan, disguised as a bread-seller, went to meet her, asking, as the price of three loaves of bread for her starving husband, for the hair on her head; to save her husband from famishing, she consented (comp. Shab. 59a; Akiba's wife).
At last, when under the influence of Satan, her patience gave way, and in an impassioned appeal, full of pathos (contrasting her former riches and glory with her present state of gloom and poverty) and poetic grandeur, she called upon Job to curse God and die (comp. LXX. Job ii. 9).
My comment: Job’s wife - Tobias’s wife - was Sarah, whose seven former husbands had been murdered by the jealous demon, Asmodeus, leading Sarah to contemplate suicide (Tobit ch. 3).
According to the testimony of the angel Raphael (6:12):
‘She is a thoughtful, courageous and very lovely girl …’.
This good, but much-tried woman, was most unlikely, then, to succumb to Satan so as to urge her stricken husband to curse God.
Job, however, indignantly rebuked her and challenged Satan, who had been hidden behind her all this while, saying:
"Only a coward fights with frail woman; come forth and wage war with me!"
Then Satan broke forth into tears, and said,
"I yield to thee who art the great wrestler,"
and left him, abashed (ch. iii.-vi., ed. Kohler; ix.-xxvii., ed. James; comp. B. B. 16a:
"The grief of Satan was greater than that of Job").
As to Job, the great "athlete" or "wrestler," see IV Macc. vi. 10, xvii. 15-16; and Philo [where Job is frequently characterized as such; comp. Heb. x. 32.
….
Elihu, the Satanic Beast.
These marvelous things, however, did not prevent the friends of Job from contending that he must have sinned terribly to have brought upon himself so much suffering, and when he resented these insinuations, Elihu came forward, imbued with the spirit of Satan, and spoke hard words to Job.
The Wrath of Elihu (1805) by William Blake; one of his series of illustrations of the Book of Job
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View full-sizeDownload Elihu (Hebrew: אֱלִיהוּא ’Ĕlīhū’, 'my God is he') is a critic of Job and his three friends in the Hebrew Bible's Book of Job. He is said to have been the son of Barachel and a descendant of Buz, who may have been from the line of Abraham (Genesis 22:20–21 mentions Buz as a nephew of Abraham).
God showed Job afterward that Elihu was a wild beast ("serpent"), not a man (comp. Elihu as identified with Baalam in Yer. Soṭah v. 20d).
The three friends finally confessed their error, brought to Job animals to be offered as sin-offerings to the Lord, and obtained pardon through Job; Elihu, however, was not pardoned.
A peculiar lyric song closes this episode, in which the three friends offer praise that their sin is taken away, while Elihu,
"the evil one, the son of darkness, the lover of the Serpent, the Northern One ["Zephoni"], and the hater of the saints,"
is cast into Sheol.
My comment:
I would regard this as a horrible, and most inaccurate, assessment of the great Elihu, who seems to serve as something of an important bridge between Job and the Lord:
The story of Job's restoration to health is missing in the narrative.
It continues with Job's return to the city, where he held a feast of thanksgiving, asking the people each to give him a lamb for the clothing of the poor and four drachmas of gold or silver for their support.
Thus, taking up again his former work of charity, he soon became rich, married Dinah, and became the father of ten children, as before.
Job finally admonishes his sons, summing up his ethics and his religion in the following precepts:
"Forsake not the Lord!
Be charitable to the poor and do not disregard the feeble.
Take not unto yourselves wives from strangers."
This last command proves beyond the possibility of doubt that the book is Jewish in character and conception. ….
My comment:
It is also very much like the sage advice of Tobit to his son, Tobias-Job (Tobit ch. 4).
