CHAPTER II.
The Neptunian Theory of Creation was first brought to Light
in the Book of Job.
1. Like Homer, who dated his poem in the rising of the star Sirius, so Job dated his book in the Pleiades, while the sun was gaining his vernal equinox in the star Alcyone of this constellation. The Septuagint speaks of Job’s age at the commencement of his trial as being one hundred years. By the closing statement appended to his book, we learn that he lived after his restoration one hundred and forty years. This makes his age two hundred and forty at his death. Alcyone marks by precession of the equinoxes 2100 years B. C. The great period of his longevity indicates a time antedating Abraham’s day by more than two hundred years.
2. This book is an epi-dramatic Oratorio of human history. It is epic, in that it gives the history of a real life; dramatic, in that it dramatizes human history, by the inspirations of these actors, with the religious intuitions of all ages. The poem as a whole shows the contending forces that develop character; the struggle of man’s redeemed nature against the tendencies of a series of degenerate ages, as far down as the full triumph of Christ’s reign; followed by the long prosperity that awaits the Church. It also sets forth the longings of the human intellect for a knowledge of first causes; and its crowning success when Nature is studied in connection with the revelations of God’s Word. The Book of Job was evidently the only Scripture that the world had for at least eight hundred years. The introduction shows Job to have been a person adapted to great reverses of fortune, rich, pious, prosperous, happy, and respected. Two spirits, either of which may take form, but neither being dependent on form or locality, are present in their religious gatherings as they have ever been in ours. That objective figures come before our imaginations in reading this part of the poem, only shows the high character of the production.
3. The first question between God and Satan is that hackneyed one of all history, viz: Is piety a selfish ebullition of the human heart or a divinely planted principle? Satan takes the first statement, God the latter. Satan affirms that a sudden reverse of fortune will change the aspect of Job’s piety, and he will then curse God to his face. Great principles are best tested by suffering. Nor is it necessary that every one should suffer in the same direction to show forth the same. The world is full of delegated suffering; the few for the many, and sometimes one for all. Job is the right man in wealth, station, influence, and habits of mind to personify piety in its relation to the world’s progress.
4. The Orient is the place, and that period of the world the time, for the rich figures of speech found in the two scenes of this unparalleled production. Of the two forces meeting us in life, inviting our attention and co-operation, one must and but one can, at the same time, receive our homage. The one inclines you to and gives you credit for all good; the other inclines you from and gives you no credit for any good. The princely man of the Orient is suddenly confronted with absolute bankruptcy and bereavement of all his children, without the chance of speaking the parting good-bye. Satan expected the question settled in his favor, by a sudden outburst of passion, in vindictive hate to God. But listen! “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb (earth), and naked shall I return thither. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” The first scene is ended with Satan completely foiled. But, some one might say, the question only covered Job’s outward prosperity. True, his wife is left to him, but she is a part of himself.
5. Again the sons of God are together in worship. Satan begs leave to amend his indictment against piety. “Touch his bone and his flesh and he will curse thee.” Job is smitten in a manner calculated to break down his patience. The patience of his wife having become exhausted, she is influenced to give her vindictive advice in the line of Satan’s desires, “Curse God, and die.” “Thou speakest as a foolish woman. What! shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?”
6. The prologue of scene second ends with Satan confounded. The incoming circumstances show God’s present proposition to be that true piety will not only endure, without tarnish, what Satan in his ill will has proposed, but it will survive and develop in strength in the ages to come, until it shall triumph over every foe. To refute all satanic charges to which history will give rise, God proposes to try it in this person, under the leading intuitions governing the masses of all ages, past and to come. Three supposed but mistaken friends hear of Job’s calamity, and resolve to condole his misery. These are ranked within the family of God’s sons. These men are kings in their time, and are supposed to be entitled to a hearing. Their mistakes will make them really Job’s enemies. Such are the coadjutors that Satan is about to have brought to his aid. They find Job in keen anguish of body, incapable of recognizing his friends.
7. These persons are all representative characters, whose intuitions will partake of the nature of the epochs of human history, through which the prophet Job is about to be taken. Job personifies piety; Eliphaz, reverence in tradition; Bildad, special Providence as a rule of action; Zophar, ignorance, the mother of devotion. Beginning with the fall of man, each epoch of human history is to stamp the prevailing religious intuitions of the masses upon these men.
8. Piety must be tried under all. Until the enlightened age of the world is reached, piety will have little to cling to but faith in God, and that in the face of appearances. Such is the drama about to be enacted. Six grand epochs of historic time must be passed to reach even the present time. (1.) Deism of the antediluvian world. (2.) Special Providence as a rule of action following the flood, and out of which grew the building of the Tower of Babel. (3.) He was left alone through materialistic worship in idolatry, as in Abraham’s time. (4.) He was confronted by a superstitious looking-behind, as in Persia’s time. (5.) Tempted with an abnormal ambition, as in Alexander’s time. (6.) He must be surrounded by the ruling necessities of commercial selfishness inaugurated by Rome, and transmitted by circumstantial links in the progress of civilization to our own time.
9. Human history in the drama starts in with a wail. Job, with the intuitions of a deist, bewails his very existence. As he looks to the future there is not one ray of hope. “Thou (God) shalt search for me in the morning but I shall not be. He that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more.”