Chapter XI: Part 11

JOAN OF ARC, more properly JEANNETON DARC, afterwards known in France as JEANNE D'ARC[1] (1411-1431), the "Maid of Orleans," was born between 1410 and 1412, the daughter of Jacques Darc, peasant proprietor, of Domremy, a small village in the Vosges, partly in Champagne and partly in Lorraine, and of his wife Isabeau, of the village of Vouthon, who from having made a pilgrimage to Rome had received the usual surname of Romée. Although her parents were in easy circumstances, Joan never learned to read or write, and received her sole religious instruction from her mother, who taught her to recite the Pater Noster, Ave Maria, and Credo. She sometimes guarded her father's flocks, but at her trial in 1431 she strongly resented being referred to as a shepherd girl. In all household work she was specially proficient, her skill in the use of the needle not being excelled (she said) by that of any matron even of Rouen. In her childhood she was noted for her abounding physical energy; but her vivacity, so far from being tainted by any coarse or unfeminine trait, was the direct outcome of an abnormally sensitive nervous temperament. Towards her parents her conduct was uniformly exemplary, and the charm of her unselfish kindness made her a favourite in the village. As she grew to womanhood she became inclined to silence, and spent much of her time in solitude and prayer. She repelled all attempts of the young men of her acquaintance to win her favour; and while active in the performance of her duties, and apparently finding her life quite congenial, inwardly she was engrossed with thoughts reaching far beyond the circle of her daily concerns.

At this time, through the alliance and support of Philip of Burgundy, the English had extended their conquest over the whole of France north of the Loire in addition to their possession of Guienne; and while the infant Henry VI. of England had in 1422 been proclaimed king of France at his father's grave at St Denis, Charles the dauphin (still uncrowned) was forced to watch the slow dismemberment of his kingdom. Isabella, the dauphin's mother, had favoured Henry V. of England, the husband of her daughter Catherine; and under Charles VI. a visionary named Marie d'Avignon declared that France was being ruined by a woman and would be restored by an armed virgin from the marches of Lorraine. To what extent this idea worked in Joan's mind is doubtful. In Geoffrey of Monmouth's tract, _De prophetiis Merlini_, there is a reference to an ancient prophecy of the enchanter Merlin concerning a virgin _ex nemore canuto_, and it appears that this _nemus canutum_ had been identified in folk-lore with the oak wood of Domremy. Joan's knowledge of the prophecy does not, however, appear till 1429; and already before that, from 1424, according to her account at her trial, she had become imbued with a sense of having a mission to free France from the English. She heard the voices of St Michael, St Catherine and St Margaret urging her on. In May 1428 she tried to obtain from Robert de Baudricourt, governor of Vaucouleurs, an introduction to the dauphin, saying that God would send him aid, but she was rebuffed. When, however, in September the English (under the earl of Salisbury) invested Orleans, the key to the south of France, she renewed her efforts with Baudricourt, her mission being to relieve Orleans and crown the dauphin at Reims. By persistent importunity, the effect of which was increased by the simplicity of her demeanour and her calm assurance of success, she at last prevailed on the governor to grant her request; and in February 1429, accompanied by six men-at-arms, she set out on her perilous journey to the court of the dauphin at Chinon. At first Charles refused to see her, but popular feeling in her favour induced his advisers to persuade him after three days to grant her an interview. She is said to have persuaded him of the divine character of her commission by discovering him though disguised in the crowd of his courtiers, and by reassuring him regarding his secret doubts as to his legitimacy. And Charles was impressed by her knowledge of a secret prayer, which (he told Dunois) could only be known to God and himself. Accordingly, after a commission of doctors had reported that they had found in her nothing of evil or contrary to the Catholic faith, and a council of matrons had reported on her chastity, she was permitted to set forth with an army of 4000 or 5000 men designed for the relief of Orleans. At the head of the army she rode clothed in a coat of mail, armed with an ancient sword, said to be that with which Charles Martel had vanquished the Saracens, the hiding-place of which, under the altar of the parish church of the village of Ste Catherine de Fierbois, the "voices" had revealed to her; she carried a white standard of her own design embroidered with lilies, and having on the one side the image of God seated on the clouds and holding the world in His hand, and on the other a representation of the Annunciation. Joan succeeded in entering Orleans on the 29th of April 1429, and through the vigorous and unremitting sallies of the French the English gradually became so discouraged that on the 8th of May they raised the siege. It is admitted that her extraordinary pluck and sense of leadership were responsible for this result. In a single week (June 12 to 19), by the capture of Jargeau and Beaugency, followed by the great victory of Patay, where Talbot was taken prisoner, the English were driven beyond the Loire. With some difficulty the dauphin was then persuaded to set out towards Reims, which he entered with an army of 12,000 men on the 16th of July, Troyes having yielded on the way. On the following day, holding the sacred banner, Joan stood beside Charles at his coronation in the cathedral.

The king then entered into negotiations with a view to detaching Burgundy from the English cause. Joan, at his importunity, remained with the army, but the king played her false when she attempted the capture of Paris; and after a failure on the 8th of September, when Joan was wounded,[2] his troops were disbanded. Joan went into Normandy to assist the duke of Alençon, but in December returned to the court, and on the 29th she and her family were ennobled with the surname of du Lis. Unconsoled by such honours, she rode away from the court in March, to assist in the defence of Compiègne against the duke of Burgundy; and on the 24th of May she led an unsuccessful sortie against the besiegers, when she was surrounded and taken prisoner. Charles, partly perhaps on account of his natural indolence, partly on account of the intrigues at the court, made no effort to effect her ransom, and never showed any sign of interest in her fate. By means of negotiations instigated and prosecuted with great perseverance by the university of Paris and the Inquisition, and through the persistent scheming of Pierre Cauchon, the bishop of Beauvais--a Burgundian partisan, who, chased from his own see, hoped to obtain the archbishopric of Rouen--she was sold in November by John of Luxemburg and Burgundy to the English, who on the 3rd of January 1431, at the instance of the university of Paris, delivered her over to the Inquisition for trial. After a public examination, begun on the 9th of January and lasting six days, and another conducted in the prison, she was, on the 20th of March, publicly accused as a heretic and witch, and, being in the end found guilty, she made her submission at the scaffold on the 24th of May, and received pardon. She was still, however, the prisoner of the English, and, having been induced by those who had her in charge to resume her male clothes, she was on this account judged to have relapsed, was sentenced to death, and burned at the stake on the streets of Rouen on the 30th of May 1431. In 1436 an impostor appeared, professing to be Joan of Arc escaped from the flames, who succeeded in inducing many people to believe in her statement, but afterwards confessed her imposture. The sentence passed on Joan of Arc was revoked by the pope on the 7th of July 1456, and since then it has been the custom of Catholic writers to uphold the reality of her divine inspiration.

During the latter part of the 19th century a popular cult of the Maid of Orleans sprang up in France, being greatly stimulated by the clerical party, which desired to advertise, in the person of this national heroine, the intimate union between patriotism and the Catholic faith, and for this purpose ardently desired her enrolment among the Saints. On the 27th of January 1894 solemn approval was given by Pope Leo XIII., and in February 1903 a formal proposal was entered for her canonization. The Feast of the Epiphany (Jan. 6), 1904 was made the occasion for a public declaration by Pope Pius X. that she was entitled to the designation Venerable. On the 13th of December 1908 the decree of beatification was published in the Consistory Hall of the Vatican.

As an historical figure, it is impossible to dogmatize concerning the personality of Joan of Arc. The modern clerical view has to some extent provoked what appears, in Anatole France's learned account, ably presented as it is, to be a retaliation, in regarding her as a clerical tool in her own day. But her character was in any case exceptional. She undoubtedly nerved the French at a critical time, and inspired an army of laggards and pillagers with a fanatical enthusiasm, comparable with that of Cromwell's Puritans. Moreover, as regards her genuine military qualities we have the testimony of Dunois and d'Alençon; and Captain Marin, in his _Jeanne d'Arc, tacticien et stratégiste_ (1891), takes a high view of her achievements. The nobility of her purpose and the genuineness of her belief in her mission, combined with her purity of character and simple patriotism, stand clear. As to her "supranormal" faculties, a matter concerning which belief largely depends on the point of view, it is to be remarked that Quicherat, a freethinker wholly devoid of clerical influences, admits them (_Aperçus nouveaux_, 1850), saying that the evidence is as good as for any facts in her history. See also A. Lang on "the voices" in _Proc. Soc. Psychical Research_, vol. xi.

AUTHORITIES.--For bibliography see _Le Livre d'or de Jeanne d'Arc_
(1894), and A. Molinier, _Sources de l'histoire de France_ (1904).
Until the 19th century the history of Joan of Arc was almost entirely
neglected; Voltaire's scurrilous satire _La Pucelle_, while indicative
of the attitude of his time, may be compared with the very fair
praises in the _Encyclopédie_. The first attempt at a study of the
sources was that of L'Averdy in 1790, published in the third volume of
_Mémoires_ of the Academy of Inscriptions, which served as the base
for all lives until J. Quicherat's great work, _Le Procès de Jeanne
d'Arc_ (1841-1849), a collection of the texts so full and so vivid
that they reveal the character and life of the heroine with great
distinctness. Michelet's sketch of her work in his _Histoire de
France_, one of the best sections of the history, is hardly more vivid
than these sources, upon which all the later biographies (notably that
of H. A. Wallon, 1860) are based. See also A. Marty, _L'Histoire de
Jeanne d'Arc d'après des documents originaux_, with introduction by M.
Sepet (1907); P. H. Dunand, _Jeanne d'Arc et l'église_ (1908); and
especially Andrew Lang, _The Maid of France_ (1908). The _Vie de
Jeanne d'Arc_, by Anatole France (2 vols., 1908), is brilliant and
erudite, but in some respects open to charges of inaccuracy and
prejudice in its handling of the sources (see the criticism by Andrew
Lang in _The Times_, Lit. Suppl., May 28, 1908). The attempt to
establish the reality of the "revelations" and consequently to obtain
the canonization of Joan of Arc led the Catholic party in France to
publish lives (such as Sepet's, 1869) in support of their claims.
Excellent works worth special mention are: Siméon Luce, _Jeanne d'Arc
à Domremy_; L. Jarry, _L'Armée anglaise au siège d'Orleans_ (1892);
J. J. Bourassé, _Miracles de Madame Sainte Kathérine de Fierbois_
(1858, trans. by A. Lang); Boucher de Molandon and A. de Beaucorps,
_L'Armée anglaise vaincue par Jeanne d'Arc_ (1892); R. P. Agroles,
S.J., _La Vraie Jeanne d'Arc_. For the "false Pucelle" see A. Lang's
article in his _Valet's Tragedy_ (1903). Of the numerous dramas and
poems of which Joan of Arc has been the subject, mention can only be
made of _Die Jungfrau von Orleans_ of Schiller, and of the _Joan of
Arc_ of Southey. A drama in verse by Jules Barbier was set to music by
C. Gounod (1873). (J. T. S.*; H. Ch.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In the act of ennoblement the name is spelt Day, due probably to
the peculiar pronunciation. It has been disputed whether the name was
written originally d'Arc or Darc. It is beyond doubt that the father
of Joan was not of noble origin, but Bouteiller suggests that at that
period the apostrophe did not indicate nobility. Her mother, it may
be noted, is called "de Vouthon."

[2] The Porte St Honoré where Joan was wounded stood where the
Comédie Française now stands.

JOANES (or JUANES), VICENTE (1506-1579), head of the Valencian school of painters, and often called "the Spanish Raphael," was born at Fuente de la Higuera in the province of Valencia in 1506. He is said to have studied his art for some time in Rome, with which school his affinities are closest, but the greater part of his professional life was spent in the city of Valencia, where most of the extant examples of his work are now to be found. All relate to religious subjects, and are characterized by dignity of conception, accuracy of drawing, truth and beauty of colour, and minuteness of finish. He died at Bocairente (near Jativa) while engaged upon an altarpiece in the church there, on the 21st of December 1579.

JOANNA (1479-1555), called the Mad (_la Loca_), queen of Castile and mother of the emperor Charles V., was the second daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, king and queen of Spain, and was born at Toledo on the 6th of November 1479. Her youngest sister was Catherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII. In 1496 at Lille she was married to the archduke Philip the Handsome, son of the German King Maximilian I., and at Ghent, in February 1500, she gave birth to the future emperor. The death of her only brother John, of her eldest sister Isabella, queen of Portugal, and then of the latter's infant son Miguel, made Joanna heiress of the Spanish kingdoms, and in 1502 the cortes of Castile and of Aragon recognized her and her husband as their future sovereigns. Soon after this Joanna's reason began to give way. She mourned in an extravagant fashion for her absent husband, whom at length she joined in Flanders; in this country her passionate jealousy, although justified by Philip's conduct, led to deplorable scenes. In November 1504 her mother's death left Joanna queen of Castile, but as she was obviously incapable of ruling, the duties of government were undertaken by her father, and then for a short time by her husband. The queen was with Philip when he was wrecked on the English coast and became the guest of Henry VII. at Windsor; soon after this event, in September 1506, he died and Joanna's mind became completely deranged, it being almost impossible to get her away from the dead body of her husband. The remaining years of her miserable existence were spent at Tordesillas, where she died on the 11th of April 1555. In spite of her afflictions the queen was sought in marriage by Henry VII. just before his death. Nominally Joanna remained queen of Castile until her death, her name being joined with that of Charles in all public documents, but of necessity she took no part in the business of state. In addition to Charles she had a son Ferdinand, afterwards the emperor Ferdinand I., and four daughters, among them being Maria (1505-1558), wife of Louis II., king of Hungary, afterwards governor-general of the Netherlands.

See R. Villa, _La Reina doña Juana la Loca_ (Madrid, 1892); Rösler,
_Johanna die Wahnsinnige_ (Vienna, 1890); W. H. Prescott, _Hist. of
Ferdinand and Isabella_ (1854); and H. Tighe, _A Queen of Unrest_
(1907).

JOANNA I. (c. 1327-1382), queen of Naples, was the daughter of Charles duke of Calabria (d. 1328), and became sovereign of Naples in succession to her grandfather King Robert in 1343. Her first husband was Andrew, son of Charles Robert, king of Hungary, who like the queen herself was a member of the house of Anjou. In 1345 Andrew was assassinated at Aversa, possibly with his wife's connivance, and at once Joanna married Louis, son of Philip prince of Taranto. King Louis of Hungary then came to Naples to avenge his brother's death, and the queen took refuge in Provence--which came under her rule at the same time as Naples--purchasing pardon from Pope Clement VI. by selling to him the town of Avignon, then part of her dominions. Having returned to Naples in 1352 after the departure of Louis, Joanna lost her second husband in 1362, and married James, king of Majorca (d. 1375), and later Otto of Brunswick, prince of Taranto. The queen had no sons, and as both her daughters were dead she made Louis I. duke of Anjou, brother of Charles V. of France, her heir. This proceeding so angered Charles, duke of Durazzo, who regarded himself as the future king of Naples, that he seized the city. Joanna was captured and was put to death at Aversa on the 22nd of May 1382. The queen was a woman of intellectual tastes, and was acquainted with some of the poets and scholars of her time, including Petrarch and Boccaccio.

See Crivelli, _Della prima e della seconda Giovanna, regine di Napoli_
(1832); G. Battaglia, _Giovanna I., regina di Napoli_ (1835); W. St C.
Baddeley, _Queen Joanna I. of Naples_ (1893); Scarpetta, _Giovanna I.
di Napoli_ (1903); and Francesca M. Steele, _The Beautiful Queen
Joanna I. of Naples_ (1910).

JOANNA II. (1371-1435), queen of Naples, was descended from Charles II. of Anjou through his son John of Durazzo. She had been married to William, son of Leopold III. of Austria, and at the death of her brother King Ladislaus in 1414 she succeeded to the Neapolitan crown. Her life had always been very dissolute, and although now a widow of forty-five, she chose as her lover Pandolfo Alopo, a youth of twenty-six, whom she made seneschal of the kingdom. He and the constable Muzio Attendolo Sforza completely dominated her, and the turbulent barons wished to provide her with a husband who would be strong enough to break her favourites yet not make himself king. The choice fell on James of Bourbon, a relative of the king of France, and the marriage took place in 1415. But James at once declared himself king, had Alopo killed and Sforza imprisoned, and kept his wife in a state of semi-confinement; this led to a counter-agitation on the part of the barons, who forced James to liberate Sforza, renounce his kingship, and eventually to quit the country. The queen now sent Sforza to re-establish her authority in Rome, whence the Neapolitans had been expelled after the death of Ladislaus; Sforza entered the city and obliged the _condottiere_ Braccio da Montone, who was defending it in the pope's name, to depart (1416). But when Oddo Colonna was elected pope as Martin V., he allied himself with Joanna, who promised to give up Rome, while Sforza returned to Naples. The latter found, however, that he had lost all influence with the queen, who was completely dominated by her new lover Giovanni (Sergianni) Caracciolo. Hoping to re-establish his position and crush Caracciolo, Sforza favoured the pretensions of Louis III. of Anjou, who wished to obtain the succession of Naples at Joanna's death, a course which met with the approval of the pope. Joanna refused to adopt Louis owing to the influence of Caracciolo, who hated Sforza; she appealed for help instead to Alphonso of Aragon, promising to make him her heir. War broke out between Joanna and the Aragonese on one side and Louis and Sforza, supported by the pope, on the other. After much fighting by land and sea, Alphonso entered Naples, and in 1422 peace was made. But dissensions broke out between the Aragonese and Catalans and the Neapolitans, and Alphonso had Caracciolo arrested; whereupon Joanna, fearing for her own safety, invoked the aid of Sforza, who with difficulty carried her off to Aversa. There she was joined by Louis whom she adopted as her successor instead of the ungrateful Alphonso. Sforza was accidentally drowned, but when Alphonso returned to Spain, leaving only a small force in Naples, the Angevins with the help of a Genoese fleet recaptured the city. For a few years there was peace in the kingdom, but in 1432 Caracciolo, having quarrelled with the queen, was seized and murdered by his enemies. Internal disorders broke out, and Gian Antonio Orsini, prince of Taranto, led a revolt against Joanna in Apulia; Louis of Anjou died while conducting a campaign against the rebels (1434), and Joanna herself died on the 11th of February 1435, after having appointed his son René her successor. Weak, foolish and dissolute, she made her reign one long scandal, which reduced the kingdom to the lowest depths of degradation. Her perpetual intrigues and her political incapacity made Naples a prey to anarchy and foreign invasions, destroying all sense of patriotism and loyalty both in the barons and the people.

AUTHORITIES.--A. von Platen, _Storia del reame di Napoli dal 1414 al
1423_ (1864). C. Cipolla, _Storia, della signoria Italiana_ (1881),
where the original authorities are quoted. (See also NAPLES; SFORZA.)

JOASH, or JEHOASH (Heb. "Yahweh is strong, _or_ hath given"), the name of two kings of Palestine in the Bible.

1. Son of Ahaziah (see JEHORAM, 2) and king of Judah. He obtained the throne by means of a revolt in which Athaliah (q.v.) perished, and his accession was marked by a solemn covenant, and by the overthrow of the temple of Baal and of its priest Mattan(-Baal). In this the priest Jehoiada (who must have continued to act as regent) took the leading part. The account of Joash's reign is not from a contemporary source (2 Kings xi. 4-xii. 16), and 2 Chronicles adds several new details, including a tradition of a conflict between the king and priests after the death of Jehoiada (xxii. 11; xxiv. 3, 15 sqq.).[1] At an unstated period, the Aramaeans under Hazael captured Gath, and Jerusalem only escaped by buying off the enemy (2 Kings xii. 17 sqq.). This may perhaps be associated with the Aramaean attacks upon Israel (2 below), but the tradition recorded in 2 Chron. xxiv. 23 seq. differs widely and cannot be wholly rejected. The king perished in a conspiracy, the origin of which is not clear; it may have been for his attack upon the priests, it was scarcely for the course he took to save Jerusalem. He was succeeded by his son Amaziah, whose moderation in avenging his father's death receives special mention. After defeating the Edomites, Amaziah turned his attention to Israel.

2. Son of Jehoahaz and king of Israel. Like his grandfather Jehu, he enjoyed the favour of the prophet Elisha, who promised him a triple defeat of the Aramaeans at Aphek (2 Kings xiii. 14 sqq. 22-25). The cities which had been taken from his father by Hazael the father of Ben-hadad were recovered (cf. 1 Kings xx. 34, time of Ahab) and the relief gained by Israel from the previous blows of Syria prepared the way for its speedy extension of power. When challenged by Amaziah of Judah, Joash uttered the famous fable of the thistle and cedar (for another example see Judg. ix. 8-15; see also ABIMELECH), and a battle was fought at Beth-shemesh, in which Israel was completely successful. An obscure statement in 2 Chron. xxv. 13 would show that this was not the only conflict; at all events, Amaziah was captured, the fortifications of Jerusalem were partially destroyed, the treasures of the Temple and palace were looted, and hostages were carried away to Samaria. According to one statement, Amaziah survived the disaster fifteen years, and lost his life in a conspiracy; but there is a gap in the history of Judah which the narratives do not enable us to fill (1 Kings xv. 1; see xiv. 17, 23). See further UZZIAH; JEROBOAM (2); and JEWS. (S. A. C.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] That the murder of Zechariah the son of Jehoiada (2 Chron.
_l.c._) is referred to in Matt. xxiii. 35, Luke xi. 51 is commonly
held; but see Cheyne, _Ency. Bib._ col. 5373.

JOB. The book of Job (Heb. [Hebrew: Iyyob] _'Iyyob_, Gr. [Greek: Iôb]), in the Bible, the most splendid creation of Hebrew poetry, is so called from the name of the man whose history and afflictions and sayings form the theme of it.

_Contents._--As it now lies before us it consists of five parts. 1.
The prologue, in prose, chr. i.-ii., describes in rapid and dramatic
steps the history of this man, his prosperity and greatness
corresponding to his godliness; then how his life is drawn in under
the operation of the sifting providence of God, through the suspicion
suggested by the Satan, the minister of this aspect of God's
providence, that his godliness is selfish and only the natural return
for unexampled prosperity, and the insinuation that if stripped of his
prosperity he will curse God to His face. These suspicions bring down
two severe calamities on Job, one depriving him of children and
possessions alike, and the other throwing the man himself under a
painful malady. In spite of these afflictions Job retains his
integrity and ascribes no wrong to God. Then is described the advent
of Job's three friends--Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and
Zophar the Naamathite--who, having heard of Job's calamities, come to
condole with him. 2. The body of the book, in poetry, ch. iii.-xxxi.,
contains a series of speeches in which the problem of Job's
afflictions and the relation of external evil to the righteousness of
God and the conduct of men are brilliantly discussed. This part, after
Job's passionate outburst in ch. iii., is divided into three cycles,
each containing six speeches, one by each of the friends, and three by
Job, one in reply to each of theirs (ch. iv.-xiv.; xv.-xxi.;
xxii.-xxxi.), although in the last cycle the third speaker Zophar
fails to answer (unless his answer is to be found in ch. xxvii.). Job,
having driven his opponents from the field, carries his reply through
a series of discourses in which he dwells in pathetic words upon his
early prosperity, contrasting with it his present humiliation, and
ends with a solemn repudiation of all the offences that might be
suggested against him, and a challenge to God to appear and put His
hand to the charge which He had against him and for which He afflicted
him. 3. Elihu, the representative of a younger generation, who has
been a silent observer of the debate, intervenes to express his
dissatisfaction with the manner in which both Job and his friends
conducted the cause, and offers what is in some respects a new
solution of the question (xxxii.-xxxvii.). 4. In answer to Job's
repeated demands that God would appear and solve the riddle of his
life, the Lord answers Job out of the whirlwind. The divine speaker
does not condescend to refer to Job's individual problem, but in a
series of ironical interrogations asks him, as he thinks himself
capable of fathoming all things, to expound the mysteries of the
origin and subsistence of the world, the phenomena of the atmosphere,
the instincts of the creatures that inhabit the desert, and, as he
judges God's conduct of the world amiss, invites him to seize the
reins, gird himself with the thunder and quell the rebellious forces
of evil in the universe (xxxviii.-xlii. 6). Job is humbled and
abashed, lays his hand upon his mouth, and repents his hasty words in
dust and ashes. No solution of his problem is vouchsafed; but God
Himself effects that which neither the man's own thoughts of God nor
the representations of the friends could accomplish: he had heard of
him with the hearing of the ear without effect, but now his eye sees
Him. This is the profoundest religious deep in the book. 5. The
epilogue, in prose, xlii. 7-17, describes Job's restoration to a
prosperity double that of his former estate, his family felicity and
long life.

_Design._--With the exception of the episode of Elihu, the connexion of which with the original form of the poem may be doubtful, all five parts of the book are essential elements of the work as it came from the hand of the first author, although some parts of the second and fourth divisions may have been expanded by later writers. The idea of the composition is to be derived not from any single element of the book, but from the teaching and movement of the whole piece. Job is unquestionably the hero of the work, and in his ideas and his history combined we may assume that we find the author himself speaking and teaching. The discussion between Job and his friends of the problem of suffering occupies two-thirds of the book, or, if the space occupied by Elihu be not considered, nearly three-fourths, and in the direction which the author causes this discussion to take we may see revealed the main didactic purpose of the book. When the three friends, the representatives of former theories of providence, are reduced to silence, we may be certain that it was the author's purpose to discredit the ideas which they represent. Job himself offers no positive contribution to the doctrine of evil; his position is negative, merely antagonistic to that of the friends. But this negative position victoriously maintained by him has the effect of clearing the ground, and the author himself supplies in the prologue the positive truth, when he communicates the real explanation of his hero's calamities, and teaches that they were a trial of his righteousness. It was therefore the author's main purpose in his work to widen men's views of the providence of God and set before them a new view of suffering. This purpose, however, was in all probability subordinate to some wider practical design. No Hebrew writer is merely a poet or a thinker. He is always a teacher. He has men before him in their relations to God,[1] and usually not men in their individual relations, but members of the family of Israel, the people of God. It is consequently scarcely to be doubted that the book has a national scope. The author considered his new truth regarding the meaning of affliction as of national interest, and as the truth then needful for the heart of his people. But the teaching of the book is only half its contents. It contains also a history--deep and inexplicable affliction, a great moral struggle, and a victory. The author meant his new truth to inspire new conduct, new faith, and new hopes. In Job's sufferings, undeserved and inexplicable to him, yet capable of an explanation most consistent with the goodness and faithfulness of God, and casting honour upon his faithful servants; in his despair bordering on unbelief, at last overcome; and in the happy issue of his afflictions--in all this Israel may see itself, and from the sight take courage, and forecast its own history. Job, however, is not to be considered Israel, the righteous servant of the Lord, under a feigned name; he is no mere parable (though such a view is found as early as the Talmud); he and his history have both elements of reality in them. It is these elements of reality common to him with Israel in affliction, common even to him with humanity as a whole, confined within the straitened limits set by its own ignorance, wounded to death by the mysterious sorrows of life, tortured by the uncertainty whether its cry finds an entrance into God's ear, alarmed and paralysed by the irreconcilable discrepancies which it seems to discover between its necessary thoughts of Him and its experience of Him in His providence, and faint with longing that it might come into His place, and behold him, not girt with His majesty, but in human form, as one looketh upon his fellow--it is these elements of truth that make the history of Job instructive to Israel in the times of affliction when it was set before them, and to men of all races in all ages. It would probably be a mistake, however, to imagine that the author consciously stepped outside the limits of his nation and assumed a human position antagonistic to it. The chords he touches vibrate through all humanity--but this is because Israel is the religious kernel of humanity, and because from Israel's heart the deepest religious music of mankind is heard, whether of pathos or of joy.

Two threads requiring to be followed, therefore, run through the
book--one the discussion of the problem of evil between Job and his
friends, and the other the varying attitude of Job's mind towards God,
the first being subordinate to the second. Both Job and his friends
advance to the discussion of his sufferings and of the problem of
evil, ignorant of the true cause of his calamities--Job strong in his
sense of innocence, and the friends armed with their theory of the
righteousness of God, who giveth to every man according to his works.
With fine psychological instinct the poet lets Job altogether lose his
self-control first when his three friends came to visit him. His
bereavements and his malady he bore with a steady courage, and his
wife's direct instigations to godlessness he repelled with severity
and resignation. But when his equals and the old associates of his
happiness came to see him, and when he read in their looks and in
their seven days' silence the depth of his own misery, his
self-command deserted him, and he broke out into a cry of despair,
cursing his day and crying for death (iii.). Job had somewhat
misinterpreted the demeanour of his friends. It was not all pity that
it expressed. Along with their pity they had also brought their
theology, and they trusted to heal Job's malady with this. Till a few
days before, Job would have agreed with them on the sovereign virtues
of this remedy. But he had learned through a higher teaching, the
events of God's providence, that it was no longer a specific in his
case. His violent impatience, however, under his afflictions and his
covert attacks upon the divine rectitude only served to confirm the
view of his sufferings which their theory of evil had already
suggested to his friends. And thus commences the high debate which
continues through twenty-nine chapters.

The three friends of Job came to the consideration of his history with
the principle that calamity is the result of evil-doing, as prosperity
is the reward of righteousness. Suffering is not an accident or a
spontaneous growth of the soil; man is born unto trouble as the sparks
fly upwards; there is in human life a tendency to do evil which draws
down upon men the chastisement of God (v. 6). The principle is thus
enunciated by Eliphaz, from whom the other speakers take their cue:
where there is suffering there has been sin in the sufferer. Not
suffering in itself, but the effect of it on the sufferer is what
gives insight into his true character. Suffering is not always
punitive; it is sometimes disciplinary, designed to wean the good man
from his sin. If he sees in his suffering the monition of God and
turns from his evil, his future shall be rich in peace and happiness,
and his latter estate more prosperous than his first. If he murmurs or
resists, he can only perish under the multiplying chastisements which
his impenitence will provoke. Now this principle is far from being a
peculiar crotchet of the friends; its truth is undeniable, though they
erred in supposing that it would cover the wide providence of God. The
principle is the fundamental idea of moral government, the expression
of the natural conscience, a principle common more or less to all
peoples, though perhaps more prominent in the Semitic mind, because
all religious ideas are more prominent and simple there--not suggested
to Israel first by the law, but found and adopted by the law, though
it may be sharpened by it. It is the fundamental principle of prophecy
no less than of the law, and, if possible, of the wisdom of philosophy
of the Hebrews more than of either. Speculation among the Hebrews had
a simpler task before it than it had in the West or in the farther
East. The Greek philosopher began his operations upon the sum of
things; he threw the universe into his crucible at once. His object
was to effect some analysis of it, so that he could call one element
cause and another effect. Or, to vary the figure, his endeavour was to
pursue the streams of tendency which he could observe till he reached
at last the central spring which sent them all forth. God, a single
cause and explanation, was the object of his search. But to the Hebrew
of the later time this was already found. The analysis resulting in
the distinction of God and the world had been effected for him so long
ago that the history and circumstances of the process had been
forgotten, and only the unchallengeable result remained. His
philosophy was not a quest of God whom he did not know, but a
recognition on all hands of God whom he knew. The great primary idea
to his mind was that of God, a Being wholly just, doing all. And the
world was little more than the phenomena that revealed the mind and
the presence and the operations of God. Consequently the nature of God
as known to him and the course of events formed a perfect equation.
The idea of what God was in Himself was in complete harmony with His
manifestation of Himself in providence, in the events of individual
human lives, and in the history of nations. The philosophy of the wise
did not go behind the origin of sin, or referred it to the freedom of
man; but, sin existing, and God being in immediate personal contact
with the world, every event was a direct expression of His moral will
and energy; calamity fell on wickedness, and success attended
right-doing. This view of the moral harmony between the nature of God
and the events of providence in the fortunes of men and nations is the
view of the Hebrew wisdom in its oldest form, during what might be
called the period of principles, to which belong Prov. x. seq.; and
this is the position maintained by Job's three friends. And the
significance of the book of Job in the history of Hebrew thought
arises in that it marks the point when such a view was definitely
overcome, closing the long period when this principle was merely
subjected to questionings, and makes a new positive addition to the
doctrine of evil.

Job agreed that afflictions came directly from the hand of God, and
also that God afflicted those whom He held guilty of sins. But his
conscience denied the imputation of guilt, whether insinuated by his
friends or implied in God's chastisement of him. Hence he was driven
to conclude that God was unjust. The position of Job appeared to his
friends nothing else but impiety; while theirs was to him mere
falsehood and the special pleading of sycophants on behalf of God
because He was the stronger. Within these two iron walls the debate
moves, making little progress, but with much brilliancy, if not of
argument, of illustration. A certain advance indeed is perceptible. In
the first series of speeches (iv.-xiv.), the key-note of which is
struck by Eliphaz, the oldest and most considerate of the three, the
position is that affliction is caused by sin, and is chastisement
designed for the sinner's good; and the moral is that Job should
recognize it and use it for the purpose for which it was sent. In the
second (xv.-xxi.) the terrible fate of the sinner is emphasized, and
those brilliant pictures of a restored future, thrown in by all the
speakers in the first series, are absent. Job's demeanour under the
consolations offered him afforded little hope of his repentance. In
the third series (xxii. seq.) the friends cast off all disguise, and
openly charge Job with a course of evil life. That their armoury was
now exhausted is shown by the brevity of the second speaker, and the
failure of the third (at least in the present text) to answer in any
form. In reply Job disdains for a time to touch what he well knew lay
under all their exhortations; he laments with touching pathos the
defection of his friends, who were like the winter torrents looked for
in vain by the perishing caravan in the summer heat; he meets with
bitter scorn their constant cry that God will not cast off the
righteous man, by asking: How can one be righteous with God? what can
human weakness, however innocent, do against infinite might and
subtlety? they are righteous whom an omnipotent and perverse will
thinks fit to consider so; he falls into a hopeless wail over the
universal misery of man, who has a weary campaign of life appointed
him; then, rising up in the strength of his conscience, he upbraids
the Almighty with His misuse of His power and His indiscriminate
tyranny--righteous and innocent He destroys alike--and challenges Him
to lay aside His majesty and meet His creature as a man, and then he
would not fear Him. Even in the second series Job can hardly bring
himself to face the personal issue raised by the friends. His
relations to God absorb him almost wholly--his pitiable isolation, the
indignities showered on his once honoured head, the loathsome
spectacle of his body; abandoned by all, he turns for pity from God to
men and from men to God. Only in the third series of debates does he
put out his hand and grasp firmly the theory of his friends, and their
"defences of mud" fall to dust in his hands. Instead of that roseate
moral order on which they are never weary of insisting, he finds only
disorder and moral confusion. When he thinks of it, trembling takes
hold of him. It is not the righteous but the wicked that live, grow
old, yea, wax mighty in strength, that send forth their children like
a flock and establish them in their sight. Before the logic of facts
the theory of the friends goes down; and with this negative result,
which the author skilfully reaches through the debate, has to be
combined his own positive doctrine of the uses of adversity advanced
in the prologue.

To a modern reader it appears strange that both parties were so
entangled in the meshes of their preconceptions regarding God as to be
unable to break through the broader views. The friends, while
maintaining that injustice on the part of God is inconceivable, might
have given due weight to the persistent testimony of Job's conscience
as that behind which it is impossible to go, and found refuge in the
reflection that there might be something inexplicable in the ways of
God, and that affliction might have some other meaning than to punish
the sinner or even to wean him from his sin. And Job, while
maintaining his innocence from overt sins, might have confessed that
there was such sinfulness in every human life as was sufficient to
account for the severest chastisement from heaven, or at least he
might have stopped short of charging God foolishly. Such a position
would certainly be taken up by an afflicted saint now, and such an
explanation of his sufferings would suggest itself to the sufferer,
even though it might be in truth a false explanation. Perhaps here,
where an artistic fault might seem to be committed, the art of the
writer, or his truth to nature, and the extraordinary freedom with
which he moves among his materials, as well as the power and
individuality of his dramatic creations, are most remarkable. The rôle
which the author reserved for himself was to teach the truth on the
question in dispute, and he accomplishes this by allowing his
performers to push their false principles to their proper extreme.
There is nothing about which men are usually so sure as the character
of God. They are ever ready to take Him in their own hand, to
interpret His providence in their own sense, to say what things are
consistent or not with His character and word, and beat down the
opposing consciences of other men by His so-called authority, which is
nothing but their own. The friends of Job were religious Orientals,
men to whom God was a being in immediate contact with the world and
life, to whom the idea of second causes was unknown, on whom science
had not yet begun to dawn, nor the conception of a divine scheme
pursuing a distant end by complicated means, in which the individual's
interest may suffer for the larger good. The broad sympathies of the
author and his sense of the truth lying in the theory of the friends
are seen in the scope which he allows them, in the richness of the
thought and the splendid luxuriance of the imagery--drawn from the
immemorial moral consent of mankind, the testimony of the living
conscience, and the observation of life--with which he makes them
clothe their views. He remembered the elements of truth in the theory
from which he was departing, that it was a national heritage, which he
himself perhaps had been constrained not without a struggle to
abandon; and, while showing its insufficiency, he sets it forth in its
most brilliant form.

The extravagance of Job's assertions was occasioned greatly by the
extreme position of his friends, which left no room for his conscious
innocence along with the rectitude of God. Again, the poet's purpose,
as the prologue shows, was to teach that afflictions may fall on a man
out of all connexion with any offence of his own, and merely as the
trial of his righteousness; and hence he allows Job, as by a true
instinct of the nature of his sufferings, to repudiate all connexion
between them and sin in himself. And further, the terrible conflict
into which the suspicions of the Satan brought Job could not be
exhibited without pushing him to the verge of ungodliness. These are
all elements of the poet's art; but art and nature are one. In ancient
Hebrew life the sense of sin was less deep than it is now. In the
desert, too, men speak boldly of God. Nothing is more false than to
judge the poet's creation from our later point of view, and construct
a theory of the book according to a more developed sense of sin and a
deeper reverence for God than belonged to antiquity. In complete
contradiction to the testimony of the book itself, some critics, as
Hengstenberg and Budde, have assumed that Job's spiritual pride was
the cause of his afflictions, that this was the root of bitterness in
him which must be killed down ere he could become a true saint. The
fundamental position of the book is that Job was already a true saint;
this is testified by God Himself, is the radical idea of the author in
the prologue, and the very hypothesis of the drama. We might be ready
to think that Job's afflictions did not befall him out of all
connexion with his own condition of mind, and we might be disposed to
find a vindication of God's ways in this. There is no evidence that
such an idea was shared by the author of the book. It is remarkable
that the attitude which we imagine it would have been so easy for Job
to assume, namely, while holding fast his integrity, to fall back upon
the inexplicableness of providence, of which there are such imposing
descriptions in his speeches, is just the attitude which is taken up
in ch. xxviii. It is far from certain, however, that this chapter is
an integral part of the original book.

The other line running through the book, the varying attitude of Job's
mind towards God, exhibits dramatic action and tragic interest of the
highest kind, though the movement is internal. That the exhibition of
this struggle in Job's mind was a main point in the author's purpose
is seen from the fact that at the end of each of his great trials he
notes that Job sinned not, nor ascribed wrong to God (i. 22; ii. 10),
and from the effect which the divine voice from the whirlwind is made
to produce upon him (xl. 3). In the first cycle of debate (iv.-xiv.)
Job's mind reaches the deepest limit of estrangement. There he not
merely charges God with injustice, but, unable to reconcile His former
goodness with His present enmity, he regards the latter as the true
expression of God's attitude towards His creatures, and the former,
comprising all his infinite creative skill in weaving the delicate
organism of human nature and the rich endowments of His providence,
only as the means of exercising His mad and immoral cruelty in the
time to come. When the Semitic skin of Job is scratched, we find a
modern pessimist beneath. Others in later days have brought the keen
sensibility of the human frame and the torture which it endures
together, and asked with Job to whom at last all this has to be
referred. Towards the end of the cycle a star of heavenly light seems
to rise on the horizon; the thought seizes the sufferer's mind that
man might have another life, that God's anger pursuing him to the
grave might be sated, and that He might call him out of it to Himself
again (xiv. 13). This idea of a resurrection, unfamiliar to Job at
first, is one which he is allowed to reach out of the necessities of
the moral complications around him, but from the author's manner of
using the idea we may judge that it was familiar to himself. In the
second cycle the thought of a future reconciliation with God is more
firmly grasped. That satisfaction or at least composure which, when we
observe calamities that we cannot morally account for, we reach by
considering that providence is a great scheme moving according to
general laws, and that it does not always truly reflect the relation
of God to the individual, Job reached in the only way possible to a
Semitic mind. He drew a distinction between an outer God whom events
obey, pursuing him in His anger, and an inner God whose heart was with
him, who was aware of his innocence; and he appeals from God to God,
and beseeches God to pledge Himself that he shall receive justice from
God (xvi. 19; xvii. 3). And so high at last does this consciousness
that God is at one with him rise that he avows his assurance that He
will yet appear to do him justice before men, and that he shall see
Him with his own eyes, no more estranged but on his side, and for this
moment he faints with longing (xix. 25 seq.).[2]

After this expression of faith Job's mind remains calm, though he ends
by firmly charging God with perverting his right, and demanding to
know the cause of his afflictions (xxvii. 2 seq.; xxxi. 35, where
render: "Oh, that I had the indictment which mine adversary has
written!"). In answer to this demand the Divine voice answers Job out
of the tempest: "Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without
knowledge?" The word "counsel" intimates to Job that God does not act
without a design, large and beyond the comprehension of man; and to
impress this is the purpose of the Divine speeches. The speaker does
not enter into Job's particular cause; there is not a word tending to
unravel his riddle; his mind is drawn away to the wisdom and majesty
of God Himself. His own words and those of his friends are but
re-echoed, but it is God Himself who now utters them. Job is in
immediate nearness to the majesty of heaven, wise, unfathomable,
ironical over the littleness of man, and he is abased; God Himself
effects what neither the man's own thoughts of God nor the
representations of his friends could accomplish, though by the same
means. The religious insight of the writer sounds here the profoundest
deeps of truth.