by God and by man. But, on the whole, he is calming down ; the waves do not run so high, nor the wind beat so vehemently: the gloom, once so dense and impenetrable, is now relieved by broken and transient lights, nay, even by fixed stars of hope which shine on though at times the rolling clouds may hide them from his sight. As we study this Second Colloquy, in short, we shall come on many illustrations of Wordsworth's fine lines: Eliphaz, the wisest, and probably the oldest, of the three Friends is, as usual, the first to speak. As is also usual with the speakers in this great controversy, he commences with personalities, and only gradually approaches his new theme. And, still as usual, his speech is at once more thoughtful, more artistic, and even more considerate than that of either Bildad or Zophar. But even his spirit is hot within him; and though he so far tries to be fair that he will advance no opinion against Job for which he cannot adduce higher authority than his own, he evidently intends Job to see his own likeness in the sombre picture he now paints of the wicked man, and endeavours with his whole force to prove that, if Job's conscience still pronounces him innocent, that can only be because he has paltered with it till it has grown "subtle," inaccurate, insincere. He had been content before to deduce Job's guilt from general propositions, from the accepted dogmas of the time; now he needs no argument to prove it, for Job's own words, his passionate defence of himself and his equally passionate impeachment of the justice of God, render his guilt self-evident. Why should Job assail the current standards of thought and action if he were not conscious that they condemned him? If we would trace the continuity of the Argument, if we would see how many strands of thought are carried over from the First Colloquy into the Second, we must be at the pains. of marking the point from which Eliphaz starts. That point is the claim, advanced on both sides, to a pre-eminent acquaintance with the Divine Wisdom. In the last speech of the Friends in the First Colloquy (Chap. xi.), Zophar had so magnified the wisdom of God against Job, as to imply his own greater insight into it. If Job saw as far as he did into the Wisdom which shapes the lot and fate of men, whatever his conscience might say of his innocence, he would nevertheless have been dumb; he would not have opened his mouth before God, much less against God. In that inscrutable Wisdom, compared with which even the wisest of men was "without understanding" and of a "hollow heart," lay the secret of the strange and sudden calamities with which Job had been overwhelmed. Could God but be induced to come forth from his place and manifest his wisdom, even Job himself would be compelled to admit that God had not "remembered all his guilt," had not punished him to the height of his ill-desert. All this seems to have stung Job deeply, since it implied that, as compared with the Friends, he was, ignorant both of himself and of God, and most of all, probably, because this intolerable assumption of superiority so evidently sprang from an utter want of sympathy with him in the agony and passion of his living death. Hence through his reply to Zophar there runs a thread of perpetual sarcasm against this assumed superiority, blended with pathetic lamentations over the depth to which he must have sunk before they could have dared to take this tone with him. He is never weary of ringing the changes on "the wisdom" which was the key-note and masterword of Zophar's unfortunate oration. "No doubt wisdom will die with you," he begins (Chap. xii. 2, 3); "but I have understanding as well as ye: I fall not beneath you." "With God is wisdom," he continues and admits (Chap. xii. 13); "counsel and understanding are his :" and proceeds to give a far larger and loftier delineation than they were able to reach of the Sovereign Intelligence which moulds the lot of men, and conducts all the changes and events of time to their predestined close. "Lo, all this mine eye hath seen," he goes on (Chap xiii. 1, 2, 12); “mine ear hath heard and noted it; what ye know I know also." And, more: "For ye but patch up old saws;" "Your maxims are maxims of ashes, your strongholds strongholds of clay;" "Worthless bunglers are ye all." Their only hope of proving themselves wise is to be dumb; all he can promise them is that if they hold their peace, that shall be counted to them for wisdom (Chap. xiii. 5). It is from this point that Eliphaz now starts, asking (Chapter xv. 2), "Will a wise man answer with windy lore, and fill his breast with the east wind?" Job's claim to wisdom is hardly borne out (Verses 3 and 4) by his mode of argument. Judged by his own words, he was more than unwise; he was impious and irreverent: his own mouth. condemned him (Verses 5 and 6). And this claim to superior wisdom-from whence did he derive it? Was he the Adam of the race, the first born of men (Verse 7)? Had he a seat in the Celestial Divan; and, listening to the secret counsels of Heaven, had he monopolized wisdom to himself (Verse 8)? And, in fine, was he wiser than the fathers, the sages of the purest race, whose wisdom was as uncontaminated as their blood (Verses 9-11)? His whole demeanour was of a piece with this monstrous claim to superior, or even to exclusive, wisdom. His bearing toward them, the Friends, was unbecoming, for they were bringing him not their own words simply, but " the consolations of God." His bearing toward God was still more unbecoming, for he had launched wild and passionate charges against Him, impugning the Divine justice and asserting his own integrity : and yet how could any man be pure in God's sight? Even the heavens, the purest work of God's hands, were not pure to Him how much less, then, a creature so impure as man (Verses 12-16) ! These personalities disposed of, Eliphaz proceeds to his main theme, and expounds that mystery of suffering which is no longer a mystery to him. He does not now, as formerly, trouble himself to contend for the universal equity of the Ourious figure Divine Providence; he limits himself to the sterner half of it, that which metes out punishment to the guilty. While he still spins round in the same circle of thought as before, he confines himself to the darker segment of it. And in his treatment of his theme he betrays the very bitterness of spirit which we have detected in the personalities which introduce it. The one sign of relenting and grace he shews is "the polite indirection" of his words. As in the earlier Colloquy he had fallen back on a Divine Oracle, so now, still loath to advance his own unsupported opinions against those of Job, he falls back on the teaching of a pure and unvarying Tradition (Verses 17-35). With an air of relief, of triumph even, he adduces the sayings of certain sages, certain good old chronicles Who had so long walk'd hand in hand with time, that their words are to be received as of an Oracular authority. As the unbroken voice of Antiquity is with him, he feels that, Instructed by the antiquary times, He must, he is, he cannot but be wise; wiser than Job, though Job had claimed to be wiser than he. From these ancient maxims, these "grandsire phrases," he draws the materials of a most sombre and lurid picture of the sinner and his course-of the terrors that haunt him, of the chastisement that falls on him, of the end that awaits him; intending that Job should see in this picture at least some dim resemblance to himself. And, what is very notable, for it shews how much more stern and bitter even Eliphaz has grown, he closes his harangue without a single invitation to repentance, without a word of sympathy or a suggestion of hope. CHAPTER XV. 1. Then answered Eliphaz the Temanite and said: 2. 3. Should the wise man answer with windy lore, 4. 5. .6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 2.3. 24. 25. Nay, thou dost make piety void And restrain devotion before God: And thine own lips testify against thee. And wast thou brought forth before the hills? What knowest thou which we know not, Are the consolations of God too little for thee, I will shew thee; hearken thou to me, To whom alone the land was given, Even in times of peace the spoiler falleth upon him; He roameth after bread [asking]' Where is it?' |