- ness of Job which at once exposes the book to misjudgment,
and gives it an eternal fascination. As Quinet has said, 'Ce qui fait la grandeur de ce livre, c'est qu'en dépassant la mesure de l'Ancien Testament il appelle, il provoque nécessairement des cieux nouveaux. . . . Le christianisme vit au fond de ce blasphème.' We need a second part of Job, or at least a third speech of Jehovah, which could however only be given by some Hebrew poet who had drunk at the fountains of the Fourth Gospel. Failing these, the reader must supply what is necessary for himself,—a better compensation to Job for his agony than the Epilogue provides, and a more touching and not less divine theophany (comp. Job ix. 32, 33). This Christianity will enable him to do. Intellectually, the problem of Job's life may remain, but to the Christian heart the cloud is luminous.
The Infinite remains unknown,
Too vast for man to understand:
In Him, the 'Woman's Seed,' alone
We trace God's footprint in the sand.[1]
- ↑ Aubrey De Vere. Need I guard myself on the subject of Gen. iii. 15,
referred to in a recent memorable debate in the Nineteenth Century? A strict
Messianic interpretation is, since Calvin's time, impossible to the exegete, but
the application of the words to Jesus Christ is dear to the Christian heart, and
perfectly consistent with a sincere exegesis. M. Réville would, I think, concede
this to Mr. Gladstone.
