The history of this is written in Paradise Lost, and the Governor or Reason is called Messiah.

And the original Archangel, or possessor of the command of the heavenly host, is called the Devil or Satan, and his children are called Sin and Death.

But in the Book of Job, Milton's Messiah is called Satan.

For this history has been adopted by both parties.

It, indeed, appeared to Reason as if Desire was cast out. But the Devil's account is that Messiah fell, and formed a heaven of what he stole from the Abyss.

This is shown in the Gospel, where he prays to the Father to send the Comforter, or Desire, that Reason may have ideas to build on-the Jehovah of the Bible being no other than he who dwells in flaming fire.

Know that after Christ's death he became Jehovah.

But in Milton the Father is Destiny, the Son a Ratio of the five senses, and the Holy Ghost Vacuum.

Sec. (c).

THE SCENE AND SITUATION.

Note, the reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell,1 is because he was a true Poet, and of the Devil's party without knowing it.

2

The author of the Book of Job founded his work on the traditional history of a real man, a Patriarch who lived at an unknown date "in the Hauran, on the east of Jordan, in the upper part of that fertile volcanic region which stretches from Syria to Idumea, north of Edom, north even of Moab, within easy reach of Damascus itself. The Arabs who live in this district to-day claim it as the land of Job." The story of the Patriarch was handed down from generation to generation, till, "in the age of Solomon, at once the most catholic and the most literary period of Hebrew history, a gifted and inspired poet threw the tradition

1 A profoundly critical remark and of wide application, whatever else it may be.

2 The Voice of the Devil. See Selections from the Writings of William Blake, p. 153.

3 Cox's Commentary on the Book of Job, p. 10.

into the splendid dramatic form in which we now possess it." 1

The Prologue, after narrating how Satan obtained leave of the Lord to tempt Job to renounce the Lord to his face, presents the spectacle of the righteous and once prosperous Patriarch, not only bereft of all his possessions and all his children, but "afflicted with elephantiasis, the severest and most terrible form of leprosy. Beginning with grievous ulcers, it eats like a cancer through the whole body, swelling the limbs until they resemble the limbs of an elephant (whence the name) and even causing them to rot off piecemeal." 2

It is to be remarked (since it is the intention of the Hebrew author to omit no element of misery) that "between Job's first trial, in which he is reduced from the condition of a rich nobleman and a happy father

1 Cox's Commentary, p. 9. Prof. Cheyne, agreeing with other critical authorities, places the period between Isaiah and Jeremiah. (See his Job and Solomon, p. 74.)

2 Ibid., p. 49. There is a vivid passage concerning leprosy, especially in the "elephantine" form, in Borrow's Bible in Spain, pp. 269-271.

of fair and beautiful children to the state of a childless beggar, and his second, the attack of his foul disease, many months intervene -months in which his kinsfolk drew back and stood aloof from him, and his most inward friends learned to abhor him."1

12

"He lies outside the city, the nobles of which used to do him reverence, and in the gate of which he used to sit and administer justice, his lightest word being eagerly caught up and deferred to." He lies upon the Mezbele or the heap of refuse that accumulates outside Arab villages, and is thus described by Wetzstein: "The dung which is heaped upon the Mezbele of the Hauran villages is not mixed with straw, which in that warm and dry land is not needed for litter, and it comes mostly from solid-hoofed animals, as the flocks and oxen are left over-night in the grazing places. It is carried in baskets in a dry state to this place before the village, and usually burnt

1 Cox's Commentary, p. 56; referring to Job vii, 3; XIX, 8-22; xxx, 1-15.

2 Ibid., p. 30; referring to Job xxix, 7–17.

once a month. . . . The ashes remain. If the village has been inhabitated for centuries, the Mezbele reaches a height far overtopping it. The winter rains reduce it into a compact mass, and it becomes by and by a solid hill of earth. . . . .. The Mezbele serves the inhabitants for a watch-tower, and in the sultry evenings for a place of concourse, because there is a current of air on the height. There all day long the children play about it; and there the outcast, who has been stricken with some loathsome malady, and is not allowed to enter the dwellings of men, lays himself down, begging an alms of the passers-by by day, and by night sheltering himself among the ashes which the heat of the sun has warmed." 1

Here, then, lies "the forsaken grandee”; a tormented Dives, but a righteous one; almost a petty king; but now "subject to the scorn of his tribe, the insolence of the very outcasts whom he had once disdained to rank with the dogs of his flocks, and even the laughter and mockery of the little 1 Moulton's Book of Job, p. 149.