Unaware of the Heavenly council or of the fact that he is being tested, Job, in spite of trials and friends, patiently reiterates “The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away,” and, when his wife bids him curse God and die, pathetically inquires, “What! shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?”

There are, besides, whole passages in this book where Job gives way to his overwhelming grief, these laments being evidently either fragments from another, older version of the story, or tokens that even such fortitude as his gave way under pressure of disease and of his friends’ injudicious attempts at consolation.  These laments exceed in pathos any other Hebrew poem, while Job’s descriptions of God’s power and wisdom attain to a superbly exalted strain.

Having silenced Zopher, Eliphaz, and Bildad, by assuring them he will be vindicated in heaven,—­if not sooner,—­Job watches them and his last friend depart, and is finally left alone.  Then only, and in an epilogue, we are informed that, having thus been tried in the furnace of affliction and proved true gold, Job receives from God, as reward, a double measure of health, wealth, and descendants, so that all men may know he has not sinned and that his unshaken faith found favor in the eyes of God.

Some Jewish writers quote Ecclesiastes as their best sample of didactic epic, and others would fain rank as epics the tales of Naomi and Ruth, of Esther and Ahasuerus, and even the idyllic Song of Songs by Solomon.  Early Christian writers also see in Revelations, or the Apocalypse, by St. John, the Seer of Patmos, a brilliant example of the mystical or prophetic epic.

ARABIAN AND PERSIAN EPICS

“The long caravan marches across the monotonous deserts, when the camel’s steady swing bends the rider’s body almost double, taught the Arab to sing rhymes.”  But the poems thus sung by camel-drivers are generally short and never reach epic might or length.  None of those older poems now exist, and it was only when travellers applied the Syrian alphabet to the Arabic tongue in the sixth century that written records began to be kept of favorite compositions.  Poets were then looked upon as wise men, or magicians, and called upon, like Balaam, in times of danger, to utter spells or incantations against the foe.

The most ancient pre-Islamic poems were written in golden ink, suspended in the Kaaba at Mecca, and are known in Arabia as the “necklace of pearls.”

Many of these poems—­which replace epics in the East—­follow fixed rules, the author being bound to “begin by a reference to the forsaken camping grounds.  Next he must lament, and pray his comrades to halt, while he calls up the memory of the dwellers who had departed in search of other encampments and fresh water springs.  Then he begins to touch on love matters, bewailing the tortures to which his passion puts him, and thus attracting interest and attention to himself.  He recounts his hard and toilsome journeying in the desert, dwells on the lean condition of his steed, which he lauds and describes, and finally, with the object of obtaining those proofs of generosity which were the bard’s expected meed and sole support, he winds up with a panegyric of the prince or governor in whose presence the poem is recited.”