A job for Job

Last class we talked briefly about the appearance of Job in the Long-Suffering vignette. After reading Poetics of Transformation, I looked at this passage again with a slightly different interpretation.

We talked about Job's appearance among the Virtues as a representation of a condition within every believer. To this I add the support of our instructor's parenthetical: "One could argue that [Prudentius] sees these [Old Testament figures] as allegorical as well - figural types who foreshadow New Testament personages and symbolize the state of the individual soul." Indeed, we've seen figures like Sara prefigure Mary, and set an example for the ordinary believer (haec ad figuram praenotata est linea, / quam nostra recto vita resculpat pede 50-51). So what is it that Job is supposed to prefigure for the every-man?

This is where I've come to differ from our discussion on Tuesday. We talked about Job being severe in his appearance (fronte severus) as a result of his experience with Long-Suffering. However, we find the same vocabulary describing Soberness at the end of today's reading - fronte severos conivente oculos. I think the sense of Job's expression is the same harsh determination that we see in many of the Virtues, rather than dissatisfaction with his lot. The adverb adhuc perhaps supports this notion - Job is severus on the spiritual battlefield, in the midst of panting over the slaughter (multo funere anhelus), rather than severus in life. The Loeb translator renders this line as follows:

"Job had clung close to the side of his invincible mistress throughout the hard battle, hitherto grave of look and panting from the slaughter of many a foe, but now with a smile on his stern face as he thought of his healed sores and, by the number of his scars, recounted his thousands of hard-won fights, his own glory and his foes’ dishonour."

As we see in the next line, Job is smiling/laughing at (subridens) his closed wounds (clausa ulcera), when he remembers his efforts (recensens sudata) and counts his scars (perque cicatricum numerum). Whether these wounds are the closed scars from his actual boils, or figurative wounds from the battle of Mansoul, Job seems about as cheerful as any other Virtue. As unsettling as his story may be to us, I can't find a satisfactory indication here or in Scripture that Job remains unsettled. The conclusion of his story in Scripture is very brief, so it's hard to get a good sense, but it seems like Job is content with God's response to his questioning. What Satan had taken, God had given back, and Job gets the glory of being the eternal example of Long-Suffering, and little did he know, a staring role in the Psychomachia. His job here (haha, right?) is to move the reader to remember the eventual and/or heavenly rewards of, rather than the present effects of, Patientia.