covering.... The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at His
rebuke. ... The thunder of His power who can understand?" That all
this is some of the world's great poetry does not in the least alter
the fact that it is an abasement of the soul, an hysterical perversion
of the facts of life, and a preparation of the mind for the seeds of
Priestcraft.

The Book of Job has been called a "Wisdom-drama": and what is the
denouement of this drama, what is ancient Hebrew wisdom's last word
about life? "Wherefore I abhor myself," says Job, "and repent in dust
and ashes." The poor fellow has done nothing; we have been told at the
beginning that he "was perfect and upright, and one that feared God,
and eschewed evil." But the Sabeans and the Chaldeans rob him, and
"the fire of God" falls from heaven and burns up his sheep and his
servants, and "a great wind from the wilderness" kills his sons and
daughters; and then his body becomes covered with boils--a phenomenon
caused in part by worry, and the consequent nervous indigestion, but
mainly by excess of starch and deficiency of mineral salts in the
diet. Job, however, has never heard of the fasting cure for disease,
and so he takes him a potsherd to scrape himself withal, and he sits
among the ashes--a highly unsanitary procedure enforced by his
religious ritual. So naturally he feels like a worm, and abhors
himself, and cries out: "I know that Thou canst do all things, and
that no purpose of Thine can be restrained." By which utter,
unreasoning humility he succeeds in appeasing the Great Fear, and his
friends make a sacrifice of seven bullocks and seven rams--a feast for
a whole templeful of priests--and then "the Lord gave Job twice as
much as he had before.... And after this Job lived an hundred and
forty years, and saw his sons and his sons' sons, even four
generations."