This was written for a class called “Bible for Students of Literature.” It ended up being more like “Sit Around and Listen to a Brilliant Professor Read the Bible Boringly.” In addition to the wisdom books of the Bible (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job), we read this book called “Consolation of Philosophy” by a 6th century philosopher dude called Boethius. In it, Boethius is in prison waiting for the death penalty and lamenting his fate when he is visited by Lady Philosophy, who is much more Philosophy than Lady (or even human). She uses rhetorical strategies and Neo-Platonic philosophical ideas that weren’t invented yet in the Old Testament days to convince Boethius that God can exist in a world where bad things happen to good people. The assignment was to have Lady Philosophy come and visit Job. I think it’s funny even if you’re not amazingly familiar with the Bible, but obviously it would help. Somehow everyone was British in my head.
Eliphaz saw her first. Bildad was embroiled in a long diatribe condemning Job for pretending to know something or other, and Job and Zophar were watching him intently, either nodding or shaking their head as they approved or disapproved each statement. Eliphaz tapped Bildad on the shoulder and pointed out the window.
“You guys,” he said. “I think there’s a personification of an abstract idea outside.”
“It’s not Death, is it?” Job said. There was hope in his voice.
“No,” said the woman at the door. “It is Philosophy.”
“Well, come on in I guess,” said Job. “I would take your coat, but my house doesn’t have a roof or all four walls. It’s more of a rubble pile than a house these days, actually.” He gave a half-smile which cracked his brittle skin and caused him to wince. “Have you come to yell at me, too?”
“No,” said Philosophy. “I’ve come to Philosophize at you.”
“Well, go ahead,” Job said. “These guys’ circular arguments are adding nausea to my list of maladies.”
“Let me tell you something about fortune,” she said. She took a sip from her water skin and continued. “You’re sitting here with your self-pitying sarcasm and melodramatic tending of your various skin diseases, and you say that you want some understanding. You want to know why you’ve had such bad luck all at once, when you’ve done nothing to incur anybody’s wrath. This comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of who Fortune is and what she does.
“It’s called Rota Fortunae. Do you know what that means? It doesn’t mean ‘I collect all the good luck and when bad luck comes around I cry like a baby.’ It means that fortune is a cycle. It’s a wheel. It always comes back around. Sometimes you land on that black ‘BANKRUPT’ wedge and it wipes out everything before it. You’ve been operating under the mistaken impression that Fortune has been a reward for good behavior, when really it’s been more like the weather. Mostly it’s good, but sometimes there’s a tornado that only hits your house.”
Job was nonplussed. “This is what passes for Philosophy these days? I think I preferred it when Zophar was inferring that I had a secret kiddy porn dungeon and God was mad at me. What you’re suggesting is some sort of proto-Nihilism!”
“No, not really. Just like the weather seems to be random, but is really governed by patterns unavailable to us, so too is Fortune: dispassionate, aloof, but far from meaningless. The fact that you have lived until now a successful and pleasant life shows that you have been living under the mistaken impression that good luck is your due. It would be the same if someone had for some reason lived under mild weather his whole life and then moved somewhere where there’s a lot of rain and then got all whiny about it. No one likes that guy.”
“Are you kidding me?” Job said. A lifetime of piety provided sufficient restraint so that he didn’t add smacking a female personification to the list of misdeeds of which his friends had accused him. “You’re telling me that, because I’ve had plenty of good days I should be okay with what happened to me? I’d trade my lot for a lifetime of mediocre days. Heck, I’d give up Saturday and add another Wednesday every week! You know that my children were crushed by a falling house, right? All of my children were gathered in one house, and a stiff breeze came along and building codes aren’t invented yet and—“
“There, do you see?” Philosophy had a look on her face which seemed to indicate that she had just remembered what she was about to say. “You must pursue happiness from within yourself, because Fortune can dash away your external riches and worldly comforts.”
“I tried that last week when all of my livestock was stolen, but the next day I got boils all over my body and since then I’ve been vomiting up blood. And I have a migraine. So, my insides are just as wretched as my outsides.”
She looked at him for a second and then shook her head. “No, that’s not what I meant! I mean, you need to look inside the self. You have to give up your concepts of wealth to see what truly matters. Those hallmarks of wealth are always better when you give them to others, for generosity breeds good will.”
“Yeah, that’s really a great idea. I felt really generous when I was giving away all of my cattle and possessions to those bandits and thieves. It really emboldened my spirit and gave me a sense of camaraderie with my fellow man.”
Philosophy was not amused. Job continued sarcastically berating her until Bildad piped up: “I think that we’re straying away from the point a little bit here.”
Job rolled his eyes. “Okay, here we go. Let’s have it.”
Bildad remained steadfast. “Look,” he said. “Job obviously did something to rub God the wrong way or none of this would ever have happened!” Bildad had to raise his voice over Job’s protests of “Oh would you shut your pie hole old man you don’t know what you’re on about!” “I just think that it would be best for everybody if Job just admitted that he must have done something and stopped being such a stuck up little twit about it is all. We all know he did something and all this mental gymnastics is feeding his delusion of perfection and persecution complex. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Listen here you old—“ Eliphaz was holding them apart now. “Look, look,” Job said. “I’m a farmer. I wake up, I work fourteen hours a day, sleep six and pray four. I don’t have any time to sin. I’m out there in the fields. I don’t know what you’re doing all day, but I have a job! My NAME is Job! It’s pronounced different, but—“
“I think the problem here is a misunderstanding of God’s role in this,” Philosophy said. “You’re seeing God as a metaphysical ticket man at the Chuck E. Cheese’s of life. You perform so many units of virtue and can expect so many units of good Fortune in return. This concept of the supernatural doesn’t hold water because if that were the case, immorality as an idea would be bred out of us evolutionarily. And that wouldn’t make any sense.
“Instead, look at the world as a vast, convoluted balancing act, and God is the one spinning the plates. He is the ringmaster, the engineer, and the facilitator. God works on a higher level, toward the ultimate good, which will be served by your situation.”
“Well, wonderful,” Job said. “I hope that my calamitous misfortune can one day aspire to be a cog in the wheel of some nebulous Rube Goldberg contraption that brings some kind of esoteric truth, purity and goodness to the world, I really do. In the meantime, can somebody rub some lotion on my shoulder boils? Those are the really nasty ones.”
Zophar, Eliphaz and Bildar yelled “not it!” simultaneously. Philosophy sighed, and grabbed the bottle off of what was left of the table.
