Table Of ContentDOMESTIC DISPUTATIONS AT THE DUNG HEAP: A RECEPTION
HISTORY OF JOB AND HIS WIFE IN CHRISTIANITY OF THE WEST
by
Katherine Low
Bachelor of Arts, 1996
Doane College
Crete, NE
Master of Divinity, 2004
Brite Divinity School
Fort Worth, TX
Dissertation
Presented to the Faculty of
Brite Divinity School
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in Biblical Interpretation
Fort Worth, TX
December 2010
UMI Number: 3443324
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©Katherine Low 2010
To my daughter Lila Belle,
my beautiful night who illuminates my days.
Table of Contents
List of Ilustrations .......................................................................................................... i
List of Abbreviations .................................................................................................... v
Acknowledgments........................................................................................................ vi
INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1
CHAPTER ONE: THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR BIBLICAL
RECEPTION STUDY, CONSTRUCTIONS OF GENDER, AND JOB ..................... 7
Methodological Considerations ................................................................................ 8
Reception History and Literary Paradigms: German Reception History ............ 16
Reception History and Cultural Paradigms: Communication Studies ................ 19
A Circulated Image of Job: Highlighting Issues and Themes ................................ 25
Gender and the Gendered Body: A Wider Lens ..................................................... 29
The Gendered Body ............................................................................................ 34
The Book of Job: A “Received” Prologue/Epilogue .............................................. 40
“Curse God and Die” .......................................................................................... 48
The Emasculation of Exile: Job and Gender ........................................................... 55
Job in Pain ........................................................................................................... 59
In the Guise of War ............................................................................................. 62
Early Receptions of Job .......................................................................................... 69
CHAPTER TWO: JOB AND HIS WIFE IN EARLY CHRISTIAN ART ................ 81
Christian Artistic Receptions of Familiar Greco-Roman Forms ............................ 83
An Early Christian Artistic Standard for Job and His Wife: Christian Adaptations
of Roman Marriage Ideals ...................................................................................... 89
The Figure of Job in Early Christian Art ............................................................ 98
Job as Citizen and Manly Athlete ................................................................. 100
Job’s Sella Curulis ........................................................................................ 107
Job’s Wife in Early Christian Art ..................................................................... 110
Satan and the Wife’s Bread........................................................................... 111
A Modest Mourning Wife ............................................................................. 123
Summary ............................................................................................................... 132
CHAPTER THREE: EDEN’S DUNGHILL: JOB AND HIS WIFE IN MEDIEVAL
THEOLOGY AND IN THE MIRROR OF HUMAN SALVATION [SPECULUM
HUMANÆ SALVATIONIS] ...................................................................................... 134
Medieval Preaching and the Background of Speculum Humanae Salvationis ..... 142
Adam and Eve Compared to Job and his Wife: A Latin Tradition Passed Down
Through the Middle Ages ..................................................................................... 159
Medieval Gendered Deviant Speech ..................................................................... 191
Summary ............................................................................................................... 200
CHAPTER FOUR: “MORE SHAMELESS THAN THE DEVIL”: EARLY
MODERN FORMS OF THE DEVIL AT THE DUNG HEAP AND DEBATES ON
MARRIAGE ............................................................................................................. 202
Medieval Bodies ................................................................................................... 207
Changing Views of Roles at the Dung Heap ........................................................ 218
Paintings of Job and his Wife from the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries . 231
“More Shameless Than the Devil”: How Job and His Wife Figure in Early Modern
Marital Literature .................................................................................................. 246
Summary ............................................................................................................... 273
CHAPTER FIVE: FROM COMPLACENCY TO CHRISTIAN IMAGINATION:
JOB AND HIS WIFE IN WILLIAM BLAKE’S ENGRAVINGS ........................... 276
Introduction: Romantic Sublimity and Job ........................................................... 276
William Blake’s Exceptional Take of Job’s Wife ................................................ 286
Blake’s Theological Outlooks ............................................................................... 290
Blake’s Book of Job .............................................................................................. 297
Job Meets Jesus Christ: Blake’s Overall Meaning for Job ............................... 301
Job, Humanity, God, and Satan .................................................................... 308
Job and His Wife in Blake’s Job Series ................................................................ 336
Job’s Wife as Job’s Emanation ......................................................................... 344
Summary ............................................................................................................... 356
CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................... 359
BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................... 363
List of Ilustrations
Figures
1.1. Historiated Initial, Latin Bible (Jerome, Prologue to Job). Paris, Almagest
Atelier, c. 1120-30. MS 317. Photo courtesy of University of Colorado at
Boulder, Special Collections.
2.1. Wall painting of Job from the catacombs of St. Calixtus, Rome. Photo: Estelle S.
Brettman, International Catacomb Society.
2.2. Wall painting of Job from the Cemetery of Apronianus, Rome, in the catacombs
of St. Marcellino and Pietro. Fourth century. Photo: Estelle S. Brettman,
International Catacomb Society.
2.3. Job and wife wall painting in the Via Latina Catacomb. Photo: Estelle S.
Brettman, International Catacomb Society.
2.4. Drawing of Job and wife of a damaged sarcophagus Church of St. Sebastiano,
Rome. Picture from J. Wilpert, Sarcofagi Cristiani Antichi II (1932), p. 266.
Photo: Christian Art Index, Princeton University.
2.5. Sarcophagus in Musei Vaticani, Museo Pio Cristiano, Lateran 164. Photo:
Christian Art Index, Princeton University.
2.6. Job and his Wife on the Sarcophagus Junius Bassus from 359 C.E. in the
Treasury Museum of St. Peter’s, Rome. Photo: ARTstor.
2.7. Sarcophagus Junius Bassus from 359 C.E. in the Treasury Museum of St.
Peter’s, Rome. Photo: ARTstor.
2.8. Sacrophagus of C. Junius Euhodus and Metilia Acte. Museo Chiaramonti,
Vatican, Rome. 2nd cent. C.E.. Photo: Ann Raia, www.vroma.org.
2.9. Adoration of the Magi, Sarcophagus of Flavius Julius Catervius, Tolentino
Cathedral. 4th century C.E.. Photo: ARTstor.
2.10. Wall painting of a dining scene from the catacombs of St. Marcellino and
Pietro, Rome. Photo: Estelle S. Brettman, International Catacomb Society.
2.11. The Sarcophagus of Mourning Women. Archaeological Museum, Istanbul.
Photo: ARTstor.
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2.12. Rabbula Gospel folio 13r. Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana in Florence. Photo:
ARTstor.
3.1. Job, His Friends, and His Wife. Bas-relief on central portal of the western
façade, Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral, 11-12th century. Photo: Katherine
Low.
3.2. Speculum Humanae Salvationis, MS. Douce 204, fol. 020v. Catalonia,
Roussillon, c. 1430-1450. Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Photo:
ARTstor.
3.3. GKS 79, fol. 50. Speculum Humanae Salvationis, Germany, c. 1430. Photo used
with permission from The Royal Library, Copenhagen, accessed from
http://www.kb.dk/permalink/2006/manus/218/eng/50+recto/?var
3.4. Mirror of Human Salvation. France, 15th C.E.. Ms.139, fol.22 recto, 15th
century. René-Gabriel Ojéda at Musée Condé, Chantilly, France. Photo:
Réunion des Musées Nationaux / Art Resource, NY.
3.5. A German Woodcut out of Speculum Humanae Salvationis, 1476 from The
Illustrated Bartsch, vol. 81. Photo: ARTstor.
3.6. A German Woodcut out of Speculum Humanae Salvationis, c. 1481 from The
Illustrated Bartsch, vol. 83, fol. 94v, col. 1. Photo: ARTstor.
3.7. GKS 80.2. Speculum Humanae Salvationis, fol. 42v. 1400-50. Photo used with
permission from the Royal Library, Cophenhagen.
4.1. Miroir de l’humaine salvation. MS Hunter 60, fol. 29v. Bruges, 1455. Glasgow
University Library. Photo courtesy of Glasgow University Library, Special
Collections Department.
4.2. Anonymous artist, “Job on the Dungheap,” in Ulrich Pinder, Speculum Patientie,
Nurenburg, 1509. Photo: Bayersiche StaatsBibliothek.
4.3. Anonymous artist, “Job on the Dungheap,” in Hans von Gersdorff, Feldtbuch
der Wundartzney, Ausburg, c. 1532. Photo: Bayersiche StaatsBibliothek.
4.4 Martin van Heemskerck, “Triumph of Job,” 1559. Photo used with permission
from Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, purchased 1981.
4.5. Jan Mandyn (1500-1560). “Les épreuves de Job,” Le Musée de la Chartreuse de
Douai. Photo courtesy of Photothèque—Musée de Douai.
ii
4.6. Job in His Misery, Jan Lievens, 1631. The National Gallery of Canada. Photo:
Courtesy of National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa,
http://cybermuse.gallery.ca/cybermuse/search/artwork_zoom_e.jsp?mkey=96
86
4.7. Gioacchio Asserto, “Hiob im Elend,” Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, 1635.
Drawn to scale from the painting by Teresa Ann Ellis. Photo used with
permission from the artist.
4.8. Gaspard de Crayer, “Job’s Adversity,” 1619. Toulouse, Musée des Augustins.
Photo: Daniel Martin. Courtesy of Toulouse, Musee des Augustins.
4.9. Gerard Seghers (1591-1651), “The Patience of Job,” date unknown. National
Gallery, Prague. Photo: Wikipedia Commons,
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Seghersjob.jpg
4.10. Rubens (after), Job Tormented by Demons, Louvre, Paris. Photo: Réunion des
Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY.
4.11a. Matthaeus Merian, c. 1630, “Job on the dungheap,” in Icones
Biblicae. Photo: Katherine Low.
4.11b. Matthaeus Merian, c. 1630, “Job on the dungheap,” in Icones
Biblicae as published in a German bible history by Raspischen Handlung, c.
1765. Photo: Katherine Low.
4.12. Bernard Picart “Job 2:9,” late seventeenth century. As reproduced in an English
family Bible printed by Henry Galbraith between 1763 and 1764. Photo:
Katherine Low.
4.13. Caspar Luyken, “Job II,” as published in Historia Celebriores Veteris
Testamenti by Christopher Weigel, 1712. Photo: Katherine Low.
5.1. William Blake, Illustrations of the Book of Job, object 3 (Bentley 421.2), "Job
and His Family." All William Blake's engraved illustrations of The Book of
Job come from the Collection of Robert N. Essick. Copyright (c) 2009 the
William Blake Archive. This project is supported in part by a William Blake
Archive Reproduction Grant for Graduate Students.
5.2. William Blake, Illustrations of the Book of Job, object 4 (Bentley 421.3), "Satan
Before the Throne of God."
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