Books: Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel
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Ignatius Donnelly >> Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel
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Surely this does not describe the ordinary manifestations of God's
power. When has the sun refused to rise? It can not refer to the
story of Joshua, for in that case the sun was in the heavens and
refrained from setting; and Joshua's time was long subsequent to that
of Job. But when we take this in connection with the fire
{p. 291}
falling from heaven, the great wind, the destruction of men and
animals, the darkness that came at midday, the ice and snow and sands
of the sea, and the stones of the field, and the fact that Job is
shut up as in a prison, never to return to his home or to the light
of day, we see that peering through the little-understood context of
this most ancient poem are the disjointed reminiscences of the age of
fire and gravel. It sounds like the cry not of a man but of a race, a
great, religious, civilized race, who could not understand how God
could so cruelly visit the world; and out of their misery and their
terror sent up this pitiful yet sublime appeal for mercy.
"13. If God will not withdraw his anger, the proud helpers do stoop
under him."
One commentator makes this read:
"Under him the whales below heaven bend," (the crooked leviathan?)
"17. For he shall crush me in a _whirlwind_, and multiplieth my
wounds even without cause." (Douay ver.)
And Job can not recognize the doctrine of a special providence; he
says:
"22. This is one thing" (therefore I said it). "He _destroyeth the
perfect and the wicked_.
"23. If the _scourge slay suddenly_, he will laugh at the trial of
the innocent.
"24. The earth _is given into the hands of the wicked:_ he covereth
the faces of the judges thereof; if it be not him, who is it then?"
(Douay ver.)
That is to say, God has given up the earth to the power of Satan (as
appears by chapter i); good and bad perish together; and the evil one
laughs as the scourge (the comet) slays suddenly the innocent ones;
the very judges who should have enforced justice are dead, and
{p. 292}
their faces covered with dust and ashes. And if God has not done this
terrible deed, who has done it?
And Job rebels against such a state of things
"34. Let him take his _rod away from me_, and let not his fear
terrify me.
"35. Then I would speak to him and not fear him but it is not so with
me."
What rod--what fear? Surely not the mere physical affliction which is
popularly supposed to have constituted Job's chief grievance. Is the
"rod" that terrifies Job so that he fears to speak, that great object
which cleft the heavens; that curved wolf-jaw of the Goths, one end
of which rested on the earth while the other touched the sun? Is it
the great sword of Surt?
And here we have another (chap. x) allusion to the "darkness,"
although in our version it is applied to death:
"21. Before I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of
darkness and the shadow of death.
"22. A _land of darkness_ as darkness itself, and of the shadow of
death, _without any order_, and _where the light is as darkness_."
Or, as the Douay version has it:
"21. Before I go, and return no more, to _a land that is dark and
covered with the mist of death_.
"22. A land of misery and darkness, where the shadow of death, and no
order but _everlasting horror dwelleth_."
This is not death; death is a place of peace, "where the wicked
ceased from troubling "; this is a description of the chaotic
condition of things on the earth outside the cave, "without any
order," and where even the feeble light of day is little better than
total darkness. Job thinks he might just as well go out into this
dreadful world and end it all.
Zophar argues (chap. xi) that all these things have
{p. 293}
come because of the wickedness of the people, and that it is all
right:
"10. If he _cut off_ and _shut up_ and _gather together_, who can
hinder him?
"11. For he knoweth vain men: he seeth wickedness also; will he not
then consider it?
"If he cut off," the commentators say, means literally, "If he pass
by as a storm."
That is to say, if he cuts off the people, (kills them by the
million,) and shuts up a few in caves, as Job was shut up in prison,
gathered together from the storm, how are _you_ going to help it?
Hath he not seen the vanity and wickedness of man?
And Zophar tells Job to hope, to pray to God, and that he will yet
escape:
"16. Because thou shalt forget thy misery, and remember it _as waters
that pass away_.
"17. And thine age shall be clearer than the noonday; thou shalt
shine forth, thou shalt be as the morning."
"Thou shalt shine forth" Gesenius renders, "though _now thou art in
darkness_ thou shalt presently be as the morning"; that is, the storm
will pass and the light return. Umbreit gives it, "Thy darkness shall
be as the morning; only the darkness of morning twilight, not
nocturnal darkness." That is, Job will return to that dim light which
followed the Drift Age.
"18. And thou shalt be secure, because there is hope; yea, _thou
shalt dig_ about thee, and thou shalt take thy rest in safety."
That is to say, when the waters pass away, with them shall pass away
thy miseries; the sun shall yet return brighter than ever; thou shalt
be secure; thou shalt _dig thy way out of these caverns;_ and then
take thy rest in
{p. 294}
safety, for the great tempest shall have passed for ever. We are told
by the commentators that the words "about thee" are an interpolation.
If this is not the interpretation, for what would Job dig about him?
What relation can digging have with the disease which afflicted Job?
But Job refuses to receive this consolation. He refuses to believe
that the tower of Siloam fell only on the wickedest men in the city.
He refers to his past experience of mankind. He thinks honest poverty
is without honor at the hands of successful fraud. He says (chap.
xii):
"5. He that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp _despised in
the thought of him that is at ease_."
But--
"6. The tabernacles of robbers prosper, and they that provoke God are
secure; into whose hand God bringeth abundantly."
And he can not see how, if this calamity has come upon men for their
sins, that the innocent birds and beasts, and even the fish in the
heated and poisoned waters, are perishing:
"7. But ask now the beasts," ("for verily," he has just said, "ye are
the men, and wisdom will die with you,") "and _they_ shall teach
thee; and the fowls of the air, and _they_ shall tell thee:
"8. Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes of
the sea shall declare it unto thee.
"9. Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord hath
wrought this?"
Wrought what? Job's disease? No. Some great catastrophe to bird and
beast and earth.
You pretend, he says, in effect, ye wise men, that only the wicked
have suffered; but it is not so, for aforetime I have seen the honest
poor man despised and the villain
{p. 295}
prosperous. And if the sins of men have brought this catastrophe on
the earth, go ask the beasts and the birds and the fish and the very
face of the suffering earth, what they have done to provoke this
wrath. No, it is the work of God, and of God alone, and he gives and
will give no reason for it.
"14. Behold, he breaketh down, and it cannot be built up again; _he
shutteth up a man_, and there can be no opening.
"15. Behold, _he withholdeth the waters, and they dry up:_ also, he
sendeth them out, and _they overturn the earth_."
That is to say, the heat of the fire from heaven sucks up the waters
until rivers and lakes are dried up: Cacus steals the cows of
Hercules; and then again they fall, deluging and overturning the
earth, piling it into Mountains in one place, says the Tupi legend,
and digging out valleys in another. And God buries men in the caves
in which they sought shelter.
"23. He increaseth the nations, _and destroyeth them:_ he enlargeth
the nations, and straiteneth them again.
"24. He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the
earth, and causeth them to wander _in a wilderness where there is no
way_.
"25. _They grope in the dark without light, and he maketh them to
stagger like a drunken man_."
More darkness, more groping in the dark, more of that staggering like
drunken men, described in the American legends:
"Lo, mine eye," says Job, (xiii, 1,) "_hath seen all this, mine ear
hath heard_ and understood it. What ye know, the same do I know also."
We have all seen it, says Job, and now you would come here with your
platitudes about God sending all this to punish the wicked:
{p. 296}
"4. But ye are forgers of lies, ye are all physicians of no value."
Honest Job is disgusted, and denounces his counselors with Carlylean
vigor:
"11. Shall not his excellency make you afraid? _and his dread fall
upon you?_
"12. Your remembrances are like unto _ashes_, your bodies to bodies
of _clay_.
"13. Hold your peace, let me alone, that I may speak, and let come on
me what will.
"14. Wherefore do I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in
mine hand?
"15. Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain
mine own ways before him."
In other words, I don't think this thing is right, and, though I tear
my flesh with my teeth, and contemplate suicide, and though I may be
slain for speaking, yet I will speak out, and maintain that God ought
not to have done this thing; he ought not to have sent this horrible
affliction on the earth--this fire from heaven, which burned up my
cattle; this whirlwind which slew my children; this sand of the sea;
this rush of floods; this darkness in noonday in which mankind grope
helplessly; these arrows, this poison, this rush of waters, this
sweeping away of mountains.
"If I hold my tongue," says Job, "I shall give up the ghost!"
Job believes--
"The grief that will not speak,
Whispers the o'erfraught heart, and bids it break."
"As _the waters fail from the sea_," says Job, (xiv, 11,) and the
flood _decayeth and drieth up:_
"12. So man _lieth down, and riseth not:_ till the heavens be no
more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.
{p. 297}
13. O that thou wouldest _hide me_ in the grave, that thou wouldest
keep me secret, _until thy wrath be past_, that thou wouldest appoint
me a set time, and _remember me!_"
What does this mean? When in history have the waters failed from the
sea? Job believes in the immortality of the soul (xix, 26): "Though
worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." Can these
words then be of general application, and mean that those who lie
down and rise not shall not awake for ever? No; he is simply telling
that when the conflagration came and dried up the seas, it
slaughtered the people by the million; they fell and perished, never
to live again; and he calls on God to hide him in a grave, a tomb, a
cavern--until the day of his wrath be past, and then to remember him,
to come for him, to let him out.
"20. My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and _I am escaped
with the skin of my teeth_."
Escaped from what? From his physical disease? No; he carried that
with him.
But Zophar insists that there is a special providence in all these
things, and that only the wicked have perished (chap. xx):
"5. The triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the
hypocrite but for a moment."
"7. Yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung: they which have
seen him shall say, Where is be?"
16. He shall suck the _poison of asps: the viper's tongue shall slay
him_."
How?
"23. When he is about to fill his belly, _God shall cast the fury of
his wrath upon him_, and shall RAIN IT UPON him, while he is eating.
"24. He shall flee from the iron weapon, and the bow of steel shall
strike him through.
{p. 298}
"25. It is drawn and cometh out of the body; yea, the glittering
sword" (the comet?) "cometh out of his gall: _terrors are upon him_.
"26. _All darkness shall be hid in his secret places: a fire not
blown shall consume him_. . . .
"27. The heavens _shall reveal his iniquity;_ and _the earth shall
rise up against him_.
"28. The increase of his house shall depart, and his goods shall
_flow away_ in the day of his wrath."
What does all this mean? While the rich man, (necessarily a wicked
man,) is eating his dinner, God shall rain upon him a consuming fire,
a fire not blown by man; he shall be pierced by the arrows of God,
the earth shall quake under his feet, the heavens shall blaze forth
his iniquity; the darkness shall be hid, shall disappear, in the
glare of the conflagration; and his substance shall flow away in the
floods of God's wrath.
Job answers him in powerful language, maintaining from past
experience his position that the wicked ones do not suffer in this
life any more than the virtuous (chap. xxi):
"Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon
them. Their bull gendereth, and faileth not; their cow calveth, and
casteth not her calf. They send forth their little ones like a flock,
and their children dance. They spend their days in wealth, and _in a
moment go down to the grave_. Therefore they say unto God, Depart
from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways."
And here we seem to have a description (chap. xvi, Douay ver.) of
Job's contact with the comet:
"9. A false speaker riseth up against my face, contradicting me."
That is, Job had always proclaimed the goodness of God, and here
comes something altogether evil.
{p. 299}
"10. He hath gathered together his fury against me; and threatening
me he hath _gnashed with his teeth upon me:_ my enemy hath beheld me
_with terrible_ eyes."
"14. He has compassed me _round about with his lances_, he hath
wounded my loins, he hath not spared, he hath poured out my bowels on
the earth.
"15. He hath torn me with _wound upon wound_, he hath rushed in upon
me _like a giant_."
"20. For behold _my witness is in heaven_, and he that knoweth my
conscience is on high."
It is impossible to understand this as referring to a skin-disease,
or even to the contradictions of Job's companions, Zophar, Bildad,
etc.
Something rose up against Job that comes upon him with fury, gnashes
his teeth on him, glares at him with terrible eyes, surrounds him
with lances, wounds him in every part, and rushes upon him like a
giant; and the witness of the truth of Job's statement is there in
the heavens.
Eliphaz returns to the charge. He rebukes Job and charges him with
many sins and oppressions (chap. xxii):
"10. Therefore snares are around about thee, and _sudden fear
troubleth thee;_
"11. _Or darkness, that thou canst not see; and abundance of waters
cover thee_."
"13. And thou sayest, How doth God know? Can he judge _through the
dark cloud?_
"14. _Thick clouds are a covering to him_, that he seeth not and he
walketh in the circuit of heaven.
15. Hast thou marked the old way which wicked men have trodden?
"16. Which were cut down out of time, _whose foundation was overflown
with a flood?_"
"20. Whereas our substance is not cut down, but _the remnant of them
the fire consumeth_."
"24. He shall give for earth _flint_, and for flint _torrents of
gold_." (Douay ver.)
{p. 300}
What is the meaning of all this? And why this association of the
flint-stones, referred to in so many legends; and the gold believed
to have fallen from heaven in torrents, is it not all wonderful and
inexplicable upon any other theory than that which I suggest?
"30. He shall deliver _the island of the innocent_: and it is
delivered by the pureness of thine "(Job's) "hands."
What does this mean? Where was "the island of the innocent"? What was
the way which the wicked, who did not live on "the island of the
innocent," had trodden, but which was swept away in the flood as the
bridge Bifrost was destroyed, in the Gothic legends, by the forces of
Muspelheim?
And Job replies again (chap. xxiii):
"16. For God maketh my heart soft, and the Almighty troubleth me:
"17. _Because I was not cut off before the darkness_, neither hath he
covered the darkness from my face."
That is to say, why did I not die before this great calamity fell on
the earth, and before I saw it?
Job continues (chap. xxvi):
"5. Dead things are formed from _under the waters_, and the
inhabitants thereof.
"6. _Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering_.
The commentators tell us that the words, "dead things are formed
under the waters," mean literally, "the souls of the dead tremble
from under the waters."
In all lands the home of the dead was, as I have shown elsewhere,[1]
beyond the waters: and just as we have seen in Ovid that Phaėton's
conflagration burst open the earth
[1. "Atlantis," 359, 421, etc.]
{p. 301}
and disturbed the inhabitants of Tartarus; and in Hesiod's narrative
that the ghosts trembled around Pluto in his dread dominion; so here
hell is laid bare by the great catastrophe, and the souls of the dead
in the drowned Flood-land, beneath the waters, tremble.
Surely, all these legends are fragments of one and the same great
story.
"7. He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the
earth upon nothing.
"8. _He bindeth up the waters in his thick clouds; and the cloud is
not rent under them_."
The clouds do not break with this unparalleled load of moisture.
"9. _He holdeth back the face of his throne_, and _spreadeth his
cloud upon it_.
"10. He hath compassed the waters with bounds, _until the day and
night come to an end_.
"11. The pillars of heaven _tremble_, and are astonished at his
reproof.
"12. He divideth the sea with his power, and by his understanding he
smiteth through the proud." ("By his wisdom _he has struck the proud_
one."--Douay ver.)
"13. By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens his hand hath
_formed the crooked serpent_." ("His artful hand brought forth the
winding serpent."--Douay ver.)
What is the meaning of all this? The dead under the waters tremble;
hell is naked, in the blazing heat, and destruction is uncovered; the
north, the cold, descends on the world; the waters are bound up in
thick clouds; the face of God's throne, the sun, is bidden by the
clouds spread upon it; darkness has come, day and night are all one;
the earth trembles; he has lighted up the heavens with the fiery
comet, shaped like a crooked serpent, but he has struck him as Indra
struck Vritra.
How else can these words be interpreted? When
{p. 302}
otherwise did the day and night come to an end? What is the crooked
serpent?
Job continues, (chap. xxviii,) and speaks in an enigmatical way, v.
3, of "the _stones_ of darkness, and the shadow of death."
114. The flood breaketh out from the inhabitants; even the waters
forgotten of the foot: _they are dried up_, they are gone away from
men.
"5. As for the earth, out of it cometh bread: and under it is turned
up _as it were fire_."
Maurer and Gesenius translate verse 4 in a way wonderfully in accord
with my theory: "The flood breaketh out from the inhabitants," they
render, "a shaft, (or gulley-like pit,) is broken open far from the
inhabitant, the dweller on the surface of the earth."[1] This is
doubtless the pit in which Job was bidden, the narrow-mouthed,
bottomless cave, referred to hereafter. And the words, "forgotten of
the foot," confirm this view, for the high authorities, just cited,
tell us that these words mean literally, "unsupported by the foot
THEY HANG BY ROPES IN DESCENDING; they are dried up; they are gone
away from men."[2]
Here we have, probably, a picture of Job and his companions
descending by ropes into some great cavern, "dried up" by the heat,
seeking refuge, far from the habitations of men, in some "deep shaft
or gulley-like pit."
And the words, "they are gone away from men," Maurer and Gesenius
translate, "far from men they move with uncertain steps--they
_stagger_." They are stumbling through the darkness, hurrying to a
place of refuge, precisely as narrated in the Central American
legends.
[1. Fausset's "Commentaries," vol. iii, p. 66.
2. Ibid.]
{p. 303}
This is according to the King James version, but the Douay version
gives it as follows:
"3. He hath set _a time for darkness_, and the _end of all things he
considereth_; the stone also that is _in the dark_, and the shadow of
death.
"4. The flood _divideth from the people that are on their journey,
those whom the foot of the needy man hath forgotten, and those who
cannot be come at_.
5. The land out of which bread grew in its place, _hath been
overturned with fire_."
That is to say, God has considered whether he would not make an end
of all things: he has set a time for darkness; in the dark are the
stones; the flood separates the people; those who are escaping are
divided by it from those who were forgotten, or who are on the other
side of the flood, where they can not be come at. But the land where
formerly bread grew, the land of the agricultural people, the
civilized land, the plain of Ida where grew the apples, the plain of
Vigrid where the great battle took place, _that has been overturned
by fire_.
And this land the next verse tells us:
"6. The stones of it are the place of sapphires, and the clods of it"
(King James, "dust") "are gold."
We are again reminded of those legends of America and Europe where
gold and jewels fell from heaven among the stones. We are reminded of
the dragon-guarded hoards of the ancient myths.
The Douay version says:
"9. He" (God) "has stretched out his hand to the _flint_, he hath
_overturned mountains from the roots_."
What is the meaning Of FLINT here? And why this recurrence of the
word flint, so common in the Central American legends and religions?
And when did God in
{p. 304}
the natural order of things overturn mountains by the roots?
And Job (chap. xxx, Douay version) describes the condition of the
multitude who had at first mocked him, and the description recalls
vividly the Central American pictures of the poor starving wanderers
who followed the Drift Age:
"3. Barren with want and hunger, who gnawed in the wilderness,
_disfigured with calamity_ and misery.
4. And they ate grass, and _barks of trees_, and the _root of
junipers was their food_.
"5. Who snatched up these things out of the valleys, and _when they
had found any of them, they ran to them with a cry_.
"6. They dwelt in the _desert places of torrents_, and _in caves of
the earth_, or UPON THE GRAVEL."
Is not all this wonderful?
In the King James version, verse 3 reads:
3. For want and famine they were solitary, fleeing into the
wilderness, in former time, desolate and waste."
The commentators say that the words, "in former time, desolate and
waste," mean literally, "_the yesternight of desolation and waste_."
Job is describing the condition of the people immediately following
the catastrophe, not in some remote past.
And again Job says (Douay version, chap. xxx):
"12. . . . My calamities forthwith arose; they have overthrown my
feet, and have overwhelmed me with their paths as with waves. . . .
"14. They have rushed in upon me as when a wall is broken, and a gate
opened, and have rolled themselves down to my miseries. . . ."
Maurer translates, "as when a wall is broken," "with a shout like the
_crash of falling masonry_."
{p. 305}
29. I was the brother of _dragons_ and companion of ostriches.
"30. My _skin is become black_ upon me, and my bones are dried up
with the _heat_."
We are reminded of Ovid's statement that the conflagration of Phaėton
caused the skin of the Africans to turn black.
In chapter xxxiv, (King James's version,) we read:
"14. If he" (God) "set his heart upon man, if he gather unto himself
his spirit and his breath;
"15. _All flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto
dust_."
And in chapter xxxvi, (verses 15, 16, Douay,) we see that Job was
shut up in something like a cavern:
"15. He shall deliver the poor out of his distress, and shall open
his ear in affliction.
"16. Therefore he shall _set thee at large out of the narrow mouth,
and which hath no foundation under it_; and the rest of thy table
shall be full of fatness."
That is to say, in the day when he delivers the poor out of their
misery, he will bring thee forth from the place where thou hast been
"hiding," (see chap. xiii, 20,) from that narrow-mouthed, bottomless
cavern; and instead of starving, as you have been, your table, during
the rest of your life, "shall be full of fatness."
"27. He" (God) "lifteth up the drops of rain and poureth out showers
like floods.
"28. Which flow from the clouds which _cover all from above_."
The commentators tell us that this expression, "which cover all from
above," means literally, "the bottom of the sea is laid bare"; and
they confess their inability to understand it. But is it not the same
story told by Ovid of the bottom of the Mediterranean having been
rendered
{p. 306}
a bed of dry sand by Phaėton's conflagration; and does it not remind
us of the Central American legend of the starving people migrating in
search of the sun, through rocky places where the sea had been
separated to allow them to pass?
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