Page 20 - GALIET KAFKABEL JOB, KANT AND MILTON: Omnipotence, Impotence and Rebellion IV+

Galiet & Galiet
chaos;andfriends:ice.58 ItistogapeatTitorelli’sheathlandscapesandyearnforinnocenceandimmanenceinthe life of Jesus, the prophet and man.
In this Theatre of Twilight, prisms and shadows play. Job’s innocence is not as questionable as Josef K’s. God testifies to Satan that Job’s deeds are pious and righteous. Turning away from evil (1:8) and guarding against his kin’s future evil or sin, Job sanctifies them and burns offerings and atones, at the end of each feasting cycle (1:4-5),59 for the mere possibility that his offspring may have sinned, or renounced Yahweh (1:4-5). So vast and meticulous is Job’s piety, it is absurd that he be charged by Satan or society with impiety.60 And just to self-edify, Job’s innocence, unlike K’s, is extensively sworn without scorn (31),
“If ever he committed such wrongs as to lust after a maiden;
attain wealth by injustice;
commit adultery;
mistreat his slaves;
withhold charity from the poor, the widow, the orphan; put his trust in riches; turn to idolatry;
worship the sun and moon;
rejoice at his enemies’ misfortune; put a stranger into the street;
or abuse his land and tenants,”61
Job would perish for them, willingly.
(Job 31:1-40)
Job confesses in diverse passages his innocence, just as Milton, too, confesses his innocence to More and to apathetic presbyters. In contrast, Josef K’s minimalist claims of innocence exclaimed to the Wardens (T9), Fräulein (T29), the Court of Inquiry (T51), Titorelli (T148), and the priest (T213), are believed by some scholars, and disbelieved by others. The fundamental impediment is that there is no Heavenly Testimony from Yahweh to vouch for Josef K’s innocence, as there is one for Job. Josef K only says so, and ironically, we don’t know if Kafka means it or not. Kafka is rigorously neutral and impersonal 3⁄4 “never pronouncing judgment.”62 We hear K is innocent because he says so, and that he is guilty, because the Court says so in taking his guilt as proved.63 So we are torn. There is no clarity, only twilight and ambiguity in Kafka’s half-lit tale, a Theatre of Twilight, a shadowy den akin to Plato’s cave,
58 “My brothers betray me like a desert stream,/Like freshets that pass away./They grow dark with ice/Upon them the snow is heaped up./But in the time of heat, they disappear;/When it is hot, they vanish from their place./Their paths wind away,/They go up into nothingness and disappear” (6:14-19).
59 Peake argues that technically, the sacrifice is not a Priestly Code sin offering, but atonement for sin. See footnote 5. Peake, A.S. The Century Bible. Job. Ed. By Walter F. Adeney. Edinburgh: T.C. & E.C. Jack, 1904. 57
60 Peake, A.S. The Century Bible. Job. Ed. By Walter F. Adeney. Edinburgh: T.C. & E.C. Jack, 1904. 7
61 Job is righteous in every deed 3⁄4 sinless in God’s ways (16:6-7, 31:1-40) — Job had not lusted (31:1-4), lied or deceived (31:5-8), committed adultery (31:9- 12), failed to help his slaves, the poor and needy (31:13-23), trusted in his wealth (31:24-25), turned to idolatry (31:26-28), treated his enemies unfairly (31:29-30), been stingy (31:31-32), hidden his sins (31:33-34), and been unjust to his farmers (31:38-40). Job’s negative confessions implored exoneration in the absence of a redeeming umpire (27:1-6). The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. An Illustrated Encyclopaedia. “Book of Job.” Ed. Arthur Buttrick and Emory Stevens Bucke. Volume III. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962. 919. The following are additional innocent declamations by Job. “That I never have denied the words of the Holy One” (6:10), and “Please stay, there is no wrong in me,/stay with me, my integrity is still intact./Is there any wrong upon my tongue?/Cannot my taste discern wrongdoing?” (6:29-30). See also Job’s additional cries of integrity: “His way I have kept without swerving/From His commandments I have not departed/In my bosom I have treasured the words of His mouth” (23:11-12), and “As long as the breath of life is in me/and God’s spirit is in my nostrils,/my lips will speak no falsehood/and my tongue no deceit./Heaven forbid that I declare you in the right;/Until I die I will not be stripped of my integrity./My righteousness I have held fast, and never let it go;/My heart harboured no blasphemy all my days (27:3-6).
62 Anderson, Mark. Reading Kafka. Prague, Politics, and the Fin de Siècle. “Introduction.” Ed. Mark Anderson. New York: Schocken Books, 1989. 5
63 Lasine, Stuart. “The Trials of Job and Kafka’s Josef K.” The German Quarterly, Vol. 63, No. 2, Focus: Jews and Germans/Jewish–German Literature (Spring, 1990), 180. See also Dodd, William. Der Prozess. Scotland: University of Glasgow French and German Publications, 1991. 39. See also T213.
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