gigantic work, which leaves scarcely a dogmatic-ethical theme untouched, though in its own proper sphere it furnishes nothing of importance, for Gregory explained so, ut super historiae fundamentum moralitatis construeret aedificium et anagoges imposuerit culmen praestantissimum[1] but the linguistic-historical foundation is insufficient, and the exposition, which gives evidence of significant character and talent, accordingly goes off almost constantly into digressions opposed to its object.
It was only towards the end of the middle ages, as the knowledge of the Hebrew language began, through Jewish converts, to come into the church, that a new era commenced. For what advance the Jewish exposition of the book of Job had hitherto made, beyond that of the church, it owed to the knowledge of Hebrew; although, in the absence of any conception of the task of the expositor, and especially the expositor of Scripture, it knew not how fittingly to turn it to account. Saadia's (born 890) Arabic translation of the book of Job, with explanations,[2] does not accomplish much more than that of Jerome, if we may in general say that it surpasses it. Salomo Isaaki of Troyes (Raschi, erroneously called Jarchi), whose Commentary on the Book of Job (rendered incomplete by his death, 1105) was completed by his grandson, Samuel b. Meïr (Raschbam, died about 1160),[3] contains a few attempts at grammatical historical exposition, but is in other respects entirely dependent on Midrash Haggada (which may be compared with the church system of allegorical interpretation), whose barren material is treasured up in the catena-like compilations, one of which to the collected books of the Old Testament
- ↑ Notker quoted by Dümmler, Formelbuch des Bischof's Salomo von Constanz, 1857, S. 67f.
- ↑ Vid., Ewald-Duke's Beiträge zur Gesch. der ältesten Auslegung und Spracherklärung des A. T. 2 Bdd. 1844.
- ↑ Respecting this accounts are uncertain: vid., Geiger, Die französische Exegetenschule (1855), S. 22; and comp. de Rossi, Catalogus Cod. 181. Zunz, Zur Geschichte und Literatur.
