Introduction

Job's perseverance in the sufferings that Satan inflicts upon him is the main theme in chapters 1–27 of the Testament of Job. This is shown immediately in ch. 1: Job, just before his death as he looks back upon all the things he has gone through, says to his children that he has exhibited complete perseverance (1.5: …ἐν πάσῃ ὑπομονῇ γɛνόμɛνος). Apparently perseverance in suffering is Job's most characteristic quality. It is also mentioned in 4.6, 10, 5.1, 21.4, 26.4, 5 and 27.4, 7. These passages show that not only ὑπομονή and ὑπομένω, but also καρτɛρία and καρτɛρέω as well as μακροθυμία, μακρόθυμος and μακροθυέω are important words to denote Job's virtue. The last word occurs also in 11.10, 28.5 and 35.4, but in these passages it has a different meaning (see p. 129 below).

The purpose of this chapter is to investigate what perseverance in suffering in T. Job implies and against what background it has to be understood.

The vocabulary of perseverance in the Testament of Job

The three words for perseverance in T. Job are largely synonymous. Often two words are found side by side, and several times one word is taken up by another: see 26.4, 5, where Job uses μακροθυμέω immediately after ὑπομένω and also 27.4, where Job's καρτɛρία is mentioned, whereas in 27.7 he summons his children to μακροθυμία. This summons is based on the example of Job, who in 1.5 again calls himself a model of ὑπομονή.