No Rest for the Unrepentant
“If I look for the nether world as my dwelling, if I spread my cloak in the darkness, /If I must call corruption “my father,” and the maggot “my mother” and “my sister,” /Where then is my hope, and my prosperity, who shall see? Will they descend with me into the nether world? Shall we go down together into the dust?” (17:13-16).
In discussing texts like the Book of Job and Oedipus the King, readers are prompted to reckon with the nature of misfortune and human agency. What follows is that question which we will all someday ask of our circumstances, “why me?” Often, we feel obliged to concede that a tragedy was the product of our own making or a foreseen risk in some venture undertaken. Other events, however, cannot be so easily construed. They seem to have occurred to us; they seem to have been a snare laid out for us on a blighted track or a mark that has stained us from birth.
The Book of Job is a rare departure from the Pentateuchal tradition in which “justice” bears the sword and scales. According to this tradition, every bad actor brought poverty, infirmity, and death upon themselves. Job’s friends, like most observers of tragedy, consult this long-standing custom. In light of the evidence, they blame and accuse him. They do not shrink from but are emboldened by his protests: “What are my faults and my sins? My misdeeds and my sins make known to me!” (13:23)— and in doing so, they do not relieve but irritate his wounds. Job did not receive his “just desserts,” neither did he reap the fruits of what he had sown—his consequences had altogether preceded his sins: “It is all one! therefore I say: Both the innocent and wicked he destroys” (9:22). He was a pious man who ceded his will to God and suffered for it. For many Christians, not excluding those of strong faith, the story of Job is alarming. What can we lean on if not the reliable shoulder of “justice”?
In the play of Oedipus Rex, Oedipus is enthroned to rule over the land of Thebes for his triumph over the riddle of the man-eating Sphinx: “What is it that walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?” However, because of his relations with Queen Jocasta, he is ousted as the harbinger of the plagues to Thebes—for Oedipus was abandoned soon after birth, fated to unsuspectingly kill his father, wed his mother, and so incur the wrath of the gods. By calling upon the blind oracle Tiresias after his coronation and wedding ceremony, he finds the crest he wears inherited and his bed corrupted by incest. In attempt to defy the truth, he unscrupulously draws it nearer, embodying the riddle that he once solved.
Readers dispute over Oedipus’ character and whether or not he was cast in a similar mold to Job as an embodiment of promise (especially during the Theban plagues) and human perfection or as one cast down by a “fatal flaw” (Greek: hamartia) that he refused to acknowledge. Although readers may assume Oedipus was punished for hubris or insubordination by the ruling gods, we find in comparing these texts that Job and Oedipus are structurally identical. Job, as a moral paragon that prefigures the life of Christ—“‘The one whom God answers when he calls upon him, the just, the perfect man,’ is a laughingstock” (12:4)—works upon the same theme that declared Oedipus the “king” of human knowledge.
Oedipus’ name is a paronomasia of the Greek words for “two-footed” and “I know”—and as we may gather from this word play, Oedipus is a crowning glory of human achievement. He is a man of action and intellect, of all seeming perfection for Thebes to adore. But this is not enough. Oedipus is overwhelmed by forces he cannot penetrate but still vainly pursues. By striving against the divine will, he carries out humanity’s ultimate and fundamental ignorance. Like Job, he was once beloved but later made into a byword of his people: “My brethren have withdrawn from me, and my friends are wholly estranged. My kinsfolk and companions neglect me, and my guests have forgotten me…” (19:13)/“What man alive [is] more miserable than I? More hated by the gods? I am the man no alien, no citizen welcomes to his house, law forbids it—not a word to me in public, driven out of every hearth and home. And all these curses I—no one but I brought down these piling curses on myself!” [901-07]. Neither are to blame for their misfortune, but Oedipus compounds his losses by reacting to it with an impiety that highlights Job’s patience. Rather than accept his fate, Oedipus continues to shortchange himself although the deal is settled, insisting on his right to forbidden knowledge as he had with the Sphinx. But this conviction alone offers him no reprieve from suffering. Thus defeated, the King falls into despondency and revokes the crown.
Similarly, as readers we may ponder the oracle Tiresias’s role: whether he was like Job’s consolers— only contending with the aftermath of tragedy— or if he was a catalyst of Oedipus’ downfall. Did Oedipus’ command to Tiresias seal his destiny? If we indulge this hypothesis, we may detect some foreshadowing in prior verses, such as what appears to be Oedipus’ self-aggrandizing and flamboyant speech during the first scene: “Come here, you pious fraud. Tell me, when did you ever prove yourself a prophet?” [443-444]. However, this interpretation of self-fulfillment— that Oedipus courted every disaster— lays a crack in the monument of Oedipus and his reign. His tragic legacy rests on the assumption that no one who figures in the text could have bent his fortune, but that what came to pass was strictly a divine imperative. In keeping with the play’s title, it’s then safe to consider the King a soul both dear and innocent as Job. His tragedy was effortless rather than earned, despite fruitless attempts to move the needle.
Our two characters endured horrors of such magnitude that readers may discern a poignant beauty in their shared crucible. As Job’s destiny was announced by a shepherd, the sole survivor of a massacre, so was Oedipus’ destiny (cf. “I alone have escaped to tell you” (1:15)/ Creon: No, they were all killed but one” [134-35]). Like Job, he lost his family to tragedy; unlike Job, he does not retain spiritual keenness in spite of it. As Job finds sanctuary in death, Oedipus fears reuniting with his loved ones in Hades. Oedipus’ tragedy resembles that of the pagans (e.g. the golden calf in Exodus) who strive for enlightenment but find themselves humbled by God. Job denies the world, while Oedipus clings all the more to it.
We may more readily sympathize with Oedipus’ self-sabotage and backlash against the gods that, by contrast, Job may be seen as radical for his self-denial and forbearance. His blessings magnify with each added torment, but Oedipus, in his “wisdom” that exceeds any found in Thebes, imprecates himself: “May the curse called down on him strike me!” [287]. He does not blaspheme the heavens but revokes his world and those who inhabit it, “All the griefs in the world that you can name, all are theirs forever” [1420]. As Joscasta implores her son to close his eyes upon sin, to sequester the truth under lock and key (“Live Oedipus, as if there’s no tomorrow!” [1077-78]) fate is still met wherever he turns. This act of Jocasta reminds us of Job’s narrative: his wife demands that he renounce his faith (“Curse God and die!” [2:9]) but Job affirms the power of God and wavers only by calling His goodness into question, which is answered by a theophany. God appears by storm and thus benighted, Job can no longer retort or protest: “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know” (42:3). Oedipus is tormented by blindness, spiritual as well as actual, never to experience anything of Job’s revelation, let alone his proper restitution. Without the saving grace of God, he falls upon Jocasta’s sword—putting out his eyes with the pins of her brooch—and leaves his kingdom to wander the earth with indignity.
God reminds us through these stories to trust in Him—despite all of our woes, and because of the whirlwind that may arise, we must hold fast to the truth: “I had heard of you by word of mouth, but now my eye has seen you. Therefore I disown what I have said, and repent in dust and ashes” (42:3) / Oedipus: “But if he refers to one man, one alone, clearly the scales come down on me: I am guilty” [934-36]. We realize the wholesomeness of humility. By trusting God’s word, we find salvation rather than justification for our suffering through his divine covenant. This is unique to the Christian faith: Oedipus is not restored to his former grace as Job was, his downfall is not followed by an uprise (“The Lord even gave to Job twice as much as he had before (42:10) / “Chorus: No wonder you suffer twice over the pain of your wounds, the lasting grief of pain” [1457-59]): Oedipus is left to grope in the darkness until his death. However, Job and Oedipus are cast upon the same stage, both exquisitely alone in their affliction, and wrestling with silent masters.
The problem of theodicy—“why do the righteous suffer?”—is a universal one. Reflecting upon these tragedies, and perhaps too upon the tragedies we endure privately, we must test our faith on a divine answer. But we are neither Oedipus nor Job: our lives are not titles to be staged or plaintively sung by a masked chorus, neither are we here to be made an example of or memorialized. Fortunately for Christians of every character, we have the Gospel to rely upon for hope.
Bibliography
Sophocles, Robert Fagles, Bernard Knox. “Oedipus the King.” The Three Theban Plays, Penguin Classics, New York, New York, 1984, pp. 159–251.