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Thousands of years ago, a herder from Mesopotamia came to a land called Canaan where the “god of the high mountain,” a jealous God who demanded exclusivity, announced Himself. Abraham and his descendants experienced a singular relationship with a forgiving, loving Father who cared for His prodigal sons and daughters as they confessed, pleaded, and surrendered in love over and again. Thus, the Old Testament, the story of the Hebrews and their God, is a love story.
Ascending vs. Descending Love
Tradition holds that the first five books of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch, were written by Moses, who on Mt. Horeb had a vision of Yahweh (YHWH), the creator of all things. In Genesis, God proclaimed His creation of all things, including humans, good. Then comes the story of the Fall from the Garden of Eden, a place of freedom. Freedom came up against a boundary, the choice of the other. There must be a boundary to keep humans from absolute freedom, which is complete love of self, or narcissism. Yahweh calls humans to a freedom that includes self-knowledge yet is not completely inner-focused, one that extends beyond the self into relationship with God.
Our first article in this series on the History of Love was on the Greeks, who were all too familiar with the narcissistic kind of love that Adam and Eve sought. The Roman poet Ovid tells the story of the beautiful Narcissus who was so in love with himself that he could not move from the spot in which he beheld his lover, himself, and was metamorphosed into a flower. Greek literature is filled with this kind of love, the love of Eros, which Pope Benedict XVI in his encyclical Deus Caritas est called “ascending love,” as opposed to “descending love,” agape.
The story of the Hebrews and God is a love story just as complicated as that of Eros and Psyche, Jason and Medea, Aeneas and Dido. It involves a people struggling to love and obey a parent, constantly regressing in their duty and affection for their maker and deliverer. At least the Hebrews had the wisdom to realize, in the words of the Wisdom of Solomon:
For all men who were ignorant of god were foolish by nature; and they were unable from the good things that are seen to know him who exists, nor did they recognize the craftsman while paying heed to his works; but they supposed that either fire or wind or swift air, or the circle of the stars, or turbulent water, or the luminaries of heaven were the gods that rule the world. If through delight in the beauty of these things men assumed them to be gods, let them know how much better than these is their Lord, for the author of beauty created them.
God’s Loving Condescension to Job
Self-love is a frequent story in the Old Testament. Job, for example, is a wealthy man, wise and respected by all. God allows Satan to bring suffering upon Job, who loses everything. Job does not lose his belief in God, but his affection is tainted by suffering. Job begins to question God. Three of his friends debate with Job, arguing that his suffering is brought on himself, by his guilt and sin, which all humans share. Job is unwilling to admit this, convinces himself that he is blameless, and that God’s punishment is unjust.
Unable to sway Job’s obstinance, his friends give way to another speaker, Elihu, who speaks with wisdom and knowledge. He accuses Job of the sin of mistrusting God, of losing his faith in God, and especially of denying that God has the right, as the Creator, the Being of omniscience and omnipotence, to act in whatever way God wishes to. God has a purpose behind all actions; if Job has suffered, there is a reason, and it is a just reason, for God can only be Good.
At the end of the book, God condescends to answer Job’s many questions. Speaking through the whirlwind, God pointedly asks him questions such as, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the Earth?” taunting him for his complete and utter ignorance. He reminds Job that he is not God. Humans err, sin, do evil, and are unjust—which God is not and cannot be.
Job finally wakes up and declares, “I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.” He confesses, “I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” God’s reply is to forgive Job his ignorance and error and to restore His blessings to Job.
Job’s story is that of misguided descending love. Even when Job tries to justify himself and accuse God of injustice, he betrays his tacit knowledge of the truth, saying, “Thou has granted me life and steadfast love.” Overwhelmed with his own problems, his reversed fortune, his wish for someone to blame, Job is blind to God’s eternal everlasting love, for God is love in that He grants life.
A being who creates as God does is a being of love, for why else would He create the plentiful multitude of creatures that have always inhabited the Earth? As Pope Francis said: “Every creature is thus the object of the Father’s tenderness, who gives it its place in the world. Even the fleeting life of the least of beings is the object of his love, and in its few seconds of existence, God enfolds it with his affection.”
The Book of Job teaches what Pope John Paul II often proclaimed, that suffering is not a contradiction to God’s love. Suffering in love, a theme of many of the Psalms, was, ironically, also a theme in Homer’s poems. If the Psalms indeed originated with David, then they were composed at the same time that Homer composed the Iliad and Odyssey.
God of Love in the Psalms
David knew the ascending love of Eros when he loved Bathsheba and arranged for her husband to die, a crime that resulted in Psalm 51. In it, David asks God, “wash me thoroughly and cleanse me,” for “against You alone did I sin.” David had the wisdom to know that God wishes not the sacrifice of animal life but “a broken spirit,” the “sacrifice of righteousness.” As Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” in which the sinner humbles himself before God, tossing away pride and arrogance, to revel in the wonder of the Creation, the wonder of Love.
The Psalms were written at a time of armor, spears, chariots, swords, and arrows. David feared the arrows, both real and imaginary, of the enemy, and calls upon God in Psalm 64 “to deliver my soul from fear,” to keep the arrows of the enemy from penetrating to the heart, which “is deep,” from which David learns to “hope in Him.” Love’s hope is a piercing love of many shafts that cloud the sky as they soar down from Heaven piercing the skin, the mind, and the heart with overwhelming Love.
David knows Love has “possessed” him, has been with him “from my mother’s womb,” so that “I lay down and slept” embraced in God’s love, and upon awakening “I shall not be afraid.” And as he wrote in Psalm 117, God’s “mercy has been abundant toward us: and the truth of the Lord endures for ever.”
The Psalms portray a forgiving, loving Father caring for His sons and daughters; the Psalmist comes to the Father over and again to confess, to plead, to surrender in love for the Father, who responds with constant, never-ending love. The Book of Job is a love story as well, of God’s love for Job and Job’s love for God.
Editor’s Note: This article is part of a new CE original series on the History of Love, pursuing the meaning of love and our understanding of it throughout time.
Image from Wikimedia Commons
