Page 12 (1/2)

Part TWO

"and who is able to ith him?"

- Revelation 13:4

Chapter 11

HE HAD WOKEN at six o&039;clock and was now sitting in the breakfast nook of his quiet apart newspaper as the sun threw purple shadows along the cobblestoned street below

This was his ti Boston reached hi him forith a note-filled briefcase Now he sipped at a cup of hot dark tea and watched the day brighten, thinking how beautiful and distant the furry cirrus clouds looked over the towers of the city In the last few years he had found that he enjoyed the little things so much The tea&039;s sharp taste, the blues and whites that stretched the sky and gave it life, the peaceful silence of the apartment with its shelves of books and busts of Moses and Solos, that Katherine could be here to share these things with him But death, he kneas never the end Her death had made him reanalyze his own life; he knew she was at a blessed peace that he had finally learned to share

He scanned the newspaper&039;s front page Here was a catalogue of what had happened in the world while he&039;d slept The headlines screary for either relief or destruction Everyit was the same; in fact, the horrible had become commonplace There had been s, arson, robberies and beatings spread across the nation like a thread of blood froeles had killed ten and wounded thrice that ht, at the same time he&039;d rolled over in his sleep; a mass ang warfare in New York while his eyes darted beneath closed lids in pursuit of dreae a suicide pact, in the lower column abandoned children A tra ue holding captives and vowing tothe night, while he slept, the world had onized It had writhed in fits of passion Old wounds had been reopened, old hatreds stirred, until bullets and bombs were the only voices to be heard Indeed, even the bullets and bombs spoke softly now Soon, perhaps, the loudest voice of all, that blasting voice that rocked nations and burned cities to rubble, would descend screa and looked at the headlines, perhaps he would see no headlines there at all, just a question mark because then all the words in the world would be powerless

He finished his tea and pushed the cup aside The pain of the night had settled within hihts ahead was already unbearable He knew that his feeling of awful frustration also torues at the university, the frustration of speaking out but never being heard

Many years before he&039;d had great hopes for his books on philosophy and theology, and though they had been academic successes, they had all died quiet deaths in that limited literary arena He realized now that no book could ever change a man, no book ever quiet the rush or violent fever on the streets Perhaps they&039;d been wrong; the sword noas es of carnage and violence that seees Soon, he thought, the ti would be past and natures in flesh

He looked at the grandfather clock in the hallway and noted the ti class on the Book of Job and the theun to concern hi very swiftly indeed; he&039;d been lecturing day in and day out for almost sixteen years with only a few visits to the Holy Land to break the routine It had begun to concern hi wholeheartedly on another book After all, he told himself, he was past sixty-five - he would be sixty-seven in threeHe was afraid of senility, that disease of oldeyes, partly because in the last few years he&039;d already observed the aging process in several of the theology professors at the university As head of the department, it had been his responsibility to cut back their teaching assignest they work on independent studies He&039;d hated being ad with the Board of Review He was afraid that, in a few years, he would find hi block

He drove his accustooldenas he walked, briefcase in hand, up the wide stone steps, flanked by ti toward the sky, of the Theology and Philosophy Building He walked across the marble-floored hallway and took the elevator to his office on the third floor

His secretary said good ood worker, always there before hie his appointments around his classroom schedule Heher about the trip to Canada he knew she was going to take in teeks, and then went on through the frosted-glass door bearing in black letters the name JAMES N VIRGA and, in smaller letters, PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY, DEPARTMENT HEAD In his comfortable dark-blue-carpeted office, he sat at his desk and arranged his notes on the Book of Job His secretary knocked at the door and entered with his appointet an idea of as ahead for the day There was a coffeewith the Rev Thomas Griffith of the First Methodist Church of Boston; ina session with the University Financial Board to co fiscal year; in early afternoon a special seminar on the Crucifixion with Professors Landon and O&039;Dannis in preparation of a public television taping; in late afternoon a conference with Donald Naughton, one of the younger professors as also a close personal friend He thanked his secretary and asked her if she would leave Friday afternoon clear of appointments

An hour later, he moved back and forth behind his podiuuished handwriting tracing the probable lineage of Job, identifying hi of Edom

The faces of the students in the amphitheater watched hiain as he eestures

"It was at a very early ti why he must suffer Why?" He threw up his hands "Why ! So why should it be uy who lives over across the chashter

"That&039;s right!" he continued "And that&039;s an attitude and question that lingers today We cannot understand the type of God who is represented to us as a kind Father yet who does nothing - at least in our li from innocents Now look at Job, or Jobab He ht man, as much a sinner as anyone else but certainly no ht of his power he was struck e believe to be a form of leprosy, complicated also by as most probably elephantiasis He was afflicted with swollen flesh that broke and tore with every movement; his herds of camels were stolen by Chaldean thieves; his seven thousand sheep were killed in a thunderstorm, his ten children iped out by a cyclone And yet Job knows himself; he proclaims his innocence He says, "&039;Til I die I hold fast le at this vast reserve of faith despite his ordeal

"The Book of Job," he said, "is primarily a philosophic meditation on the mysterious ways of God It is also a book that explores the relationship between God and Satan; God observes as Satan experith of Job&039;s faith So then this is the question: Does huaaination? Do we exist only as flesh to hold the sores?"

Eyes flickered up froain

He held up a hand "If this is true then the whole world, the universe, the cosmos, is Job And we either endure the sores, which are certain to cority And this is the philosophic core of the book Integrity Bravery Self-knowledge"

He lunched on a ham sandwich and a cup of coffee in his office while he worked up an outline on the Crucifixion se a newly published work entitled The Christians versus The Lions, a lengthy account of early Christianity in Roe of the Bible He sat with the afternoon sun glinting through theover his shoulder, carefully reading page after page and wondering how he&039;d let his co about the publication of this book and here it had shown up in themails Heday

His secretary looked in "Dr Virga?"

"Yes?"

"Dr Naughton is here"

He glanced up frohton was in his mid-thirties, a tall lean un to retreat farther and farther up his forehead during three years at the university He was a quietinstead to work alone in his office down the corridor Virga liked hi in him a conservatism thatof late on a history ofand Virga hadn&039;t seen hton in the past feeeks

"Hello, Donald," said Virga, ?"