Last week we gave a condensed account of Ameni and his career, as depicted on the walls of his own tomb. He was a provincial ruler in Egypt before the time of Abraham. This tomb is a rock-hewn sepulchre about forty feet square, and its walls are painted with pictures of farm-life and hieroglyphic writing. Now I give from the same source his representation of himself from a moral point of view. A translation of the inscription which I am, about to quote is also given by Brugsch, in "Egypt Under the Pharaohs" (p. 61). Ameni says:

      I never wronged the daughter of a poor man. I never oppressed the widow. I never hindered a herdsman. I never took men from their superintendent. There was not a pauper near me. In my time there was no one hungry. When famine came, I arose and cultivated the fields of my province to the boundary both north and south. I enabled the inhabitants to live by making provision. There was not a hungry man in my province. I gave to each widow the property of her husband. I did not favor the elder more than the younger in what I gave. In great rises of the Nile bringing prosperity I did not exact arrears of rent. [121]

      "This," says the author of the article in the Expository Times from which I quote, "is as grand as it is remarkable." Think of it as being the writing of a man who lived before the age of Abraham; of one in the midst of an idolatrous land, and who was himself an idolater. He was a priest of three gods, Horus, Shu and Tefnut, and superintendent of the priests of Chnem. If we suspect Ameni of boasting, and doubt whether he actually attained the exalted character here delineated, still the profession which he makes shows what ideas men then had of a noble and becoming career on the part of one who was a rich ruler and a powerful military leader.

      But what has this to do with job? Much in several ways. In the first place, it has been thought necessary to give the Book of Job a comparatively late date in order to make it possible that in his day there was so lofty a conception of life and character as are expressed by himself and his friends; and especially has it been held that Job could not have been a real person at the remote age in which it was formerly thought he lived. Both these conceptions are exploded by the autobiography of Ameni; for here is an author who certainly lived several centuries before the earliest date assigned to Job, and his moral conceptions are very easily comparable to those of the patriarch. Here is indeed an illustrated autobiography, the contents of which will compare in volume with those of the Book of Job. It covers three sides of a room forty feet square and sixteen feet high. Reduced to feet, this area gives 1,920 square feet, and the whole of the writing, if printed on paper, would make a folio volume two feet square of 480 pages. True, the illustrations exceed in space the hieroglyphic writing, and the latter takes up more space than [122] alphabetical writing; but after allowance is made for all this, there is still quite a volume of writing.

      In the second place, this writing shows to a demonstration that the ethical sentiments of the Book of Job, no matter how early we put the composition of the book, is not an anachronism. Both this fact, and the still more important one that, good a man as Ameni represents himself, Job is still his superior, will appear if we compare with the extract printed above what Job says of his own past dealings with his fellow-men. Then turn to the thirty-first chapter of Job, in which, when hard pressed by the reiterated charge of having brought his calamities upon himself by secret sins, he is at last constrained to vindicate himself by strong assertions on the contrary.

      If Ameni could say, "I never wronged the daughter of a poor man," Job could say, "I made a covenant with mine eyes; how, then, should I look upon a maid?" He could further say: "If mine heart hath been enticed unto a woman, and I have laid wait at my neighbor's door, then let my wife grind unto another, and let others bow down upon her. For that were a heinous crime; yea, it were an iniquity to be punished by the judges; for it is a fire that consumeth to destruction, and would root out all mine increase."

      If Ameni could say, "I never oppressed a widow; I never hindered a herdsman; there was not a pauper near me; in my time there was no one hungry; when famine came I arose and cultivated the fields of my province to the boundary both north and south; I enabled its inhabitants to live by making provision," Job could say, "If I have withheld the poor from their desire, or have caused the eyes of a widow to fail [that is, when she looked to him for help], or have eaten my morsel alone, and the [123] fatherless have not eaten thereof; if I have seen any perish for want of clothing, or the needy had no covering; if his loins have not blessed me, and if he were not warmed with the fleece of my sheep; if I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless because I saw my help in the gate--then let my shoulder fall from the shoulder-blade, and mine arm be broken from the bone."

      If Ameni could say, "In great rises of the Nile bringing prosperity I did not exact arrears of rent"--by which I understand him to mean that when the crops of his country are abundant he did not exact from his tenants what they had failed to pay of their rents when the river did not overflow its banks and the crops failed--Job could say, "If I despised the cause of my manservant or my maidservant when they contended with me, what then shall I do when God riseth up? And when he visiteth, what shall I answer? Did not he that made me in the womb make him?" And he could say, "The stranger did not lodge in the street, but I opened my door to the traveler."

      Ameni has no more to say; but Job goes farther. While Ameni was an idolater, Job could say: "If I have made gold my hope, and said to fine gold, Thou art my confidence; if I rejoiced because my wealth was great, and because my hand had gotten much; if I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness, and my heart hath been secretly enticed, and my mouth hath kissed my hand; this also were an iniquity to be punished by the judges; for I should have lied to God who is above."

      Ameni was a warrior, and rejoiced greatly at the downfall of his enemies. Job was a man of peace, and could say: "If I rejoice at the destruction of him that hated me, or lifted up myself when evil found him; yea, [124] I suffered not my mouth to sin by asking his life with a curse."

      Finally, while Ameni could say that in times of famine he had all the lands of his province cultivated, which had to be done by irrigation, of course, and at great expense, lest the people should suffer, Job could say in reference to the way in which he had obtained possession of his own lands, "If my land cry out against me, and the furrows thereof weep together [because their former owner had been robbed of them]; if I have eaten the fruits thereof without money, or have caused the owners thereof to lose their life, let thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley."

      If any one is curious to know how either Job or Ameni could have attained to so high a conception of the duties of life, rising almost to the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount, the answer can not be given by the evolutionist without inventing dates to suit the answer; for these men lived too near the beginning of the race to have risen so high above the mental status of the baboon. And again, the time between them and Christ was too great for the very small advance from their standard up to his. But the answer is found in the Scripturally revealed fact that the pure morality with which the race started upon its career had not yet become extinct, even among idolatrous nations, but was still retained in the minds of their nobler men. Thus the testimony of the book stands.

[SEBC 121-125]