Satan and Sitis: The Significance of Clothing Changes in the Testament of Job

Abstract

This article examines the Testament of Job as a literary work within the genre of ancient Jewish novel. It explores the function of clothing changes for the two central characters of Satan and Sitis as providing both entertaining and critical narrative cues for character perception and development. This study is organized into two main sections. The first part examines the figure of Satan and his respective forms and disguises, with appropriate analogues to Apuleius's Metamorphoses. The second part examines Sitis's clothing and its function within the narrative, followed by a brief comparison to Joseph and Aseneth and Chariton's Chaereas and Callirhoe. This article contends that clothing is an important literary motif for the Testament of Job much like the popular ancient stories of Joseph and Aseneth, Chaereas and Callirhoe, and Metamorphoses. The contention is that a character's exterior clothing often indicates his/her inward character, or depicts a character's transformation within the narrative. In this sense, Sitis's clothing signals both her fall and eventual vindication, and Satan's disguises signal his status as the evil trickster. A character's change of clothing, as one would imagine in a performance or play, offers critical narrative cues to the reader.