iii. Predestination among the Jews.— The profound religious conception of the relation of God to the works of His hands that pervades the wliole OT was too deeply engraved on the Jewish consciousness to be easDy erased, even after growing legalism had measurably corroded the religion of the people. As, however, the idea of law more and more absorbed the whole sphere of religious thought, and piety came to be con- ceived more and more as rij^lit conduct before God instead of living communion with God, men grew naturally to think of God more and more as abstract unapproachableness, and to think of themselves mote and more us their own saviours. The post-canonical .Jewish writings, while retain- ing fervent exiiressiims of dependence on God as the Lord of all, by whose wise counsel all things exist and work out their ends, and over against whom the whole world, with every creature in it, is but the instrument of His will of good to Israel, nevertheless threw an entirely new emjihasis on the autocracy of the human will. This em- pha-sis increa.ses until in the later Judaism the extremity of heathen self-sulliciency is reproduced, and the whole sphere of the moral life is expressly reserved from Divine determination. Meanwhile also heathen terminology was intruding into Jewish speech. The I'latonic Trpji-oia, irpoi'oeii', for example, coming in doubtless through tlie medium of the Stoa, IS found not only in I'hihi (irepl r/woias), but also in the Aiiocryphal books (Wis 0' 11^ 17-', 3 Mac 4^1 5™, 4 Mae 9^ Ui'" IT"; cf. also Un 6'*- '" LXX) ; the perhaps even moie jirecise as well as earlier ^^opai- occurs in Jt.seplius (/.'./ 11. viii. 11), and indeed al.so in the I..\ A, though here doubtless in a weakened sense (2 Mac ll!-- 15-, cf. 3 Mac 'J-', as
also Job 34=* 28=* 1\!>-, cf. 21"; also Zee 9') ; while even the fatali.stic term diiapaivi) is employed by Josephus (BJ II. viii. 14 ; Ant. XIII. v. 9, XVUl. i. 3) to describe Jewish views of predestination. With the terms there came in, doubtless, more or less of the conceptions connoted by them.
Whatever may have been the influences under which it was wrought, however, the tendency of post-canonical Judaism was towards setting aside the Biblical doctrine of predestination to a greater or less extent, or in a larger or smaller sjihere, in order to make room for the autocracy of the human will, the nvan, as it was significantly called by the Rabbis {Bcreshith Rabba, c. 22). This disintegrating process is little apparent perhaps in the liook of Wisdom, in which the sense of the almightincss of God comes to very strong expres- sion (11-'^ I2*-i=). Or even in riiilo, whose pre- destinarianism (de Leqq. AlUgor. i. 15, iii. 24, 27, 28) closely follows, while his a.ssertion of human freedom i,Quod Deus sit immut. 10) does not pass beyond that of the Bible : man is separated from the animals and assimilated to God liy the gift of ' the power of voluntary motion ' and suitable emancipation from necessity, and is accordingly properly praised or blamed for his intentional acts ; but it is of the grace of God only that any- thing exists, and the creature is not giver but receiver in all things; especially does it belong to God alone to plant and build up virtues, and it is impious for the mind, therefore, to say 'I plant'; the call of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob was of pure grace without any merit, and God oxer- cisis the right to 'dispose excellently,' prior to all actual deeds. But the process is already aiip.-irent in so early a book as Sirach. The book at large is indeed distinctly predestinarian, and such passages ji^g l(jM-3o 23-1' 33''-'' 39-"-=' echo the teachin<;s of the canonical books on this subject. But, while this is its general character, another element is also present: an assertion of hum.tn autocracy, for ex- ample, which is without parallel in the canonical books, is introduced at 15""-", which culminates in the precise declaration that ' man has been com- mitted to the hand of his own counsel' to choose for himself life or death. The same phenomena meet us in the Pharisaic Psalms of Solomon (B C 70-40). Here there is a general recognition of God as the great and mighty King (2"'«') who has appointed the course of nature (18-°) and directs the development of history (2« 9* W), ruling over the whole and determining the lot of each (5«- "), on whom i;lone, therefore, can the hope of Israel be stayed (7» 17'), and to whom alone can the individual look for good. But, alongside of this expression of general dejiendence on God, there occurs the strongest assertion of the moral autocracy of the human will : ' O God, our works are in our own souls' election and control, to do righteousness or iniquity in the works of our hand (9').
It is quite credible, therefore, when Josephus tells us that the Jewish [larties of his day were divided, as on other niatter.s, so on the question of the Divine predestination— the Essenes allirm- ing that fate {(Ifiapixivri, Josejihus' allected Gr;e- cizing expression for predestination) is the mistress of all, and nothing occurs to men which is not in accoidance with its destination; the Saddueees tiikin" away 'fate' altogctlier, and consideiing that tliere is no .such thing, and that human allairs are not directed according to it, but all actions are in our own power, ho that we are ourselves the causes of what is good, and receive what is evil from our own folly ; "bile the Pharisees, seekin" a middle grouiiil, s.-iid that some actions, but no't. all, are tlie work of ■ f.ile,' and some nru in our own power as to whether they are done n