resurrection was thus transferred to the resurrec- tion itself, and Josephus was at once right and wrong in limiting the resurrection to the good, while representing the wicked as delivered up to punishment. But in general it is true of this writer that he has no decided anthropological views of his own, and that his pages reflect the most diverse opinions upon this subject current in the Palestinian Judaism of his time. ;
4. The first sin and its consequences.—In Sirach we have exactly the biblical account of the Fall: ‘Of the woman came the beginning of sin, and through her we all die’ (254); and this may be taken as representing the general opinion among the Jews of Palestine two centuries prior to the Christian era. As practical reformers, the prophets did not concern themselves with religious meta- physics ; but during an epoch when the Law was the one subject of study it was inevitable that attention should be concentrated upon the problem which agitated the whole ancient world—that of the origin of evil. And, naturally, the narrative in Gn 3 formed the starting-point in this discussion. Only gradually was the doctrine of original sin clearly formulated. In Sir 8° all are indeed said to be worthy of punishment; but if there be transgressors who are ‘a deceivable seed,’ those who love and fear the Lord are ‘an honourable plant’ (10). The writer of Wisdom says, ‘ By the envy of the devil death entered into the world, and they that are of his portion make trial thereof’ (2%). This speculative treatment of the narrative of the Fall in Genesis in no way alters its content. The language clearly implies the doctrine of original sin, which, however, is not conceived as inconsistent with a certain predis- position towards good (8). That this goodness, on the other hand, is in any case not absolute, is shown by the writer’s statement that apart from Divine aid he could not possess wisdom (8*?).
In Enoch the eating of the tree of knowledge is treated as the source of a radical moral and spiritual transformation in man, which showed itself in his instant recognition of the impropriety of being naked. It carried death with it also, not as a punishment but as a natural consequence (692), Although Dillmann would read this into 108", it is doubtful whether the book knows any- thing of a natural bias of all men towards evil. The question of original sin is scarcely in the view of the writer, whose concern is rather to explain the great moral difference in men. This he attri- butes to an initial difference of natural disposition. Philo treats the narrative of the Fall allegorically. Man represents the spiritual, woman the physical, side of our being. By teaching man to exchange the celestial for the terrestrial life, woman was the cause of the first sin (de Mund. Opif. 53 ff.). Through his descent into a sensible body, the first man caused the most evil consequences to his whole posterity. Sense as such being evil, sin is inborn with human nature (de Vita Mosis, ii. 157). Josephus (Ant. I. i, 2-4) gives a sort of alle- gorizing version of the biblical account of the Fall. By eating the forbidden fruit our first parents attained the height of knowledge, but it proved their destruction. Their punishment is made to consist in labour and adversity, in the swift advance of old age and the near prospect of death. Of an original immortality nothing is said. In a somewhat embellished account of the Creation the Book of Jubilees takes cognizance of Adam’s sin, and represents it as involving his expulsion from Paradise, with other attendant penalties. But it goes no further. It declares neither that death is the consequence of sin, nor that Adam’s transgression resulted in the depravity of the race.
DEVELOPMENT OF DOCTRINE.
DEVELOPMENT OF DOCTRINE 293
It would appear, then, that in Jewish post-exilic tradition no clear views had been formulated on the subject of anthropology. A certain degree of latitude prevailed alike as regards the philosophical conception of the constitution of man and the theological position as to the original condition of our race. In particular, no doctrine of original sin had, for the most part, been arrived at. With some exceptions, however,—notably that of Jose- phus,—the recognized necessity of death was con- nected with the fall of our first parents. Yet, curiously enough, this was usually considered a distinct gain, inasmuch as through the first sin man had audaciously possessed himself of know- ledge divinely prohibited. In other words, he had sinned to his own advantage. So that in this par- ticular, as Langen points out, ‘pre-Christian tra- dition agrees rather with the Prometheus - myth than with the biblical account’ (/.c. p. 365).
In 2 (4) Esdras we meet with the doctrine of original sin in a highly developed form. Already in the angel Uriel’s promise to teach him ‘ where- fore the heart is wicked’ (44), the writer assumes that the question will interest his readers, and in several passages he gives to it a distinct and definite answer. The sins of Israel are fruits of the first fall (37%). So also in 4° it is said, ‘A grain of evil seed was sown in the heart of Adam from the beginning, and how much wickedness hath it brought forth unto this time! and how much shall it yet bring forth until the time of threshing come!’ As in our nature the evil far outweighs the good, so the perishing outnumber the saved (7 8° 9%). In view of the pessimistic tone of the writer, it would not be safe to infer that his outlook was that of the Judaism of the period, although in days of troublous events it was doubtless shared by many. The element of truth underlying his morbid presentation is that empha- sized by our Lord, viz. that relatively few enter in at the strait gate. This is quite in keeping with the strict demands of OT morality, in which the writer finds a point of contact for his doctrine of original sin. He gives clear expression, how- ever, to what was only obscurely wrapped up in Jewish tradition. But in his handling of this doctrine he does not confine himself to abstract theory ; he approaches the problem also from the practical side. With the deep feeling of a soul crushed by the curse of sin he cries out, ‘O thou Adam, what hast thou done? for though it was thou that sinned, the evil is not fallen on thee alone, but upon all of us that come of thee’ (7*). Although the writer’s views are coloured by Chris- tian influence, that influence is only a reflex one. He was himself no Christian, and no ee of Christianity. His work is essentially Jewish, and its aim is to revive the Jewish hope. Nothing is further from his intention than the appropria- tion of foreign matter, yet it was inevitable that expressions forged in the heat of the conflict attending the early development of Christian doctrine should have appealed to his susceptible spirit. On its austerer side Christianity minis- tered to his gloomy spiritual tendency. In its milder aspects it seems to have awakened no answering echo within him. What, consciously or unconsciously, impressed him was its delinea- tion of the race as sunk in universal sinfulness and exposed to the wrath and curse of God, of the human heart as naturally wicked, and of the com- paratively small number of the saved. Yet he is so far from denying the possibility of salvation that he even specifies what is necessary in order