'The only parallels adduced by Sanday and Headlam from approximately contemporary literature are the passages of 4 Ezra [the passages given above] relating to the cor 'riudignmn. But the cor malignum is certainly the yezer hara of the liahbis, retrardc'd by Pseudo-Ezra, as well as by talmudic writers, as in- herent in .\dam from the first, and as the cause, not the con-
sequence, of his fall. St. Paul, curiously enough, nowhere appears to make use of the current doctrine of the evil yezer ; certainly not in connexion with the Fall. There would seem to be no evidence that St. Paul held, even in germ, the doctrine of an ioherited corruption derived from Adam ' (op. dt. p. 264 f.).
To the explicit challenge of a common under- standing of St. Paul's doctrine we must return when dealing with it in detail in the next section ; but meanwhile it may be made clear that it is not the assertion of a connexion between Adam's fall and man's sinfulness which is denied in these passages, but the inference from them that Adam's fall is regarded as the cause of moral depravity, and not merely as its first instance.
Support is given to this interpretation of the evidence by Weber's summary of the teaching of the Talmud (Altsyn. Theol. p. 216, quoted by Sanday-Headlam, op. cit. p. 137): 'By the Fall man came under a curse, is guilty of death, and his right relation to God is rendered difficult. More than this caimot be said. Sin, to which the bent and leaning had already been planted in man by creation, had become a fact ; the " evil im- pulse" {=cor malignum) gained the mastery over mankind, who can only resist it by the greatest efforts ; before the Fall it had had power over him, but no such ascendancy {Uebermacht).' After this quotation Sanday-Headlam continue the discussion in the words : ' Hence when the writer says a little further on that according to the Rabbis "there is such a thing as trans- mission of guilt, but not such a thing as transmission of sin (Es gibt eine Erbschuld, aber keine Erl>siinde)," the negative pro- position is due chiefly to the clearness with whicli the Rabbis (like Apoe. Baruch) insist upon free-will and direct individual responsibility ' (op. cit. p. 137 f.).
The conclusion to which one is led is that a common doctrine cannot be confidently affirmed ; and that if St. Paul does teach that man's moral nature was changed for the worse by the Fall, he is not following a clearly expressed and generally accepted Jewish doctrine on the subject. The bearing of his distinctive doctrine of the flesh on, and the meaning of, 1 Co 15^'^-'*® in relation to the Jewish doctrine of the cor malignum must be re- served for subsequent discussion, while the feature referred to in the above quotation may here be illustrated.
(e) There can be no doubt of the distinctness and emphasis with which Jewish thought insists on man's individual responsibility, sometimes even, it would seem, in opposition to the view of a moral solidarity of the race, as the following passages show : 2 Es 3^ ' In all things doing even as Adam and all bis generation had done : for they also bare a wicked heart' ; S^^- «» 'The Most High willed not that man should come to nought : but they which be created have themselves dehled the name of him that made them, and were unthankful unto him which prepared life for them ' ; 9'^- '^ ' As many as have scorned my law, while they had yet liberty, and, when as yet place of repentance was open imto them, understood not, but despised it ; the same must know it after death by torment.' The strongest assertion of the exclusion of the derivation of any guilt from Adam is found, how- ever, in Apoc. Bar. liv. 15, 19 : ' For though Adam first sinned and brought untimely death upon all, yet of those who were born from him each one of them has prepared for his own soul torment to come, and again each of them has chosen for him- self glories to come. . . . Adam is therefore not the cause, save only of his own soul, but each one of us has been the Adam of his own soul ' (Charles's translation in Apoc. and Psendcpig. of the OT, 1913, ii. 511 f.). While St. Paul is constant in his assertion of individual liberty, yet he does not think of opposing it to, or trying to harmonize it with, the common sin of the race, sprung from Adam. Either he was not conscious of any con- tradiction, or regarded it as a problem insoluble by man's wisdom.
(/) On the connexion between Adam's sin and the introduction of death there is no such un- certainty in the evidence. The curse that rests on
man since the Fall is mentioned in Sir 40^ : ' Great travail is created for many men, and a heavy yoke is upon the sons of Adam.' The connexion between death and the woman's sin stated in 25^^ and between death and the devil's envy affirmed in Wis 2^* has already been referred to. More ex- plicit is the reference to the narrative of Genesis in 2 Es 3^ : ' And unto him thou gavest thy one commandment: which he transgressed, and im- mediately thou appointedst death for him and in his generation.' So also the Apoc. Bar. xvii. 3 : ' Adam . . . brought death and ciit off the years of those who were born from him ' (cf. xxiii. 4). There are two passages, however, that seem to teach that man was by nature mortal, and that the Fall only hastened the process : ' Adam first sinned and brouglit untimely death (mortem im- maturam) upon all' (liv. 15); and ' OAving to his transgression untimely death [mors quae non erat tempore eins) came into being' (Ivi. 6). Apart from the two classical passages in St. Paul's letter on the relation of Christ and Adam in Ro 5 and 1 Co 15, which must be discussed in detail, death is connected with sin as its penalty in Ro 6^ ' The wages of sin is death,' and in Ja 1" 'Sin, when it is fullgrown, bringeth forth death.' We must now