Divine and Human Agency in Paul and His Cultural Environment 9780567660800, 9780567084538

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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Philip Alexander is Professor of Post-Biblical Jewish Studies at the University of Manchester. Friedrich Avemarie is Professor of New Testament at the University of Marburg. John Barclay is Lightfoot Professor of Divinity at the University of Durham. Gabriele Boccaccini is Professor of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan. Troels Engberg-Pedersen is Professor of New Testament at the University of Copenhagen. Simon Gathercole is Senior Lecturer in New Testament at the University of Aberdeen. J. Louis Martyn is Edward Robinson Professor Emeritus of Biblical Theology, Union Theological Seminary, New York. Francis Watson is the Kirby Laing Professor of New Testament Exegesis at the University of Aberdeen. Stephen Westerholm is Professor of New Testament at McMaster University.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AJSR ANRW

BDB BNTC BZAW CBQ CBQMS ConBNT CRINT DJD GCFI HAL HTR HUCA IBS ICC JAAR JJS JSJ JSNT LCL LSJ LXX NTS RevB RevQ SP STDJ Str.-B. SVF TSAJ TynBul VT WUNT

Association for Jewish Studies Review H. Temporini and W. Haase (eds.), Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung (Berlin, 1972–) Brown, F., S. R. Driver and C. A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford, 1907) Black’s New Testament Commentaries Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Catholic Biblical Quarterly Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series Coniectanea neotestamentica Compendia rerum iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum Discoveries in the Judaean Desert Giorriale Critico della Filosofia Italiana Koehler, L., W. Baumgartner and J. J. Stamm. Hebräisches und aramäisches Lexikon zum Alten Testamen (1967–95) Harvard Theological Review Hebrew Union College Annual Irish Biblical Studies International Critical Commentary Journal of the American Academy of Religion Journal of Jewish Studies Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman Periods Journal for the Study of the New Testament Loeb Classical Library Liddell, H. G., R. Scott, H. S. Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon (9th edn with revised supplement; Oxford, 1996) Septuagint New Testament Studies Revue biblique Revue de Qumran Studia philonica Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah Strack, H. L. and P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch (6 vols.; Munich, 1922–1961) H. von Arnim, Stoicorum veterum fragmenta (4 vols. Leipzig 1903–24) Texte und Studien zum antiken Judentum Tyndale Bulletin Vetus Testamentum Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament

Abbreviations ZNW ZTK

Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche

Ancient texts 1 En. 2 Bar. Abr. Ant. Apoc. Abr. Apoc. Mos. Avod. Zar. b. B. Metzia Ber. Cher. Conf. Decal. Det. Deus Diss. Ebr. Ep. Ar. Eruv. Fug. Gen. Rab. Hag. Her. Jub. LAB Lam. Rab. Leg. Lev. Rab. m. Migr. Mut. Neg. Opif. Post. Praem. Prob. Pss. Sol. Qidd. QG Rosh Hash. Sacr. Sanh. Shabb. Somn.

1 Enoch 2 Baruch Philo, De Abrahamo Josephus, Jewish Antiquities Apocalypse of Abraham Apocalypse of Moses Avodah Zarah Babylonian Talmud Baba Metzia Berakoth Philo, De cherubim Philo, De confusione linguarum Philo, De decalogo Philo, Quod deterius potiori insidari soleat Philo, Quod Deus sit immutabilis Epictetus, Dissertationes Philo, De ebrietate Epistle of Aristeas Eruvin Philo, De fuga et inventione Genesis Rabbah Hagigah Philo, Quis rerum divinarum heres Jubilees Pseudo-Philo, Biblical Antiquities Lamentations Rabbah Philo, Legum Allegoriae Leviticus Rabbah Mishnah Philo, De migratione Abrahami Philo, De mutatione nominum Nega‘im Philo, De opificio mundi Philo, De posteritate Caini Philo, De praemiis et poenis Philo, Quod omnis probus liber sit Psalms of Solomon Qiddushin Philo, Quaestiones et solutiones in Genesin Rosh Hashanah Philo, De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini Sanhedrin Shabbat Philo, De somniis

ix

x Spec. Sukk. t. T. Abr. T. Ash. T. Benj. T. Dan T. Iss. T. Job T. Jos. T. Jud. T. Levi T. Naph. T. Reub. T. Sim. T. Zeb. Tg. Neof. Virt. Vita War y.

Divine and Human Agency in Paul Philo, De specialibus legibus Sukkah Tosefta Testament of Abraham Testament of Asher Testament of Benjamin Testament of Dan Testament of Issachar Testament of Job Testament of Joseph Testament of Judah Testament of Levi Testament of Naphtali Testament of Reuben Testament of Simeon Testament of Zebulun Targum Neofiti Philo, De virtutibus Life of Adam and Eve Josephus, Jewish War Jerusalem Talmud

Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION John M. G. Barclay Paul’s letters contain a number of statements regarding agency which have engaged the attention of serious thinkers right down the centuries. Most careful readers have detected in Paul a radical view of the insufficiency of human agents – their incapacity to do God’s will and their enslavement by supra-human powers. The antithesis between divine grace and human ‘works’ (e.g., Rom. 4.4–6; 9.6– 13; 11.6, if understood in generalizable terms) has made Paul the key spokesman for the unconditionality of divine initiative in salvation; Paul’s vehemence in argumentation on this point has encouraged hefty polemics against any hint that human achievement could accomplish redemption or even contribute to it. Similarly, the strong Pauline statements about the power of ‘sin’ and the captivity of the self, even of the will (Rom. 7.7–25), have spawned a tradition of deep pessimism about Adamic humanity, which has surfaced perhaps most powerfully at those times of cultural change inhabited and engendered by Augustine and Luther. Moreover, some of Paul’s statements on the relation of divine to human agency strike us as paradoxical, if not downright incoherent. He urges the Philippians, for instance: ‘Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure’ (Phil. 2.12–13). In statements such as this (cf. 1 Cor. 15.9–10) we are perplexed by the juxtaposition of two agencies: that of the Philippians, the recipient of Paul’s exhortation, who are clearly responsible for their ‘work’, and that of God, whose ‘work’ is taken to be not independent of theirs, but in some sense the source of their action, even of their will to act. Hence these two agencies are not simply juxtaposed, as if they were independent contributors to a common effort, but brought into a logical relation to one another: the human imperative (the exhortation to ‘work’) is based upon a divine indicative (‘God is at work’), the two connected by a logical conjunction (‘for’, IC T). Following this lead, we quickly discover further layers of complexity in Paul’s discourse on agency. On the one hand, his letters are full of statements which state or presuppose that human beings are capable and effective agents, responsible for their own actions. He bemoans human sin as ‘disobedience’, and speaks of God’s judgment and wrath in ways that presuppose human guilt and human responsibility. He also cajoles, exhorts and instructs his converts as if they were

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both capable of, and responsible for, their own activity. On the other hand, he speaks as if God’s agency is effective everywhere, even in cases where humans are said to work. On the negative side, human sin is correlated with God ‘handing them over’ (Rom. 1.24, 26, 28); on the positive, human righteousness is identified with the leading of the Spirit (Gal. 5.18). Yet, even where all is of grace, human agency is not effaced: the dialectic of 1 Cor. 15.9–10 suggests that divine and human agency are not necessarily correlated to one another in inverse proportion. If such statements and structures of thought strike us as paradoxical, we are not the first to be so struck. In the long and rich history of reception of Paul, his statements on agency have spawned extremely violent debates – most notably in Augustine’s debates with Pelagius, and subsequently in numerous disputes between Protestants and Catholics, internal arguments among Catholic theologians, and bitter controversies between Protestant sects. Each side has accused the other of deforming Christian discourse by one-sided recourse to Paul, sometimes with good reason, sometimes without. The repetitiveness of these debates since the Reformation might lead us to wonder if anything more can usefully be said on this topic. Should the study of Pauline theology simply accept that there is here a constellation of deep and irresolvable conundra and move on to other terrain? This book constitutes a claim that agency issues are neither stale nor uninteresting, and that fresh light can be shed on this central issue in Pauline theology by adopting a well-tuned comparative approach. In fact, there are two elements of the current intellectual climate which make this an opportune moment to reexamine Paul’s understanding of agency. 1. The last generation of Pauline scholarship, where it has considered Pauline theology, has circled back in part to questions of agency, after temporarily losing interest in such matters. E. P. Sanders’ reconfiguration of the relationship between Paul and Second Temple Judaism persuaded many scholars that the terms adopted in the old debates were wholly inapt. Paul was not distinguished from Judaism by his emphasis on divine grace, in contrast to Jewish concern with human works. Jewish covenantal nomism was founded on divine mercy in election, and Paul had nothing particularly striking to say on grace and human works, at least nothing different from the ways those themes were correlated in his contemporary Judaism.1 The subsequent ‘new perspective’, interpreting Paul’s remarks on ‘works’ as (Jewish) culture-specific and ungeneralizable, undercut the whole tradition of interpretation which found in Paul a programmatic distinction between divine and human agency. A further generation of study of Second Temple Judaism has confirmed Sanders’ charge that older treatments of Judaism often traded in caricature; but it has also started to challenge the tendency to harmonization in his own treatment of the sources, and to reimagine Second Temple Judaism as a family of vigorous disputes on almost all essential points of theology and practice, including the topics of ‘covenant’ and ‘nomism’. This makes it possible to reposition Paul not as a lonely figure in dispute with the central tenets 1.

E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (London: SCM Press, 1977), pp. 515–18, 543.

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of all contemporary Jews, but as a maverick participant in a lively Jewish (and specifically Christian–Jewish) dialogue, closer to some fellow Jews on certain issues, but distinguished from them on points he may share with other Jews. And among the issues in which he shares elements of common ground and aspects of disagreement may be his understanding of ‘grace’, of divine priority and of the nature and role of human agency.2 Two nodal points in recent debates on Pauline theology have brought the question of agency to the fore. In his fresh interpretation of Pauline ‘apocalyptic’, J. L. Martyn has emphasized the significance in Pauline theology of the powers which enslave humanity, and of the power of grace which liberates the human will, though it is not now made autonomous or independent. Thus Paul’s ethical instructions, Martyn insists, operate within the framework of powers which enlist humanity in their service, the power of the Flesh or the power of the Spirit.3 An alternative reading of Paul, by T. Engberg-Pedersen, has questioned how one should interpret Pauline language of this sort, redirecting attention to Paul’s interest in human cognition and its ethical results.4 The mutual engagement of these two readings reopens conversation about what sense we should give to Pauline locutions which juxtapose and correlate divine and human agency.5 Concurrent, but not symmetrical, with this debate has been a vigorous dispute about the Pauline phrase RKUVKL :TKUVQW, whose appearance at pivotal points in Paul’s arguments (e.g., Gal. 2.16; Rom. 3.22; Phil. 3.9) has elicited sharp division of opinion between those who find here christological agency (the faith or faithfulness of Christ) and those who see human ‘agency’ in faith (faith in Christ) as the immediate referent.6 Lurking behind this debate are large but sometimes ill-focused theological convictions, and an Augustinian or Protestant anxiety lest human agency be thought to diminish the all-sufficiency and sovereignty of the divine agent. If this debate appears to have reached a stalemate, can one approach the issue with fresh eyes by placing it in the larger framework of Paul’s understandings of agency? 2. If the ‘post-modern’ turn has taught us anything, it is that many of the ‘obvious’ assumptions of modernity are historically conditioned: they express a conceptuality that may be neither necessary nor helpful in considering either the 2. On the complexities within rabbinic Judaism, see F. Avemarie, Tora und Leben (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996). On Paul as in multi-faceted agreement and disagreement with fellow Jews on the interpretation of Scripture, see F. Watson, Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith (London: T&T Clark, 2004). Some elements of diversity in Second Temple Judaism in this sphere are discussed in D. A. Carson, P. O’Brien and M. Seifrid (eds.), Justification and Variegated Nomism, vol. 1: The Complexities of Second Temple Judaism (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001), though the Summaries and Conclusions at the close of the book are not representative of the whole. 3. J. L. Martyn, Galatians. A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB; New York; Doubleday, 1997), pp. 479–84. 4. T. Engberg-Pedersen, Paul and the Stoics (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000). 5. See the discussion between Martyn and Engberg-Pedersen in JSNT 86 (2002), pp. 61–114. 6. See the main areas of the debate as set out in E. E. Johnson and D. M. Hays (eds.), Pauline Theology, vol. 4: Looking Back, Pressing On (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997), pp. 35–92. Among the complexities of this debate is the question of the extent to which, where he does speak of the believer’s faith, Paul considers this an ‘action’ comparable to other instances of human agency.

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future of our race or its pre-modern traditions. With regard to agency, the similarities of language between ancient debates and modern discussions of free will and determinism often, it seems, mask fundamental differences of conceptuality. For instance, the modern association of human agency and responsibility with notions of independence and autonomy – especially in relation to the divine – can be shown to be the construct of a particularly modern phase in the history of thought.7 This is certainly not transferable – at least not wholesale – to premodern conceptualities.8 Thus, if we are to understand how it was possible for Paul to relate divine and human agency, we may have to ‘unthink’ many of our contemporary assumptions on this topic, in the effort to place his statements in their own historical context. That context, as we know, was complex and multifaceted. Since Paul was a Jew who manifestly drew off scriptural and other Jewish resources, he clearly must be studied alongside other Jewish thinkers of his era, though without any presumption about the extent of their unanimity on this topic. Indeed, Josephus’ comments on the differences of opinion among Jewish ‘philosophies’ on fate and free will (Ant. 13.172–73; 18.12–18), while over-simplified, certainly encourage us to expect that the debates among Jews were both significant and complex.9 But since his thought, and that of many of his contemporary Jews, was also constructively engaged (to varying degrees) with the intellectual currents of the late Hellenistic and early Roman world, the contextual analysis can hardly exclude non-Jewish materials.10 What is important here is the effort to understand Paul within his own intellectual landscape, rather than transporting him into our own, where an alien and anachronistic structure of discourse may deeply distort our understanding of his thought. (The same rule applies, of course, to other early Christian authors, who have had to be omitted here to give this project necessary focus.) This is not to deny that Paul may have a highly significant contribution to make to contemporary theology, only to insist 7. See J. B. Schneewind, The Invention of Autonomy. A History of Modern Moral Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 8. See K. Tanner, God and Creation in Christian Theology. Tyranny or Empowerment? (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988). 9. The former passage is worth citing in full (in Marcus’s translation): ‘As for the Pharisees, they say that certain events are the work of Fate, but not all; as to other events, it depends upon ourselves whether they shall take place or not. The sect of the Essenes, however, declares that Fate is mistress of all things, and that nothing befalls men unless it be in accordance with her decree. But the Sadducees do away with Fate, holding that there is no such thing and that human actions are not achieved in accordance with her decree, but that all things lie within our power, so that we ourselves are responsible for our well-being , while we suffer misfortune through our own thoughtlessness’. To what extent, or in what ways, we can line up the other evidence from Second Temple Judaism with this schema is a difficult matter to resolve (see, e.g., Sirach 15.11–20). We may certainly suspect Josephus of assimilating his Jewish ‘philosophies’ to the well-known schools of thought in late Hellenism, but we have sufficient independent evidence to know that there were real differences of emphasis among Second Temple Jews on the role of human agency in historical affairs, and the role of evil forces in corrupting humanity. Josephus’ comment seems to be repackaging (and perhaps distorting) some real state of affairs. 10. For the methodological point see T. Engberg-Pedersen (ed.), Paul beyond the Judaism/Hellenism Divide (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2001).

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that we do not make him speak our language until we have learned the grammar and structures of his own. The essays in this collection represent a collaborative effort to understand agency as a structural element in Pauline theology, by placing him within select features of his cultural context. The opening chapters are devoted to early Judaism with only tangential reference to Paul: authentic Religionsgeschichte requires the attempt to understand a cultural context on its own terms, not just as the ‘background’ to a single historical figure.11 A survey of intellectual currents in Second Temple Judaism (Boccaccini) provides an overview of the varieties of theology within the family of Judaism, resulting in different emphases in regard to agency. Two bodies of Jewish texts which give special attention to the question of agency are then explored – the Dead Sea Scrolls (Alexander) and the rabbinic corpus (Avemarie) – whose differing construals of agency bear further witness to the intricacies of our topic. A three-way comparison between 4QMMT, Paul and 4 Maccabees (Watson) demonstrates how antithetical structures of thought within contiguous Jewish literature take shape within the specific rhetorics and logics of each text, while the range of Jewish views on human capacity to offer obedience to God is explored, with emphasis on Paul’s extremism (Westerholm). If the relation of grace and human agency is a central topic in Paul, it is also so in Philo, and comparison can show just where they do and do not differ (Barclay). Similarly, we may consider other currents in early Roman culture, where close analysis of Epictetus can serve to highlight the Stoic logics regarding our theme (Engberg-Pedersen). Our final essay focuses more exclusively on Pauline texts, concerning human agency and sin (Gathercole). All these essays were first presented and discussed in an intense and highly productive colloquium at the University of Aberdeen in August 2004, funded jointly by the University of Aberdeen and the British Academy. All have been revised in the light of those discussions, among whose highlights were the responses and interjections of J. L. Martyn; these have been gathered and adapted to form the tail-piece of this collection, highlighting the central issues at stake and the advances which have (or have not!) been made in the intellectual endeavour represented by this volume. Pervasive in our debates, and in these essays, is a double question: what do we mean by ‘agency’? And, what are the available models for understanding the relationship between divine and human agencies? Concerning the first, we are aware of a nexus of forms of human agency involving the capacity to know, to desire/will and to act. Some of the texts studied here will emphasize one factor more than another – or stress the distinction between the capacity of human agency and its actuality. At the same time there can be stronger or weaker versions of human freedom advanced – to be free is not necessarily to be independent or autonomous (in a modern sense), and a voluntary act is not necessarily at the same time spontaneous (in the sense of being wholly self-initiated). Thus there 11. In the field of New Testament studies, the point has been rightly stressed, and ably practised, by A. Malherbe; see, e.g., ‘Hellenistic Moralists and the New Testament’, ANRW II.26.1: 268–333.

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can be simpler or more complex notions of human responsibility, accountability and causation. The same applies, and with greater range, in relation to the divine. God’s agency may be direct or indirect and may be conceptualized in stronger or weaker forms, ranging from absolute predetermination through foreknowledge, intention, enabling and permission. God can be the subject of many types of verb and God’s agency conceived through both personalist and impersonal metaphors. Given this range of possibilities, regarding both the human and the divine, discussion of our topic may be expected to be both intricate and varied. But our second question introduces a different order of variables, since it concerns the structures of thought which operate in considering the relation of divine to human agency. In some cases our texts may neither exhibit nor imply any structural correlation: the juxtaposition of divine and human agency may arise from rhetorical needs, combining statements of piety, on the one hand, with moral exhortation, on the other.12 But where some correlation is either implicit or explicit, it may be shaped by one of the following three models: 1. The first model – and the one that occurs most naturally to the modern mind – places divine and human agency in an essentially competitive relationship: the more that one is said to be effective, the less can be attributed to the other. Because they operate in inverse proportion, the greater the affirmation of God’s power (in strength or scope), the more inconsequential must be human agency; and conversely, the more human agency is increased, the more God’s agency is limited. Divine sovereignty and human freedom are thus mutually exclusive; human freedom must be understood as freedom from God. The two agencies are also regarded as in principle independent of one another.13 Even when they cooperate in producing a single effect, this is the convergence of two independent agencies; and the human agency involved is solely responsible for its own share of the action. Whatever is attributed to free human agency must block or reduce divine agency, since God is, in effect, one agent among others in the same causal matrix. Even where God is regarded as the originator of the causal chain, the human respondents act from their own self-initiated wills, since the integrity of that will can be maintained only if it is in some respects or at some points independent of the direct creative will of God. Divine and human agency thus stand over against one another as polar opposites, even when they collaborate as partial causes of the same effect. 2. The second model presents divine and human agency as related to one another by kinship. God and humanity are here within the same spectrum of being, and the agency of one is shared with the other, rather than standing in competition against it. Human agency is bound up with that of God, because the 12. The rhetorical dimensions of Paul’s language (as of all our texts), his use of agency language to persuade, comfort or cajole, is clearly be to kept in mind throughout. But it is unnecessary and unhelpful to allow ‘rhetoric’ and ‘truth-claims’ to be played off against one another. 13. For the force of this emphasis, especially in Kant, for whom free agency excludes any notion of dependence on, or slavery to, another, see Schneewind, Invention, pp. 508–30. Thus our question became entangled with the larger debate between ‘religion’ and ‘humanism’.

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two are essentially identical when properly aligned. Although God may be said to be transcendent in a limited way – in superior power or range – the two agencies are in key respects equal and akin, since human agency is a portion of that of God. On this model human freedom is certainly not freedom from God, but is exercised precisely by acting in accordance with God. Humanity is most itself not when it is ‘self-sufficient’ vis-à-vis God, but when it acts in dependence on God, and wills what God has willed. For human beings participate in the nature of God, and might even be described as ‘fragments’ of God: what makes them most effective as human agents is what they share with God. 3. The third model presents divine agency in terms of non-contrastive transcendence. Here divine agency is certainly not in principle exclusive of human agency: transcendence is not viewed in contrastive terms. God’s sovereignty does not limit or reduce human freedom, but is precisely what grounds and enables it. The two agencies thus stand in direct, and not inverse proportion: the more the human agent is operative, the more (not the less) may be attributed to God. As K. Tanner insists, ‘a non-contrastive transcendence of God suggests an extreme of divine involvement with the world – a divine involvement in the form of a productive agency extending to everything that is in an equally direct manner’.14 But divine transcendence also here implies agencies that are non-identical: God is radically distinct from human agency and not an agent within the same order of being or in the same causal nexus. Thus human agency is neither an empty shell for divine power, nor a threat to divine agency (as in model 1) – nor ultimately identical to divine agency (model 2). Rather, created human agencies are founded in, and constituted by, the divine creative agency, while remaining distinct from God. God’s unconditional sovereignty is here operative with regard to creatures who have their own will and their own freedom. But that created (or, newly created) freedom,15 which may be ‘horizontally’ independent of other created agencies, stands in a ‘vertical’ relationship of absolute dependence on divine agency. Other agents may affect human agency, but it is God who effects it, who constitutes its effectiveness as an agent. Hence, if God is everything, humanity is nothing without God – but may be both powerful and effective as a created agent in dependence on God. These three models of agency should be retained as live options in interpreting the logical structures of the texts we study; and if the modern mind slips by default into the first it is all the more important to keep the other two alive in our consciousness. Our texts may, of course, be confused or opaque, and will certainly be more complex than these bare schemas suggest. In many, for instance, other non-human agencies are also discussed, such as the Prince of Darkness, or the power of Sin. These may not enjoy the sort of transcendence one can attribute to a divine creative agent, but they may certainly corrupt human agency in significant ways. As we shall see, not all the ancient texts wrestle with the question 14. Tanner, God and Creation, 46; although she does not use this threefold schema, I am indebted to Tanner’s work for many of the concepts and some of the vocabulary here employed. 15. The qualification reflects the Pauline stress on the human agent as newly constituted ‘in Christ’.

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of divine and human agency as a problem, at least not in the ways in which we perceive the issue as problematic today; they may not consider paradoxical what seems so to us. But a number do reflect interestingly on the roots and structures of agency, and among those, with their own particular contribution, stand the letters of Paul. Within the scope of these essays we clearly cannot resolve all the literary, historical, theological and philosophical problems in our topic. But we hope to illuminate and clarify central elements in our theme, rid ourselves of some common misperceptions, and thus make better sense both of Paul and of his original cultural context.16

16. My thanks to Simon Gathercole, J. Louis Martyn and Troels Engberg-Pedersen for their advice in composing this introduction.

Chapter 2 INNER-JEWISH DEBATE ON THE TENSION BETWEEN DIVINE AND HUMAN AGENCY IN SECOND TEMPLE JUDAISM Gabriele Boccaccini Introduction: My Grandmother’s Picture Box and Marc Bloch’s Ogre The status of Second Temple Jewish literature reminds me of the old box where my grandmother used to put, higgledy-piggledy, the pictures of her huge family (eleven siblings, and an uncounted number of uncles and aunts, great-uncles and great-aunts, cousins, friends and relatives – all smiling together). In the box there were, along with a large number of scattered pictures, also some albums containing collections or ‘canons’ of pictures that my grandmother had put together according to the most diverse criteria (format, her favourites, inheritance from some other relatives, or just chance). Since I was a child, I was captivated by the curiosity of reconstructing the genealogical tree of my family. By instinct I tried first to free the pictures from the cages of their corpora and put them in a single line according to the chronological order. But even so, they did not make much sense, as the pictures portrayed generations of individuals, who often lived simultaneously. I had to group together the pictures that portrayed the same individuals, if I wanted those individuals to become alive again. It was not a simple task, as I realized immediately. Only in a few cases was I able to relate the information I received from the pictures with what I knew from family stories or other sources. The pictures then portrayed people at different stages of their lives and it was not easy to recognize in that shy baby the bold officer and pilot who died in World War I, or to find any resemblance between that old severe lady and the young girl full of life and beauty. The family likeness complicated the situation even further, since many times it caused me to mistake one character for another. But soon I had created my own ‘communities of pictures’, which replaced my grandmother’s old albums of blessed memory and gave some (tentative, yet more satisfactory) order to the messy picture collection. Writing an intellectual history of Second Temple Judaism is very much like reconstructing the genealogical tree of a large family.1 We have documents instead 1. G. Boccaccini, ‘Middle Judaism: Judaism between the 3rd Century BCE and the 2nd Century as a Historiographical Unit’, in idem, Middle Judaism: Jewish Thought, 300 BCE to 200 CE (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991); idem, ‘Middle Judaism and Its Contemporary Interpreters: CE

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of pictures, and historical accounts instead of family stories. Documents, like family pictures, must be studied each on its own terms, within the broader social and intellectual framework provided by other sources. A common-denominator approach would only conflate data from different documents to shape a single, eclectic subject (the theology of Second Temple Judaism) that never existed, while dismissing the individual traits (the conflicting pieces of evidence) as marginal and negligible phenomena, only because they do not conform to the majority. On the other hand, an excessive emphasis on diversity would lead us to the opposite extreme of seeing documents in isolation from each other, as representatives of as many diverse subjects, not as portraits of the same subjects at different stages of their existence. We face neither a single subject, nor an incalculable number of subjects, but genealogies of subjects (the diverse and competing theologies of Second Temple Judaism). We should not be misled by the family likeness or the abundance of parallels. This was well stated by E. P. Sanders: ‘One may consider the analogy of two buildings. Bricks which are identical in shape, colour, and weight could well be used to construct two different buildings which are totally unlike each other’.2 The identification of ‘communities of texts’, representing the diverse and competing trajectories of thought in Second Temple Judaism, is the major goal and the major challenge in the study of the period. It is not an easy task. We meet so many cases of false resemblance, forgetfulness, mistaken identity and rejection (first of all, the anachronistic separation between Jewish and Christian documents). Yet, it is an inescapable task, if we want, for example, to understand where each member of the family stood in the inner-Jewish debate on the tension between human and divine agency, which is the case of this paper, as well as on any other controversial issue.3 ‘The good historian resembles the ogre of the fairy-tale; where he scents the human flesh, he knows that his prey is there’.4 Marc Bloch’s witty remark reminds us that ours is a dirty job that has not to do with an anonymous and aseptic ‘common Judaism’ but with the actual lives and the temperamental behaviour of flesh-and-blood people who made up the Jewish family. In the words of Eugenio Garin, the intellectual historian’s task is ‘to be aware of the plurality of philosophies, understand the many voices, put them in context, Methodological Foundations for the Study of Judaisms, 300 BCE to 200 CE’, Henoch 15 (1993), pp. 207–34; idem, ‘Middle Judaism and Its Contemporary Interpreters: What Makes Any Judaisms a Judaism?’, Henoch 20 (1998), pp. 349–56; idem, ‘The Intellectual Quest of Rabbinic Origins and Roots’, in idem, Roots of Rabbinic Judaism: An Intellectual History, from Ezekiel to Daniel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), pp. 1–41. 2. E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), p. 13; see also S. Sandmel, ‘Parallelomania’, JBL 81 (1962), pp. 1–13. 3. Diversity is recognized as one of the main features of Second Temple Judaism in all recent introductions to the period, see P. Sacchi, History of the Second Temple (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 2000); L. L. Grabbe, Judaic Religion in Second Temple Judaism (London: Routledge, 2000); G. W. E. Nickelsburg, Ancient Judaism and Christian Origins: Diversity, Continuity, and Transformation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003). 4. M. Bloch, Apologie pour l’histoire; ou, Métier d’historien (Paris: Colin, 1949), p. 35 (ET by P. Putnam, The Historian’s Craft [New York: Knopf, 1953]).

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identify the relations with the social groups in which they emerged, assess what they meant for these groups, how they acted if they acted, how they changed, and how they declined – human thoughts, how they were created by people, how they changed people’.5 Marc Bloch’s ogre would have loved the smell of my grandmother’s picture box.

1. The Earlier Generation (Zadokite, Sapiential and Enochic Judaism) The surviving Jewish documents from the Persian and early Hellenistic period can be grouped into three major trajectories of thought.6 The tripartition into Zadokite, Enochic and Sapiential Judaism mirrors the sociological structure of the post-exilic Jewish society (or, better, of its upper class). The House of Zadok and their Aaronite allies dominated the temple and the religious life of Judah, replacing the Davidic monarchy and silencing the prophets, but not without internal struggle by those priestly families who were excluded and marginalized. On the other hand, the presence of an autonomous foreign administration in charge of political affairs, gave the proper setting for the survival of scribal schools, where the wise flourished.

a. Zadokite Judaism The covenantal relationship between God and Israel, as understood by the Zadokites, is a pact for the stability and welfare of the Jewish people, as well as for the stability and welfare of the entire world, regulated by a complex system of ‘graded holiness’.7 As creation has set clear boundaries and rules to the cosmos by separating heaven from the earth and the inhabited world (the land of Israel) from the chaos of the ocean and the wilderness (Genesis 1), so the covenant is the foundation of an orderly and balanced relationship between God and God’s people, once again by providing precise and not arbitrary boundaries and rules. The Jewish people agreed to submit themselves, collectively and individually, to God’s law, including the hardship of punishment in case of transgression. In return, God also agreed to put the divine power under the restraints of the covenant, guaranteeing protection and well-being to the righteous and reacting with justice and measure against the transgressors. The idea of a covenant between God and God’s people was not new. It had already a long history that went far back into the polytheistic notion of conditional pacts between a divine patron and his earthly allies. It was at the centre of the monarchic ideology of an everlasting alliance between the God of Israel and the house of David, according to the words of the prophet Nathan: ‘Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me’ (2 Sam. 7.16). In 5. E. Garin, ‘Osservazioni preliminari a una storia della filosofia’, GCFI 38 (1959), pp. 1–55 (41). 6. G. Boccaccini, ‘Zadokite Judaism and Its Opponents’, in idem, Roots of Rabbinic Judaism, pp. 73–111. 7. P. P. Jenson, Graded Holiness: A Key to the Priestly Conception of the World (JSOTSup, 106; Sheffield, Sheffield Academic Press, 1992).

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the Zadokite worldview, the house of Zadok has taken the place of the house of David, the priests have replaced the king’s prophets, and Aaron has superseded Moses. God’s single exclusive temple, led by God’s single legitimate priesthood, is ideally at the centre of the world. Its architecture and internal structure, its hierarchically disposed personnel, and the regularity of its liturgical calendar were intended to replicate the sacred geography of creation, the social hierarchy of humankind, and the eternal times of the cosmos. The cult had the dual function of maintaining and restoring the creative order, by reminding God of God’s commitments and removing sin and impurity from the worshippers. The regularity of the rituals was ultimately the main guarantee of the stability of the universe.8 If not the creators of ‘covenantal nomism’, the Zadokites were however those who first perfected it into a coherent theological system seeking the perfect balance between human and divine agency, between God’s and human freedom, between God’s mercy and God’s justice. In the Zadokite interpretation of the covenant, people’s accountability is enhanced and God’s discretion limited according to Ezekiel’s principle: ‘The righteousness of the righteous shall be his own, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be his own’ (Ezek. 18.20). Chronicles’ revised version of the ancient monarchic historiography shows that misfortune always follows transgression and well-being is always a sign of obedience. Generation after generation, people can only blame themselves for their physical and moral failures, and God can no longer miss or delay the chance of punishing the wicked and rewarding the righteous.

b. Enochic Judaism In spite of its accomplishments and undeniable authority, the Zadokite system was not without its weak points as its critics would not fail to stress. Specialists in ancient Jewish apocalypticism and mysticism concur in identifying the presence of a priestly opposition active in Jerusalem since the early Second Temple period.9 We do not know what this party was called, or what it called itself in antiquity. However, since this movement of dissent first coalesced around ancient myths with Enoch as their hero, the term ‘Enochic Judaism’ seems quite appropriate and satisfactory as a modern label. The catalyst of Enochic Judaism was a unique concept of the origin of evil that made the fallen angels (the ‘sons of God’ also recorded in Gen. 6.1–4) as ultimately responsible for the spread of evil and impurity on earth. ‘Sin and evil originated not with God’s permission, but as the result of a rebellious conspiracy that was hatched behind God’s back’.10 The cosmic rebellion of the fallen angels 8. M. S. Jaffee, Early Judaism (Upper Saddle River: Prentice-Hall, 1997), pp. 164–72. 9. P. Sacchi, Jewish Apocalyptic and Its History (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1997); G. Boccaccini (ed.), The Origins of Enochic Judaism (Turin: Zamorani, 2002 [= Henoch 24, 2002]); G. W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001); J. H. VanderKam, Enoch and the Growth of an Apocalyptic Tradition (CBQMS, 16; Washington: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1984); idem, Enoch: A Man for All Generations (Columbia: University of South Carolina, 1995); J. J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998). 10. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch, p. 47.

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was not simply, as in the Mosaic Torah, one of the primaeval sins that characterized the ancient history of humankind. By crossing the boundaries between heaven and earth, the evil angels led by Semyaz and Azazel broke apart the divisions set by God at the time of creation. According to the Book of the Watchers, it was the mother of all sins, the original sin which corrupted and contaminated God’s creation and from which evil relentlessly continues to spring forth and spread. As God said to the angel Raphael: ‘The whole earth has been corrupted through the works that were taught by Azazel: to him ascribe all sin!’ (1 En. 6.8). In a cosmic battle, the rebellious angels were defeated by the good angels and imprisoned in chains ‘in a hole in the desert which is in Dudael… [until] the day of the great judgment’ (1 En. 6.4–6). The giants, the monstrous offspring of the unnatural union between angels and women, were killed (1 En. 10.9–10), but their immortal souls survived as the evil spirits and continue to roam about the earth (1 En. 15.8–10). As disturbing as this idea was, God’s reaction limited but did not eradicate evil, until God will put an end to this evil world and will create a new world qualitatively different from, and discontinuous with, what was before. The theological attempt to absolve the merciful God from being responsible for the presence of evil on earth leads to the conclusion that human beings are less the perpetrators than they are the victims of evil. Human freedom and responsibility are not denied but the importance of divine grace is enhanced. Without God’s intervention humans would be totally at the mercy of evil, but the rebellious power of evil limits the effectiveness of God’s intervention. The Zadokite balance between human and divine agency is totally broken, the idea of covenant disrupted by the presence of the third party, that of the devil, which acts maliciously outside and against the rules of any covenant.

c. Sapiential Judaism The Enochians were not the only opposition party in early Second Temple Judaism. As attested by both Jeremiah (Jer. 18.18) and Ezekiel (Ezek. 7.26), the idea of the Torah originated in pre-exilic times in a priestly setting, which competed with the prophets and the wise.11 Unlike the prophets, who lost the social environment that fostered them, the wise remained a strong autonomous component in post-exilic Jewish society. The criticism of Sapiential Judaism did not confront directly the authority and stability of the Zadokite order but more subtly the foundations of their covenantal theology. As in the early Enochic literature, the most striking feature in the early documents of Sapiential Judaism (such as Proverbs) is the absence of any direct reference to the Mosaic covenant. Here, the assumption is that human well-being depends not on obedience to a covenant but on living in harmony with the order (or Wisdom) of the universe, which God implanted there at the time of creation 11. J. Blenkinsopp, Sage, Priest and Prophet: Religious and Intellectual Leadership in Ancient Israel (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1995); L. L. Grabbe, Priests, Prophets, Diviners, Sages: A Socio-Historical Study of Religious Specialists in Ancient Israel (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity, 1995).

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and of which all human beings have experience. This form of knowledge and spirituality, which Sapiential Judaism called ‘the fear of God’, demands human inquiry and initiative, rather than obedience to revealed laws or conformity to any cultic act. The righteous and suffering Job denounces the idea of covenant as unfair to God and to humans: to God, as it limits God’s autonomy and freedom; to humans, as it gives them only an illusion of justice. What justice can humans expect when the other party is at the same time partner and judge? ‘[God] is not a mortal, as I am, that I might answer him: Let’s go to trial on us both. There is no umpire between us, who might lay his hand on us both’ (Job 9.32–33). Job curses the day he was born (Job 3.2). Jonah is disappointed at God’s mercy toward the Ninivites, no less than Job at God’s wrath against his innocent servant: ‘I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful…please take my life, for it is better for me to die than to live’ (Jon. 4.2–3). The recognition that God is not bound by any pronouncements is equally unbearable for him.12 The happy endings of Job and Jonah do not provide any answer to the doubts of Sapiential Judaism. With Qohelet any residual semblance of compromise and accommodation disappears. Irony turns into bitterness and sarcasm. Experience shows that obeying the Zadokite covenant does not make any difference: ‘The same fate comes to all, to all righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil, to the clean and the unclean, to those who sacrifice and those who do not sacrifice. As are the good, so are the sinners’ (Eccl. 9.2; cf. 2.14). Sapiential Judaism does not attribute to God any wrongdoing or falsehood, nor does it claim that God’s creation is in any way evil or corrupted. On the contrary, their criticism is in the name of God’s absolute power. God cannot be limited by a covenant, because God is Almighty. At any moment God has the power, the right and the freedom to deviate from the established terms of God’s relationship with humans. People have nothing to fear by God’s unbounded freedom: God does not need to be limited by a covenant, because God is good. By establishing a cause-and-effect relation between God’s and human action, the Zadokite covenantal theology had made events predictable and verifiable. By stressing God’s freedom and appealing to experience, Sapiential Judaism denies the very idea of covenant: there is no predictable and verifiable link between God’s and human actions. Faithful subjects do not complain against oppression and injustice, when the king is in charge (Eccl. 5.8–9). No one can question the king’s will, ‘for he does whatever he pleases’ (Eccl. 8.3). As a kingdom, so the universe. People know that God is in charge and that there is a law and ‘a season and a time for every matter under heaven’ (Eccl. 3.1–9). The divine order, however, is far beyond human comprehension: God ‘has put the sense of [divine] order into [human] minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end’ (Eccl. 3.11). God seeks the good of the cosmos regardless of the interests of individuals. Human happiness is not to be found in active partnership but in total submission to the rhythms of God: ‘In the day of pros12. B. Vawter, Job and Jonah: Questioning the Hidden God (New York: Paulist Press, 1983).

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perity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other’ (Eccl. 7.14).

2. The Next Generation (Sadducees, Pharisees and Essenes) In describing the diversity of Jewish thought in the aftermath of the Maccabean revolt, Flavius Josephus states: At that time there were three schools of thought among the Jews, which held different opinions concerning human events, the first being that of the Pharisees, the second that of the Sadducees, and the third that of the Essenes. As for the Pharisees, they say that certain events are the work of Fate, but not all; as to other events, it depends upon ourselves whether they shall take place or not. The sect of the Essenes, however, declares that Fate is mistress of all things, and that nothing befalls men unless it be in accordance with her decree. But the Sadducees do away with Fate, holding that there is no such thing and that human actions are not achieved in accordance with her decree, but that all things lie within our own power, so that we ourselves are responsible for our well-being, while we suffer misfortune through our own thoughtlessness. (Ant. 13.171–73)

We know (and Josephus also knew) that the situation in Second Temple Judaism was further complicated by the presence of other groups and sub-groups, yet it is important to see how the major ancient historian of Jewish thought took exactly the problem of the relationship between human and divine agency as the criterion for identifying the Jewish ‘schools of thought’ of his time, more than any halakhic controversy. The emphasis on theological and philosophical issues is not (only) a modern obsession of Christian scholars.13 Sociologically, the threefold distinction into Sadducees, Pharisees and Essenes seems to correspond to the stratification of Jewish classes,14 with the Sadducees representing the interests of the ruling class (the chief priests, large landowners, notable elders and major officials), the Essenes that of the lower class of artisans and peasant, and the Pharisees that of the rapidly growing middle class of retainers. The goodness of the universe, the effectiveness of human action, and the expectations of God’s miraculous intervention depend largely on whether one sees things from the top or the bottom of the social pyramid.

a. Priestly Circles and Hellenistic Judaism Among those Jews (the Sadducees) who ‘do away with Fate’ we should include the most direct heirs of Zadokite Judaism, but also the heirs of Sapiential Judaism. Already at the end of the 3rd century BCE, we see the first signs of rapprochement between the two traditions in connection with the political alliance of the Oniads with the powerful family of the Tobiads.15 The book of Tobit 13. Pace L. H. Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: The History of Judaism, the Background of Christianity, the Lost Library of Qumran (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1994). 14. A. J. Saldarini, Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees in Palestinian Society (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1988). 15. Boccaccini, Roots of Rabbinic Judaism, pp. 113–50; see also J. J. Collins, Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Age (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1997).

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provides the first living example of a righteous person who lived at the same time ‘according to the ordinance decreed in the law of Moses and according to the instruction of Deborah, the mother of my father Tobiel’ (Tob. 1.8). This blending of the two sets of traditions, the priestly and the familial, opened the path to a harmonious (and no longer competitive) understanding of the relationship between Wisdom and Torah. In the priestly circles of Jerusalem, Sirach (and later Baruch) came up with what proved to be an ingenious solution. According to Sirach 24, Wisdom is a heavenly being created by God before time and used by the creator as a tool to turn chaos into order. Then Wisdom asked God for a dwelling place on earth. This dwelling place is Israel, more specifically the temple. There, Wisdom manifested herself in an embodied form, namely, ‘the book of the covenant of the Most High God, the law that Moses commanded us as an inheritance for the congregation of Jacob’ (Sir. 24. 23, cf. Bar. 4.1). The goal of Sirach and Baruch is to strengthen the centrality of the covenant by connecting Wisdom to the Torah, that is, the cosmic order to the revealed order, and to restore the balance between divine and human agency shaken by the objections of Enochic and Sapiential Judaism. Sinners are inexcusable: Say not: It was the Lord’s fault if I sinned… In the beginning He created man and made him subject to his own will … Before man are life and death, whichever one he chooses shall be given to him… No man does [the Lord] command to be impious, to none does He allow to sin (Sir. 15.11–20).

The Enochic hypothesis of a superhuman origin of evil is denounced as a false alibi: ‘When an impious man curses the satan, he really curses his own soul’ (Sir. 21.27). In contrast with human freedom, God’s freedom is self-constrained: ‘Mercy and wrath are with [the Lord], mighty when He forgives and when He alights with wrath. Great as His mercy is His justice; He will judge men, each according to his deeds’ (Sir. 16.11–12). For Sirach, the answer to the doubts of Sapiential Judaism comes before the question: if the Law is the earthly embodiment of Wisdom, there can be no contradiction between covenant and experience. The task of the wise is not to raise doubts but to find an explanation to any inconsistency that people can find. In the texts of Hellenistic Judaism, it is rather the Torah that is to be subordinated to Wisdom, which remains an uncreated emanation of God. As the paideia of sophia, the Mosaic Torah has the philosophical and educational value to teach Wisdom. Hence, the law is not important in itself but for what it means, its true meaning being provided by the allegorical interpretation. ‘You must not fall into the degrading idea that it was out of regard to mice and weasels and other things that Moses drew up his laws with such exceeding care. All these ordinances were made for the sake of righteousness to aid the quest for virtue and the perfecting of character’ (Ep. Ar. 144). Through obedience to the Torah people are educated to live in harmony with the order of the universe. ‘The world is in harmony with the law, and the law with the world, and that man who observes the law is constituted thereby a loyal citizen of the world, regulating his doings

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by the purpose and will of Nature, in accordance with which the entire world itself also is administered’ (Philo, Opif. 3). People are free and on their action and commitment depends exclusively their welfare on earth. The Torah is God’s good and necessary paideia. Yet, in Hellenistic Judaism the emphasis remains more on God’s freedom. Against Sirach’s statement of a balance between God’s mercy and God’s wrath, the Letter of Aristeas claims that ‘God governs the whole cosmos with mercy and without any wrath’ (Ep. Ar. 154). But the ‘theology of grace’ of Hellenistic Judaism is only an emphasis on God’s absolute power; it is not an alternative to covenantal nomism.16 Wisdom is no longer fighting to replace the Torah, as in Sapiential Judaism, but only competing for primacy in peaceful coexistence.

b. The Development of a Proto-Rabbinic Tradition In order to understand what Josephus meant when he claimed that there were people (the Pharisees) who ‘say that certain events are the work of Fate, but not all’, we have to look back at the book of Daniel. Written in its final form during the Maccabean revolt, Daniel is a paradoxical document. It is an apocalyptic text, composed in a language and style that had to remind its readers very much of the Enochic texts. Yet, unlike the tradition of Enoch the book seeks to include apocalyptic and eschatological traditions within a covenantal theology.17 Because of the transgression of the covenant (Daniel 9), Israel now lives in a preordained historical framework of degeneration. However, people preserve their freedom and evil is denied any autonomy. The ‘four kingdoms’ and their angelic counterparts are not stray bullets but instruments of God’s punishments. At the end of times, the kingdom of Israel will be restored (Daniel 7) and the suffering righteous will find their ultimate reward through the resurrection of the dead (Daniel 12). Daniel’s principles find a first echo in 2 Maccabees. The ideas of resurrection and afterlife retribution make sense even of the martyrdom of the righteous. The seven brothers and their mother heroically face torture and death, trusting that ‘the king of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life, because we have died for His laws’ (2 Macc. 7.9, cf. 7.23), while ‘for [the evil king Antiochus] there will be no resurrection to life!’ (2 Macc. 7.14). Compared to Daniel, there is a major development. For Daniel, the covenant has been broken on the collective level and the punishment of Israel will end only with the end of times, while for 2 Maccabees the covenant between God and Israel is still valid: the crisis is only temporary: Punishments are designed not to destroy but to discipline our people. In fact, it is a sign of great kindness not to let the impious alone for long, but to punish them immediately … [God] never withdraws His mercy from us. Although He disciplines us with calamities, He does not forsake His own people. (2 Macc 6.12–17)

16. Boccaccini, Middle Judaism, pp. 161–85. 17. Boccaccini, Roots of Rabbinic Judaism, pp. 151–201.

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The suffering of the righteous does not seem any longer so unbearable and contradictory to the promises of the covenant, even when things look truly desperate. Likewise, in denouncing the sinfulness of Israel, the Psalms of Solomon also claim that everything is under God’s control. This is the case in heaven (‘[God] has established in their courses the lights of heaven…they have erred not since the day [God] created them. Since the generations of old they have not withdrawn from their path, unless God commanded them (so to do) by the command of His servants’: Pss. Sol. 18.12–14), as well as on earth (where ‘man and his portion (lie) before You in the balance: he cannot add to, so as to enlarge, what has been prescribed by You’: Pss. Sol. 5.4). God’s order encompasses and foresees the exercise of human freedom on which God’s judgment is based: ‘Our works are subject to our own choice and power. To do right or wrong (is) the works of our hands’ (Pss. Sol. 9.4). Once again, everything is built around the distinction between individual and corporate salvation. The stability of the covenant is guaranteed by divine grace. ‘You chose the seed of Abraham before all nations… and you will not reject us for ever’ (Pss. Sol. 9.9). And at the end of times divine grace will prevail over evil. ‘The sinners’ inheritance is Sheol and darkness and destruction, but the pious of the Lord shall inherit life in gladness’ (Pss. Sol. 14.9–10; cf. 15.1). This does not spare people, in this world, the experience of suffering and death, either as a punishment, a test or an act of discipline, so much so that the psalmist proclaims: ‘Happy is the man whom the Lord remembered with reproving’ (Pss. Sol. 10.1). The introduction of the concepts of resurrection and afterlife retribution makes clear in the proto-rabbinic traditions the distinction between collective and individual retribution and provides a much stronger and more dynamic variant of the covenantal Zadokite system. Historical determinism and individual freedom may now coexist harmoniously. It is what Josephus meant: human events (pragmata) are ‘the work of Fate’, while individual destiny is entirely in the hands of humans according to the rules of the covenant. God’s individual judgment is ingeniously removed from the scrutiny of human experience and the prospect of salvation is provided to individuals in the world to come even when they have to suffer in this world as part of a guilty collectivity.

c. Enochic, Essene and Christian Traditions In the aftermath of the Maccabean revolt the Enochic movement as a movement of dissent by a few priestly families turned into something broader: a variegated proliferation of social groups, including the urban Essenes (described by Philo, Josephus and later Hippolytus), the Qumran Essenes (described by Pliny, Dio and later Solinus), and the followers of Jesus. They all shared the idea of the superhuman nature of evil.18 Within all these movement we have a clear tendency toward determinism. Humans are impotent and innocent victims of heavenly forces that are far more powerful. Divine grace is the only power that can spare humans from such an evil. 18. G. Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis: The Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998).

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Already in the Book of Dream Visions, we see a strong emphasis on historical determinism. In spite of the rebellion of the fallen angels, the world is not totally out of God’s control: the burden of evil is mitigated by the consciousness that evil will not rule forever: at the end, in a time already decided by God, evil will be defeated and goodness restored (1 En. 90.28–33). In the metaphorical world of the Animal Apocalypse (1 En. 85.1–90.42), evil is described as a sort of genetic disease that changes and weakens the nature of humankind, producing inferior species of animals. No reference whatsoever is made to the covenant and the gift of the Mosaic Torah (cf. 1 En. 89.29–33). Even the Jews, though the noblest part of humankind, are equally subjected to the corruption of evil: from ‘bulls’ they have become ‘sheep’. Within the framework of Enochic theology, the only way to restore the Jewish people’s prerogatives was to make the election of Israel also part of the predestined order. According to Jubilees, since creation God selected the Jews as the chosen people and separated them from the other nations (Jub. 2.21). Jubilees can thus reintroduce the concept of covenant within the Enochic theology (exactly the other way around from what Daniel had done with Enochic principles). The Jews are kept safe from the contamination of evil, as long as they keep the purity boundary that separates them from the other nations, and abstain from the moral impurity of murder (Jub. 7.33 et passim), idolatry (1.9 et passim) and especially sexual immorality (33.20 et passim). The path to individual predestination was open. It was enough to state that God created the angel and the children of darkness on the one hand and the angel and the children of light on the other hand, and commanded the former to sin and the latter to be righteous. It was what the Qumran sectarians believed, according to their own writings19 and according to the testimony of Solinus: the members of the community claimed to ‘have been destined for this way of life by divine providence’ (Collectanea Rerum Memorabilium 34.9–12).20 As far as we know the Qumran Essenes were the only group in Second Temple Judaism who tried to solve the tension between human and divine agency by dramatically downplaying the relevance of one of the terms of the debate. Celebrated today for the discovery of their outstanding library, in its own time the Qumran community was most likely little more than a marginal splinter group of radical Essenes.21

19. E. H. Merrill, Qumran and Predestination: A Theological Study of the Thanksgiving Hymns (STDJ, 8; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1975). 20. M. Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism, vol. 2 (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1981), pp. 416–22. 21. As Philip S. Alexander pointed out in his contribution to the symposium: ‘there is, apparently, little room here for independent human agency…divine agency is all’. On Qumran as a marginal splinter group of Essenes, see F. Garcia Martinez and J. Trebolle Barrera, The People of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1995); P. R. Davies, Behind the Essenes: History and Ideology in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987), G. Boccaccini, ‘Qumran: the Headquarters of the Essenes or a Marginal Splinter Group’, in G. Boccaccini (ed.), Enoch and Qumran Origins (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), pp. 303–309.

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The answer of Qumran was not the only possible answer to the questions raised by the earlier Enochic tradition. The tendency toward individual predeterminism was rejected by Enochic Judaism. In the bulk of the Epistle of Enoch (which may date from the early 1st century BCE) we read: ‘I have sworn unto you, sinners: In the same manner that a mountain has never turned into a servant, nor shall a hill (ever) become a maidservant of a woman; likewise, neither has sin been exported into the world. It is people who have themselves invented it. And those who commit it shall come under a great curse’ (1 En. 98.4). The author does not deny that evil has a superhuman nature, but holds human beings responsible for the sinful actions they commit. As Nickelsburg also has pointed out, over the centuries the Enochic authors were persistent and consistent in making ‘human beings… responsible for their actions… Nonetheless, the Enochic authors attributed a significant part of the evils in the world to a hidden demonic world’.22 In the Enochic system of thought the two contradictory concepts of human responsibility and human victimization had to coexist between the Scylla of an absolute determinism and the Charybdis of an equally absolute antideterminism. Accept either of these extremes and the entire Enochic system would collapse into the condemnation of God as the unmerciful source of evil or as the unjust scourge of innocent creatures. That this was also the position of the urban Essenes is confirmed by Philo: They claim that ‘the Deity is the cause of all good, but of no evil’ (Prob. 84). Josephus himself – as we have seen – does not talk of individual predestination but of historical determinism. Elsewhere he would add that ‘the Essenes like to teach that in all things one should rely on God’ (Ant. 18,18), which is a fair synthesis of Essene and Enochic (not Qumranic) theology. Apart from Qumran, the tension between human and divine agency remained a characteristic of all groups who derived from the Enochic roots. In the Jewish layers of the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, the duel between God and Belial is a real conflict, not a pre-staged drama. The human soul is the battlefield. Belial placed ‘seven spirits of deceit’ in every human being ‘against humankind’ (T. Reub. 2.1–2) to fight against the seven spirits of God. The outcome is not preordained but depends on human responsibility. It is the ‘conscience of the mind’ that ultimately makes the difference. ‘So understand, my children, that two spirits await an opportunity with humanity, the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. In between is the conscience of the mind which inclines as it will’ (T. Jud. 20.1–2). This allows the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs to develop an ethic capable of opposing the power of evil. The goal is to obtain that ‘integrity’ of soul that only can defeat the ‘duplicity’ of Belial (T. Benj. 6.7). People must fill their heart with an undivided love for God and the neighbour, thus leaving no more room for desire and duplicity. ‘The Lord I loved with all my strength: and I loved every human being, You do these as well, my children, and every spirit of Belial will flee from you…so long that you have the God of heaven with you, and walk with all humankind in integrity of heart’ (T. Iss. 7.6–7, cf. 3.6–5.3, T. Reub. 4.1; T. Benj. 3.4). 22. G. W. E. Nickelsburg, ‘Enoch, First Book of’, ABD 2: 508–16 (514).

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Human beings are thus given some power in contrast to the power of Belial; their responsibility is not denied as in Qumran. The final defeat of evil, however, cannot happen without divine intervention. At the end of the 1st century BCE,23 the Book of the Similitudes of Enoch claimed that evil will be eradicated by the gracious intervention of the heavenly judge and messiah, the ‘Son of Man’.24 When read in the broader context of Second Temple Judaism, the Jesus movement (including Paul) looks at its inception to be little more than a variant of the Enochic system. Although victims of a heavenly enemy, humans are accountable: on the day of judgment, God ‘will repay according to each one’s deeds’ (Mt. 26.27; Rom. 2.8). Recognizing the human need for salvation and deliverance from evil, the Jesus movements understood the coming of the Messiah Jesus as the manifestation ‘on earth’ of the ‘Son of Man’ (the Pauline kyrios) for the forgiveness of sins (Mk 2.10; Rom. 3.21–26). What is very much disputed in early Christian texts seems to be the degree of human freedom – once again a typical ‘Enochic’ problem. The Synoptics’ presentation of Jesus as ‘the sinners’ doctor’ suggests that there are indeed people who are ‘righteous’: ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick: I have come to call not the righteous but sinners’ (Mk 2.17 and parallels). Many parables, like that of the lost sheep or of the prodigal son, also imply that the Messiah came to bring salvation only for those (either few or many) who went astray. Paul is the one who comes closer to individual predeterminism when he claims that ‘all, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin’ (Rom. 3.9), and as a result ‘no human being will be justified by deeds prescribed by the law’ (Rom. 3.20), but only by a gracious act of ‘justification by God’s grace as gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood’ (Rom. 3.24–25). Yet Paul’s metaphor of slavery, while confirming the impossibility of doing good deeds, also implies the freedom of the will, through which the slave accepts (or refuses) the offer of redemption. God ‘is not unjust to inflict wrath on us’ (Rom. 3.5), but God’s mercy intervenes to counterbalance the power of evil that, through the sin of Adam, has made all humankind ‘slaves of sin’ (Rom. 6.20). At the roots of the powerful and reassuring message of fulfilment of Christianity is the very same delicate tension between human and divine agency that was characteristic of the Enochic movements, of which the followers of Jesus inherited certainties and uncertainties.25

3. The Survivors (Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism) The failure of the Jewish revolt and the destruction of the temple were a turning point in the history of Judaism. By losing the temple, Judaism lost its common 23. P. Sacchi, ‘Qumran e la datazione del Libro delle Parabole di Enoc’, Henoch 25.2 (2003), pp. 149–66. 24. S. Chialà, Libro delle Parabole di Enoc (Brescia: Paideia, 1997). 25. Boccaccini, Middle Judaism, pp. 213–28.

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ground, not because the temple provided a normative theology, but because it was literally the only common place where Sadducees, Essenes, Pharisees, Hellenistic Jews and followers of Jesus could meet and worship together the God of Israel in spite of their major theological differences. When the temple was gone, Jesus’ followers and Pharisees were unable to forge a shared identity. The idea that the clash was between the new Christian faith and traditional Judaism belongs to the foundational myths of Christianity and rabbinic Judaism. Jesus and his followers were not as innovative as they claimed, nor the rabbis as conservative as they claimed. Neither movement parted from its roots in Judaism, both parted from each other. After the destruction of the temple, it was only a matter of time.26

a. From Enochic Judaism to Early Christianity Documents like the Apocalypse of Abraham and 4 Ezra show how the traditions that originated from Enoch had come to a dead end. The tension between human and divine agency had reached the limit of desperation. The Enochic attempt to reconcile God’s freedom and human responsibility had failed. It is now clear that on that day in the garden of Eden Eve had to confront not the ‘crafty animal’ of Genesis (3.1) but the devil, Azazel, in person (Apoc. Abr. 23.1–11; cf. Rev. 12.9). Abraham asks God some tough questions: ‘Why have you given Azazel such power that through his works he may lead the entire humankind to ruin?’ (Apoc. Abr. 23.12), and even more: ‘Why have you let evil to be desired in the human heart?’ (Apoc. Abr. 23.14). To these questions there is no answer except the promise that everything (including the destruction of the temple) was preordained and at the end of times evil will be annihilated and the righteous will rejoice (Apoc. Abr. 31.4–5). Abraham remains silent (Apoc. Abr. 23.6). Beyond the hope (more and more remote) of redemption, there remains only the idea of the power of evil and of the cruelty of God’s behaviour. God is just and judges people according to their deeds, but the evil heart, the cor malignum that people have inherited from Adam’s sin, makes the goal of salvation virtually unattainable. Adam, clothing himself with the evil heart, transgressed and was overcome; and likewise also all who were born of him. Thus the infirmity became inveterate, the Law indeed was in the heart of the people, but (in conjunction) with the evil germ; so what was good departed, and the evil remained. (4 Ezra 3.21–22)

In the silence of God only the cry of the innocent can be heard: Better had it been that the earth had not produced Adam, or else, having once produced him, (for you) to have restrained him from sinning. For how does it profit us all 26. The ‘parting of the ways’ was between Christianity and rabbinic Judaism; see J. D. G. Dunn, The Partings of the Ways Between Christianity and Judaism and Their Significance for the Character of Christianity (London: SCM Press, 1991); idem (ed.), Jews and Christians: The Partings of the Ways, AD 70 to 135 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992). The ways between Christianity and Judaism never parted; see A. H. Becker and A. Y. Reed (eds.), The Ways that Never Parted (TSAJ, 95; Mohr Siebeck, 2003).

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that in the present we must live in grief and after death look for punishment? O Adam, what have you done! For though it was you who sinned, the fall was not yours alone, but ours also who are your descendants! For how does it profit us that the eternal age is promised to us, whereas we have done the works that bring death? (4 Ezra 3.116– 119)

God remains unmoved. This is the condition of the contest which (every) man who is born upon earth must wage; that, if he be overcome, he shall suffer as you have said; but if he be victorious, he shall receive what I have said… Moses, while he was alive, spoke unto the people… Therefore shall there not be such grief at their perdition. (4 Ezra 7.127–131)

It is all but a reassuring message. The evil heart makes God’s justice cruel, a merciless verdict of guilt toward the majority of people. The elect Ezra feels the solitude of his condition: O Lord, I said even then and say now: Blessed are they who come (into the world) and keep your commandments. But…who is there of those who have come (into the world) that has not sinned? Or who of the earth-born is there that has not transgressed your covenant? And now I see that the coming age shall bring delight to few, but torment to many. For the evil heart has grown up in us, which has estranged us from God and brought us into destruction. (4 Ezra 7.45–48)

The Jewish Enochic tradition died along with its hopes of eschatological redemption, overwhelmed by its inability to offer a sensible way out. In the words of Jacob Neusner: ‘The response of the visionaries is…essentially negative. All they had to say is that God is just and Israel has sinned, but, in the end of time, there will be redemption. What to do in the meantime? Merely wait. Not much of an answer.’27 The author of 4 Ezra is a Paul without Christ. He shares the same desperation for the sinful condition of humankind and the same hope of eschatological redemption, without the possibility of individual rejoicing that for Paul the coming of the redeemer Christ has already provided to the sinners who accept his lordship. For those Jews who believed in the Enochic principles (and increasingly for a large number of Gentiles who were seeking salvation from this evil world) the Christian answer provided a much more reassuring way out of desperation: ‘Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!’ (Rom. 7.24–25). Once the presence of the third party of the devil is established, the balance between human and divine agency can be restored only by a gracious counter-act of mercy that would give the righteous the possibility of being spared the evil of this world. This gracious act of redemption and forgiveness of sin is the coming of the Messiah Jesus, the earthly manifestation of the divine pre-existent Wisdom, the eternal foundation of God’s new covenant: ‘Very truly, I tell you; before Abraham was, I am’ (Jn 8.58). On these solid Jewish premises, Jesus’ followers would build their revolution and their enduring fortunes. 27. J. Neusner, ‘Judaism in a Time of Crisis: Four Responses to the Destruction of the Second Temple’, Judaism 21 (1972), pp. 314–27 (317).

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b. From Pharisaism to Rabbinic Judaism For those Jews instead, who were the majority, who were troubled by the power of sin in this world but had never shared the Enochic idea of a superhuman nature of evil, the proto-rabbinic traditions of Pseudo-Philo and 2 Baruch offered an equally effective way out of desperation. The historical failures of Israel would only confirm their belief in their idea of covenant and the centrality of the Torah.28 The Enochic visionaries, who claim that God and humans are impotent before the triumph of evil, are reminded of the everlasting covenant: Remember that formerly Moses assuredly called heaven and earth to witness against you and said: If you transgress the Law you shall be dispersed, but if you keep it you shall be kept… And now Moses used to tell you before it befell you, and lo! They have befallen you: for you have forsaken the Law. (2 Bar. 84.2–5)

And to Jesus’ followers who talk of a new covenant, the sages insist that ‘the owner’ may ‘come and destroy the [wicked] tenants’, but (heaven forbid!) will never ‘give the vineyard to others’ (cf. Lk 29.16): ‘If you do not have pity on your vineyard, O Lord, all you have done will be in vain, and you will not have anyone who glorifies your name. For if you planted another vineyard, it could not trust you, as you destroyed the previous one’ (LAB 12.9–10). Facing the catastrophe, the righteous must rather react by multiplying their efforts to obey the Torah: ‘If you endure and persevere in his fear and do not forget his law, the times shall change over you for good and you shall see the consolation of Zion’ (2 Bar. 44.7). Against the contemporaneous 4 Ezra,29 2 Baruch denies that the sin of Adam has weakened the freedom of human will: Justly do they perish who have not loved your Law, and the torment of judgment shall await those who have not submitted themselves to your power. For though Adam first sinned and brought ultimately 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 one of them has chosen for himself glories to come… Adam is therefore not the cause, save only of his own soul, but each of us has been the Adam of his own soul. (2 Bar. 54.14–19)

At the end, the sinners ‘shall be in the fire’ (2 Bar. 44.15) and the righteous ‘shall be made like unto the angels’ (51.10). As collective punishment is part of the rules of the games and does not prevent the individual from reaching salvation, even in the suffering of this world the righteous may find reasons to rejoice: ‘Rejoice you in the suffering which you now suffer!’ (2 Bar. 52.6). 2 Baruch admits that without the hope of afterlife retribution, life would not make sense and the very idea of covenant would collapse in despair: ‘If there were this life only…nothing could be more bitter than this’ (2 Bar. 21.13).

28. G. Boccaccini, ‘Esiste una letteratura farisaica del Secondo Tempio?’, Ricerche StoricoBibliche 11.2 (1999), pp. 23–41. 29. T. W. Willett, Eschatology in the Theodicies of 2 Baruch and 4 Ezra (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989).

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Once the third party of the devil is removed, and the idea of afterlife retribution is introduced, the balance between human and divine agency is perfectly restored. Paradoxically, the catastrophe had the function of recalling the righteous to their responsibilities and to remind them of the essence of their relationship with God: In former times and in the generations of old our fathers had helpers, righteous men and holy prophets… But now the righteous have been gathered and the prophets have fallen asleep, and we also have gone forth from the land, and Zion has been taken from us, and we have nothing now save the Mighty One and His Law … One is the Law given by the One; one is this world and there is an end for all who are in it. (2 Bar. 85.1–3,14)

The Torah is God’s gracious gift of salvation, the earthly manifestation of the heavenly pre-existent Wisdom, the foundation of God’s everlasting covenant: ‘two thousand years before the world was created, [God] created the Torah…the garden of Eden for the righteous and Gehenna for the wicked’ (Tg. Neof. Gen. 3.24).30 On these solid Jewish premises, the rabbis would build their revolution and their enduring fortunes.

4. We, the Descendants It is time to put the pictures back in the old box. Paper and dust have become flesh-and-blood people, who lived, argued, suffered and died, unconsciously laying the foundation for what we are. From the troubled world of Second Temple Judaism, two siblings survived and were both blessed with children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and uncountable descendants. Like Jacob and Esau,31 they struggled in their mother’s womb and through childhood and adulthood viciously and remorselessly fought over the birthright. Each of them claimed to be the only true heir of Israel, and called the other names and refused to acknowledge any blood tie. And with quarrel came persecution and hatred and the Holocaust. We, Jews and Christians, are the descendants of those two siblings. Our walks of life are different and will remain such. So what? Are we not walking toward the same goal? Our views of the tension between human and divine agency are different. So what? None of us has betrayed the family. Both our positions have been part of the family heritage for centuries, long before we were born. There never was in the family a single, shared position. Both covenantal nomism and salvation by grace were part of the inner-Jewish debate in Second Temple Judaism, neither was normative. Our forefathers have argued and hated each other. So what? Are we not responsible for our own destiny and personally accountable for our own deeds? 30. G. Boccaccini, ‘The Preexistence of the Torah: A Commonplace in Second Temple Judaism, or a Later Rabbinic Development?’, Henoch 17 (1995), pp. 329–50. 31. A. F. Segal, Rebecca’s Children: Judaism and Christianity in the Roman World (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1986).

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After so many years of struggle and estrangement, the time has come, as for Jacob and Esau, to meet again, reconcile, mourn our deceased parents and set out again in peace and reconciliation, finally being what we have always been and never were – just brothers.

Chapter 3 PREDESTINATION AND FREE WILL IN THE THEOLOGY OF THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS Philip S. Alexander Introduction The so-called Sermon on the Two Spirits in the Qumran Community Rule (1QS 3.13–4.24) is the locus classicus for the study of what the Qumran Covenanters believed about the nature of divine and human agency in the world, their relationship and interaction. This is one of the most remarkable theological texts to survive from early Judaism, at least within the Hebrew/Aramaic tradition. I know of no other theological work in either of these languages so systematic and so propositional in its presentation till we come to the little cosmological treatise known as the Sefer Yesirah, the earliest recensions of which probably go back to the third or fourth century of the Common Era.1 There is, to be sure, a great deal of theology written in Hebrew and Aramaic from the Second Temple and Talmudic periods, but it tends to be either narrative (i.e. haggadic) or exegetical (i.e. midrashic) in form; philosophical theology in anything like our sense of the term is almost totally absent.2 Haggadah and midrash are conspicuous by their absence from the Sermon on the Two Spirits, which contains not a single explicit biblical quotation, though, as we shall see, there is a hint of a biblical ‘peg’ on which it all hangs, and it presupposes a distinctive reading of Genesis 1–3. This lack of haggadah and midrash at once marks it out as unusual and gives it peculiar interest. It is logical to begin our discussion with this key text. I shall proceed as follows. First, I shall expound the Sermon essentially in its own terms. It is a self-contained unit with its own rubric, and, on a preliminary reading, its mean1. See the excellent new edition by A. P. Hayman, Sefer Yesira: Edition, Translation and TextCritical Commentary (Tübingen: Mohr, 2004). The date of Sefer Yesirah is actually very difficult to establish, and proposals ranging from the first to the ninth centuries have been advanced. 2. Systematic, propositional exposition of a subject was not, of course, alien to the ‘Hebrew’ mentality. We find it regularly in the Mishnah, but the subject matter there is legal (halakhic), not theological. The question of the rabbinic mentality has been extensively discussed: see e.g. J. Neusner, Judaism as Philosophy: The Method and Message of the Mishnah (London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999); M. Fisch, Rational Rabbis: Science and Talmudic Culture (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997).

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ing is clear. However, to try and gain some deeper insight into it, and to draw out its distinctiveness, I shall compare it briefly with a number of parallel traditions: Iranian dualism, the Greek doctrine of the Two Ways (as found in the Didache 1.1–6.2), and the rabbinic doctrine of the Two Inclinations. The purpose of this comparison will be fundamentally heuristic: it will be aimed primarily at understanding more precisely what the Qumran text may be saying, though, of course, the possibility cannot be ruled out (and, in fact, should very much be ruled in) that the Qumran doctrine of the Two Spirits is historically related in some way to these other traditions. Having come to a preliminary understanding of the Sermon in its own terms, I shall then branch out to examine its setting within Qumran theology and practice as a whole. What function did the Sermon fulfill in Qumran thought? How influential was it? How was it understood by the Dead Sea Covenanters? What evidence is there from other Qumran scrolls of ideas which confirm or contradict it? This will involve discussion not only of ideas and practice but of literary matters as well, such as the place and purpose of the Sermon within the Community Rule, and its literary relationship to works such as the Astrological Physiognomy, 4Q186.

1. The Sermon on the Two Spirits (1QS 3.13–4.24) a. Preliminary Reading The Sermon opens with a preamble (1QS 3.13–15)3 which clearly sets out its purpose and content. It is intended for the use of the Maskil, the spiritual head of the Community, so that he can instruct all the Sons of Light (i.e. the members of the Community) concerning ‘the natures of all the children of men (toledot kol benei ’ish) with respect to all the kinds of spirit which they possess, their signs (’otot) with respect to their deeds during their generations, and their visitation for chastisement together with the times of their reward’. The body of the Sermon follows through this programme in a orderly, propositional way. It begins with an affirmation that God is the first cause: everything that has come or will come into being owes its existence to him. He 3. Previous discussion of the Sermon is very extensive. See the commentaries of P. WernbergMøller, The Manual of Discipline: Translated and Annotated with an Introduction (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1957); J. Licht, The Rule Scroll: A Scroll from the Wilderness of Judaea, 1QS, 1QSa, 1QSb, Text, Introduction and Commentary (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1965 [Hebrew]); A. R. C. Leaney, The Rule of Qumran and its Meaning: Introduction, Translation and Commentary (London: SCM Press, 1966); M. A. Knibb, The Qumran Community (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); J. H. Charlesworth (ed.), Rule of the Community and Related Documents (Princeton Theological Seminary Dead Sea Scrolls Project 1; Tübingen: Mohr, 1994); C. Martone, La ‘Regola della Communità’ (Torino: Silvio Zamorani, 1995). The best of these remains Licht. In addition see the separate essays by A. Dupont-Sommer, ‘L’instruction sur les deux Esprits dans le Manuel de Discipline’, Revue de l’Historire des Religions 142 (1952), pp. 5–35; H. Stegemann, ‘Zur Textbestand und Grundgedanken von 1QS III,13–IV,26’, RevQ 13 (1988), pp. 95–131; J. Licht, ‘An Analysis of the Treatise on the Two Spirits in DSD’, Scripta Hierosolymitana IV: Aspects of the Dead Sea Scrolls, pp. 88–100. For the Cave 4 fragments see P. S. Alexander and G. Vermes, Serekh Ha-Yahad and Two Related Texts (DJD XXVI; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998).

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sustains it (‘supplies all its needs’), and it obeys without deviation the laws which he has imposed upon it. The universe is rational and purposeful: it is following God’s foreordained design (3.15–17). Implicit here, of course, is a classic theistic, creatio ex nihilo reading of the story of creation in Genesis 1, though significantly no quotation is offered of that biblical text.4 Man’s place in God’s grand design is to govern the world, an allusion, surely, to Gen. 1.28, though, as elsewhere, the exact language of the Bible is pointedly not taken up.5 As part also of that design God has appointed for man ‘two spirits in which to walk, the Spirits of Truth (’emet) and Falsehood (‘awel)’. There are only these two spirits in which a man can walk: they are not two out of three or more. A man walks either in truth or in falsehood: no third, intermediate way is possible. Every human action is founded upon them, and falls into one or other of these categories (3.25–26; cf. 4.15–16). This is how, I would suggest, we should understand the famously troublesome statement at 4.25, that God ‘has appointed the two spirits bad be-bad’. Vermes translates,6 reasonably from a linguistic point of view, ‘in equal measure’, but clearly this cannot mean that the spirits are always equal in power, because it is obvious that our writer believes that Falsehood predominates in the present age. Rather the point is that there are only these two spirits, which divide the moral universe between them without remainder. We have here, then, a dualism, but the dualism is, strikingly, expressed first in ethical terms as an opposition between Truth and Falsehood. Later on Truth and Falsehood are seen as emerging from even more ultimate cosmic first principles, viz. Light and Darkness (4.19, ‘from a spring of light emanates the nature of Truth, and from a well of darkness the nature of Falsehood’), and they are called ‘Spirits of Light and Darkness’ (3.25), but it is important to note that when the dualism is first mentioned it is put in ethical terms. There is good reason for this: our author is concerned primarily with the moral universe of human action, and not with the physical universe of cosmic elements and forces. He clearly sees these two universes as parallel, the one mirroring the other (light = truth: darkness = falsehood), but how exactly they are related he does not tell us. His precise choice of ethical terminology is also very striking. He does not speak in vague terms of ‘good and evil’ (tob wa-ra‘, though compare the damaged text at 4.26) but of ‘truth and falsehood’ (’emet we-‘awel). The intellectual emphasis here is because he believes that human wrongdoing is born of ignorance or rejection of the truth, human right-doing from knowledge and accep-

4. Cf. Philo, Opif., who also, though a Platonist, gives a creatio ex nihilo reading. This reading is against the grain of the original which sees creation as the imposing of order on pre-existent, presumably eternally existing chaotic matter. 5. 1QS 3.17–18 uses the more judicious verbal root mshl (le-memshelet tebel), the Bible the more violent roots kbsh, rdh (kibshuha urdu). Qumran pictures Adam as a philosopher-king, Genesis as a conqueror. 6. G. Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (London: Penguin Books, 2004). I use Vermes’s translation, with minor modifications, throughout, because it catches well the passion and power of the Hebrew.

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tance of the truth. People cannot be righteous without a knowledge of the truth. This becomes evident when he describes how men can be saved: it is only through having their spirits purged of falsehood and ignorance by the power of truth: God will purify every deed of man with His Truth; He will refine for Himself the human frame by rooting out all Spirit of Falsehood from the bounds of his flesh. He will cleanse him of all wicked deeds with a spirit of holiness; like purifying waters He will shed upon him the Spirit of Truth (to cleanse him) of all abomination and falsehood. And he shall be plunged into the spirit of purification, that he might instruct the upright in the knowledge of the Most High, and teach the wisdom of the sons of heaven to the perfect of the way. (4.20–22)

Implicit here, of course, is a whole practical scheme of salvation based on study of Torah and the words of the Teacher of Righteousness, around which the everyday life of the Community revolved. I do not think I am imagining things by again detecting here an implicit reading of the story of creation in Genesis. There we are told that evil was introduced into the world when the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was eaten. It is possible that for our author it was not so much the act of disobedience that was the problem, as the knowledge man gained thereby of the possibility of evil. That knowledge, once acquired, became the means by which the forces of darkness (represented by the serpent) could manipulate him and draw him into their camp. When our author says that the ultimate goal of salvation is to attain ‘the glory of Adam’ (4.23), what he may mean is that those who will ultimately be saved will return to the state of Adamic innocence that existed before Adam ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.7 All memory, all knowledge of evil will be eradicated from men’s minds, because that is the only basis on which they can be perfectly holy and righteous. The similarities between our author’s views and later Gnosticism are obvious, and lend, I believe, support to those who have argued that Qumran theology is proto-gnostic. The link between gnosis (da‘at) and salvation is fundamental in the scrolls. It is no accident that when God is first introduced in the Sermon (3.15) it is as the ‘God of knowledge’. At the outset the preacher establishes one of the key-notes of his sermon – knowledge. The saving God is the God of knowledge, and it is through knowledge that he will accomplish salvation. That knowledge was conveyed to humanity through the Teacher of Righteousness, who can properly be seen as a type of gnostic redeemer. However, there is one very fundamental theological difference from later Gnosticism. In the gnostic systems evil arises through a stupendous cosmic accident. It is not part of God’s overall plan. Indeed, God had no intention at all of creating the world. The Eternal Father dwells untroubled in the pleroma, taking little or no interest in what is happening in the demiurgic world of matter. In our Qumran text, however, by way of contrast, evil is most decidedly part of God’s plan, and he is 7. For a wide-ranging discussion of the possible meanings of this term see C. H. T. Fletcher Louis, The Glory of Adam: Liturgical Anthropology in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2002).

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deeply involved in the processes of history. Note one astonishing little detail. At 4.26 it says that God has allotted the Two Spirits to the sons of men ‘so that they may know good [and evil]’, la-da‘at tob [wa-ra‘ ] – the restoration here is surely certain. The allusion to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil episode in Genesis 2.15 and 3.1–7 is crystal clear, but the remarkable thing is that whereas in the Bible it is God who tries to stop man obtaining this knowledge, and the serpent who tricks him into receiving it, here it is God who ensures that man acquires it: it is all part of his plan! This is a reading of Scripture against the grain fully worthy of the later gnostics. It is God who has established the Spirits both of Truth and Falsehood and ordained that men should walk in them. It is he – and this is particularly relevant to our present purposes – who determines who will be a Son of Truth and who a Son of Falsehood. The choice in which Spirit to walk ultimately does not lie with man but with God (see esp. 4.22). There is abundant evidence, as we shall see, that the Sermon was understood at Qumran in a rigorously predestinarian fashion. Making God the ultimate, if not the proximate cause of sin and evil is a tough theological stance to take, and our author knows it. This is why, like so many others who have advocated such a view, he takes refuge in God’s ‘mysterious understanding and glorious wisdom’ (4.18; cf. 3.23). How all this can be reconciled with morality, he implies, is beyond the human intellect. The Spirits of Truth and Falsehood are not independent beings or entities, but rather principles. It is true that they are called ‘spirits’ (ruhot), a term widely used in early Jewish literature, and even as we shall see in a moment in the Sermon itself, for angels or other beings of this kind. But we must remember the philosophical poverty of the Hebrew language at this date (it did not develop a truly philosophical vocabulary till the Middle Ages), and the difficulty it had in expressing abstract concepts.8 When it talks here about the ‘Spirits of Truth and Falsehood’ what I take it to mean are the principles of truth and falsehood. It suits our author’s purpose, and makes his message all the more dramatic, to personify mildly these principles. These principles are in conflict with each other. Just as in the natural world light tries to overcome darkness, and darkness light, so in the moral world Truth tries to overcome Falsehood, and Falsehood Truth: ‘Truth abhors the works of Falsehood, and Falsehood hates all the ways of Truth’ (4.17). This struggle is fought out by proxies or agents. The principal agent of Falsehood is referred to as the Angel of Darkness (4:21), the principal agent of Truth as the Prince of Lights (3.20) and the Angel of Truth (3.24). Here, I believe, we are indeed talking about spiritual beings, angels in the conventional sense of the term. In keeping with his broad approach, our author refers to them in an abstract way, but elsewhere in the scrolls they are given names: the Angel of Falsehood is called Belial or Mastema, the Angel of Truth, Melchizedek or Michael. These great angels are generals of vast armies, which are only fleetingly alluded to in our text. Spirits allotted to the Angel of Falsehood are explicitly 8. It has been argued that he used the term ‘spirit’ because that was the term used in his Zoroastrian source. See further n. 13 below.

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mentioned at 4.24 (I would argue that the reference is to demons),9 but we can be sure that the Angel of Truth also has allotted spirits, the good angels. It is of the nature of the Angel of Falsehood and his minions that they attack the Sons of Light, and attempt to lead them into error and sin. Indeed, it is only because of these attacks that the Sons of Light fall into sin, and, but for the succour of God and his Angel of Truth, the enemy might well succeed (3.21–25). God is not, therefore, the proximate cause of sin, though he remains its ultimate cause, since the Angel of Falsehood acts according to his design. The exact nuancing of the language here should be carefully noted. It does not say that the forces of evil attack the ‘Sons of Men’, i.e. mankind in general, but ‘the Sons of Light’, i.e. the elect portion of mankind. These are the only ones in whom our author is really interested: the rest of humanity is already given over into the hands of Belial, and is beyond hope of salvation. There is a note of realism here: the elect are capable of sinning. Perfectionism is totally absent from Qumran theology, at least as far as this world is concerned: the righteous only become perfect at the eschaton. ‘Truth and falsehood struggle in the hearts of men and they walk in both wisdom and folly’ (4.23–24). Whether a man is counted righteous or wicked depends on the preponderance of Truth and Falsehood in his make-up: ‘according to a man’s share in Truth shall he be righteous and thus hate falsehood, and according to his inheritance in the lot of Falsehood shall he be wicked’ (4.24; cf. 4.15–16). Our preacher offers extensive lists of the virtues and vices which mark respectively those who walk in the Spirit of Truth and those who walk in the Spirit of Falsehood. These constitute the ‘fruits’ of these spirits, the signs (’otot) about which he spoke in his preamble which identify whether a man is a Son of Light or a Son of Darkness. These signs are, of course, highly important if one is to discriminate for purposes of fellowship between those who should, and those who should not belong to the Community, but they are also, perhaps, not quite discriminating enough, a problem which may have been solved in other ways, as we shall see. He also enumerates the recompense which God has decreed for each category. For the righteous there are rewards both here and hereafter: ‘healing, great peace in a long life, and fruitfulness, together with everlasting blessing and eternal joy in life without end, a crown of glory and a garment of majesty in unending light’ (4.6–8). For the wicked the punishments seem to belong only to the hereafter: ‘a multitude of plagues by the hand of the destroying angels, everlasting damnation by the avenging wrath and fury of God, eternal torment and endless disgrace together with shameful extinction in the fire of the dark regions. The times of their generations shall be spent in sorrowful mourning and in bitter miseries and in calamities of darkness until they are destroyed without remnant or survivor’ (4.11–14). The language is terrific, but it is also restrained and studiedly unspecific. The hell awaiting the damned after death is clearly a dark and fiery region, but no attempt is made to elaborate with lurid details in the way 9. See my ‘Demonology of the Dead Sea Scrolls’, in P. W. Flint and J. C. VanderKam (eds), The Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment, vol. 2 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1999), pp. 331–53.

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that other early Jewish texts do.10 At first glance, particularly in Vermes’s translation, which I have quoted, it seems that our author believed in eternal punishment, but on closer reading I think it becomes clear that he was an annihilationist. The references to the ‘extinction’ and ‘destruction’ of the damned are to my mind decisive, and this position fits more easily with his general belief in the final, utter eradication of the Spirit of Falsehood. A concluding point will serve to round off this preliminary reading of the Sermon on the Two Spirits. It is that the conflict between the Spirits is not eternal: it has a predetermined end (qes). Just as God in his mysterious wisdom inaugurated this conflict, so it is he who will bring to an end. He will ensure that Truth finally triumphs, and Falsehood is utterly destroyed. We commented earlier on how Truth will purify and perfect the Sons of Light at the eschaton. The conflict between Truth and Falsehood is a feature only of this age, when Falsehood appears to have the upper hand. But this age has a fixed term, and the age to come will finally and inevitably dawn. Here too, as elsewhere in the Sermon, the emphasis is on the divine act. There is little, apparently, that the Sons of Light can do, other than walk in the Spirit of Truth, and seek to manifest the fruits of that Spirit (see esp. 4.18–23).

b. Parallels Iranian Dualism. The similarity between the doctrine of the Two Spirits in the Qumran Community Rule and Iranian dualism struck scholars as soon as the text was published. A consensus has emerged, though it is by no means unchallenged, that in fact the Sermon on the Two Spirits has been influenced by Iranian thought.11 This makes good sense. As I noted earlier the text stands out as most unusual within early Jewish literature, and this could be explained by invoking 10. These texts, admittedly, are much later. Hell generally remains only vaguely and impressionistically described in Second Temple Judaism. See Martha Himmelfarb, Tours of Hell: An Apocalyptic Form in Jewish Christian Literature (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985). 11. K. G. Kuhn, ‘Die Sektenschrift und die iranische Religion’, ZTK 49 (1952), pp. 296–316; H. Michaud, ‘Un mythe zervanite dans un des manuscrits de Qumrân’, VT 5 (1955), pp. 137–47; J. Duchesne-Guillemin, ‘Le Zervanisme et les manuscrits de la Mer Morte’, Indo-Iranian Journal 1 (1957), pp. 96–99; P. Wernberg-Møller, ‘A Reconsideration of the two Spirits in the Rule of the Community’, RevQ 3 (1961), pp. 413–41; S. Shaked, ‘Qumran and Iran: Further Considerations’, Israel Oriental Studies 2 (1972), pp. 433–46; Marc Philonenko, ‘La doctrine qoumrânienne des deux esprits: ses origines iraniennes et ses prolongements dans le judaïsme essénien et le christianisme antique’, in G. Widengren, Anders Hultgård and Marc Philonenko (eds), Apocalyptique Iranienne et Dualisme Qoumrânien (Paris: Adrien Maisonneuve, 1995), pp. 163–211. The best overviews of broader Iranian influence on Judaism in late antiquity are: D. Winston, ‘The Iranian Component in the Bible, Apocrypha and Qumran: A Review of the Evidence’, History of Religions 5 (1966), pp. 183–216; A. Hultgård, ‘Das Judentum in der hellenistich-römischen Zeit und die iranische Religion – ein religionsgeschichtliche Problem’, in ANRW II.19.1: 512–90; S. Shaked, ‘Iranian Influence on Judaism: First Century B.C.E. to Second Century C.E.’, in W. D. Davies and L. Finkelstein (eds), The Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 308–25; Mary Boyce and Frantz Grenet, A History of Zoroastrianism. III. Zoroastrianism under Macedonian and Roman Rule (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1991), pp. 361–490 (esp. pp. 422–25 on the Sermon on the Two Spirits). See also the article by J. Duchesne-Guillemin on ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ in the Encyclopaedia Iranica 7 (1996), pp. 177–79.

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foreign influence. It would by no means be the only case of Iranian influence on late Second Temple period Judaism. Over the past fifty years there has been a powerful trend in scholarship, which Walter Burkert has dubbed ‘the orientalizing revolution’,12 to revalue the influence of Babylonian and Persian ideas on the western Mediterranean in the late first millennium BCE, including Greek Ionia. Iranian dualism evolved and changed over time, and its history is notoriously contentious and hard to reconstruct, but that it offers striking similarities to our text is beyond reasonable doubt. Take the following passage from Yasna 30.3–4: The two primeval Spirits who are twins were revealed [to me, Zarathustra] in sleep. Their ways of thinking, speaking, and behaving are two: the good and the evil. And between these two [ways] the wise men have rightly chosen, and not the foolish ones. And when these two Spirits met, they established at the origin life and non-life and that at the end the worst existence will be for the followers of Falsehood and for the followers of Truth the best thinking. (trans. Gherardo Gnoli)

Interestingly the Dead Sea doctrine seems to correspond most closely to the earliest, gathic stage of Iranian dualism which envisages the twin good and evil spirits (Spenta Mainyu and Anra Mainyu) as being ‘fathered’ by the supreme being Ahura Mazda, and which looks forward to the ultimate triumph of good over evil, the Frasho-kereti, the ‘Making Wonderful’, the glorious renewal of the earth at the end of time.13 It does not correspond to the dualism of the later 12. W. Burkert, The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univeristy Press, 1992). 13. I am very conscious of the fact that this statement runs counter to the opinion of Mary Boyce, the greatest authority on Zoroastrianism in recent times. Quoting James Barr in support (‘The Question of Religious Influence: the Case of Zoroastrianism, Judaism and Christianity’, JAAR 53 [1985], p. 203 n.4), she argues that it is a modern western distortion of Zoroastrianism to suggest that Ahura Mazda ‘created’ Anra Mainyu, which is contrary to ‘the magisterium of traditional Zoroastrian belief and observance’. Her own summary of Zoroastrian belief at the beginning of the Hellenistic age is worth quoting in full: ‘Zoroastrianism was regularly characterized by Greeks as the “Persian religion”, as if it were an ethnic faith like the others which they encountered; but (however true this had become in part) it was in fact a credal religion, the oldest known in history. A person was not born a Zoroastrian, nor did he enter the religious community through a physical rite (such as the Jewish one of infant circumcision); but he became a Zoroastrian on attaining maturity by choosing to profess the doctrines taught by Zoroaster. Among the distinctive elements in these doctrines were: belief in God (Ahura Mazda), the one eternal being, and in a likewise self-existing, wholly independent Spirit of evil (Anra Mainyu); belief that Ahura Mazda created the world in order to destroy that Spirit; and that a struggle is being waged here and now by celestial beings, just men and the whole good creation against him and his legions, who have malignly invaded the world; that this struggle will end with the triumph of the good, which will mark the last day of measurable time and human history, this glorious moment being known as Frasho-kereti, the ‘Making wonderful’; belief that the bones of the dead will then be raised up, so that all humanity, with those still living, can undergo a last judgement by fiery ordeal. The wicked will be thereby destroyed as part of the cleansing of the cosmos from evil, and the earth, likewise cleansed, will be once more wholly good, as Ahura Mazda had created it. Then his kingdom will come upon it, in which the just, made immortal in the flesh, will live in bliss for ever’ (Boyce and Grenet, History of Zoroastrianism 3, pp. 363–4; see also her summary of Zoroaster’s own teaching in her textbook, Zoroastrians: their Religious Beliefs and Practices [London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979], pp. 17–29). However, I am not entirely convinced by her on this particular point, nor

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Pahlavi texts which simply opposes Ohrmazd to Ahriman as competing powers. There seems, however, to be one very important difference. In the Zoroastrian texts man appears to be totally free to choose between the spirits. This is evident even from the brief Yasna 30 passage which I quoted earlier. In the Qumran text, however, if my reading is correct (and I shall presently bring evidence that the text was so read within the Dead Sea Community), man’s destiny is predetermined by God. He does not have free choice. The possibility that even this reflects the more deterministic, fatalistic form of Iranian dualism known as Zurvanism cannot entirely be ruled out. However, I am more inclined to think that the Qumran position arose naturally through the adaptation of gathic dualism to Jewish monotheism. The Two Ways. The second comparison is with the doctrine of the Two Ways in Didache 1.1–6.2. This too has been compared at length with the Sermon on the Two Spirits.14 The comparison can be made on a number of levels. The genre of the Serekh ha-Yahad and the Didache is broadly the same: both are rules or orders intended to regulate the belief and practice of a religious community. That the Two Ways passage in the Didache was meant to function in the context of Christian catechesis seems obvious, and this strengthens the argument that the Sermon on the Two Spirits was used in a similar way at Qumran. The major point of contact between the two texts is their catalogues of virtues and vices which characterize respectively the behaviour of the righteous and the wicked. Significantly both texts use the term ‘way’ to designate the competing types of conduct. It seems likely that the Didache text represents a Christian variant of an originally independent, short Jewish ethical treatise going back to Second Temple times, which may have been drawn upon, in some shape or form, by the author of the Sermon on the Two Spirits. However, there are also enormous differences between the two treatises. The Didache text totally lacks the heavy theology of the Qumran Sermon. The Didache in speaking of the Way of Life and the Way of Death does hint obliquely at the consequences of following these two ways, and of ultimate punishment and reward, but even this it does not spell out, whereas the Treatise on the Two Spirits does. Still less does the Didache speculate on a cosmic struggle between Good and Evil, Truth and Falsehood. It concentrates exclusively on listing good actions to follow and bad ones to avoid. And, once again, the predestinarianism of the Qumran text is missing. The whole exhortatory tone in the Didache makes no sense unless those exhorted have the freedom to choose between the Way of Life and the Way of Death. are others better qualified to decide the matter than I am. See, e.g., G. Gnoli, ‘Dualism’, Encyclopaedia Iranica 7 (1996), pp. 576–82 (with extensive bibliography). The matter is not of critical importance to my present argument. 14. The most comprehensive recent discussion of the Two Ways tradition is Huub van de Sandt and David Flusser, The Didache: Its Jewish Sources and its Place in Early Judaism (CRINT; Assen/Minneapolis: Royal Van Gorcum/Fortress Press, 2002), pp. 55–270, esp. pp. 140–54. J.-P. Audet, ‘Affinités littéraires et doctrinales du Manuel de Discipline’, RevB 59 (1952), pp. 219–38 is still worth reading.

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The Two Inclinations. My final comparison is with the rabbinic doctrine of the Two Inclinations, the Inclination towards Good (yeser ha-tob) and the Inclination towards Evil ( yeser ha-ra‘ ).15 This is one of the fundamental doctrines of rabbinic theology, and the texts on it are rich and varied. However, the rabbis tend to present it in a coherent and consistent fashion. The two inclinations exist within the human heart and were put there by God (b. Qidd. 30b). The yeser hara‘ represents the tendencies of human nature and appetite in their untamed, natural state. It is not in itself bad, and indeed such divinely sanctioned and mandated human activities as procreation would be impossible without it. It only becomes evil when it is given free reign (Gen. Rab. 9.7). God in his wisdom implanted the yeser ha-tob in the human heart precisely to check and counterbalance the yeser ha-ra‘ (otherwise man would not have real choice, and so not be truly free), and it can be strengthened by self-discipline and above all by the study of the Torah (b. Qidd. 30b). There are hints that the doctrine may have its roots in Second Temple Judaism,16 but in the form in which we have it it seems to be a classically rabbinic construct. The rabbinic doctrine of the Two Inclinations offers some interesting parallels to the Qumran doctrine of the Two Spirits: the avoidance of perfectionism in both cases is noteworthy (‘good’ and ‘evil’ exist in everyone’s heart, even in the hearts of the most holy – at least in this age17), and the rabbinic insistence that Torah study has the power to subdue the human tendency towards evil would have been heartily endorsed at Qumran. Both the rabbis and the Qumran theologians seemed to have agreed on the primacy of intellect over will. Knowing the truth was a precondition to doing it, though both avoid the manifest fallacy of claiming that knowing the truth automatically leads to doing it. Knowledge is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition. However, it is once again the differences that catch the eye. In classic rabbinic theology the yesarim are purely psychological in nature: they exist only within the human heart. There is no hint that they correspond to cosmic principles, or are bound up with a vast cosmic struggle between good and evil. And, yet again, we find the rabbis insisting on freedom of choice. They do acknowledge that the more one gives into the evil inclination the harder it becomes to resist it (b. Sukk. 52a–b), but in principle man has the

15. See the useful survey by G. H. Cohen Stuart, The Struggle in Man Between Good and Evil: An Inquiry into the Origin of the Rabbinic Concept of Yeser Hara‘ (Kampen: J.H. Kok, 1984). Further: S. Schechter, Some Aspects of Rabbinic Theology (New York: Schocken Books, 1965); S. S. Cohon, ‘Original Sin’, HUCA 21 (1948), pp. 275–330; G. F. Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era, vol. 1 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1927), pp. 479– 93; E. E. Urbach, The Sages: The Concepts and Beliefs (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), pp. 471–83. 16. H. Lichtenberger, ‘Zu Vorkommen und Bedeutung von yetser in Jubiläenbuch’, JSJ 14 (1983), pp. 1–10. 17. The rabbis believed that the evil inclination would be removed in the world to come, and as a result in that world ‘there will be no eating or drinking, procreation or barter, envy or hate’ (b. Ber. 17a). Interestingly this will make humans like the angels, who have no evil inclination (Lev. Rab. 26.5) – a pointed snub, perhaps, to the myth of the fall of the angels?

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resources to control the evil inclination, and he is always personally culpable if he succumbs to it. The rabbis did have a concept of divine foreknowledge but they did not see it as negating human freedom. In the famous and deliberately paradoxical statement in Pirqe ’Avot 3.16, ‘all is foreseen (safui), but freedom of choice (reshut) is given; and the world is judged by grace (tub), yet all is according to the preponderance of one’s deeds (rob ha-ma‘aseh)’. There may be an historical link between the rabbinic doctrine of the Two Inclinations and the Qumran Doctrine of the Two Spirits. The former can plausibly be read as a conscious revision of the latter, or of a view broadly similar to it, a psychologizing interpretation precisely intended to avoid the cosmic dualism of the other view, and to play up human responsibility. These comparisons, perfunctory though they have been, have served a useful purpose. They have helped us to highlight certain distinctive features of the Qumran doctrine, particularly its rigorous predestinarianism. They have brought out the heavy theological character of the Sermon on the Two Spirits, which, as I said earlier, is virtually unique within Jewish literature in Hebrew/Aramaic literature in late antiquity, while at the same time showing that it has a context within a vigorous and long-running Jewish debate on the relationship between divine and human agency.

2. The Sermon in the Context of Qumran Literature, Theology and Practice a. Function within the Community Rule Does the Sermon on the Two Spirits represent unusual doctrine at Qumran, or was it fully integrated into Qumran theology? I shall show that the latter is most emphatically the case. Though the level of its abstraction is unusual, as is its prepositional mode of argument, the Sermon’s ideas are thoroughly at home in the general worldview and praxis of the Qumran Community. There is every reason to believe that far from being an isolated document, the Sermon was deeply influential. First of all, let us consider the fact that it is found in the Community Rule. What is the Community Rule, and what function did it play in the life and thought of the Community? The Rule is a Serekh, or more correctly a collection of Serakhim, that is to say it is a text that is intended to determine the Community’s belief and practice. Serakhim are not Torah: they do not come with the divine sanction of revelation, and for that reason can be, and clearly were changed (though only, of course, by competent authority), but they are nonetheless binding on the Community so long as they are in force.18 The Serekh ha-Yahad was not, I have argued, intended as a rule-book for the ordinary members, but rather as a manual for the Maskil, the spiritual guide of the Community, to help 18. On the nature of the Serakhim see my article, ‘Rules’, in: L. H. Schiffman and J. C VanderKam (eds), Encyclopaedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), II, pp. 799–803.

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him to perform his duties.19 This is why it is so incomplete. If I join a club as a new member, I will expect the club’s rules to explain to me in reasonable detail what I am supposed to do or not to do. Any new member of the Yahad would have found the Serekh a pretty inadequate guide to belief and practice. This Serekh was not, however, intended for new members, but rather for the spiritual head of the Community, and for that reason it could take a lot for granted. When it says that it is la-maskil, the lamed is not lamed-auctoris, but rather a dativus commodi, ‘for the Maskil’, that is to say for his use. The inclusion of such a theological text within the Maskil’s handbook suggests that that text had a catechetical or instructional function. It contained fundamental doctrine which he was expected to impart. The Serekh ha-Yahad was clearly influential within the Community. This is shown by the number of versions of it that survive (eleven in all), spread palaeographically over around 120 years. The number of allusions to the Serekh haYahad in non-Serekh texts is also impressive, suggesting that it was fully integrated into community life and treated as authoritative.20 There is only one other manuscript of the Serekh, apart from 1QS, which contains a version of the Sermon on the Two Spirits, and that is the papyrus manuscript from Cave 4 c known as 4QS , which seems to have contained a version of S very close to that d in 1QS. The Sermon on the Two Spirits was certainly missing from 4QS , which clearly began at 1QS V, omitting all the material in 1QS I–IV, and we cannot be b sure that it was in the cognate recension 4QS . The other manuscripts of S are simply too fragmentary for us to form an opinion one way or the other. The recensional history of S is hotly contested and Sarianna Metso and others have argued that 1QS, though palaeographically rather early represents recensionally b d a very late form.21 The later Herodian manuscripts 4QS and 4QS are in fact recensionally earlier. This opens the possibility that the Sermon on the Two Spirits is actually a rather late addition to the Rule, which might somewhat weaken my argument for the pervasiveness of its theology at Qumran. However, I have argued that Metso’s reconstruction of the recensional history of the Rule is questionable, since it flies in the face of the palaeographical dating of the manuscripts. This would not matter so much in the case of most types of text: in most cases there is no necessary correlation between when a text was copied and the date of the recension it contains. However, Serekh ha-Yahad is a special kind of text: it is a rule-book, and so one assumes that when a scribe copied it he copied the form of the rule-book currently in force within the community. In b d other words 4QS and 4QS , which were copied in the Herodian period, present c the form of the rule-book current in the Herodian period, and 1QS and 4QS , which were copied some eighty years earlier, represent the form of the rule-book

19. See my article, ‘The Redaction-History of Serekh ha-Yahad: A Proposal’, in F. García Martinez and E. Puech (eds), Hommage à Jozef T. Milik = RevQ 17 (1996), pp. 437–56. 20. Alexander and Vermes, Serekh Ha-Yahad, pp. 3–4. 21. Sarianna Metso, The Textual Development of the Qumran Community Rule (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1997).

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current around 100 BCE.22 If my arguments are sound, then the Sermon on the Two Spirits was almost certainly an integral part of the earliest known forms of the Community Rule. Too much should not be made of the fact that it was missing, along with the liturgy for the renewal of the covenant, from one Herodian d version, 4QS .

b. Echoes of the Doctrine of the Two Spirits in other Qumran texts 4Q502. Echoes of the Sermon on the Two Spirits can be found in various Qumran texts. The first of these which I will mention briefly is 4Q502, briefly because the text is so fragmentary that little can be made of it. Maurice Baillet suggested it is a ritual for a wedding: hence its common name 4QRitual of Marriage; Joseph Baumgarten demurred and suggested it was a celebration possibly related to the festival of Sukkot, in which old men and women play a part.23 Both proposals involve a great deal of imagination. However one thing is certain: the text is not a copy of the Serekh ha-Yahad, yet fragment 16 appears to contain a substantial quotation from the Sermon on the Two Spirits (= 1QS 4.4–6). The fragment is small and very damaged with only a few words surviving, but the lines can be totally satisfactorily reconstructed by supplying the 1QS text. Why the Sermon on the Two Spirits should have been quoted in such a work is entirely unclear, but that it was quoted is beyond reasonable doubt. It suggests that it was well known and regarded as authoritative. Interestingly the text is on papyrus and its script indicates that it was written towards the beginning of the first century BCE. In other words palaeographically speaking it is roughly contemporary with 1QS c and 4QS . This is further corroboration of the existence of the Sermon at this early date. 4Q186. Echoes of the Sermon on the Two Spirits can also be found in the much better preserved manuscript 4Q186. I have written on this text at length elsewhere and will here simply summarize my views that are pertinent to the present discussion.24 4Q186 is not, as John Allegro suggested and many have accepted, a 22. Alexander, ‘The Redaction-History of Serekh ha-Yahad: A Proposal’, pp. 437–56. 23. M. Baillet, DJD VII, pp. 105–136; J. M. Baumgarten, ‘4Q205, Marriage or Golden Age Ritual?’, JJS 34 (1983), pp. 125–35; J. M. Baumgarten, ‘The Qumran-Essene Restraints on Marriage’, in L. H. Schiffman (ed.), Archaeology and History in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990), pp. 13–24. 24. See my article, ‘Physiognomy, Initiation and Rank in the Qumran Community’, in P. Schäfer, H. Cancik and H. Lichtenberger (eds), Geschichte–Tradition–Reflexion: Festschrift für Martin Hengel zum 70. Geburtstag, vol. 1 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1996), pp. 385–94. For further background to 4Q186 see Matthias Albani, ‘Horoscopes in the Qumran Scrolls’, in Flint and VanderKam, Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years, pp. 279–330; Kocku von Stuckrad, Das Ringen um die Astrologie: Jüdische und christliche Beiträge zum antiken Zeitverständnis (Berlin/New York: W. de Gruyter, 2000), pp. 193–214. The cosmological determinism of Qumran thought may be reflected also in the selendromium/ brontologion, 4Q318, by the choice of Taurus rather than Aries or Pisces as the first sign of the zodiac. The choice was probably determined by the fact that the vernal equinox occurred in Taurus at the putative date of creation, but with the precession of the equinoxes it had moved to Pisces and was about to enter Aries at the time 4Q318 was written (it is, of course, now about to

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horoscope. It is fundamentally a physiognomy. It deduces the nature of a man’s spirit from the physical form of certain indicative parts of his body. It further suggests that the nature of the man’s spirit, and hence his destiny, is determined by the configuration of the heavens at the time of his birth – a fundamental claim of natal astrology. This injects a strong note of fatalism into the texts. One’s character and destiny are, apparently, pre-determined by cosmic forces beyond one’s control. The configuration of the heavens determines the nature of one’s spirit which in turn determines one’s bodily form (configuration of the heavens ĺ spirit ĺ bodily form). The purpose of the text is to provide a means of determining a subject’s true nature (his spirit). Theoretically that could be worked out either astrologically from his natal chart or from his physical form. The latter, however, is the more practical approach because it simply involves direct observation. Casting the natal chart with any accuracy requires a precise date and time of birth, something which few commoners in antiquity would have known. The three elements, the configuration of the heavens, the spirit and the body are closely interlinked, and theoretically speaking we could start from any one of them and predict the others. So if we know the configuration of the heavens at any point in time we should be able to predict the sort of spirit someone born then will have, and if we know his spirit we should be able to say something about his physical form. Similarly if we know his spirit, we should be able to predict the state of the heavens at his birth, and his physical form. Or if we know his physical form we should be able to predict his spirit, and if we know his spirit we should be able to work out at what time of the year he was born. The most practical place to start, however, is obviously with the bodily form, and in particular those part of the body, the fingers, the legs and so forth which are visible. What links this text to the Sermon on the Two Spirits is the fact that both share the same dualistic worldview, which is expressed in rather similar terms. 4Q186 measures the goodness and badness of individuals on a nine-point scale, according to the degree to which their spirits participate in the ‘house of light’ (bet ’or) and the ‘pit of darkness’ (bor ha-hoshekh). The phraseology must surely echo the ‘fountain of light’ (ma‘yan ’or), and the ‘source of darkness’ (meqor hoshekh) in the Sermon on the Two Spirits. The nine-point scale ensures that there are only two categories – good and bad: those who are predominantly good (5 parts light to 4 parts dark, or better) are good; those who are predominantly bad (5 parts darkness to 4 parts light, or worse) are bad. The rabbinic category of the ‘intermediate’ (beinoniyyim), i.e. those in whom good and bad are exactly balanced, is ruled out. When 4Q186 was first published it was treated as something of a curiosity. I and others, however, have argued that it should be taken seriously. It suggests

move into Aquarius, inaugurating the ‘Age of Aquarius’!). The subtle implication appears to be that the fate of the world was inscribed in the heavens at the time of creation, or, as Omar Khayyam puts it, ‘And the first Morning of Creation wrote/What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read’. See M. O. Wise, Thunder in Gemini and Other Essays on the History, Language and Literature of Second Temple Palestine (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), pp. 39–48.

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that the leadership of the Qumran Community may have applied physiognomic criteria to determine who should be admitted to their fellowship. Only ‘Sons of Light’ should be allowed to join, but how could you tell who was a Son of Light? The Sermon on the Two Spirits speaks of ‘signs’ (’otot) which suggest to which category a man belongs, but what it lists are virtues and vices such as humility, charity, greed and deceit. The principle on which it works seems to be ‘by their fruits shall you know them’. There is no mention of physiognomic criteria. Physiognomic criteria may have been introduced later, or they may have been applied by the leadership all along but clandestinely. Curiously 4Q186 is in code. This was probably not to conceal its content from outsiders, but rather from insiders. Qumran was a literate community, and one must assume that any member was capable of reading any text which they might find lying around. This is probably the major reason why certain Qumran texts were put into code. 4Q186 probably contains lore which was restricted to the Maskil. Pythagorean groups and the later Jewish Merkabah mystics both, apparently, used physiognomy to determine membership. Interestingly some of the later Jewish phsyiognomic texts use Gen. 5.1, ‘This is the book of the generations of man’ (zeh sefer toledot ’adam), as a biblical peg on which to hang their ideas, taking toledot, however, not in the sense of ‘generations’, its natural meaning, but in the sense of ‘nature’. It is curious that this same verse is apparently alluded to at the beginning of the Sermon on the Two Spirits in the phrase toledot kol benei ’ish, where toledot again has its rare, technical sense of ‘nature’. There is little doubt in my mind that a strong intertextuality exists between 4Q186 and the Sermon on the Two Spirits. The former is, in fact, a reading of the latter which attempts to find ways of applying its teaching concretely and practically. It takes the doctrine of the Two Spirits in a highly deterministic way. The character and destiny of each individual is foreordained. The only question that arises is how we can discover who has been elected a ‘Son of Light’ and who rejected as a ‘Son of Darkness’. Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice. A significant allusion to the Sermon on the Two Spirits occurs in Song 5 of the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice. The relevant passage can be pieced together from a number of different fragments as follows: For from the God of knowledge comes all that exists forever, and from His knowledge [and] his [plan]s have come into existence all eternally fixed times. He makes the former things [at] their [time]s and the latter things at their appointed times. And there are none among those who have knowledge (who can) discern the [wondrous] revealed things before He acts. And when He acts none of the […of] God can comprehend what He plans. For they are part of His glorious works. Before they came into being [(they were) part of] his [though]t.25

This makes clear that when God is described as the God of ‘knowledge’ what is in view is not his omniscience in general but specifically his fore-knowledge, and 25. See 4Q402 4 12–15; Mas1k i 1–7; 4Q406 1 1–2. See, conveniently, J. H. Charlesworth and Carol A. Newsom, Angelic Liturgy: Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (The Princeton Theological Seminary Dead Sea Scrolls Project 4B; Tübingen: Mohr, 1999), pp. 152–53.

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his fore-ordination of everything that comes to pass. Before he created the world, and set history in motion, God planned how it would be, and it will follow that plan to the letter. God’s creatures, even ‘those who have knowledge’ (a term used widely in Sabbath Songs for the angels), do not know that plan in its entirety, because as actors in it they cannot stand outside it. It is ultimately mysterious, a point made in another Qumran text by referring to it as the raz nihyeh, ‘the mystery that is coming to pass’ (1Q27 1 i 3). But it is disclosing itself, at least to those who have the discernment to see it, and those with such discernment ‘know’ it in a way the ignorant and uncomprehending mass of humanity does not. What we have here is, on the face of it, a doctrine of general rather than particular predestination, of the sort that Josephus attributes to the Essenes (Ant. 13.172), but within the theology of Sabbath Songs it may have shaded over into a doctrine of particular predestination. The text of Sabbath Songs is in a wretchedly broken state, which makes any kind of generalization about its argument and ideas hazardous, but from a close analysis of what survives I have suggested that it implies a kind of liturgical mysticism. By performing the Songs on earth the terrestrial worshippers are elevated to join the angelic choirs in heaven, and thus participate in the angels’ superior nearness to God. That superior angelic nearness to God is defined in terms of ‘knowledge’. As I have already noted, a standard designation for the angels in Sabbath Songs is ‘those who know’. But this knowledge is not so much knowledge of God himself (God in himself is unknowable in Sabbath Songs) but rather of God’s grand purposes, and one’s place in them. It is this latter knowledge which brings in the element of particular predestination. The supreme ‘knowledge’ to which one can attain is not only to know that there is a divine purpose to the world, but also to know and accept one’s place within it. As I have argued at length elsewhere, Sabbath Songs is an intensely hierarchical document. It presupposes two great matching hierarchies – an angelic and a human, each with its different but corresponding ranks. Each of the elect has been assigned from eternity a place within those ranks, a place which seems to be referred to as his ‘station’ (ma‘amad). His supreme blessedness is to rise to that ‘station’.26 Damascus Document 2.2–13. It has long been recognized that there are significant parallels between the Sermon on the Two Spirits and CD 2.2–13.27 Numerous small similarities of language link the two passages as well as broad agreement in

26. For a detailed discussion of all this see my The Mystical Texts (Companions to the Dead Sea Scrolls 7; London: T&T Clark International, 2006); ‘Qumran and the Genealogy of Western Mysticism’, in Esther G. Chazon (ed.), Proceedings of the Tenth Orion Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls (Leiden: E.J. Brill, forthcoming); ‘The Qumran Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice and the Celestial Hierarchy of Dionysius the Areopagite: A Comparative Approach’, RevQ (forthcoming). 27. Philip Davies, The Damascus Covenant: An Interpretation of the ‘Damascus Document’ (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1982), pp. 72–76. The subtle linguistic parallels to the Sermon on the Two Spirits were well picked up by Chaim Rabin, The Zadokite Documents (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954), pp. 6–9.

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doctrine. Like the Sermon, CD 2.2–13 divides humanity without remainder into two camps – the good and the bad. Like the Sermon it is strongly deterministic in character, and traces everything back to divine causality. The wicked are wicked because ‘God did not choose them’ (lo’ bahar ’el bahem). The language here is, of course, borrowed from the election of Israel: God ‘chose’ Israel to be his people. In not choosing these wicked people he was excluding them from the community of the saved and condemning them to ‘fiery flames at the hand of all the angels of destruction’. This rejection took place in a past eternity, before the world existed or these individuals were born (mi-qedem ‘olam u-beterem nosadu) There is, it seems, a fixed, predetermined list of the righteous, and through ‘those anointed in His holy spirit and who view His truth’ God has made known to the elect the names of those who are to be saved. The language is cryptic but it seems to imply that in practical terms discerning who is and who is not of the elect lies with the spirit-inspired leadership of the community. Later the Damascus Document (13.12) states that the role of the Guardian (mebaqqer) involves examining ‘every man entering the congregation with regard to his deeds, understanding, strength, ability and possessions, and he shall inscribe him in his place according to his rank in the lot of light’ (ke-fi heyoto be-goral ha-’or). The Guardian can, somehow, decide not only whether the postulant belongs to the community of the saved, but also on his pre-ordained position within it. (We shall return in a moment to this term ‘lot’, goral, because it is highly relevant to our present purposes.) At first sight the statement in line 7, ‘before they were established He knew their [the damned’s] works’ could be taken as softening the idea of predestination. God in his omniscience foresaw that the wicked would be wicked, and on this basis rejected them. This is, of course, a classic position, argued at length by certain later Christian theologians, but I doubt that this subtlety was intended by our author. It is strongly negated by his subsequent blunt statement, ‘those whom He hated He caused to stray’. The force of this should not be missed. The righteous elect sin because they are led astray by the agents of evil. Here God apparently plays a similar role towards the wicked. The underlying sense may be that while God in his mercy protects the elect against the wiles of the wicked one, so that they will not finally be deceived, he abandons the wicked to the forces of darkness, thus ensuring their damnation, but this may be too much of a rationalization of the Qumran author’s language. God’s causation of the damnation of the wicked is apparently formulated here in utterly uncompromising terms. There are other similarities between our D passage and the Sermon on the Two Spirits. Both recognize that evil will exist only for a predetermined period of time: in the end it will be eradicated and righteousness alone will reign. The D passage, like the S passage, is clearly sermonic in character, aimed at instruction of the members of the covenant: note its exhortatory opening: ‘And now hearken to me, all who enter the covenant’; and both texts occur in somewhat similar positions within their respective Rules. There are, however, interesting differences. The D text says nothing about cosmic Spirits of Good and Evil, and it is much less universalistic in its vision. The wicked in D are definitely backsliding

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Israelites, who by their very backsliding show that they do belong to the true Israel. Its purpose seems primarily to keep faithful those who are within the Community by warning them of the dire consequences that will befall ‘those who willfully depart from the Way and despise the Statute’. The enemy envisaged is wicked Israel. This is in keeping with the main thrust of Qumran theology. There is a conspicuous lack of a theology of the Gentiles in Qumran thought, such as we get in nascent Christianity and in rabbinic Judaism, both of which assigned to righteous Gentiles an honoured place in the world to come. Qumran basically writes the Gentiles off: they were never in any sense within the covenant; they are damned to outer darkness, possibly because they rejected the Torah whereas Israel accepted it, though not all Israelites obeyed the Torah, and so most of Israel will also be damned. The Qumran covenanters would definitely not have subscribed in any shape or form to the fundamental rabbinic credo that ‘all Israel has a share in the world to come’ (m. Sanh. 10.1). Interestingly the author of the D passage is less rigorously consistent than the author of the Sermon on the Two Spirits. Like many later predestinarians he finds it difficult to live with the cold logic of his position, and still speaks the language of repentance and divine forgiveness, as if freedom of choice was still possible in the face of overwhelming divine foreordination, a point to which we shall return later. The nuances and differences of emphasis should not be ignored, but neither should the profound similarities. The literary relationship between the two texts is unclear. It is bound up with the highly contested question of the relationship between the Damascus Document and the Community Rule. My own view is that. all things considered (and there are many complex issues to consider), the Damascus Document is essentially the Serekh which governed the lives of the members of the movement who lived in small communes scattered throughout the towns of Judaea, and who had their own spiritual mentor known as the Guardian (Ha-Mebaqqer). The Community Rule was the Serekh which governed the lives of the members of the movement who lived at Qumran, ruled by the Maskil. The latter led a much stricter, more monastic life than the former. Qumran served as the mother-house or temple of the movement, and may have been visited on special occasions, such as the festival of the renewal of the covenant at Shavu‘ot, by all the covenanters. It is noteworthy that while we have pre-Herodian manuscripts of the Community Rule, the Qumran fragments of the Damascus Document are, almost without exception, in Herodian script.28 This suggests to me that the Damascus Document is later in origin than the Community Rule, and that the ‘lay’ wing of the Qumran movement only developed strongly in late Hasmonean or Herodian times. This in turn would favour the view that CD 2.2– 13 is a reworking of the Sermon on the Two Spirits, perhaps for a less theologically educated audience. The Concept of Goral in the Scrolls. We noted earlier that the Guardian’s role was to assign those who entered the covenant their proper place in the Community in accordance with their standing in the ‘lot of light’ (goral ha’or) (CD 28. The one pre-Herodian manuscript is 4QDa (4Q266).

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3.12). The word goral used here figures prominently in the scrolls and in many ways encapsulates its predestinarian theology. The uses of the term are varied, but behind them all stands the idea that everything has been foreordained by God.29 A lot or goral is, of course, a stone or dice which one casts in order to decide something. With us it is associated with games of chance, and the fall of the dice is governed by chance. Not so in ancient Israel. There was no such thing as chance: casting lots was a means of divination, a way of discovering the will of God. The phrase yasa’ ha-goral (lit. ‘the lot went out’) occurs a number of times in the scrolls in the context of the decision-making processes of the Community (1QS 5.3; 6.16, 18–19; 1QSa 1.16–17; CD 13.3–4) . This usage is biblical, and in the Bible it can refer literally to the casting of lots in order to assign land, property or priestly duties.30 I doubt that at Qumran, however, it was meant literally in this context: policy was made, and cases were decided by the exercise of competent authority, not by simply throwing a dice. This is indicated by the precise language used, which always qualifies the lot-casting in some way that points to a more rational procedure: thus 1QS 5.3, ‘By their decision [lit. their mouth]’, i.e., by the decision of the priests and the multitude of the men of the Community, ‘the lot shall go forth for the establishment of every matter relating to law, property and judgement’. Or again, 1QS 6.16, ‘the lot shall go forth at the decision of the Many’. Or again, 1QS 6.18–19, ‘the lot shall go forth at the decision of the priests and the multitude of the men of their covenant’. This recalls the fundamental rabbinic dictum that halakhah follows the majority opinion of the Sages (‘after the majority you must incline’). The Qumran writers may have retained the language of lot-casting in order to indicate that this process was a way of discovering the pre-existent will of God (a sentiment with which the rabbis might well have concurred). The possibility cannot be ruled out that literal casting of lots played a part in deciding who should be admitted to the Community. Stephen Pfann has claimed that he has identified actual lot-stones among the artefacts from the Qumran site. The Qumran covenanters would not be the only group in history to have used lots to determine membership. One recalls the intriguing parallel in Acts 1.23– 26, where the apostles cast lots as a way of discovering the God’s predestined choice of successor for Judas: They put forward two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias. And they prayed and said, ‘You, Lord, who knows the hearts of all men, show of these two the one whom you have chosen, to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas fell away, that he might go to his own place’. And they gave lots for them; and the lot fell upon Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.

It is also possible that when the language of the casting of lots is used in eschatological contexts with regard to the granting of rewards (1QS 4.26; 1QSb 4.25– 26), the literal process is in mind, on the analogy of the apportioning of the land to the tribes in Joshua 18–19. 29. See further Alexander and Vermes, Serekh Ha-Yahad, pp. 222–23. 30. See BDB, p. 174; HAL, p. 185.

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As I said earlier, behind all this lies the idea that each person has a divinely ordained destiny. It is not surprising, therefore, that goral came to denote that destiny. This seems to be its meaning in CD 20.3–4, ‘he shall be expelled from the Congregation, as one whose lot did not fall among the disciples of God’, i.e., he shall be expelled as someone about whom it has become manifest that his a divine destiny is not to be one of the elect. Also noteworthy is 1QH 11.20–23: I know that there is hope for someone you fashioned out of dust for the everlasting community. The perverse spirit you have purified from much sin, so that he can take his place with the host of the holy ones, and can enter into the community with the congregation of the sons of heaven, and you caused to fall to a man his lot with the spirits of knowledge, so that he might praise your name with joy in the community, and tell of your wonders before all your works.

One could paraphrase the expression ’ish lefi goralo (4Q181 1, 5), ‘each man according to his divinely ordained destiny’. But, in the theology of the Qumran Community there were only two destinies, to belong to the community of the saved or to the community of the damned, and goral came to designate those two communities. Thus 1QS 2.2–5 calls the former, ‘all the men of the lot of God’, and the latter ‘all the men of the lot of Belial’. Similar language occurs in the War Scroll. 1QM 1.5 refers to ‘all the lot of Belial’ and 1QM 13.5 contrasts those of the ‘lot of darkness’ with those of the ‘lot of God’ who will enjoy eternal light. The War Cycle. Finally, the doctrine of the Two Spirits underlies, or at the very least chimes closely with, the Qumran doctrine of the eschatological war, in which the Sons of Light will finally defeat the Sons of Darkness. The idea of the eschatological war is implicit in the Sermon on the Two Spirits. It is clear that this war happens on a number of levels. The major text of the War Cycle31 (the War Scroll) concentrates on the battle that will be fought out on the terrestrial plain between human armies, but it and other texts make it perfectly clear that the battle is simultaneously going on in the unseen spiritual world as well, and that these two levels are implicated one in the other. This is why the Sons of Light rely not just on swords and shields and tactical manoeuvres, but deploy also incantations and spells which are aimed at defeating the satanic forces that succour and support the enemy. The eschatological war is like a vast game of three-dimensional chess. The forces ranged against each other in the spiritual world are, on the side of darkness, Belial/Mastema and his minions (which I believe are the demons, and not the Fallen Angels), and, on the side of light, Melchizedek/Michael and the good angels. At an even higher level may stand the cosmic spirits of Truth and Falsehood to which the Sermon on the Two Spirits refers. All this can be simply diagrammed as follows:

31. On the eschatological War Cycle see my article, ‘The Evil Empire: The Qumran Eschatological War Cycle and the Origins of Jewish Opposition to Rome’, in S. M. Paul, R. A. Kraft, L. H. Schiffman and W. W. Fields (eds), Emanuel: Studies in Hebrew Bible, Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honour of Emanuel Tov (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2003), pp. 17–31.

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GOD Level One Light | Good The Spirit of Truth The Spirit of Light

Darkness | Evil The Spirit of Falsehood The Spirit of Darkness Level Two

Melchizedek/Michael + The Good Angels

Belial/Mastema + The Demons Level Three

The Sons of Light (The Lot of God/Light)

The Sons of Darkness (The Lot of Belial/Darkness)

Physical warfare with the Sons of Darkness had yet to begin, though the Community was keenly anticipating it by laying down its strategy and tactics in its warbooks. But warfare on the spiritual plain had already started: the Community was already engaged in a deadly ‘wrestling against principalities and powers’. This sense of spiritual warfare pervades their ritual and practice.32 All their spiritual exercises – their prayers, their incantations, their rituals and their study of Torah – were aimed at protecting the Community’s space, policing its boundaries, defending it against demonic attack, and strengthening its links with the spiritual world of God and the good angels. The Community was the redoubt of the pure and holy from which the forces of good would break out at the eschaton to overcome the encircling forces of evil. Even the Qumran covenanters’ obsession with ritual purity can be seen in this light, if they regarded impurity as essentially the intrusion of demonic forces into the Community’s pure and holy domain, which had to be utterly eradicated without delay.

Conclusions The Sermon on the Two Spirits captures in an unusually coherent and systematic way a profoundly dualistic and deterministic worldview which was all-pervasive in Qumran theology. There is every reason to believe that this remarkable treatise functioned as a primary text of catechesis within the Community, and even if it did not, its broad ideas were widely disseminated and deeply absorbed.

32. See my article, ‘“Wrestling against Wickedness in High Places”: Magic in the Worldview of the Qumran Community’, in: S. E. Porter and C. A. Evans (eds), The Scrolls and the Scriptures: Qumran Fifty Years After (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), pp. 318–37.

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Qumran theology paints a stark and bleak picture: the world and history are seen as a battleground between the forces of good and evil, with evil at present in the ascendant, but destined ultimately to be defeated and totally eliminated. Behind this conflict stands God, orchestrating in his mysterious wisdom the activities of both sides. Everything is carried back to the mysterious power of God, who inscribed the whole unfolding drama before the creation of the world. He is the cosmic puppet-master who pulls everyone’s strings. There is, apparently, little room here for independent human agency: the good and the bad, men, angels and demons, act in the end only as agents of God’s grand design. Divine agency is all. The similarities between this worldview and certain much later theologies are striking. The parallels with high Calvinism are obvious.33 These similarities should be boldly confronted and explored, because they offer, within the framework of the history of religions, a potential source of insight into the Qumran mentality. One might consider the social background to such ideas. Do they, for example, correlate to any significant degree with sectarianism? Certainly the Qumran Community’s worldview was deeply sectarian. They saw themselves as a small beleaguered group standing for divine truth contra mundum, an island of light in a sea of darkness. The belief that they were specially chosen, and that an omnipotent God would ensure that they would be vindicated and finally triumph, offered them powerful spiritual succour and support. The comparison also raises all the moral arguments which were later urged against high Calvinism. If all is foreordained, if who is elect and who is damned is predetermined by God, how can humans be regarded as moral agents, since moral agency depends on free will? And if humans are not free agents what is the moral basis of punishment and reward? These were questions with which the later Calvinists and their opponents were to wrestle mightily. They are not directly addressed, as far as I am aware, in Qumran literature. They were, however, problems which exercised Jewish thinkers at the time. Indeed, one of Josephus’ criteria for differentiating the Jewish sects of his day was their stance on the question of fate and free-will.34 The failure in the scrolls to confront these questions inevitably leaves the modern reader with a sense of unfinished theological business. The broader comparison provokes one final thought. As I have already hinted in our discussion of CD 2.2–13, it is difficult to live practically and religiously with strict predestinarianism. The philosopher P. F. Strawson argued in his essay Freedom and Resentment that however philosophically strong the arguments may 33. In Calvinist terms the Qumran texts seem to subscribe to the ‘double predestination’ position of the Synod of Dort. 34. Josephus, Ant. 13. 171–73. See G. F. Moore, ‘Fate and Free Will in the Jewish Philosophies according to Josephus’, HTR (1929), pp. 371–89. Further, H. A. Wolfson, ‘Philo on Free Will and the Historical Influence of his View’, HTR 35 (1942), pp. 131–69, and Gabriele Boccaccini’s essay in this volume. Note also Paul in Rom. 8.29–30. Whatever this passage means, and there can be few passages more hotly contested in the Pauline corpus, it shows reflection on the question of ‘fate and free-will’.

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be for determinism, we all – even those of us who may theoretically subscribe to it – normally interact with each other in everyday life on the assumption that we are free agents. We see our fellows as motivated by kindness, or malevolence, or indifference, and we respond with gratitude, or resentment, or forgiveness.35 When one turns from the cold logic of Calvinist theology to Calvinist devotion, particularly as expressed in its preaching and hymnography, a very different ethos is displayed. People are spoken of as if they are free – sinning freely and responsible for their sins, able freely to turn to God and embrace salvation. This reflects the everyday human experience of freedom, of being faced day-in, day-out with endless choices and apparently choosing between them without any sense of overwhelming compulsion or constraint – an experience that has the potential to subvert determinism. This tension is apparent in the scrolls. Often when they talk of people sinning, there is no hint that these people are acting as other than free agents. But I must say that I can find nothing in the scrolls that logically contradicts their strong predestinarianism. It is remarkably consistent, and remarkably at the forefront of the covenanters’ minds. The Hodayot, for example, the supreme expression of Qumran spirituality, is shot through with profound religious feeling and sentiment, but the predominant theme, as in much Calvinist devotion, is the psalmist’s profound gratitude for God’s grace in saving him and placing him a among the elect (see, e.g., 1QH 11.19–36).36 The singer, deeply conscious of his own unworthiness and impotence, claims nothing for himself, and ascribes everything to his God.

35. P. F. Strawson, Freedom and Resentment, and Other Essays (London: Methuen, 1974). 36. See further E. H. Merrill, Qumran and Predestination: A Theological Study of the Thanksgiving Hymns (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1975). The most comprehensive treatment of predestination in the scrolls is Armin Lange, Weisheit und Prädestination: Weisheitliche Urordnung und Prädestinatiom in den Textfunde von Qumran (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1995).

Chapter 4 THE TENSION BETWEEN GOD’S COMMAND AND ISRAEL’S OBEDIENCE AS REFLECTED IN THE EARLY RABBINIC LITERATURE1 Friedrich Avemarie Introduction The elementary forms of religious experience are manifold, but whether we are dealing with prayer or miracle, with mysticism or enthusiasm, or with whatever else, it is always the specific modes of interaction between a human and a divine subject which determine the categories whereby we describe and distinguish these phenomena. In rabbinic tradition, a primary field of religious experience is that of the acceptance and fulfilment of God’s commandments. The central role of God’s commandments and human obedience within the Jewish religion is broadly documented by the classical modern reconstructions of ancient rabbinic soteriology, their controversial approaches notwithstanding.2 The basic idea is that all God’s plans and measures concerning humankind depend to an essential degree on the way the intended human beneficiaries meet the demands of God’s will. This means that obedience, being a form of human agency, receives a decisive function within the larger framework of salvation, which pertains to the agency of God. Since obedience is not an automatic consequence of the promulgation of a commandment, the dependence of salvation on such human agency means a considerable self-restriction of God’s control. The human ability to disobey introduces into the divine rule of the world a moment of uncertainty, instability and even hazard. There is a gap between God’s plan of salvation on the one side and human obedience on the other, a break which we may call free will, the contingency of human action, responsibility or suchlike. 1. For proofreading and for revising the English of this paper, I wish to thank Frau Inka Rietbrock and Mr Christopher Williamson. 2. Cf. S. Schechter, Some Aspects of Rabbinic Theology (London: A. & C. Black, 1909), pp. 116–218; G. F. Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era: The Age of the Tannaim (3 vols.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1927–30), II, pp. 89–111; Str.-B., vol. IV.1, pp. 1–22; J. Bonsirven, Le judaïsme palestinien au temps de Jésus-Christ (2 vols.; Paris: Beauchesne, 1934–35), vol. 2, pp. 3–105; E. E. Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs (trans. I. Abrahams; repr., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), pp. 315–523; E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (London: SCM Press; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), pp. 84–238.

AVEMARIE Tension between God’s Command and Israel’s Obedience 51 It is striking that even E. P. Sanders, despite his efforts to de-emphasize the role of obedience and retribution in favour of Israel’s election and covenant, nevertheless devoted the largest part of his description of rabbinic soteriology to Israel’s various options of reacting to the commandments and to the respective consequences of such behaviour.3 It need not be doubted that such enhanced attention is, in fact, commensurate with the thematic centres of gravity of rabbinic literature. However, if, in a brief outline of his pattern of rabbinic soteriology, Sanders speaks of ‘obedience’, ‘disobedience’, ‘failure to obey’ and the ‘intention and effort to be obedient’,4 this conveys only a faint impression of the manifold varieties of human response to God’s call. Rabbinic tradition knows of reluctance, obstinacy, zeal, forgetfulness, indecision, eagerness, commitment, submission to constraint, desire, repulse and further reactions; the range of possibilities is as rich as human emotionality allows, the sole constant being God’s firm demand that Israel be obedient. In the following, I shall discuss a selection of passages which may give us an impression of how the rabbis perceived the tension between command and obedience, and how, in their opinion, this tension could be overcome.5 In turn, we shall deal with God’s efforts to enforce obedience (Part 1), with the motivational potency of the Torah itself (Part 2), the anthropological conditions of obedience (Part 3) and the retrospective effects of obedience upon the Torah (Part 4) and upon God (Part 5). On occasion, we may also ask to what extent a given rabbinic idea is apt to either contradict or corroborate the various modern reconstructions of rabbinic soteriology.

1. Divine Agency If we consider the subject from the view-point of divine agency, the question is: How does God stimulate Israel to be obedient? 3. Cf. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, pp. 107–47 and 157–212. 4. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, p. 181. 5. Unless otherwise indicated, references are based on the subsequent standard editions: S. Schechter (ed.), Avot de-R. Nathan (Vienna: Lippe, 1887); J. Theodor and C. Albeck (eds.), Genesis Rabbah (Berlin: Itzkowski, 1912–36); S. Buber (ed.), Lamentations Rabbah (Vilna: Romm, 1899); M. Margulies (ed.), Leviticus Rabbah (Jerusalem: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1953–60); H. S. Horovitz and I. A. Rabin (eds.), Mekhilta (Frankfurt: Kauffmann, 1931); J. N. Epstein and E. Z. Melamed (eds.), Mekhilta de-R. Shimon ben Yohai (Jerusalem: Hillel Press, 1955); D. Hoffmann (ed.), Midrash Tannaim (Berlin: Itzkowski, 1908–9); C. Albeck (ed.), Mishnah (Jerusalem: Devir, 1952–58); B. Mandelbaum (ed.), Pesiqta de-Rav Kahana (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1962); I. H. Weiss (ed.), Sifra d’vey Rav (Vienna: Jacob Schlossberg, 1862); L. Finkelstein (ed.), Sifre on Deuteronomy (Berlin: Jüdischer Kulturbund, 1939); H. S. Horovitz (ed.), Siphre ad Numeros (Leipzig: Gustav Fock, 1917); D. Romm, et al., Talmud Bavli (Vilna: Romm, 1880–86); P. Schäfer and H.-J. Becker (eds.), Talmud Yerushalmi (Tübingen: Mohr, 1991– 2001), S. Lieberman (ed.), Tosefta Ki-Fshutah: A Comprehensive Commentary on the Tosefta (4 vols.; New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1955–88); M. Zuckermandel (ed.), Tosefta (Trier: Lintz, 1882). In addition, I have made use of the facsimile editions of G. Beer (ed.), Mishnah MS Kaufmann (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1929) and L. Finkelstein (ed.), Sifra MS Assemani 66 (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1956). All subsequent translations of rabbinic texts are mine. For the translation of Bible verses, in most cases I rely on the NRSV.

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The two most obvious and probably also most frequent types of answer to this question are based on the ideas of contract and recompense. On the one hand, God has redeemed Israel from Egypt on condition that Israel embrace the commandments, and Israel has accepted God’s kingdom and therefore must accept his decrees.6 On the other hand, on Mount Sinai the Israelites were shown the reward for obedience and the punishment for transgression;7 doing the commandments will lead them to the life of the world to come;8 and certain commandments have been given them for the sole purpose of imparting them reward.9 Rabbinic texts which unfold these ideas have been treated extensively in previous scholarship; so going into further detail would be unnecessary. There is just one thing which I would like to emphasize: both the motivation by contract and the motivation by retribution are based on extraneous means – extraneous to the commandments, extraneous to the addressees of the commandments, and extraneous to the performance of the commandments. A contractual relation is based on an agreement made in a distant past and may entail consequences which are not particularly cherished by one or the other party in the present. Moreover, reward and punishment, though appealing to innate human urges, can motivate obedience only because they are linked to the performance of the commandments by some divine causality. Consequently, either model leaves sufficient range, on the human part, for reluctance, obstinacy and repulse. Two examples from Sifre Numbers may illustrate to what extent rabbinic haggadah is prepared to take account of this. The first text presents a parable which is to explain why, in Num. 15.41, the exodus from Egypt is mentioned in connection with the commandments: What is the matter like? (Like) a king whose friend had a son who was captured, and when he ransomed him, he did not ransom him as a freeman but as a slave, so that in case he would give orders and (that son) would not accept (them), he could say to him, You are my slave! When he arrived in the city, he said to him, Close my sandals! and, Take my garments in order to bring them to the bathhouse! That son began to protest. He produced against him the deed and said to him: You are my slave! – Thus, when the Holy One, blessed be he, ransomed the seed of his friend Abraham, he did not ransom them as sons but as slaves, so that in case he would give orders and they would not accept (them), he could say to them, You are my slaves! When they set out for the wilderness, he began to impose on them some light precepts and some heavy precepts, such as the sabbath and the (prohibitions of) incestuous relations and the tassels and the phylacteries. The Israelites began to protest. He said to them, You are my slaves. For this purpose I ransomed you: for the purpose that I give orders and you fulfil (them). (Sifre Num. 115, pp. 127–28) 6. See, e.g., Mekhilta Bahodesh 6 (p. 222); Sifra Shemini, pereq 12.4 (fol. 57b); cf. Schechter, Aspects, p. 116; Str.-B., vol. IV.1, pp. 488–89; Urbach, Sages, p. 400; Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, pp. 85–94; F. Avemarie, Tora und Leben: Untersuchungen zur Heilsbedeutung der Tora in der frühen rabbinischen Literatur (Texte und Studien zum Antiken Judentum, 55; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996), pp. 173–80. 7. See, e.g., Mekhilta de-R. Shimon b. Yohai on Exod. 20.20 (p. 155); cf. Avemarie, Tora, pp. 556–57. 8. See, e.g., Avot de-R. Nathan A 2 (p. 9); cf. Avemarie, Tora, pp. 376–99. 9. See, e.g., t. Sanh. 11.6, 14.1 and t. Neg. 6.1 (pp. 431, 436 and 625); cf. Urbach, Sages, pp. 365–66; Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, p. 117; Avemarie, Tora, pp. 291–310.

AVEMARIE Tension between God’s Command and Israel’s Obedience 53 Two observations. First, the parable does not give an explicit reason for the Israelites’ refusal. Obstinacy simply appears to be within the range of Israel’s natural possibilities. There may be, though, an implicit reason: The sample representing Israel’s lighter and heavier duties consists of precepts by which the Torah differs from the laws of other nations. The Sabbath, specific restrictions of marital relations, tassels and phylacteries are observances which to keep would never come to a non-Jew’s mind. If this is meant to motivate Israel’s unwillingness, the text even justifies this resistance as a natural response to the said precepts. God’s commands, at least in part, are of such kind that one certainly would not observe them of one’s own accord. Therefore, constraint is necessary. Secondly, the metaphor of slavery is perfectly suited to depict the inevitability of onerous duty. Unlike, for example, the free subjects of a king, slaves are bound to fulfil the personal wishes of their owners. Obedience even under bothersome circumstances is a constituent of the notion of slavery. The parable illustrates this with two pungent examples: Closing the sandals and carrying the garments to the bathhouse are well-known types of services which Israelite masters by halakhah are prohibited to require from Israelite slaves.10 Thus, what no pious Israelite would demand of a slave, God demands, as a matter of principle, of all Israel. It is quite in line with this that the words ‘not as sons’ explicitly contradict Deut. 14.1. In sum, the parable maintains that insofar as obedience is inconvenient, extrinsic means of motivation are indispensable. Immediately after this text, the midrash proceeds with a second, and grimmer, illustration of the necessity of extraneous reinforcement. The exegetical point of departure is the question of why the words I am the Lord, your God, which appear at the beginning of Num. 15.41, are repeated at the end of the verse. The midrash explains that it is meant to discourage the Israelites from saying, Why did the Maqom (i.e. God) give us commandments? (Is the purpose) not that we do (them) and receive reward? (So we) will not do (them) and will not receive reward! Just as the Israelites spoke to Ezekiel, as it says: Men of the elders of Israel came to me and sat before me (Ezek. 20.1). They said to him, Ezekiel, a slave whom his master has sold, is he not exempted from his authority? He said to them, Yes. They said to him, Since the Maqom sold us to the nations of the world, we are exempted from his authority. He said to them, Behold, a slave whom his master has sold on condition that he return (to him), is he exempted from his authority? What is in your mind shall never happen … As I live, says the Lord God, surely with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm, and with wrath poured out, I will be king over you (Ezek. 20.32–33). With a mighty hand, this refers to pestilence …; and with an outstretched arm, this refers to the sword …; and with wrath poured out, this refers to hunger. After I have brought over you these three punishments one after another, I shall be king over you, whether you like it or not. (Sifre Num. 115, p. 128)

The passage consists of two sections, both of which deal with the problem of a resolute disobedience. They treat it in different manners, but since they are paralleled by a comparative conjunction (Nyn(k, ‘Just as…’), the answer which is given at the end of the second section holds for the first one alike. 10. See Mekhilta Neziqin 1 (p. 248); cf. Avemarie, Tora, p. 183.

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The first argument against obedience relies on the principle of retribution. If obedience is rewarded, it seems logical that someone who does away with reward may do away with obedience, too. A reason why the Israelites should prefer disobedience to reward is not given, but this does not impair the logic of the argument. The obvious answer to the Israelites’ reasoning should be that the outcome of disobedience will not be a lack of reward but punishment. This answer, however, is postponed, so that for the moment the argument seems to hold. The second argument is stronger, and it involves the idea that Israel’s obligation to obey depends on a foregoing covenant relationship. However, the text depicts this status as jeopardized by the fact that God has cast his people into exile, and resuming the metaphor of Israel being enslaved to God (as unfolded in the preceding parable, see above), it interprets the exile as the sale of a slave to a new master. The previous covenant relationship seems to be nullified, and so there is now a reason for Israel to abandon the Torah.11 As can be almost expected, the objection produced by Ezekiel stands in blatant contradiction to the halakhah, which rules, according to Rav in b. Gittin 44a, that if an Israelite sells a slave to a gentile, this equals manumission. The arbitrariness of God’s behaviour toward Israel again goes clearly beyond what is permitted to an Israelite. The point is sharp, and the final consequence seems inevitable: If reward and the status of a slave fail to drive Israel to obedience, God cannot but resort to violence. Here, the metaphor of kingship seems to fit better than that of slavery. Unlike a private person, a king can conquer, subdue and enslave whom he wants. The message of this text is, again, that obedience can be inconvenient and therefore requires extrinsic means of motivation. However, the harshness of the imagery has palpably increased.12

2. The Inherent Power of the Torah It is astonishing that within the same imagery of exile and oppression by hostile nations, Israel’s obligation to the Torah appears in quite a different light, when the Torah is not viewed as a burden but as a precious possession and when adherence to it is motivated not by extraneous means but by the inherent value of obedience itself. A striking example is found in Sifra on Lev. 26.44, a verse which affirms God’s covenantal faithfulness even during Israel’s exile: I will not spurn them, or abhor them so as to destroy them utterly (Lev. 26.44). Yet what has been left for them so (that you could say) that they have not been spurned and have not been abhorred? Were not all the good gifts that had been given to them taken away from them? And were it not for the scroll of the Torah which has been left for them, they would not differ from the nations of the world at all. (Sifra Behuqqotai, pereq 8.10, fol. 112c) 11. However, since the midrash eventually sweeps aside these considerations, they would not really jeopardize a covenant-based model of rabbinic soteriology such as that of E. P. Sanders. 12. For another example of harsh imagery, cf. Mekhilta de-R. Shimon b. Yohai on Exod. 19.17 (p. 143): God suspends Mount Sinai like a tub over the Israelites and says, ‘If you accept the Torah, it is fine, but if not, then be here your grave’.

AVEMARIE Tension between God’s Command and Israel’s Obedience 55 As in Sifre Numbers 115, Israel is depicted in a situation of loss and despair. The ‘good gifts’ that are mentioned include in particular the Land of Israel, the temple and the kingdom of David. However, Israel’s relation to God is perceived with reversed premises. Instead of Israel’s determination to sever the tie, the prevailing emotion is the fear that God might have severed the tie himself. Thus the one ‘good gift’ that has remained turns into a unique token of the persistence of God’s promises. Far from being a burden, the scroll of the Torah becomes a token of the enduring validity of the covenant. Obedience as such is not at issue, but the text seems to imply that the reason why the Torah still remains with Israel is the fact that Israel adheres to it. Remarkably, the effect of the possession of the Torah is described as a distinction from the other nations. This is precisely the common denominator of those commandments which Sifre Numbers 115 singles out as particularly onerous for Israel, such as the Sabbath, the tassels and the phylacteries. Boundary-marking observances apparently could be felt to be a source both of annoyance and of bliss. The following piece of haggadah focuses on the topic of motivation. It is a story dealing with the hilarity caused by the long-desired fulfilment of a particularly elusive precept: It happened that a pious man forgot a sheaf in the middle of his field. And he said to his son, Go forth and offer up on my behalf a bullock for burnt-offering and a bullock for peace-offering. He said to him, My father, what is the reason that you rejoice at this commandment more than at all the (other) commandments which are said in the Torah? He said to him, The Maqom (i.e., God) gave us all the (other) commandments of the Torah (that we may perform them) consciously. But this one (he gave us that we may perform it) unconsciously. For if we performed (it) intentionally before the Maqom, (a proper fulfilment of) this commandment would not come into our hands.13 (t. Peah 3.8, ed. Lieberman, I, p. 53.)

The pious man’s reaction to his unexpected success is perfect pleasure. His offering of two bullocks out of joy at the loss of a sheaf portrays him as a person for whom material loss, compared with the importance of keeping the Torah, is insignificant. His mention of God as the giver of the Torah clarifies that the framework of his practice is created by a foregoing divine agency, and there is no trace of a tension between this divine agency and the responsive agency of his own (even though the precept of the forgotten sheaf may require rather nonagency than agency, in that it must be fulfilled inadvertently). However, the most remarkable feature of the story is the question of the son, as it introduces a distinction within the commandments: at one of them, the father rejoices more than at all the others. This shows that God’s agency cannot be the only motive of his obedience, for with respect to their divine origin, all commandments are equal. Hence, the reason for his obedience lies at least partly in the very commandment of the forgotten sheaf. There is a strong inherent motivational force emanating from the Torah itself. Does this mean that we can speak of an agency of the Torah? I think, in a certain way we can. To adduce further evidence might be difficult, however. 13. For a scriptural proof, the father subsequently adds a reference to Deut. 24.19.

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One of the most well-known rabbinic sayings advocating unselfish obedience reads hwcm trrwg hwcm, ‘A commandment brings on (another) commandment’, which seems to intimate that once a commandment has been fulfilled, this very commandment will cause another commandment to be fulfilled, and so forth. Nevertheless, if we examine the context of the saying, we shall see that such an understanding meets with certain hindrances. The best-known version of the saying is found in the Pirqe Avot: Ben Azzai says: Run (even) after a light commandment, and flee from the transgression! For a commandment brings on a commandment, and a transgression brings on a transgression. For the reward of a commandment is a commandment, and the reward of a transgression is a transgression. (m. Avot 4.2, MS Kaufmann, ed. Beer, p. 342)

The automatism of obedience – and disobedience alike – is described as an endless chain. Once caught in this chain, a person’s behaviour will no longer be determined by his or her decisions but by a steady disposition for either obedience or disobedience. Thus the text describes more or less what we may call a habit. However, if at first glance it seems to be the very commandment which by some intrinsic capacity generates further obedience, the continuation of the saying, which reverses its topic into the negative,14 contradicts the idea of such an intrinsic causality. The transgression which is said to bring on another transgression is a human act, and such must be, therefore, the ‘commandment’. In substance, it would be perfectly adequate to render the saying, ‘The fulfilment of a commandment brings on the fulfilment of a commandment’. The initial agency which sets the chain of obedience in motion lies on the human side, not with the Torah. The conclusion of the passage, too, deserves a closer look. It characterizes the habitual automatism of obedience and disobedience by means of the notion of reward, which inserts into the chain of habit the agency of God. This, however, turns the idea of retribution upside down. If the concept of reward is based on the proportion between an effort and the subsequent receiving of a gain, this proportion is reduced to absurdity when the effort itself is said to be the gain. Thus, the statement is but an oxymoronic expression of the idea that continued obedience is a value in itself.15 Along the lines of Mishnah Avot 4.2 we may also understand several short exegeses of Bible verses which mention the hearing, remembering and doing of the commandments. Numbers 15.39 states that those who ‘see’ their tassels will ‘remember all the precepts of the Lord and do them’, and the midrash concludes, ‘Seeing leads to remembering, remembering leads to doing’.16 Initial human agency triggers a process by which a series of commandments is fulfilled automatically; obedience procreates itself. In equal fashion, the phrase ‘Hearing leads 14. In the early rabbinic sources, the saying never occurs without this negative continuation; cf. Sifre Num. 112 (p. 120); Avot de-R. Nathan A 25 and B 33 (pp. 81 and 72). 15. Cf. K. Kohler, Grundriss einer systematischen Theologie des Judentums auf geschichtlicher Grundlage (Leipzig: Gustav Fock, 1910), p. 94; Bonsirven, Le judaïsme, II, p. 62; Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, p. 122. 16. hy#( ydyl h)ybm hrykz hrykz ydyl h)ybm hy)r, b. Menahot 43b.

AVEMARIE Tension between God’s Command and Israel’s Obedience 57 to doing’ interprets Exod. 24.7, where the Bible text curiously has the doing precede the hearing.17 A midrash on the etymological figures in Exod. 15.26 and Deut. 8.19 reads, ‘If someone has heard one commandment, (God) makes him hear many commandments, as it says, (m#t (wm# M). If a man has forgotten one commandment, (God) makes him forget many commandments, as it says, xk#t xk# M)’.18 The topic is again the automatism of habitual obedience. Divine agency is relied upon in order to ensure continuity. The shortest and pithiest expression for the intrinsic value of obedience is the term hm#l (literally, ‘for her name’), which occurs, in this or in similar forms, frequently throughout the talmudic and midrashic literature,19 designating ‘the performance of the Law for its own sake’.20 Curiously, exhortations to act for the sake of the Torah or the commandments are often emphasized by references to the retributive consequences of a person’s conduct. An impressive example is found in a midrash on the verb ‘to break’ in Deut. 32.2: R. Benayah used to say: If you have done the words (i.e., the commandments) of the Torah for their own sake (Mm#l), the words of the Torah will be life for you, as it says, For they are life to those who find them (Prov. 4.22). But if you have not done the words of the Torah for their own sake, they will kill you, as it says, May my teaching break forth (Pr(y) like rain, and ‘breaking’ is but an expression for slaying, as it says, And they shall break (wpr(w) the heifer’s neck there in the wadi (Deut. 21.4), and it says, For many are those she has laid down, and numerous are all her slain (Prov. 7.26). (Sifre Deut. 306, p. 338)

The text unfolds quite a complicated network of motivations: Although the commandments require to be done for their own sake, such unselfish obedience is enforced by a promise of highest reward and a threat of severest punishment. The addressees are caught by their natural urge of gaining life rather than meeting death, but if the appeal succeeds, they will immediately have to deny this urge and surrender to the absoluteness of the Torah. The apparent logical inconsistency of such a construction should not, however, be overemphasized. For it seems that whatever attempt is made to motivate a thing, it will be inevitable to refer to extraneous circumstances, and thus the purity of the call for obedience hm#l would be tarnished by any ‘because’ attached to it. In the present context, the perspective of retribution is obviously intended in a rhetorical sense as a corroboration of, and not in a logical sense as a detraction from, the central value of acting hm#l. At most, the clumsiness of the construction may suggest that motivation by the inherent attraction of the 17. hyy#( ydyl h)ybm h(ym#, Mekhilta de-R. Shimon b. Yohai on Exod. 24.7 (p. 221). 18. hbrh twcm wl Ny(ym#m tx) hwcm Md) (m# etc., Mekhilta Vayyassa 1 (p. 157); Mekhilta Bahodesh 2 (p. 208); Sifre Deut. 48, 79, 96 (pp. 111–12, 145, 157); b. Berakhot 40a. Mekhilta Vayyassa 1 (p. 158) observes that this is compatible with autonomous human agency: ‘The authority is given (hnwtn tw#rh)’, cf. m. Avot 3.15 (see below); Urbach, Sages, pp. 159–60. 19. For references, see Schechter, Aspects, pp. 159–60; Moore, Judaism, vol. II, pp. 96–98; H. J. Becker, Auf der Kathedra des Mose: Rabbinisch-theologisches Denken und antirabbinische Polemik in Matthäus 23,1–12 (Arbeiten zur neutestamentlichen Theologie und Zeitgeschichte, 4; Berlin: Institut Kirche und Judentum, 1990), pp. 172–88; Avemarie, Tora, pp. 262–77. 20. Schechter, Aspects, p. 159.

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commandments was felt to be somewhat inconspicuous so that incentives had to be added which seemed a bit more palpable. However, even these incentives remain within the agency of the Torah: The ‘words of the Torah’ are life, and the ‘words of the Torah’ kill. We may conclude with a passage which attaches to the Torah an image denoting irresistible force: R. Hunah (and) R. Jeremiah (said) in the name of R. Hiyya bar Abba: It is written, and they have forsaken me (Jer. 16.11); perhaps they have kept my Torah? If only they had forsaken me and kept my Torah! For if they had forsaken me and kept my Torah, by their occupying themselves with it, the leaven which is in it would have brought them back to me. (Pesiqta de-Rav Kahana 15.5, p. 254)

The biblical basis of this midrash is Jer. 16.11, a verse which deals with the idolatry committed by former generations of Israel. The final part of the verse, ‘…and have forsaken me and have not kept my Torah’, obviously distinguishes between the rejection of God, which is mentioned first, and the neglect of the Torah, which comes second. The sequence of this twofold withdrawal seems to insinuate the possibility of abandoning God without yet having forsaken the Torah. So the midrash imagines how God might react when perceiving Israel at this very juncture. God need not lose hope, it argues, for the inherent force which the Torah exerts on those who keep it will bring them back to him. The image of the leaven characterizes this inherent force as irresistibly effective.21 We may summarize that wherever rabbinic texts speak of an intrinsic value of the Torah, obedience seems to be a most natural human aspiration. Disobedience, though mentioned as a possibility, does not seriously play a role. The tension between command and obedience is here at its minimum.

3. Anthropological Conditions Human nature is ambivalent. On the one hand, humankind was created for the purpose of living in accordance with the Torah. On the other hand, an evil inclination opposing the Torah is part of the creational condition of every human being. Abstractly, the openness of human nature for both obedience and disobedience could be formulated in a doctrine of free will. We shall address each of these topics in turn.

a. Creation According to rabbinic tradition, the first human to be entrusted with the Torah was Adam. This idea is linked to an exegesis of Gen. 2.15, which occurs both in the midrashic literature and in the Palestinian targums on the Pentateuch.22 The following example is taken from an early midrash: 21. The same idea is conveyed by the image of the leaven in Mt. 13.33 and Lk. 13.21. 22. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, Codex Neofiti and various fragment-targums. Exhaustive documentation is provided by H. Lichtenberger, Das Ich Adams und das Ich der Menschheit: Studien zum Menschenbild in Römer 7 (WUNT, 164; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), pp. 225–40.

AVEMARIE Tension between God’s Command and Israel’s Obedience 59 And to serve him (wdb(l, Deut. 11.13), this refers to study. You say, This refers to study, but (perhaps) it refers only to work? Behold, it says, And the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it (hdb(l) and to keep it (hrm#l, Gen. 2.15). But what (can) working (have been) then and what (can) keeping (have been) then? To work it, this refers to the study, and to keep it, this refers to (the performance of) the commandments. (Sifre Deut. 41, p. 87)

The exegetical inference is quite simple. Since labour for the maintenance of life became necessary only after the curses of Gen. 3.16–19, the ‘work’ imposed upon Adam in Gen. 2.15 had to be something else. What it precisely consisted of was not determined by the scriptural context; so imagination had to fill the gap. Studying the Torah and doing the commandments were undoubtedly occupations the rabbis could imagine life in Paradise to be filled with. A subsequent exegesis similarly identifies Adam’s work as prayer.23 It is likely that Adam, within such a construction, is envisaged more as a model for the covenant people of Israel than as the forefather of all humankind. Nevertheless, although the midrash clearly draws on biblical chronology, it does not have any difficulties in eclipsing what according to biblical history is the starting point of Israel’s life with the Torah, namely the revelation on Mount Sinai. It seems that beside the pattern of the Sinaitic covenant, which generally predominates in rabbinic literature, there emerges here what we might call a creational pattern of Torah observance. The following piece of haggadah illustrates the same phenomenon. Besides, it is somewhat more revealing regarding the question of agency: The first man was obligated to six commandments…24 But you at Sinai have been obligated to 613 commandments: 248 prescriptions (h#(b twcm) and 365 prohibitions (h#(t )lb twcm). The 248 prescriptions correspond to the 248 limbs which are part of a man. Each limb says to the man, I beg you, do this commandment by me! And the 365 prohibitions correspond to the days of the solar year. Each day says to the man, I beg you, do not do this transgression on me! (Pesiqta de-Rav Kahana 12.1, p. 203)

The human body and its natural environment are fashioned in accordance with the Torah, which implies that conformity to its prescriptions and prohibitions is the creational purpose of humankind. Although it is probably presupposed that this purpose can be realized only within Israel, the purpose itself is described as an anthropological constant independent of Israel’s election. However, despite humanity’s being modelled after the Torah, human behaviour does not automatically follow the commandments. There is a gap between the purpose and its realization, which parallels the gap between command and obedience we meet elsewhere. Although this text substantially differs from those which speak of an enforcement by extraneous means in that it places the call for obedience inside the human body,25 this physical disposition does not affect the individual freedom of decision. Even if the appeal devolves from God upon the human limbs, it remains an appeal which can be dismissed. 23. Sifre Deut. 41 (pp. 87–88). 24. They are subsequently enumerated and discussed at length. 25. For a contrast, cf. Rom. 7.14–23.

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However, the image of the human limbs as agents on behalf of the Torah can gain quite a different thrust if a paragon of piety such as Abraham is in view: R. Shimon ben Yohai said (sc. regarding Abraham): (His) father did not teach him, a master he did not have. Whence did he learn the Torah? The Holy One, blessed be he, appointed his two kidneys as two rabbis, and they poured forth and taught him wisdom. This is what has been written, I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my kidneys instruct me (Ps. 16.7). (Gen. Rab. 61.1, p. 657)

Since Abraham’s piety distinguished him from all his contemporaries, it cannot be explained by a creational pattern of obedience, nor by any other ‘natural’ knowledge of the Torah. But what else can explain Abraham’s obedience? The answer is found in Ps. 16.7: God made Abraham’s kidneys teach him the Torah. The wording suggests that persuasion, let alone constraint, was unnecessary in this case. Abraham’s thankfulness shows that living in accordance with the Torah had been his deepest desire.

b. Freedom of Will As we have seen in Sifre Num. 115 and as we can see in numerous other pieces of haggadah, human beings, including the Israelites, are able to reject the commandments, however God may endeavour to enforce obedience. If in occidental philosophical tradition this capacity was commonly termed human free will, the classical rabbinic expression is tw%#Or:, literally, ‘authority’.26 It appears in a famous tannaitic saying, which the Mishnah attributes to R. Aqiva:27 All is viewed, and the authority is given (hnfw%tn: tw%#Or:hfw: yw%pcf lk%oha). And in goodness the world is judged, and all is according to the majority of the deed. (m. Avot 3.15, MS Kaufmann, ed. Beer, p. 341)28

Three of the four subsections of this saying are formulated in the passive voice, and the notion of a judgment over the whole world indicates that this passive voice is a passivum divinum. It is God who views everything and who bestows authority, and the recipient of authority is humankind. The further interpretation of the saying is controversial, due to the ambiguity of the verb hpc, which in the early rabbinic literature covers both the meaning of a natural watching29 or looking out30 and that of a supernatural perception of 26. Dictionaries of modern Hebrew usually distinguish between tw@#OrF ‘government’ and tw@#Or: ‘authority, control, permission’. M. Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (London: Luzac & Co., 1903), p. 1499, groups both clusters of meaning under the sole entry of tw@#OrF. In m. Avot 3.15, however, both MS Kaufmann (see below) and ed. Albeck have tw@#Or:. 27. Further texts are discussed in Str.-B., vol. IV.1, p. 7; Urbach, Sages, pp. 260–85; K. Hruby, Aufsätze zum nachbiblischen Judentum und zum jüdischen Erbe der frühen Kirche (Arbeiten zur neutestamentlichen Theologie und Zeitgeschichte, 5; Berlin: Institut Kirche und Judentum, 1996), pp. 95–97. 28. For problems of the textual transmission, see S. Safrai, ‘ “And All Is According to the Majority of Deeds” ’, Tarbiz 53 (1968–69), pp. 33–40. Apart from a spelling variant, however, the text of MS Kaufmann is identical with the textus receptus as given in Albeck (ed.). 29. Cf. m. Sukk. 3.9: R. Aqiva watches his colleagues waving the lulav; Lev. Rab. 20.4 (p. 456): the high priest watches smoke ascending from the altar.

AVEMARIE Tension between God’s Command and Israel’s Obedience 61 things happening far away,31 in the distant future32 or in a transcendent reality.33 Hence, the exegetical tradition is split as to whether God is said to foresee or rather to watch what humans are doing.34 It seems that the second half of the saying, which is dominated by the idea of retribution, supports the latter reading: if humans are free to obey or disobey God’s commands, they should nevertheless keep in mind that owing to God’s watchfulness none of their deeds and misdeeds will escape judgment. However, this does not preclude that the former reading, too, makes sense. The structure of the saying suggests that, in fact, the former reading is to be preferred. For it is likely that if a general statement is to be qualified by a more particular one, the general statement will come first and the more particular one will follow, so as to make the qualification obvious. In the juxtaposition of the notions of autonomous human agency and divine surveillance, however, it is clearly the latter which confines the former, wherefore the order of the two statements should be expected to be inverse: ‘Autonomy is granted, (but) everything is watched’. Things are different if we understand ywpc lkh in the sense of divine foreknowledge. The idea of God’s prescience implies that future events can be avoided as little as past events can be made undone, which apparently contradicts the idea that the determination of whether or not an event will occur lies, at least in specific cases, with the human subject. Thus, the general statement is that of divine prescience, and the statement of autonomous human agency comes in as a qualification, in due second place: ‘Everything is foreseen, (but) autonomy is granted’. To be sure, the saying does not betray how the contradiction between divine foreknowledge and autonomous human action can be resolved.35 However, it is obvious that if

30. Cf. Gen. Rab. 42.4 (p. 409): War between the nations is a sign to look out for the advent of the Messiah. 31. Cf. y. Sotah 1.4/4 (vol. III, p. 83): R. Meir views in the holy spirit a husband upbraiding his wife; Gen. Rab. 72.5 (p. 841): God sees that Leah has the ‘intention (hnwk) of procreating tribes’. 32. Cf. y. Sanh. 8./1 (vol. IV, p. 180): Joshua foresees the distribution of the Land of Israel; Gen. Rab. 82.10 (p. 988): Jacob foresees the return of the exiles; Lev. Rab. 36.4 (p. 848): a horoscope predicts the birth of a daughter to a man sentenced to death; Pesiqta de-Rav Kahana 4.3 (p. 60): astrologers foresee the death of Egyptian craftsmen. 33. Cf. t. Hag. 2.2: Ben Zoma beholds the mysteries of creation. 34. The former position was prominently held by Maimonides, who was followed by most modern ‘classics’; cf. Kohler, Grundriss, p. 176; Moore, Judaism, I, p. 455; Str.-B., vol. IV.1, p. 7; Bonsirven, Le judaïsme, I, p. 187 n. 6; Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 132; see also D. Winston, ‘Free Will’, in A. A. Cohen and P. Mendes-Flohr (eds.), Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought: Original Essays in Critical Concepts, Movements, and Beliefs (London and New York: Macmillan, 1987), pp. 269–74 (p. 272). The latter position was adopted by Schechter, Aspects, p. 285, and strongly advocated by Urbach, Sages, p. 257, whose reasoning is accepted by C. H. Manekin, ‘Introduction’, in idem and M. M. Kellner (eds.), Freedom and Moral Responsibility: General and Jewish Perspectives (Bethesda: University Press of Maryland, 1997), pp. 1–17 (p. 9), and R. H. Bell, No one seeks for God: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Romans 1.18– 3.20 (WUNT, 106; Tübingen: Mohr, 1998), pp. 241–42. For mediaeval comments, see Urbach, Sages, p. 802 n. 11; J. Goldin, The Living Talmud: The Wisdom of the Fathers and Its Classical Commentaries (New York: New American Library, 1957), pp. 141–42. 35. On a literal level, one might perhaps doubt the contradiction, since prescience is not prede-

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indeed the two ideas are meant to interfere with each other, their juxtaposition is highly significant. Along these lines, we can understand the whole of the saying as a twofold paradox, with its four subsections contradicting each other two by two. Judgement according to the majority of deeds requires exactness, which is opposed to goodness, and the authority of a person to determine his or her actions implies the unpredictability of these actions, which is opposed to prescience. The punch-line of the saying, however, lies not so much in the juxtaposition of human autonomy with divine prescience as in its connection with divine retribution.36 Retribution and autonomous human agency are inextricably interdependent, the implicit link being the idea of responsibility.37 Judgement would be nonsensical, were it not presupposed that acts can be attributed to the ultimate causality of a person’s decision. Conversely, the assumption of a free will would be superfluous if a person’s acts were not subject to anyone’s approval or disapproval. To be sure, considerations of this kind may be susceptible to various objections, but the argument of this text seems to run along these lines. The postulate of responsible human agency is regarded as necessary in order to guarantee the possibility of judgement. A further piece of haggadah which reflects the tension of God’s foreknowledge and human responsibility is a midrash on the commandment concerning the parapet of the roof in Deut. 22.8. According to the Bible text, the purpose of this commandment is to avoid accidents: ‘…lest you have blood-guilt on your house if anyone should fall from it (wnmm lpnh lpy yk)’. The final sub-clause, however, can be read not only as a hypothetical condition, but also as an explanatory statement of fact. And this is what the midrash takes it to mean:

termination. (Similarly, judgement ‘according to the majority of the deed’ is a principle so lenient that it resembles a judgement ‘in goodness’ much more than the standards of strict justice.) However, the juxtaposition of God’s prescience and human autonomy would be pointless if there were no friction between them at all. I am grateful to Seth Kunin and Philip Alexander for having insisted on this point! 36. Considering this, the debate on ywpc lkh seems to be of relatively secondary importance. However, the linkage of retribution with prescience, too, entails specific issues, such as the question of the proper time for judgement. Thus, it is argued in y. Rosh Hash. 1.3/8 (vol. II/5–12, p. 187) that God, although he ‘sees the future incident (dlwnh t) h)wr)’, judges a man only according to ‘the hour in which he stands’. However, m. Sanh. 8.5 explains the stoning penalty for the ‘stubborn and rebellious son’ (Deut. 21.18–21) by his predictable future: He ‘shall be judged on account of his end. He shall die righteous and shall not die guilty…’ 37. To be sure, rabbinic Hebrew lacks a term for ‘responsibility’, even though the idea is undoubtedly present, particularly in texts dealing with God’s judgement; cf., e.g., the parable of the lame and the blind in Lev. Rab. 4.5 (pp. 88–89) and the story of the rejected offer of the Torah to Israel’s neighbours in Mekhilta Bahodesh 5 (p. 221). In modern Hebrew, ‘responsibility’ translates by twyrx), which, in fact, occurs in rabbinic literature, but only as a legal term denoting ‘mortgaged property’ or ‘property which may be resorted to in case of non-payment’, Jastrow, Dictionary, p. 41. For the general lack of expressions for ‘responsibility’ in antiquity, see Manekin, ‘Introduction’, p. 8; R. McKeon, ‘The Development and the Significance of the Concept of Responsibility’, Revue internationale de philosophie 11 (1957), pp. 3–32 (pp. 8–13).

AVEMARIE Tension between God’s Command and Israel’s Obedience 63 For the faller will fall from it. The Holy One, blessed be he, said: It is open and known ((wdyw ywlg) before me that this one will ultimately fall from it. However, I do not want that an offence come to pass at your hands, as it says, I made you a foreseeing man (hpc Md) Nb) for the house of Israel (Ezek. 3.17). (Midrash Tannaim, p. 137)

The indicative of the biblical wording is understood as an expression of certitude,38 and this certitude is explained by divine prescience, the fall of the ‘faller’ being ‘open and known’ to the author of the Torah.39 This, however, means that the parapet will not prevent the accident;40 therefore its purpose must be a different one. It has to do, the midrash argues, with the attribution of responsibility: if the parapet is installed, the owner of the house cannot be held accountable, though the fall may inevitably occur. It is striking in what different ways the midrash brings the agency of God into relation with the human beings involved in the matter. The fall of the ‘faller’ is unavoidable; here God does not intervene; he merely perceives what is eventually going to happen. The addressee of the commandment, however, appears not at all as subject to an inescapable destiny. In his case, there is no foreknowledge; rather, God has a wish (#qbm), and the fulfilment of this wish, despite its divine origin, does not come about automatically, but is made contingent upon the consent of the human addressee.41 It seems as if the promulgation of a commandment exempted human action from God’s prescience.42 In a certain way, this sounds like a theory in nuce of the anthropological prerequisites for the bestowal of the Torah.

38. A parallel in b. Shabb. 32a mentions in particular the participle lpwnh. For the mediaeval reception of this exegesis, see D. J. Lasker, ‘The Obligation of the “Parapet” and Moral Responsibility’, in Manekin and Kellner (eds.), Freedom, pp. 153–64. 39. b. Shabb. 32a puts this in even more drastic words: ‘This one was doomed (yw)r) to fall since the six days of creation, for he has not (yet) fallen and Scripture calls him “faller”’. Lasker, ‘“Parapet”’, pp. 154 and 157, translates yw)r by ‘deserved’ and takes it as a hint at some previous crime committed by the ‘faller’; thus also R. Hammer (trans.), Sifre: A Tannaitic Commentary on the Book of Deuteronomy (Yale Judaica series, 24; New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 1986), p. 469. However, a clear reference to such guilt is lacking not only in b. Shabb. 32a but also in the comments of Rashi and R. Bahya ben Asher on which Lasker relies. The tradition simply does not care why the ‘faller’ must fall. 40. Either he will fall over the parapet or he will fall elsewhere. The latter is assumed by Lasker, ‘“Parapet”’, pp. 155 and 163. 41. The parallel in b. Shabb. 32a concludes with a widely attested proverbial saying, which also occurs in Sifre Deut. 229 on Deut. 22.8 (p. 292): ‘They bring about merit by a meritorious person (y)kz ydy l( twkz Nylglgm) and guilt by a guilty person (byyx ydy l( hbwxw)’. Translations which render Nylglgm in the passive voice seem to suggest that merit and guilt are occasioned by the respective humans themselves; cf. Jastrow, Dictionary, p. 244; Urbach, Sages, p. 267; Hammer, Sifre, p. 239. However, since in rabbinic Hebrew the impersonal plural participle often implies God as subject, it seems that Nylglgm points to divine agency. If this is correct, the saying purports that God ensures the possibility of ascribing good and bad deeds to their respective doers, and thus gives further expression of God’s intention to rely on human responsibility. 42. For the idea that the revelation of the Torah creates responsibility, cf. Mekhilta de-R. Shimon b. Yohai on Exod. 20.20 (p. 155), where Moses announces on Mount Sinai: ‘Heretofore you sinned inadvertently (Nyggw#), now you sin wantonly (Nydyzm)’.

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The neat distinction between the will of God and the autonomy of human action being presupposed, there emerges of course the moral requirement of bringing human action into accordance with God’s will, and this in turn leads to the question of whether this autonomy will be affected, if a person complies with God’s command. A saying which Mishnah Avot attributes to Rabban Gamaliel, son of R. Judah the Prince, deals with this issue in a rather puzzling way: He used to say: Do his will as (if it were) your will that he may do your will as (if it were) his will. Cancel your will in face of his will that he may cancel the will of others before your will. (m. Avot 2.4, MS Kaufmann, ed. Beer, p. 341)

The logic of the second part of this exhortation is that a person will succeed with his or her ends by cancelling them in favour of the will of God. At the surface, the rationale is that of a barter, in that it promises gain on either side. It is, however, a rather paradoxical kind of barter, since on the human part the prospective gain has to be sacrificed beforehand, and it is by no means clear what will be left of a person’s will once it has been cancelled before the will of God. The train of reasoning is similar to that of the reinforcement of unselfish obedience by the outlook on retribution in the saying of R. Benayah in Sifre Deut. 306 (see above).43 Both of these texts show that, on the premise of an autonomous human agency, bridging the gap between the human will and the will of God involves considerable logical difficulties. For practical morality these difficulties may be of little consequence, since the possibility of submitting one’s own will to the will of someone else is proven by everyday experience. Nevertheless, the experience of being deprived of or acting contrary to one’s will under a foreign constraint is likewise so common that those difficulties should not be overlooked. Mishnah Avot 2.4 mirrors a clear awareness of them. An easier solution to the problem of merging human agency into God’s will is given in the following amoraic piece of haggadah: R. Levi said: Six things serve a man, three (are) under his control (wtw#rb) and three are not under his control. The eye and the ear and the nose are not under his control: he sees what he does not want; he hears and smells what he does not want. The mouth, the hand and the leg are under his control: if he wants, he studies the Torah; if he wants, he slanders; if he wants, he reviles and blasphemes. (By) the hand, if he wants, he dispenses charities; if he wants, he steals and kills. (By) the foot, if he wants, he goes to the synagogues and study-houses; if not, he goes to the theatres and circuses. But when a man is deemed worthy (hkz), the Holy One, blessed be he, turns those which are under his control into such ones which are not under his control. The mouth, (as it says,) Yes, and blessed he shall be! (Gen. 27.33). The hand, (as it says), But the hand that he stretched out against him withered etc. (1 Kgs. 13.4). The leg, (as it says,) My child, do not walk in their way etc. (Prov. 1.15). (Gen. Rab. 67.3, p. 756–57)

According to this, God can make human beings do his will by occasionally cancelling their autonomous agency. Interventions of this type, however, are limited to the righteous. The biblical examples which are adduced deal with righteous

43. And, for that matter, to the promise of saving one’s self by the sacrifice of one’s self in Mk 8.35.

AVEMARIE Tension between God’s Command and Israel’s Obedience 65 individuals who are prevented from committing errors or sins. Obviously God’s intervention corresponds to a person’s deserts. Thus, what the text describes is comparable to the principle of hwcm trrwg hwcm as formulated in Mishnah Avot 4.2 (see above).

c. The Evil Inclination For the pious mind, the aim is, of course, to conform itself to the will of God, which entails that deviation from God’s commandments is considered as bad. The cause for deviation, however, the rabbis do not find in an ill will44 but in a different kind of human disposition, the (rh rcy, man’s ‘evil inclination’. The natural target of this evil inclination appears to be not only disobedience toward God but also the misleading, seduction and damaging of its very owner.45 Curiously, its agency can have casual positive effects, such as propagation and the production of wealth.46 In accordance with the monism of the Jewish worldview it is even thought to be created by God.47 Nevertheless, humans are expected to subdue their evil inclination,48 and for obvious reasons the one weapon rabbinic tradition recommends for this fight is the Torah. A talmudic parable compares the Torah’s effect on the evil inclination to that of a plaster which neutralizes the harm caused by an incurable wound, and concludes that: Thus, the Holy One, blessed be he, said to the Israelites, My children, I created the evil inclination and I created the Torah as a remedy against it.49 And if you occupy yourselves with the Torah, you will not be delivered into its hand, as it says, If you do well, will you not be accepted? (Gen. 4.7) And if you do not occupy yourselves with the Torah, you will be delivered into its hand, as it says, Sin is lurking at the door (ibid.). (b. Qidd. 30b)

Given this natural opposition between the Torah and the evil inclination, it is evident that the latter can be also said to remonstrate against the commandments. However, in case we should expect a total opposition against God’s commandments, the following text makes us witness to a much more subtle proceeding:

44. A (r Nwcr is, as far as I can see, never mentioned in the early rabbinic literature. The closest association of Nwcr and (r I found in an exegesis of Jer. 39.12 in Lam. Rab., petihta 34 (p. 37), where Nebuchadnezzar orders Nebuzaradan to spare Jeremiah, ‘but against his people, act for the bad according to your will (h(rl Knwcrk h#()’. 45. Children are attracted by scorpions and fire, adults are attracted by idolatry and forbidden sexual relations, etc.; cf. Avot de-R. Nathan A 16 (pp. 63–64), b. Qidd. 81b, b. Avod. Zar. 17a–b, b. Yoma 69b; Str.-B., vol. IV.1, pp. 466–83; P. W. van der Horst, ‘A Note on the Evil Inclination and Sexual Desire in Talmudic Literature’, in U. Mittmann-Richert et al. (eds.), Der Mensch vor Gott (Festschrift H. Lichtenberger; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2003), pp. 99–106. 46. Cf. Gen. Rab. 9.7 (pp. 71–72). 47. Cf., e.g., b. Qidd. 30b (see below). 48. However, according to Gen. Rab. 59.7 (p. 636) Abraham’s evil inclination was subdued to him by God, which can be perhaps interpreted along the lines of m. Avot 4.2. 49. The exegetical basis of this statement is an al tiqre midrash on Deut. 11.18, which reads the words Mtm#w, ‘and you shall place (these words at your heart)’, as Mt Ms, ‘perfect drug’. In somewhat different words, this tradition is also preserved in Sifre Deut. 45 (pp. 103–104).

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Divine and Human Agency in Paul My statutes you shall observe (Lev. 18.4). These are (the) precepts written in the Torah which, if they had not been written, would rightly have had to be written, such as (the laws concerning) robbery and incest and idolatry and the cursing of (God’s) name and the shedding of blood. For if they had not been written, they would rightly have had to be written. And my ordinances you shall keep (ibid.). These are (the) precepts ordained in the Torah to which the evil inclination objects and to which the nations of the world object, such as (the commandments regarding) the eating of pork and the wearing of mixed kinds and the stripping off (of the sandal) by the sister-in-law and the purification of the leper and the expulsion of the scapegoat. For the evil inclination objects to them and the nations of the world object to them. Scripture teaches, I am the Lord, I ordained them, and you are not entitled to object to them. (Sifra Ahare-mot, pereq 13.10, MS Assemani 66, ed. Finkelstein, p. 373)

Siding with the nations of the world, the evil inclination pleads on behalf of rationality and attacks only those of God’s commandments which thanks to their conspicuous absurdity appear to be particularly bothersome.50 Whereby, nevertheless, it calls into question the Torah as a whole. Be it, as here, the abstention from pork, the prohibition of mixed kinds and the cleansing of the leper or, as in other rabbinic texts, the Sabbath, the tassels and the phylacteries (cf. above, Sifre Num. 115), human resistance against God’s demands is preferably attached to those precepts by which Israel is distinguished from its neighbouring nations. It is not obedience as such to which human agency opposes a natural inertia, it is those commandments which constitute the singularity of the Torah. A last example may show that the vexation by these particularly bothersome commandments, surprisingly, could also be given a positive evaluation: R. Elazar ben Azariah says: Whence (can it be inferred) that one must not say, ‘I do not want to wear mixed kinds, I do not want to eat pork, I do not want to have incestuous intercourse’, but rather, ‘I do want, (but) what can I do, for thus my Father in heaven has decreed upon me’? Scripture teaches, And I have separated you from the other peoples to be mine (Lev 20.26). (Such a man) is found to separate himself from the transgression and to accept upon him the kingdom of Heaven. (Sifra Qedoshim, pereq 11.22, fol. 93d)

Framed by such reasoning, reluctance in face of the commandments is not refusal against God, but a foil which enhances the merit of obedience, and it does so far better than any unreserved submission could do. The more inconvenient obedience is, the more respect it deserves. Paradoxically, reluctance can therefore even be called for. Speaking in modern terms, the burden of the commandments assures the Israelites that their obedience cannot be prompted by human projection. Autonomous human reason feels the need of being overpowered by the otherness of God’s revelation.

4. Human Co-operation in Defining the Commandments The authority of the Mosaic scriptures notwithstanding, it was the commonly recognized task of the rabbinic sages to complement the written law by an oral 50. These precepts are identified with the ‘ordinances’ (twqx) of Lev. 18.4, as opposed to the ‘statutes’ (My+p#m) mentioned in the same verse, which the midrash takes to refer to the reasonable commandments.

AVEMARIE Tension between God’s Command and Israel’s Obedience 67 tradition which virtually consisted of progressive ramifications in order to clarify the precepts and render them practicable. Since it was not Israel as a whole but only the class of the sages who was engaged in this task, we may deal with this topic rather briefly. Nevertheless, it is striking that the rabbinic literature displays a clear and self-confident awareness of the fact that in the realm of halakhah, scholarly decisions successfully compete with the will of God.51 A very obvious example is the rabbinic intercalation of the calendar, which not only has absolute validity on earth but also determines the course of certain heavenly procedures. Thus, if God, anticipating the impending New Year’s Day, has the setting for the annual heavenly judgment arranged, while the earthly court decides to postpone the beginning of the New Year, God will have to say ‘to the ministering angels: Remove the platform, the attorneys may go away, the prosecutors may go away, because my children resolved to postpone it to tomorrow’.52 In a famous haggadic account of an early tannaitic controversy (b. Baba Metzia 59b), the teaching of R. Eliezer receives divine approval by a series of supporting miracles – a carob-tree uproots itself, a watercourse runs backwards, the walls of the study-house tilt – but the opposing majority of the sages refuses to accept this kind of evidence. And even when a heavenly voice declares that the halakhah follows R. Eliezer, R. Joshua retorts that the Torah ‘is not in heaven’. In the end, God laughingly resigns and avows, ‘My children defeated me, my children defeated me!’ The text thus provides an astounding instance of human agency which explicitly opposes God’s manifest will but nevertheless succeeds, after some tugging, in moving God to come round. To be sure, this curious kind of competition is contingent upon the specific conditions of the bestowal of the Torah. As it seems, by revealing his law, God not only made manifest his divine authority, but simultaneously also ceded part of this very authority to an earthly institution.53 Less dramatic from the narrative point of view, but theologically just as daring is a saying cited at the end of Mishnah Berakhot. It is adduced as a comment on certain changes in liturgy which purportedly had been necessitated by a decline in popular piety, and it simply consists of a reversal of the two halves of Ps. 119.126: ‘They broke your law. It is time to act for the Lord!’54 It may be trivial that changing times require changes in customs, but the Mishnah justifies them by the claim that the sages introduced them on behalf of God. Thus, from being a response to the manifest will of God, the Jewish observances are turned into an expression of a manifest will of Israel. Rather than being their author, God appears to be their beneficiary. This leads us to our last topic. 51. On competing rabbinic models of halakhic authority, see A. Sagi, ‘Models of Authority and the Duty of Obedience in Halakhic Literature’, AJSR 20 (1995), pp. 1–24. 52. y. Rosh Hash. 1.3/14–15 (vol. II/5–12, p. 188–89). 53. Cf. the mediaeval explanation of b. B. Metzia 59b by R. Nissim Gaon as related by Sagi, ‘Models’, p. 5: ‘God’s Torah is complete…, and He has advised us that nothing will be changed in it, and no contradictions or doubts remain in our Torah that would require a sign from Heaven’. 54. m. Ber. 9.5 (vol. I, p. 33). Other than in modern Bible translations, the adverbial compound ‘for the Lord’ is here not connected to the noun ‘time’ but to the verb ‘act’.

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5. God’s Dependence on Human Action From the idea that halakhic decisions are taken for the benefit of God, it is only a little step to the notion that God is dependent on pious human activity. Israel’s obedience adds to God’s power, as it reads in an amoraic midrash, nay, God proves to be God if Israel bears witness to him, as it is stated in another one. Common modern views of rabbinic soteriology seem to be turned upside down. The election of Israel may be presupposed, as the said capacity of affirming God’s being God primarily lies with Israel (rather than humankind). But the purpose of the covenant is reversed. Had we expected that it is the salvation of Israel, it turns out to be, as it were, the salvation of God. Of course, one may understand such an imagination of a salvation of God as just another way of expressing one’s belief in the persistence of the covenant. In any case, however, this persistence is said to depend entirely on human action. Thus, the following passages ascribe to human agency the highest salvific value that can be thought of. By the way, the expression ‘as it were’ (lwkybk) occurs quite conspicuously in these texts, which shows that they move at the very fringes of what rabbinic theology dares to imagine. The first example consists of a twofold saying of amoraic origin: R. Azariah (said) in the name of R. Judah the son of R. Simon: Whenever the righteous do the will of the Holy One, blessed be he, they add force to the Power (hrwbgb xk Nypyswm),55 as you say, And now, therefore, let (the power of the Lord) be great etc. (Num. 14.17). But if not, as it were, You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you (Deut. 32.18). R. Judah the son of R. Simon (said) in the name of R. Levi ben Parta:56 Whenever the Israelites do the will of the Holy One, they add force to the Power, as you say, With God we shall do valiantly (Ps. 60.14). But if not, as it were, They fled without strength before the pursuer (Lam. 1.6). (Pesiqta de-Rav Kahana 25.1, p. 380)

The two parts of the text are entirely analogous in structure. If, nevertheless, a difference in substance is intended, it must have to do with the difference between the ‘righteous’ mentioned in the first part and ‘Israel’ being dealt with in the second. The fact, however, that among the righteous there may be individual Gentiles57 whereas the people of Israel may include a number of sinners58 cannot play a decisive role, for the text clearly envisages the possibility that the righteous, too, can fail to do the will of God.59 So it rather seems that the crucial difference lies in the idea of election, which is a constituent of the concept of ‘Israel’ but scarcely touches the concept of the ‘righteous’. Apparently, the text suggests a 55. For hrwbg as an epithet of God see Str.-B., vol. I, pp. 1006–7, on Mt. 26.64. 56. In almost identical words, this saying is also related in Lam. Rab. on Lam. 1.6 (p. 70). 57. Cf. t. Sanh. 13.2 (p. 434), b. Sanh. 105a; F. Avemarie, ‘Erwählung und Vergeltung. Zur optionalen Struktur rabbinischer Soteriologie’, NTS 45 (1999), pp. 108–26. 58. As a distinct subgroup within Israel, the sinners can be designated as l)r#y y(#wp, ‘the sinners of Israel’, or l)r#y y)nw#, ‘the haters of Israel’; cf., e.g., t. Sanh. 13.4 (p. 434), y. Sanh. 6.9/2 (vol. IV, p. 181), b. Eruv. 19a, b. Rosh Hash. 17a. 59. The same idea occurs in Sifre Deut. 47 (p. 106).

AVEMARIE Tension between God’s Command and Israel’s Obedience 69 double perspective on its central statement: the enhancement of God’s power by human obedience can be viewed simultaneously as depending on and as being independent of the framework of Israel’s status as the chosen people. A further striking feature of the text is the lack of symmetry between the positive first and the negative second section of both sayings. If obedience enhances, we should expect that disobedience diminishes. However, this conclusion is avoided. The text not only introduces here the qualifying ‘as it were’, but it also shifts at this point the consequences of human action from the divine to the human side. The disobedient righteous abandon their creator, and the disobedient Israelites must flee. From having God himself deprived of his power, rabbinic theology shrinks back. The following passage appears within an amoraic exegesis of Isa. 43.12. Formally, however, it deviates from the general pattern of this exegesis, and since, furthermore, it is attributed to a tannaitic sage, we may assume that it is originally independent of the rest of the text:60 And you are my witnesses, says the Lord, and I am God (Is. 43.12). R. Shimon ben Yohai taught: If you are my witnesses, says the Lord, I am God. And if you are not my witnesses, I am, as it were, not the Lord. (Pesiqta de-Rav Kahana 12.6, p. 208)

Between the propositions ‘you are my witnesses’ and ‘I am God’, the midrash establishes a conditional relationship, whereby it transforms the assertive statements of the Bible text into hypothetical ones. By explicitly facing also the possibility of a non-fulfilment of the stated condition, it attains a theological boldness which conspicuously exceeds the cautious train of thought we met in our previous example: Israel’s refusal to bear witness calls God’s divinity into question. Nevertheless, the qualifying addition of ‘as it were’ is retained. The last example to be cited here is a piece of exegesis which draws on the fact that, like other languages, Hebrew permits the use of expressions of locality as designations of status and dependence in personal relations: R. Yohanan said: The wicked stand on their god(s) (Mhyhl) l( Nymyyqtm), as it says, Pharaoh dreamed that he was standing on the Nile (Gen. 41.1). But as to the righteous, their God stands61 on them, as it says, And the Lord stood above him etc. (Gen 28.13). (Gen. Rab. 69.3 par. 89.4, pp. 792–93 and 1090)

60. In fact, it occurs in other contexts, too, as in Sifre Deut. 346 (pp. 403–404.): ‘Who builds his upper chambers in the heavens and founds his vault upon the earth (Amos 9.6). R. Shimon ben Yohai said: A parable of someone who took two ships and tied them to anchors and to iron bars and placed them in the middle of the sea and built a palace upon them. As long as the ships are tied together the palace subsists. If the ships drift asunder, the palace will not subsist. Thus, if the Israelites do the will of the Maqom, he builds his upper chambers in the heavens. But if the Israelites do not do his will, he founds, as it were, his vault upon the earth… Likewise, And you are my witnesses, says the Lord, and I am God’, etc. The midrash includes similar exegeses of Exod. 15.2, Deut. 32.3, Ps. 123.1 and Deut. 33.5. 61. The singular Myyqtm, as in the broad majority of MSS, is to be preferred to the plural Mymyyqtm or Nymyyqtm, which for 69.3 is attested by MS London, MS Rome and ed. Venice and for 89.4 by MSS London and Paris, and which may be due to a simple copying error, although is was adopted by Albeck.

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This passage was adduced by I. Leibowitz as a pointed illustration of the difference between the piety of Judaism and the piety of non-Jews.62 Gentile piety, as embodied by Pharaoh standing upon the Nile, essentially expects God to take care of the (salvational) needs of his worshippers. Jewish piety, in contrast, is not primarily concerned with the (salvational) gains to be derived from worshipping God, but rather with the effort to be invested into worship. Giving to God is more important than receiving from God, obedient action outbids its salvific results. If false piety relies on the sole agency of God, true worship must focus on the agency of humankind.

Conclusion Our point of departure was the rabbinic awareness of a tension between God’s call for obedience and Israel’s reaction to this call. As we saw, the reasons for discrepancies between God’s demand and Israel’s behaviour were found, among others, in a human evil inclination and in the strangeness or irrationality of the precepts. On a more theoretical level, one could also speak of an authorization of the individual to autonomous action. However, autonomous agency as an abstract human capacity was of comparatively little interest. Rabbinic haggadah rather indulges in an abundance of images depicting an incessant interplay between God and Israel, the one aiming at the other’s submission, and the other either yielding or resisting. The means to overcome the tension include extrinsic devices such as retribution, an austere definition of Israel’s obligation, the inherent force of the Torah and the commandments, a creational affinity between the commandments and the human body, and even a paradoxical encouragement to avow one’s reluctance while finding one’s obedience prompted by God’s fatherhood. Moreover, this interplay aims not only at Israel’s salvation, but also at the power and reality of God. God and Israel depend on each other mutually. Agency and recipiency unfold in argument and reciprocity. In general, this interaction is clearly dialogical. God and his human counterpart remain two neatly distinguishable personal subjects. The idea of an absorption of human agency into the agency of God, as it was to be developed in nineteenth-century Hasidism,63 is virtually absent from rabbinic literature. Mishnah Avot 2.4 may be a presentiment, but it is exceptional.

62. J. Leibowitz, ‘Zur Zentralfrage: Wie verhält sich der Mensch zu Gott?’, in M. Stöhr (ed.), Lernen in Jerusalem – Lernen mit Israel (Veröffentlichungen aus dem Institut Kirche und Judentum, 20; Berlin: Institut Kirche und Judentum, 1993), pp. 118–29 (pp. 121–22). 63. Cf. Manekin, ‘Introduction’, p. 11.

Chapter 5 PAUL’S ANTHROPOLOGICAL ‘PESSIMISM’ IN ITS JEWISH CONTEXT Stephen Westerholm ‘Can mortals be righteous before God?’ (Job 4.17, NRSV). If God is the Lord who loves righteousness and hates iniquity, then few questions can rival this one in importance. Yet Jews and Christians, whose God is the Lord,1 have responded in a variety of ways. For Timo Laato, the ‘greatest weakness in the argumentation’ of E. P. Sanders’ Paul and Palestinian Judaism is its ‘inadequate coverage of the question of the capacity of humankind’.2 Judaism sees human beings as possessing ‘free will’ (p. 67) and, with it, the capacity both to choose and to do good instead of evil. ‘Apparently everyone has an inborn propensity, but not hereditary compulsion to disobedience. It is fully conceivable to the very end to be obedient to the law’ (p. 73). Paul, however, thought Adam’s sin brought upon human beings the ‘wretched state of calamity’ in which sin rules and humans find themselves unable to do, or even to choose, the good (p. 75). In short, ‘the anthropological presuppositions of the Jewish and the Pauline patterns of religion clearly differ from one another. The former is based on human free will, while the latter is founded on human depravity’ (p. 146). In Sanders’ work, however, ‘the anthropological approach to the respective religions is not sufficiently taken into account’. This deficiency must be corrected if we are to ‘attain a convincing explanation of the break between Paul and Judaism’ (p. 2). The distinction Laato proposes is sufficiently plausible to merit investigation. Certainly writers on Judaism have long been anxious to distinguish their subject from Christian notions of the ‘fall’ and ‘depravity’ of humankind.3 Sanders him1. Indeed, if we follow Gabriele Boccaccini in defining Judaism as ‘the monotheistic religion of YHWH’, then Christianity itself ‘has never ceased to be a Judaism’ (Roots of Rabbinic Judaism: An Intellectual History, from Ezekiel to Daniel [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002, p. 35]). The definition captures important truths about the origin and nature of Christianity; actual usage of the term ‘Judaism’, however – both ancient (see, e.g., Gal. 1.13, 14!) and modern – tends to be more restrictive. 2. Timo Laato, Paul and Judaism: An Anthropological Approach (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995), p. 62. 3. E.g., Pinchas Lapide, in Pinchas Lapide and Peter Stuhlmacher, Paul: Rabbi and Apostle (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984), pp. 44–47; Claude G. Montefiore, Judaism and St. Paul (London: Goschen, 1914), p. 78; H. J. Schoeps, Paul: The Theology of the Apostle in the Light of Jewish Religious History (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961), pp. 187–88, 193–94.

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self is among them. In discussing whether we may speak appropriately of Jewish ‘soteriology’, he notes that the term ‘may imply that all are in need of a salvation which they do not possess, thus further implying a concept of original sin… Since a concept of original or even universal sin is missing in most forms of Judaism, such connotations would be unfortunate.’4 The stage would seem to be set for a sharp distinction to be drawn between ‘most forms of Judaism’ and Paul, whose ‘soteriology’ is routinely discussed without any of these qualms. Later Sanders writes: It is important to note that the Rabbis did not have a doctrine of original sin or of the essential sinfulness of each man in the Christian sense. It is a matter of observation that all men sin. Men have, apparently, the inborn drive towards rebellion and disobedience. But this is not the same as being born in a state of sinfulness from which liberation is necessary. Sin comes only when man actually disobeys; if he were not to disobey he would not be a sinner. The possibility exists that one might not sin. Despite the tendency to disobey, man is free to obey or disobey. The lack of a doctrine of original sin in the Augustinian sense is an important point to be grasped if one is to understand Rabbinic ‘soteriology’ or the nature and quality of Jewish religious life.5

Here the position that Sanders opposes to that of ‘the rabbis’ – ‘a doctrine of original sin or of the essential sinfulness of each man’; the notion that humans are ‘born in a state of sinfulness from which liberation is necessary’ – is labeled ‘Christian’ and ‘Augustinian’. But the ‘Christian’ and ‘Augustinian’ position on these matters derives from the writings of Paul. May we not, then, conclude that ‘the rabbis’ (and other Jews) differ significantly from Paul on the sinfulness of humankind? Yet further investigation remains in order. Sanders himself (as Laato notes) does not focus on the issue. For his part, Laato apparently regards Jewish ‘optimism’ (in contrast to Pauline ‘pessmism’) in this regard as too self-evident to require extensive documentation;6 and the possibility of diversity within Judaism (or, as some would have it, within the Judaisms) of the turn of the era is not explored. A more broadly based comparison of the anthropology of Paul and that of other Jews of his period seems very much in order. Is the apostle, in his assessment of (untransformed)7 humanity’s capacity to do good, as pessimistic as Laato proposes? If so (and certainly there are explicit statements in Paul’s letters to support Laato’s point),8 to what does Paul attribute humanity’s moral impo4. E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), pp. 17–18. 5. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, pp. 114–15. 6. After discussing for six pages the ‘anthropological presuppositions of the Jewish…pattern of religion’, Laato concludes, ‘In summary it appears that free will in the domain of soteriology among the Jews from Sirach until the Babylonian Talmud was opinio communis. A single (important) exception confirms the rule: the Qumran community seems to represent an absolute fatalism’ (Paul and Judaism, p. 72). 7. Paul’s views of the possibility of Christian sin (or even of its inevitability, as Romans 7, on one common understanding, implies) lie beyond the scope of this paper. 8. Sanders grants the existence of such statements but disputes (on various grounds) their importance to Paul’s thinking: they represent arguments Paul develops to support a point rather than

WESTERHOLM Paul’s Anthropological ‘Pessimism’ in its Jewish Context 73 tence? By way of comparison, does the anthropological ‘optimism’ which Laato, citing only a few (primarily rabbinic) texts, finds characteristic of Judaism in fact dominate Jewish literature of the period?9 Is it everywhere assumed that there are righteous people to be found, or are there texts that share Paul’s (pessimistic) view that ‘there is none righteous’ (Rom. 3.10)?10 Should a similar pessimism be attested, on what considerations is it grounded? One way or the other, the comparison should serve to highlight distinctive features of Paul’s anthropology and to contextualize what he shares with others. The project appears both eminently worthwhile and utterly unmanageable. Only a beginning can be made here. In this paper Pauline anthropology itself will be accorded only the most summary of treatments: I shall highlight a few theses that I take to be true without the argumentation or documentation required of a full-scale discussion.11 As for the writings of other Jews, to confine our attention to a few selected sources would leave unanswered (as Laato’s study, citing limited evidence, leaves unanswered) whether, or to what extent, Pauline ‘pessimism’ has parallels in the literature of the period.12 What is needed is rather a survey of the literature – in this case, the swiftest of surveys of the broadest

his settled convictions. Cf. my discussion in Israel’s Law and the Church’s Faith (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), pp. 151–64. 9. The survey below covers literature from the same period as that treated in Sanders’ Paul and Palestinian Judaism: roughly speaking, from 200 BCE to 200 CE with the upper limit stretched somewhat (as in Sanders’ work) to include tannaitic literature (here represented by Mekilta deRabbi Ishmael). Treatment of literature clearly later than Paul seems warranted since my purposes are not genealogical but heuristic. (In this respect, my approach here is closer to that of Alexander, Barclay and Engberg-Pedersen [among other contributors to this symposium] than to that of Boccaccini.) The question here being asked of a variety of Jewish texts arises out of a reading of Paul; it seems scarcely an issue in many of the texts themselves. This does not make it an illegitimate question to raise; but Francis Watson’s paper rightly reminds us that different starting-points would lead to very different emphases (see also Watson’s Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith [London: T&T Clark International, 2004], pp. 527–28). 10. Though my inquiry is not unrelated to the issue of the origins of sin among human beings, it is a different question. Even where human sin is traced to superhuman forces (e.g., humans are believed to have been misled into sin by demonic powers), it need not follow that humans are deemed incapable of doing good. Conversely, those who attribute human sinfulness to human beings themselves may not think humanity now capable of doing good. 11. Cf., however, my Perspectives Old and New on Paul: The ‘Lutheran’ Paul and His Critics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004). 12. Like Laato, Mikael Winninge (Sinners and The Righteous: A Comparative Study of the Psalms of Solomon and Paul’s Letters [ConBNT 26, Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell International, 1995]) sees a fundamental difference between Paul’s understanding of human sinfulness and the views of other Jews (e.g., ‘Paul simply claims that there are no righteous persons whatsoever, because all Jews and Gentiles are sinners from the outset. This is something entirely new within Judaism. Paul’s Jewish contemporaries could agree that sinfulness was a universal problem, but they would never concede that occasional sinful actions obliterated their covenantal status as righteous’ [p. 264]; ‘whereas Paul’s Jewish contemporaries could admit that all human beings occasionally committed sins, they would never have thought of classifying the basically faithful as sinners’ [p. 306, contrasting what Paul writes in Romans 5]). Yet here the only non-Pauline text studied is the Psalms of Solomon.

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possible range of literature.13 The deficiencies inherent in rapid overviews14 will be on bold display here: the social context, rhetorical purpose, and literary and textual history of the sources we look at will all be ignored; nor is there place here for subtlety or novelty in interpretation. Our limited purposes will be achieved if, by the end, some sense emerges whether the distinctions commonly proposed between Pauline anthropology and that of Judaism are warranted by the literature of the period, and if attention has been drawn to individual Jewish writings that would reward closer study on this issue.

1. Pauline Theses 1. God requires of all human beings (Jews and Gentiles alike) that they do what is good if they are to obtain life in the world to come; and God threatens with judgment those who do evil. Like most Jews of his day, Paul thought that there are certain things that people really ought to do (= ‘the good’) and other things that they really ought to avoid (= what is ‘evil’). Like many Jews of his day, Paul claimed that God would one day reward those who had done the good with eternal life while condemning those who had done evil. He says so explicitly in Rom. 2.6–11; the thesis, moreover, is implicit throughout Paul’s letters whenever he speaks of the judgment (or ‘wrath’) to come and of the terror it holds for the sinful (1 Thess. 1.10; 5.2–9; 1 Cor. 5.13; 6.9–10; 11.32, etc.). 2. The substance of the required ‘good’ is spelled out in the moral demands of the Mosaic law. The ‘righteousness of the law’ is, for Paul, captured in the dictum, ‘The one who does these things [= the demands spelled out in the law] will live by them’. Again, Romans 2 is only the most obvious source of the first part of our thesis. Those who do what is good and are rewarded with life in 2.7, 10 are clearly identified with the ‘doers of the law’ who are found to be ‘righteous’ before God in 2.13. In the same chapter Paul goes on to say that Jews, who have been given the law, are thereby able to instruct Gentiles in their mutual responsibility to fulfil its (moral) commandments (2.17–23; see also v. 26). That the law spells out the good required of all human beings is also implicit in 5.13 (deeds may be [right or] wrong apart from the law, but the introduction of the law made what is wrong in any case an indictable offence), 7.15–25 (the ‘I’ in question acknow13. Some exclusions are, however, inevitable. The extent and nature of Paul’s distinctiveness would certainly emerge more clearly if we were able to include the views of other Christian authors from the period (many of whom, of course, were also Jews); for purposes of this paper, however, our inquiry must be limited to the issue whether Jews who did not share Paul’s faith in Jesus as Saviour and Christ nonetheless shared his anthropological pessimism. Philo’s work resists quick summary here; see, however, the paper of John Barclay in this volume. Philip Alexander’s contribution to this symposium may serve to justify the brevity of my treatment of the sectarian texts from Qumran; on the other hand, their proximity to Paul’s position on the topic of this paper makes their exclusion unthinkable. Josephus is here represented solely by Against Apion. 14. After noting that a speed-reading course enabled him to read War and Peace in twenty minutes, Woody Allen paused, then added: ‘It’s about Russia’.

WESTERHOLM Paul’s Anthropological ‘Pessimism’ in its Jewish Context 75 ledges the goodness of what the law requires, though admitting an inability to do it) and 13.8–10 (the law must be thought to spell out what it good, since the love that fulfils it does no ‘evil’ to its neighbour). As we have seen, the claim in Rom. 2.13 that (not the hearers, but) the doers of the law will be found righteous before God merely restates the declaration in 2.7, 10 that God will give life to those who do what is good. The same conviction is said to be the operative principle of the ‘righteousness of the law’ in Rom. 10.5 (quoting Lev. 18.5): ‘the one who does these things [i.e., the requirements of the law] will live by them’ (cf. Gal. 3.12). Pursuit of the ‘righteousness of the law’ is attributed specifically, and naturally, to Jews, to whom the law was given (Rom. 9.31); the pre-Damascus Paul was among them (Phil. 3.6). But the righteousness spelled out in God’s law and required of those to whom it was given is not in principle different from the ‘good’ required of Jews and Gentiles alike (Rom. 2.7, 10). 3. That Gentiles do not possess the written code of the law does not excuse them from the requirement to do what is good. The general claim that Jew and Gentile (literally ‘Greek’) alike are required to do the ‘good’ (Rom. 2.10) might seem to be restated in a way that applies only to the former when Paul goes on to say that ‘the doers of the law will be found righteous’ (2.13). Paul moves immediately to correct that impression: Gentiles can rightly be expected to meet the same demands that Jews encounter in the law since an awareness of those demands has been implanted in their hearts (2.14–15). That Gentiles are indeed aware of the good that they ought to do is demonstrated whenever they in fact do it (2.14; cf. 1.32). Such is the point of Rom. 2.14–16. The verses are sometimes taken as an assertion by Paul that there are righteous Gentiles who (consistently) do what the law requires; the question is then asked whether Christian or non-Christian Gentiles are in mind. Those who think the latter are intended may then proceed to accuse Paul of incoherence.15 The whole train of thought appears misguided, however, once we recognize that Paul in these verses neither asserts nor assumes that Gentiles can be found who consistently do what the law requires. His point is that Gentiles and Jews are subject to the same standards of righteousness, though Jews but not Gentiles possess the law in written form. He makes his point by saying that Gentiles, too, are aware of the law’s requirements, though in a less obvious way than that applicable to Jews: the ‘work of the law is written on their hearts’. He substantiates the latter claim by saying that Gentiles show their awareness of the good they are to do whenever they do it. Such a statement is not tantamount to saying that there are Gentiles who consistently observe the law, nor does Paul’s argument require the stronger claim; indeed, that Paul is not thinking of people who consistently observe the law is made unmistakably clear when he says of the same people who show their awareness of the law’s requirements 15. Incoherence, in view of the depiction of universal guilt in Romans 1 and 3; so, most emphatically, Heikki Räisänen, Paul and the Law (Tübingen: Mohr, 1983), pp. 101–109. Sanders, too, sees Paul as inconsistent here, and believes that the inconsistency shows that (certain polemical passages notwithstanding) universal sinfulness was not central to Paul’s thinking. See n. 8 above.

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whenever they keep them (2.14) that their consciences and thoughts ‘accuse or even excuse’ their behaviour (2.15, implying that the accusations rather than the excusing are to be expected). 4. That Jews have been granted great privileges by God does not exempt them from the requirement to do what is good. Paul is as convinced as any Jew of the privileges God has granted to Israel (Rom. 3.1–2; 9.4–5; 11.1). But (like many other Jews before and after him) he insisted that such privileges do not exempt Abraham’s descendants from the requirement to do what is good or from liability for judgment should they fail to do so. One must be a ‘doer’, not a mere ‘hearer’, of the law (Rom. 2.13). Teaching others what the law requires is no substitute for obeying it oneself (2.17–24). Paul underlines the point by declaring, in 2.25–29, that circumcision, though itself a benefit, means nothing if it is not accompanied by obedience to the law’s (moral) demands; and, ultimately, it is only such obedience that matters. To reinforce the point Paul lists three of the four relevant possibilities: a circumcised person who keeps the law (his circumcision is of benefit); a circumcised person who transgresses the law (his circumcision is of no benefit); an uncircumcised person who keeps the law (his physical uncircumcision will be treated as the circumcision that benefits). Each of the three scenarios underlines Paul’s point that what is decisive is obedience to the law’s moral demands (i.e., doing what is ‘good’), not physical circumcision. (The fourth possibility, an uncircumcised person who transgresses the law, adds nothing to the case and is omitted.) Again, in the context of this paper it is important to note what Paul says and does not say in 2.25–29. The third of the scenarios he lists has often been detached from its context and taken as a Pauline assertion (again, contradictory of what Paul says elsewhere) that there are uncircumcised Gentiles who nonetheless keep the law. But vv. 26 and 27 no more assert that there are uncircumcised people who keep the law than v. 25 asserts that some Jews observe its commandments while others do not. What is stated and reinforced throughout these verses is the fundamental principle (a principle hardly peculiar to Paul) that (circumcised) Jews must themselves do what is right if they are to be approved by God; obedience is what ultimately matters. 5. Neither Jews nor Gentiles have done what they ought; hence, none can be found ‘righteous’ before God by doing what the law requires. The point is made explicitly in Rom. 3.9–20, 23; and Rom. 1.18–32 pronounces divine judgment on humankind (in general) for its ‘ungodliness and unrighteousness’. And, again, it must be insisted that the point is implicit throughout all Paul’s letters,16 representing the (negative) foundation of his mission: 16. Phil. 3.6 has been thought to show that Paul did think righteous living a possibility. But the claim in this verse that his own (pre-Damascus) behaviour was ‘blameless’ can only represent a pre-Damascus perspective: in terms of the (now discredited) righteousness Paul’s behaviour was perceived as unimpeachable; but from his present perspective Paul can hardly have regarded either ‘confidence in the flesh’ (3.3–4) or the persecution of the church (3.6) as ‘blameless’. Paul’s point in the context is simply that the Philippians need not heed the claims of those who insist that the righteousness of the law requires circumcision since Paul himself surpassed them all in the practice of such righteousness – and he has now abandoned it for something far better.

WESTERHOLM Paul’s Anthropological ‘Pessimism’ in its Jewish Context 77 apart from the deliverance God has provided through his Son, humanity is doomed to a perdition warranted by its sins (1 Thess. 1.9–10; 1 Cor. 1.18; 2 Cor. 2.15–16, etc.). ‘There is none righteous’ (Rom. 3.10). 6. Indeed, humankind (= the ‘flesh’) does not, and cannot, submit to God’s law. Such is the thrust of Rom. 5.12–8.8. Through Adam’s disobedience, all human beings have been made ‘sinners’ (5.19). They now ‘live in sin’ (6.1–11). They are sin’s ‘slaves’ (6.16–23). Nothing good lives in the ‘flesh’; it cannot do the good it acknowledges in the law (7.15–25). The mindset of the flesh is one of hostility toward God; it neither does nor can submit to God’s law. Those in the flesh cannot please God (8.7–8). The depiction of human beings as universally guilty of concrete sins in Romans 1–3 has at times been contrasted with the portrayal of their dilemma in Romans 5–7 as ‘slaves’ of sin. Only Romans 5–7 is thought to portray human beings as incapable of doing good, though it is allowed that Romans 1–3 says that all in fact do what is evil. But perhaps the distinction has been overdrawn. After all, Romans 1–3 speaks of the concrete sins that humans commit as illustrative of the ‘ungodliness and unrighteousness’ that prevail among human beings (1.18).17 Human sin has led to a situation in which humans are incorrigibly sinful: their thoughts have been reduced to futility, their uncomprehending heart has been darkened, they have become foolish, they have been left the hopeless prey of their passions (1.21–24). That humans universally commit sin is thus a reflection of the universal corruption of human nature: all are ‘under sin’ (3.9). Romans 1 and 3 seem hardly more optimistic than Romans 5–7 about the human potential for good. And once Romans 2 is correctly construed as insisting that the same requirement to do what is good applies to Gentiles (though they do not have the law) and Jews (possession of the law and of circumcision does not exempt them from the need for obedience) alike, it will not be thought contradictory of what Paul says elsewhere in Romans. 7. Because the sinfulness of Adamic humanity embraces Jews as well as Gentiles, the Sinaitic covenant is in fact a covenant of ‘condemnation’ and ‘death’. Religious Jews of Paul’s day commonly saw God’s covenant with Israel – embracing both God’s promises to Abraham and Israel’s commitment at Mount Sinai to observe God’s laws – as the framework within which life was to be lived and God’s favour enjoyed. For Paul, God’s promises to Abraham remain in place – indeed, they find fulfilment now in the community of Christ-believing Jews and Gentiles (Gal. 3.7–8, 14, 29; Rom. 4.13–16) and will find fulfilment at the eschaton in the salvation of ‘all Israel’ (Rom. 11.25–32). But the Sinaitic covenant, which promises life to those who observe its commandments (Rom. 7.10; 10.5; Gal. 3.12) while cursing its transgressors (Gal. 3.10, 13; cf. 4.5), has become a covenant of ‘enslavement’ (Gal. 4.24), ‘condemnation’ and ‘death’ (2 Cor. 3.7, 9): its only operative sanction is its curse (Gal. 3.10) – inevitably, inasmuch as all are ‘under sin’ (Gal. 3.22). 17. In his contribution to this volume, Simon Gathercole notes that humanity in Romans 1 is guilty of the ‘meta-sin’ of ‘suppressing’ the truth or ‘exchanging’ it (‘for worthless idols’); the ‘metasin of suppression or exchange then issues in a cascade of sins plural’.

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The salvific institutions of Israel do not, for Paul, bring salvation to sinners18 (or ‘life’ to the ‘dead’; cf. Gal. 3.21); and since the ‘whole world’ (including, explicitly, those ‘under the law’) stands ‘guilty before God’, no ‘flesh’ can be found righteous by ‘the works of the law’ (Rom. 3.19–20). ‘Judaism’ for Paul means the pursuit of the ‘righteousness of the law’, and Paul was himself once its zealous advocate (Gal. 1.13–14; Phil. 3.2–9; Rom. 9.31–10.5); now, however, he speaks of his life in ‘Judaism’ as a matter of the past (Gal. 1.13), of his pursuit of righteousness through the law as an abandoned quest (Phil. 3.7–9). Justification of the ‘ungodly’ requires new and extraordinary measures. 8. The ‘righteousness of faith’ is the emergency measure that God has introduced for the ‘salvation’ of sinful human beings. ‘Sinners’ (who, by definition, have not done what God requires of them) can only receive it, in faith, as a gift of divine grace. Because human beings do not, and cannot, show the righteous behaviour that God requires of all (Jews and Gentiles alike), God has intervened to provide a means by which ‘sinners’ (Jews and Gentiles alike) can be found ‘righteous’. Paul could hardly signal more clearly than he does the extraordinary and paradoxical nature of the ‘righteousness’ that God now offers the unrighteous. Those ‘declared righteous by [God’s] grace as a gift’ in Rom. 3.24 are precisely those who have ‘sinned’ and ‘fall[en] short of the glory of God’ in 3.23. Those declared righteous in 4.5 are the ‘ungodly’; similarly, those declared righteous in 5.9 are the ‘ungodly’ of v. 6, the ‘sinners’ of v. 8, the ‘enemies’ of God of v. 10. The ‘many’ who are ‘made righteous’ by Christ’s obedience in 5.19 are the same ‘many’ who were ‘made sinners’ by Adam’s obedience. They are the recipients of an ‘abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness’ (5.17). The gracious offer of righteousness to those who have faith is the substance of the message now being proclaimed in the gospel Paul preaches (1.16–17); inasmuch as the gospel brings ‘salvation’ (1.16), it represents the divine response to the crisis brought on by human sin (1.18–3.20). If ‘sinners’ are to be found ‘righteous’, it can only be the result of a ‘free gift’ (Rom. 5.17; cf. 3.23–24). If the ‘ungodly’ are to be declared ‘righteous’, it must be ‘without’ the (righteous) works on which such a declaration would normally be based (4.5).19 The ‘righteousness’ of those whose sins are forgiven is one with which they have been credited ‘apart from [righteous] works’ (4.6). The righteousness of faith necessarily operates apart from any consideration of the deeds of its recipients inasmuch as they – the ungodly, sinners, those needing forgiveness – have no righteous deeds to offer. Paul’s emphasis on the gratuity of salvation in Christ mirrors his depiction of human bondage to sin.20 18. Most Jews would agree, if by ‘sinners’ we mean incorrigible (unrepentant) sinners. Paul, who thought humankind in bondage to sin and unwilling to submit to God’s law, would (in effect) place all human beings in that category (cf. Rom. 5.8, 19). Cf. Winninge, Sinners and the Righteous, p. 182. 19. Moreover (as J. Louis Martyn repeatedly reminded us in symposium discussions), the message of the cross must itself create the possibility of faith in its listeners, and make of them new moral agents. 20. The theme of grace in Paul is explored more fully, and illuminated by a comparison with Philo, in John Barclay’s contribution to this volume.

WESTERHOLM Paul’s Anthropological ‘Pessimism’ in its Jewish Context 79 9. Unredeemed humanity is also in bondage to demonic forces. To this point, the only explanation we have seen Paul give of humanity’s incapacity to do good is the corruption of human nature – a corruption for which human sin is itself responsible. There is, however, another dimension to the human dilemma. According to Gal. 4.8–9, should Galatian believers became circumcised, they would thereby revert to the service of ‘those who by nature are not gods’, the ‘weak and beggarly elements’ to which (to whom?) they were once enslaved. Clearly redemption in Christ entails deliverance from the rule of demonic forces; indeed, for William Wrede, such redemption was at the heart of the Pauline gospel (cf. also 2 Cor. 4.4).21 Wrede’s claim at least seems doubtful. If 1 Thessalonians reflects the message of salvation that Paul proclaimed to the Macedonian community, nothing was said of slavery to powers of evil: God’s wrath was the danger to be avoided (1.10; 2.16; 4.6; 5.2–3, 9). The same is true, to judge by Paul’s letters, of his message to the Corinthians and Philippians (see, e.g., 1 Cor. 5.13; 11.32; Phil. 1.28). Galatians, too, sees in the gospel God’s mode of declaring sinners righteous (2.15–17, 21; 3.6–9, 22) and redeeming those who have transgressed the law from its curse (3.10, 13; 4.5). Romans 5–7 has often been interpreted as speaking, not simply of the incorrigible sinfulness of humankind, but of their slavery to the demonic power of ‘Sin’. Certainly Paul speaks here of ‘Sin’ entering and ruling the world, and of people as Sin’s ‘slaves’. Yet each reference that might tempt one to think of ‘Sin’ as a demonic force is surrounded by others that militate against the notion. That Sin ‘entered the world’ through Adam’s misdeed might conceivably be a reference to the gaining by a demonic force of a foothold in human affairs (5.12). But Paul goes on immediately to say that ‘Sin’ is not ‘counted’ (i.e., it is not indictable) apart from law: the reference must be to human misdeeds. The ‘Sin’ that ‘rules’ through death in 5.21 is counterbalanced by ‘Grace’ that rules in righteousness – and since the rule of ‘Grace’ involves personification, there is no reason to think differently of the rule of ‘Sin’.22 People may be ‘slaves’ of ‘Sin’ in Romans 6, but the same slavery is spoken of as a slavery to ‘uncleanness’ and ‘lawlessness’, and it is opposed to slavery to ‘obedience’ and ‘righteousness’ (6.16–23): personifications of patterns of life, not supernatural forces, are in view. In short, though Paul undoubtedly believed in demonic forces and thought unredeemed humanity is in some sense subject to their power, he does not typically attribute human sinfulness to, or portray redemption as deliverance from, the power of demons.23

21. William Wrede, Paul (English trans. Edward Lummis; Lexington, KY: American Library Association Committee on Reprinting, 1962). 22. Note too that the ‘sin’ that, in the immediately preceding verse, is said to have ‘increased’ is parallel to the ‘trespass’ that ‘multiplied’ (5.20). 23. For more detail, see ch. 18 of my Perspectives Old and New on Paul.

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10. Paul’s anthropological ‘pessimism’ seems a consequence of his Christian conviction that ‘Christ died for our sins’.24 It is not to be attributed to the type of ‘Judaism’ in which he was raised. As we have seen, the post-Damascus Paul thought the salvific institutions of Judaism inadequate to cope with the problem of human sin; but – to judge by Paul’s letters themselves – the analysis (and with it, Paul’s anthropological ‘pessimism’) seems clearly a product of post-Damascus thinking.25 His references to his former progress in ‘Judaism’ and zeal for its traditions (Gal. 1.14; Phil. 3.4–6) make it unlikely that, before Damascus, he had harboured deepseated doubts about its viability. Things looked very different, however, once Paul was convinced that the crucifixion and resurrection of God’s Son were necessary for the salvation of humankind: here was a divine initiative quite outside the framework of the Sinaitic covenant; as such, it called both for a reconsideration of the divine purpose of that covenant26 and for a more radical assessment of the human dilemma.27 It follows that, whatever analogies to Paul’s anthropological ‘pessimism’ we may find in non-Christian Jewish texts, it would be wrong to seek in Paul’s own pre-Christian experience of Judaism the source of his pessimism. Several scholars of an earlier day28 suggested that it derived from the Hellenistic Judaism in which Paul was raised, which had (apparently) deteriorated considerably from the purer strands of Palestine. It seems doubtful that Hellenistic Judaism can be so distinguished from Palestinian;29 if, moreover, Phil. 3.6 represents Paul’s preDamascus assessment of his behaviour, then he must have once thought that some Jews at least (among whom he did not hesitate to include himself) had done quite well in measuring up to the law’s requirements. The same evidence for preDamascus optimism would seem to rule out the suggestion that the pre-Damascus 24. Here I am of course agreeing with Sanders’ thesis that, for Paul, the solution preceded the plight. (As Louis Martyn pointedly reminded us at the symposium, this was Barth’s position as well!) 25. That Paul’s post-Damascus thinking (including its ‘anthropological pessimism’) reflects his (re)reading of Israel’s Scriptures is the important emphasis of Watson’s Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith: ‘Christ and scripture reciprocally interpret one another… For Paul, the light of the risen Christ is at the same time the illumination of scripture, a scripture reordered so as to form the interpretative matrix within which the Christ-event takes shape and discloses itself as the particular event it is’ (p. 529; cf. also pp. 190–91, 310). 26. Since Paul continued to believe that the Sinaitic covenant and law were divinely instituted (and therefore ‘glorious’ [2 Cor. 3.7–11]), they could only be deemed ‘inadequate’ if called upon to perform a task they were not intended to fulfil. The purpose of the law itself needed to be rethought in light of God’s redemption in Christ. Paul’s reflections on the subject lie outside the scope of this paper, however. 27. With this in mind, the phrase ‘Pauline pessimism’ must itself be seen as misleading. Paul does not appear to have entertained negative views of human moral capacities apart from the buoyant, more-than-offsetting conviction that God, in Jesus Christ, had intervened graciously and dramatically to provide for human salvation. 28. E.g., Montefiore, Judaism and St. Paul; Samuel Sandmel, The Genius of Paul (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979). 29. Here the obligatory reference is of course to Martin Hengel’s Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in their Encounter in Palestine during the Early Hellenistic Period (English trans. John Bowden; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974).

WESTERHOLM Paul’s Anthropological ‘Pessimism’ in its Jewish Context 81 Paul shared with apocalyptic Judaism a sense that human beings are the hopeless victims of superhuman powers of evil; nor do such powers figure sufficiently in Paul’s post-Damascus depictions of human sinfulness30 and redemption31 to suggest that his thinking was grounded and remained within the horizons of (such)32 apocalyptic circles. In short, though a comparison of Paul’s ‘pessimism’ with the anthropology found within the many branches of Judaism at the turn of the era should prove illuminating, no direct route from the latter to the former is to be presupposed.

2. Human Moral Capacities in Jewish Writings Paul thought that human beings – in Adam, or in the ‘flesh’ – are incapable of showing the righteousness that God requires of them; hence ‘righteousness’ must be given them as a gift. We turn now to Jewish literature of the period between (roughly) 200 BCE and 200 CE. Much of Judaism of the period can properly be described as Torah-centric. The question we put to these sources can thus usually be stated in terms of Torah’s fulfilment: Is Israel’s observance of Torah thought, in principle, to be unproblematic, or are reasons suggested why the observance of God’s commands is difficult (or even impossible) for some, or most, or even all Jews? Occasionally, where the identification of righteous or wise behaviour with conduct conforming to the Mosaic law is not explicit, we must be content with 30. Though human beings are said to be incorrigibly sinful in both Romans 1–3 and Romans 5– 7, in neither passage is human sinfulness attributed to the influence of superhuman forces; still less are humans the innocent victims of such forces. In Romans 1, human sinfulness is rooted in the (inexcusable; see 1.20; also 1.32) refusal of humans who ‘knew God’ to ‘honour him as God’ or ‘give thanks to him’ (1.21); moreover, as Simon Gathercole notes in his paper, the ‘dominating power’ into whose hands God places sinful human beings is here ‘their own desires’. Romans 5 is explicit in claiming that ‘sin came into the world though one man’ (5.12; on what I take to be the personification of ‘sin’ in the verse, see the discussion in point 9 above; but even if we take the verse to be speaking of Sin as a superhuman power, its ‘entrance’ into the world of human beings is said to be dependent on a concrete act of human disobedience) and that it was ‘by one man’s disobedience’ that ‘the many were made sinners’ (5.19). Yet humans so corrupted are incapable of pleasing God (8.7–8). Conspicuously absent from Paul’s writings are (‘Enochic’) notions of human sinfulness as the result of the intermarriage of angelic and human beings (thus transgressing creation’s boundaries) or of the revelation of mysteries to human beings by (fallen) angels. 31. See the discussion in point 9 above. 32. ‘Apocalyptic’ is of course a slippery term; many themes so designated in the scholarly literature are abundantly attested in Paul’s writings. What is denied here is simply that Paul’s pessimistic anthropology has its roots in a branch of Judaism that is thought to portray human beings as the hopeless victims of superhuman powers of evil. Note that such an understanding of the human dilemma makes very problematic the covenantal theology that assigns blessings to those who obey God’s law (cf. Gabriele Boccaccini, Middle Judaism: Jewish Thought, 300 BCE to 200 CE [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991], p. 133). The pre-Damascus Paul, on the other hand, seems to have been committed to just such a theology: he was ‘zealous’ in keeping the ‘traditions’ of his ancestors, and deemed himself ‘blameless’ in his pursuit of the ‘righteousness of the law’ (Gal. 1.14; Phil. 3.6). Similarly, the Jews of whom he speaks were committed to the ‘righteousness that is based on law’ (Rom. 9.31; 10.3–5). To use Boccaccini’s terms, ‘Judaism’ as Paul knew it was clearly ‘proto-rabbinic’, not ‘Enochic’. See also n. 49 below.

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what the text says about the human potential for virtue in general. Since the possibility of Gentile righteousness is seldom a focus in these texts, comments on that subject will be few.33 Since the purpose of this survey is heuristic rather than genealogical,34 I make no attempt to arrange texts in chronological order, nor do I comment on issues of dating where they are in dispute. Given that the survey is exploratory in nature, it is important that results not be prejudiced by notions of what we may expect to find in literature of a certain sort (‘wisdom literature’, for example, or ‘apocalyptic’) or by the assumption that texts related in other respects will treat our topic similarly. Hence our inquiry – whether humans are deemed capable of doing good; whether righteous people are to be found – will be put afresh to each text, and the order in which texts are taken up for discussion will be deliberately arbitrary.35 1. That humans have the choice to do good or evil is stressed in at least three different contexts in Mekilta de-Rabbi Ishmael:36 Adam, faced with the need to choose between ‘the way of life and the way of death’, opted for the latter (Beshallah 7 [Lauterbach 1.248], on Exod. 14.29); all nations had the opportunity at Sinai to accept or reject the Torah, though only Israel chose to accept it (Bahodesh 1 [Lauterbach 2.198–200], on 19.2; Bahodesh 5–6 [Lauterbach 2.234–38], on 20.2–3); the same choice must be made by the individual as well.37 If one wishes to hearken, he is immediately given the opportunity to hearken. If one wishes to forget, he is immediately led to forget. And [Simon b. Azzai] also used to say: Once a man desires to hearken of his own will, he is led to hearken both when it is his will to do so and even when it is not his will. And if it be his will to forget, he will be led to forget even when it is not his will. Freedom of choice is given. (Vayassa‘ 1 [Lauterbach 2.97], on 15.26)

Frequent statements throughout Mekilta mention particular rewards given by God in response to particular deeds (‘for one cannot obtain rewards except for deeds’ [Pisha 5 (Lauterbach 1.34), on 12.6; so Pisha 11 (Lauterbach 1.87), on 12.23; Pisha 16 (Lauterbach 140–41), on 13.4, etc.]). It should not be concluded that divine judgment was thought to proceed on a strict measure-for-measure basis; but it certainly does follow that people were thought capable of acting in Godpleasing ways.38 33. It will quickly become apparent that in many texts the possibility of doing good (by Jews, at least) seems self-evident. At the risk of repetition, I have included a number of such texts: to pass them over and highlight possible exceptions to the rule would inevitably distort the picture. 34. See n. 9 above. 35. Rabbinic literature (here represented by Mekilta de-Rabbi Ishmael) will be treated first, followed by Josephus (Against Apion), the books of the (Old Testament) ‘Apocrypha’ (in the order in which they appear in the NRSV) and Pseudepigrapha (in the order in which they appear in Charlesworth’s edition), and the sectarian literature from Qumran. 36. Quotations from this text are taken from the three-volume edition edited and translated by Jacob Z. Lauterbach (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1976 [1933]). 37. In his contribution to this volume, Gabriele Boccaccini notes that the rabbis did not share ‘Enochic’ ideas of the superhuman nature of evil. 38. Note as well, among other contributions to this volume, Philip Alexander’s summary treatment of the rabbinic doctrine of the two inclinations and of its implicit acknowledgement of

WESTERHOLM Paul’s Anthropological ‘Pessimism’ in its Jewish Context 83 2. Much of Josephus’s Against Apion is devoted to praise of the laws of Moses, the divinely guided lawgiver of the Jews (2.184). But good laws that are beyond the capacity of their subjects to fulfil are of little use (cf. 2.220–24), so Josephus emphasizes as well the importance Jews place on observing their laws (1.42, 60, 190–92), the willingness of all to do so, and their unparalleled success – throughout their history – in maintaining obedience (2.82, 150, 156, 228): ‘a transgressor is a rarity’ (2.178).39 For our limited purposes we need draw no further conclusions from these extraordinary statements than that Josephus evinces no suspicion that humans are unable to obey God’s law. 3. Though Tobit’s40 kindred and tribe had proved faithless from the time of Jeroboam (Tob. 1.4–5), and though, even in exile, they ate the food of the Gentiles (1.10), Tobit himself ‘walked in the ways of truth and righteousness all the days of [his] life’ (1.3) – and he was not alone (5.14; 9.6; cf. 3.14). The text distinguishes between such ‘righteous’ (though not sinless; cf. 3.3) people and ‘sinners’ (4.17; 13.6, 9): both encounter, in this life,41 fates suited to their deeds (4.5–19; 12.6–10). The exhortations that our author seizes every opportunity to convey assume throughout that it is possible to do what is right, to avoid sin, and to please God by so doing: Revere the Lord all your days, my son, and refuse to sin or to transgress his commandments. Live uprightly all the days of your life, and do not walk in the ways of wrongdoing; for those who act in accordance with truth will prosper in all their activities. (4.5–6) Do good and evil will not overtake you. (12.7) So now, my children, I command you, serve God faithfully and do what is pleasing in his sight. (14.8)

Even Gentiles, though now lacking in understanding and deceived by their idols, will one day ‘all be converted and worship God in truth’ (14.6; cf. 4.19; 13.11). Israelites who are alive in that day (as in Tobit’s own day) will meet different fates, depending on their actions: All the Israelites who are saved in those days and are truly mindful of God will be gathered together; they will go to Jerusalem and live in safety forever in the land of Abraham, and it will be given over to them. Those who sincerely love God will rejoice, but those who commit sin and injustice will vanish from all the earth. (14.7)

Nothing in Tobit suggests that obedience that satisfies God is beyond human achieving. human freedom of choice and Friedrich Avemarie’s discussion of the evil inclination and human capacities to resist it. 39. Cf. the even more extravagant claim in Ant. 3.223: ‘Those laws, excellent beyond the standard of human wisdom, have been in every age rigidly observed, insomuch that neither in peace, through luxury, nor in war, under constraint, have Hebrews transgressed any one of them’. (Translations from Josephus are taken from the Loeb edition, by H. St. J. Thackeray.) 40. In what follows, quotations from the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical books are taken from the NRSV. 41. Resurrection is not envisaged in Tobit. Tobit is content if some of his descendants survive to see the day of Jerusalem’s glory (13.16).

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4. In Judith, the God of Israel is ‘the God who hates iniquity’ (Jdt. 5.17). When Israel sins, it can anticipate disaster; but no harm can befall the people when they have not sinned against their God (5.17–21; 11.10). The latter is held out as a real possibility (cf. 5.19, 21; 8.20), Judith herself is seen as a virtuous woman (8.8, 31; 13.20), and even the Ammonite Achior does what is right in coming to faith in Israel’s God (14.10). 5. In the Wisdom of Solomon, the doing of good or evil is ostensibly at the discretion of all human beings. The book opens with an invitation to the ‘rulers of the earth’ (and thus to Gentiles) to ‘love righteousness’ and to seek the Lord ‘because he is found by those who do not put him to the test’ (1.1–2). Later ‘monarchs’ are addressed in order that they ‘may learn wisdom and not transgress’ (6.9). Wisdom is found by those who seek her (6.12); ‘therefore if you delight in thrones and scepters, O monarchs over the peoples, honor wisdom, so that you may reign forever’ (6.21). Solomon himself, though born no different from other human beings (7.1–6), recognized that, apart from wisdom, humans are weak and lacking in understanding (9.5); only if guided by Wisdom can they learn what pleases God and do deeds that God finds acceptable (9.10–12). Furthermore he had the insight to realize that only God can give wisdom; in answer to his prayers, then, he was given Wisdom and ‘all good things…along with her’ (7.7–11; 8.21–9.18). Similarly, the righteous of every age have been steered by Wisdom (9.17–18; 10.1, 4– 6, 10, etc.). The righteous nation of Israel (10.15; 15.2–4) – whose history has never been more benignly told: not even the wilderness generation departed from wisdom (10.15–11.14)! – has repeatedly experienced the guidance and deliverance of divine Wisdom. The path of Wisdom, though accessible to all who seek her, has not been pursued by all, however; and though God loves all his creatures and provides even the most incorrigible sinners with every opportunity to repent (11.23–24; 12.2– 27), all will in the end be judged for their deeds (1.8; 3.10; 5.15, etc.). Immortality will be the lot of the righteous, even if their earthly life should end prematurely (3.1–9; 4.7–9, 16; 5.15); on the other hand, ‘those who have not heeded the warning of mild rebukes will experience the deserved judgment of God’ (12.26). Does the Wisdom of Solomon contain any hints that there are circumstances beyond the control of the ungodly that keep them from doing what is right? According to 2.23–24, it was through the ‘devil’s envy’ that death entered the world. Genesis 3 is presumably in mind; but the reference hardly suffices to acquit Adam and Eve of guilt for their actions, and the devil is not mentioned as a factor in later sins. Idolatry is portrayed as the source of all evil (14.12, 27), and various suggestions are made about its origins, some seeming quite innocent (13.6–7; 14.15–21); but in the end our author refuses to see idolaters as blameless (11.15; 13.8–9; 14.30–31).42 At one point, however, our author does suggest that the Canaanites whom the Israelites displaced were so innately sinful that any change of their ways was inconceivable: 42. Cf. John M. G. Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), pp. 186–87.

WESTERHOLM Paul’s Anthropological ‘Pessimism’ in its Jewish Context 85 But judging them little by little you gave them an opportunity to repent, though you were not unaware that their origin was evil and their wickedness inborn, and that their way of thinking would never change. For they were an accursed race from the beginning. (12.10–11)

Here the curse placed upon Canaan in Gen. 9.25 is perhaps thought to have predetermined the moral character of his descendants (cf. 3.12–13). Even in that case, however, they would still be suffering for the concrete sin of their ancestor; and the context as a whole is intended to stress that God is so indulgent to sinners that their postponed punishment is richly deserved. 6. At no point in the literature is the human capacity to do good more explicitly affirmed than in Sirach 15: Do not say, ‘It was the Lord’s doing that I fell away’; for he does not do what he hates. Do not say, ‘It was he who led me astray’; for he has no need of the sinful… It was [the Lord] who created humankind in the beginning, and he left them in the power of their own free choice. If you choose, you can keep the commandments, and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice. He has placed before you fire and water; stretch out your hand for whichever you choose. Before each person are life and death, and whichever one chooses will be given … He has not commanded anyone to be wicked, and he has not given anyone permission to sin. (15.11–20)43

Consistent with this perspective are any number of texts that treat the doing of what is good and right as a matter of course – or at least of one or two easy steps – for all who are so inclined: If you are willing, my child, you can be disciplined, and if you apply yourself you will become clever. If you love to listen you will gain knowledge, and if you pay attention you will become wise. (6.32–33) Do no evil, and evil will never overtake you. Stay away from wrong, and it will turn away from you. (7.1–2) In all you do, remember the end of your life, and then you will never sin. (7.36)

God, of course, judges people by their deeds (16.12–14; 35.24). Those who do what is right please the Lord and may anticipate his blessing (2.8; 11.22; 35.5).44 43. The text alludes to Deut. 30.19. In both texts, ‘“life” and “death” represent the two opposing human destinies… There are two respective ways to those two destinies, keeping the commandments or transgressing them; and the way that we take is a matter of our own choice, not of fate’ (Watson, Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith, pp. 11–12). 44. Indeed, Boccaccini (Middle Judaism, p. 105) sees in Sir. 21.27 (which he renders: ‘When an impious man curses the satan, he really curses his own soul’) a radical demythologization of satan, ‘the angelic being depicted in the Book of the Watchers as guilty of the corruption of the world and therefore responsible for evil’. The NRSV rendering of the verse, however, takes it to refer to a human adversary (i.e., the curse one utters against an adversary recoils on oneself); so also Patrick W. Skehan and Alexander A. Di Lella, The Wisdom of Ben Sira: A New Translation with Notes (AB 39; New York: Doubleday, 1987), pp. 311–12.

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Still, this straightforward picture is not the whole story, even in Sirach. Even the righteous – Sirach allows – commit sins, at times without knowing it (19.16); indeed, ‘we all deserve punishment’ (8.5) and need forgiveness (28.2, 4). All face temptation, and prayers that one will not be overcome by evil are very much in order (23.4–6; cf. 37.15). A review of history shows that the righteous have often been a distinct minority (44.17; 48.15; 49.4). One can even regret that human beings were created with an inclination to evil (37.3). And though our author insists that humans are free to choose good or evil, his conviction that God is the creator of all leads him elsewhere to say that good and evil, life and death, sinners and the godly are all among the ‘pairs’ created by God (33.10–15; cf. 42.24).45 Nonetheless, for Ben Sira himself, none of these considerations seems to have called into question the human capacity for doing good.46 7. Baruch echoes the Jewish scriptures in lamenting Israel’s inveterate disobedience: From the time when the Lord brought our ancestors out of the land of Egypt until today, we have been disobedient to the Lord our God, and we have been negligent, in not heeding his voice … We did not listen to the voice of the Lord our God in all the words of the prophets whom he sent to us, but all of us followed the intent of our own wicked hearts by serving other gods and doing what is evil in the sight of the Lord our God. (Bar. 1.19–22)

Scripture is echoed as well in the assurance that God will one day give his people ‘a heart that obeys and ears that hear’, so that they will ‘turn from their stubbornness and their wicked deeds’ (2.31–32; cf. 3.7). But neither Israel’s habitual disobedience nor the conviction that the propensity for sin will one day be overcome by divine intervention means that, today, obedience is beyond human attainment: [The way to knowledge] is the book of the commandments of God, the law that endures forever. All who hold her fast will live, and those who forsake her will die. (4.1)

8. The books of Maccabees are dominated by stories of how loyalty to God and to his laws cost many people their lives; but clearly such faithfulness – and righteous behaviour in general – is thought within human capacities. Indeed, the author of 4 Maccabees never tires of repeating the thesis that reason is able 45. David Winston (The Wisdom of Solomon: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AB 43; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1979], pp. 46–58) discusses the juxtaposition of ‘freedom and determinism’ in Sirach and other Jewish texts, remarking, ‘What baffles the reader of this ancient literature, however, is the easy coexistence in it of two apparently contradictory strands of thought, namely, an emphasis on God’s ultimate determination of all human action coupled with an equally emphatic conviction that the human will is the arbiter of its own moral destiny’ (p. 48). See also E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, pp. 257–70, 446–47. 46. Cf. Skehan and Di Lella, The Wisdom of Ben Sira, pp. 82–83; also Donald E. Gowan, ‘Wisdom’, in D. A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien and Mark A. Seifrid (eds.), Justification and Variegated Nomism. vol. 1: The Complexities of Second Temple Judaism (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001), pp. 215–39 (216–17).

WESTERHOLM Paul’s Anthropological ‘Pessimism’ in its Jewish Context 87 to subdue the passions (at least when it is instructed by God’s law; cf. 1.1, 3, 5, 7, 9, etc., etc.).47 9. In the one extensive passage in 1 Esdras lacking a parallel in the canonical Jewish scriptures, Zerubbabel debates with two other bodyguards of King Darius the topic ‘What one thing is strongest?’ In claiming that truth is the strongest of all, he notes: All God’s works quake and tremble, and with him there is nothing unrighteous. Wine is unrighteous, the king is unrighteous, women are unrighteous, all human beings are unrighteous, all their works are unrighteous, and all such things. There is no truth in them and in their unrighteousness they will perish. But truth endures and is strong forever, and lives and prevails forever and ever. (4.36–38)

The passage is reminiscent of the insistence found several times in Job that in God’s eyes no human being can really be righteous: after all, if even ‘his angels he charges with error’, if even ‘the heavens are not clean in his sight’, if even ‘the moon is not bright, and the stars are not pure in his sight’, then none born of women can possibly be deemed righteous (Job 4.17–19; 15.14–16; 25.4–6, NRSV; cf. also Ps. 143.2). The infinite gap between God and all his creation is thereby underlined – without it following that distinctions cannot still be drawn between what is ordinarily meant by ‘righteous’ people and ‘sinners’. Certainly 1 Esdras follows the biblical narrative elsewhere in recognizing (for example) the uprightness of Josiah (1.23). 10. The Prayer of Manasseh is explicit in distinguishing between the ‘righteous’ (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are mentioned) ‘who did not sin against [God]’ and ‘sinners’ (such as Manasseh) for whom repentance has been appointed ‘so that they may be saved’ (7–8). Clearly there is no sense here that righteous, Godpleasing behaviour is beyond human capacities to attain – though, for notorious sinners, repentance is available as plan B. 11. 1 Enoch 48 is perhaps best known49 for attributing the origin of evil on earth to angelic beings who, in deliberate rebellion against God, violated nature’s order 47. See also Francis Watson’s contribution to this volume, where it is noted that the author of 4 Maccabees believes that ‘in no circumstances, however extreme, is transgression of the law unavoidable or justifiable’ (below, p. 109). 48. Quotations from the pseudepigraphical writings are taken from the two-volume edition (The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha) edited by James H. Charlesworth (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983–85). 49. 1 Enoch has also figured largely in recent discussions of ‘covenantal nomism’: Sanders, conceding that important concepts are at best implicit in the text, believes that it nonetheless falls under his umbrella category (Paul and Palestinian Judaism, pp. 346–62, 422–24; Sanders’ approach to this text is broadly supported by Richard Bauckham, ‘Apocalypses’, in D. A. Carson, et.al. [eds.], Justification and Variegated Nomism, vol. 1, pp. 135–87 [140–42, 147–49]; others dispute the suggestion (e.g., John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to the Jewish Matrix of Christianity [New York: Crossroad, 1987], pp. 37–38, 63, 154; cf. Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora [New York: Crossroad, 1986], p. 14; George W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 1–36; 81–108 [Hermeneia, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001], pp. 50–56; Boccaccini, Middle Judaism, pp. 79, 133). Without entering that dispute here, we may simply repeat that, if 1 Enoch does indeed represent a pattern of religion different from ‘covenantal nomism’, one in which Enochic revelations rather

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by having intercourse with women, thereby producing giants; and who, moreover, disclosed to human beings things that ought not to be revealed, thus leading them into sin (6.1–8.3). The origin of sin and the necessity of divine judgment (beginning with the punishment of the angels and the sending of the flood) are thus accounted for – without it being said that all human beings were made ‘sinners’ (in the radical sense of the word) or that they are now incapable of doing good. On the contrary, distinctions between the ‘righteous’ and the ‘wicked’ are maintained throughout the various sections of 1 Enoch.50 The wicked are explicitly and repeatedly condemned because they themselves have committed concrete and obvious wrongs (1.9; 5.4–5; 27.2; 38.1; 45.1–2; 46.5–8; 60.6; 63.6–9; 94.6– 11; 95.5–7; 96.5–8; 97.7–10, etc.), which have been written down for the day of judgement (98.8);51 in principle, at least, they are thought capable of doing right (cf. 104.9).52 That the righteous are frequently identified with the ‘elect’53 might seem to eliminate notions of human responsibility; in fact, however, the righteous (or ‘elect’) are repeatedly summoned to ‘seek for [themselves] and choose righteousness and the elect life’ (94.4), and promised rewards when they do so; and they, too, must exercise care to avoid the paths of wickedness (‘Do not walk in the evil way, or in the way of death! Do not draw near to them lest you be destroyed!’ [94.3; cf. 91.4, 19; 94.1; 104.6]).54 In short, even though 1 Enoch sees superhuman forces at the roots of human evil, it does not share Paul’s ‘pessimistic’ view that ‘there is none righteous’, that none can ‘please God’ (Rom. 3.10; 8.8).55

than Israel’s covenant and law provide the crucial basis for salvation, then the ‘Judaism’ with which Paul is familiar, both from his own upbringing and from the controversies sparked by his mission, is closer to ‘covenantal nomism’ than to ‘Enochic’ strands within Judaism (see nn. 30 and 32 above). 50. Note, e.g., the reference to ‘all the righteous ones’ in 12.17. According to 81.5, Enoch was to tell Methuselah ‘that no one of the flesh can be just before the Lord; for they are merely his own creation’. The notion that the gap between creator and created is so great that no human could possibly meet God’s approval is a theme found in Job and elsewhere (cf. the discussion of 1 Esdras above). For 1 Enoch (here ‘The Book of the Heavenly Luminaries’), as elsewhere, however, this does not mean that one cannot speak of ‘righteous’ human beings and distinguish them from sinners; the rest of ch. 81 does precisely that (the immediately preceding verse is a beatitude of the righteous, and v. 9 speaks of ‘those who do right’). Note, too, how 5.8 reckons with the sin of those who are nonetheless considered righteous. 51. Indeed, 98.4 appears to insist on the responsibility of human beings for their own sin (‘neither has sin been exported into the world. It is the people who have themselves invented it. And those who commit it shall come under a great curse’): ‘the passage serves an important clarifying and corrective function within 1 Enoch as a whole. The myth of the rebel angels notwithstanding (see chs 6–11), human beings are responsible for their deeds’ (Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, p. 477; Nickelsburg goes on to suggest that this passage in 1 Enoch reflects a common tradition with Sir. 15.11–17.24). 52. Remarkably, 1 Enoch even has a place for the repentance and salvation of Gentiles (10.21; 50.2–3; 90.37–38; 91.14). 53. So in the ‘Book of Watchers’ (chs 1–36), twice in the ‘Epistle of Enoch’ (chs 91–105), but frequently in the ‘Parables’ (chs 37–71) (see Bauckham, ‘Apocalypses’, pp. 142–43). 54. ‘Thus election is not envisaged as contradicting human freedom to choose the good’ (Bauckham, ‘Apocalypses’, p. 145). 55. Nickelsburg (1 Enoch 1, p. 46) sees in 1 Enoch a juxtaposition of two explanations of the

WESTERHOLM Paul’s Anthropological ‘Pessimism’ in its Jewish Context 89 12. Though 2 Enoch, like 1 Enoch, tells of the Watchers who took the daughters of men as wives, produced giants, and defiled the earth by their deeds (18.4), the capacity of human beings to do good seems, again, not to be affected. Free will is explicitly said to be given to Adam, and appears to be retained by his descendants. And I gave [Adam] his free will; and I pointed out to him the two ways – light and darkness. And I said to him, ‘This is good for you, but that is bad’; so that I might come to know whether he has love toward me or abhorrence, and so that it might become plain who among his race loves me. (2 En. 30.15)

Exhortations to do what is right are frequent (e.g., 2.2; 36.4), as are descriptions of the ‘righteous’ who live as they ought (9.1; 41.2; 42.6; 70.1, etc.). 13. The tender-hearted seer of 4 Ezra repeatedly laments both the evil inclination56 found within each human being and Adam’s sin, suggesting that the waywardness of the race, and of Israel in particular, ought therefore to be excused or forgiven. The first Adam, burdened with an evil heart, transgressed and was overcome, as were also all who were descended from him. Thus the disease became permanent; the law was in the people’s heart along with the evil root, but what was good departed, and the evil remained. (4 Ezra 3.21–22; cf. 4.30) O Adam, what have you done? For though it was you who sinned, the fall was not yours alone, but ours also who are your descendants. (7.48[118]; cf. 3.26; 7.[48])

His angelic interlocutor will have none of it. Human beings have none but themselves to blame for their sin.57 With the evil inclination they were also given freedom, and it was in their power to overcome the disposition to evil and to do good (cf. 7.[92]). Their sin is therefore inexcusable. God strictly commanded those who came into the world, when they came, what they should do to live, and what they should observe to avoid punishment. Nevertheless they were not obedient, and spoke against him. (7.21–22) Do not ask any more questions about the multitude of those who perish. For they also received freedom, but they despised the Most High, and were contemptuous of his Law, and forsook his ways… For the Most High did not intend that men should be destroyed; but they themselves who were created have defiled the name of him who made them, and have been ungrateful to him who prepared life for them. (8.55–60; cf. also 7.57–61[127–31]; 9.10–12)

origin and presence of sin in the world: ‘(1) sin and evil are the function of a primordial heavenly revolt whose results continue to victimize the human race; (2) responsibility for sin and evil lies with the human beings who transgress God’s law’. Neither cancels out the other, though different sections of the book show different emphases. 56. On the ‘evil heart’ in 4 Ezra, see Michael Edward Stone, Fourth Ezra: A Commentary on the Book of Fourth Ezra (Hermeneia, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), pp. 63–65. Stone notes that in 4 Ezra it is the evil inclination, not sinfulness itself, that has been inherited by Adam’s descendants. 57. It is worth observing that in 4 Ezra, undoubtedly among the most negative of the texts of our study in its assessment of human moral performance, ‘the figure of Satan plays no role’ (Stone, Fourth Ezra, p. 64 n. 21) and human freedom and responsibility are strongly emphasized (Stone, Fourth Ezra, pp. 257, 288).

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That some (Ezra himself among them [6.32; 7.(77); 8.47–49]) measure up to divine standards of righteousness demonstrates that it is within human capacity to do so (cf. 7.[88–89]); and if those who do are far outnumbered by sinners who do not, then the seer should reflect on how much more rare – and more valued – is gold than clay (7.[52–61]; 8.1–3). 14. Second Baruch also raises the issue of the impact of Adam’s sin on his descendants. O Adam, what did you do to all who were born after you? And what will be said of the first Eve who obeyed the serpent, so that this whole multitude is going to corruption? (2 Bar. 48.42–43; cf. 18.2; 56.5–7)

The answer, again, is that the choices that faced Adam face each of his descendants as well: and they have the same opportunity to do good or evil. Those who do not love your Law are justly perishing. And the torment of judgment will fall upon those who have not subjected themselves to your power. For, although Adam sinned first and has brought death upon all who were not in his own time, yet each of them who has been born from him has prepared for himself the coming torment. And further, each of them has chosen for himself the coming glory. For truly, the one who believes will receive reward… Adam is, therefore, not the cause, except only for himself, but each of us has become our own Adam. (54.14–19; cf. 19.1; 48.38–40; 51.16; 55.2)

And again, the book speaks repeatedly of those who are righteous as well as of the wicked (9.1; 11.4; 14.5–7; 21.11; 24.1) – though noting that, in the end, all who are born require God’s mercy (i.e., no human being can really be righteous before God; 84.11), and stressing as well that even sinners can repent and obtain God’s grace (41.4; 42.5; 77.6–7). 15. According to the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, human beings are faced with a choice between ‘two ways’, that of good and that of evil (T. Levi 19.1; T. Ash. 1.3–5). Dispositions to both are found within them (T. Jud. 20.1–3; T. Ash. 1.5). The evil spirits of Beliar dominate those who choose evil (T. Dan 4.7; T. Naph. 8.6; T. Ash. 1.8–9) but have no power over those who do the right. If promiscuity does not triumph over reason, then neither can Beliar conquer you. (T. Reub. 4.11) You do these [pious actions] as well, my children, and every spirit of Beliar will flee from you. (T. Iss. 7.7) Those who are silent in purity of heart will be able to hold fast God’s will and to shunt aside the will of Beliar. (T. Naph. 3.1; cf. T. Sim. 3.5; T. Iss. 4.4; T. Dan 5.1; T. Benj. 3.3–4; 6.1)58

The patriarchs repeatedly urge their sons to choose what is good, assuring them that evil can be overcome (T. Sim. 3.4), and noting that God is well pleased with those who make right choices (T. Sim. 5.2; cf. T. Iss. 4.1; T. Dan 1.3). Several of the patriarchs are prepared to testify to the purity of their own lives (T. Iss. 3.2–4; 58. Note that in the Apocalypse of Abraham as well the righteous are not deceived by Azazel, though the latter rules over those who ‘desire evil’ (13.7–14; 23.9–13).

WESTERHOLM Paul’s Anthropological ‘Pessimism’ in its Jewish Context 91 T. Zeb. 1.4–5; T. Ash. 5.4; T. Jos. 1.3) – though this may involve a good deal of explaining about their role in the sale of Joseph into slavery (T. Zeb. 1.5–4.13), and Reuben concedes that the period of his sinlessness dates from the time of his encounter with Bilhah (T. Reub. 4.4). 16. Satan makes an obligatory appearance in Testament of Job; but no more than in the canonical counterpart is Satan able to act without divine authorization (T. Job 8.2–3; 16.2; 20.2). And though Satan does succeed in leading Job’s wife astray (23.11; 26.6), Job proves more than his match – as Satan himself admits, with sobs and shame (27.2–6). Job’s own proverbial righteousness reaches unparalleled heights in the Testament when he follows up his feeding of widows by accompanying their hymn-singing on the lyre (14.2–3). 17. In Testament of Abraham,59 the patriarch’s righteousness warrants his singling out for the honor of being informed in advance – by Michael, God’s Commander-in-Chief – that he is about to leave the vain world and journey to God (T. Abr. 1.4–7). So righteous does he prove to Michael that the angel cannot bring himself to break the news to Abraham (4.6). At last Abraham is told – and flatly refuses to accompany Michael back to God. Ultimately he strikes a bargain, saying that he would be willing to quit this life if he could first be shown ‘all the inhabited world and all the created things which [God] established’ (9.4–6). The wish is granted. But Abraham, who had himself lived without sin, has no mercy on sinners when he sees them and invokes divine judgment upon them. God has to stop the chariot on its tour since, if Abraham ‘were to see all those who pass their lives in sin, he would destroy everything that exists’ (10.12–13). God himself is merciful, giving sinners every chance to ‘convert and live’ (10.14). In the judgment scene that follows, the wicked are said to far outnumber the righteous (11.12). But both are to be found: there is (again) no suggestion that humans are incapable of doing good. 18. The Letter of Aristeas blithely assumes that all humankind worships the God of Israel, albeit under different names (16); it is the part of piety to acknowledge that God, the creator of all, directs the ‘acts and intentions’ of all human beings whenever they attend to what is right (18).60 It is a gift of God to be a doer of good works and not of the opposite. (231) Self-control…is impossible to achieve unless God disposes the heart and mind toward it. (237) You [King Ptolemy II] excel all men in your moderation and humanity – God having endowed you with these gifts. (290) You consider injustice the greatest evil, and by your just government in all things have won glory for yourself which is imperishable – God granting you to have a pure mind untainted by any evil. (292; cf. also 238, 248, 271, 272, 274, 282, etc.)

Bad company can, to be sure, lead to a person’s ruin (130). And humanity’s inclination to pleasure has led to much injustice and greed (277). ‘The virtuous 59. Recension A is cited throughout. 60. Cf. Boccaccini, Middle Judaism, pp. 172–74. For a similar insistence in Philo, see John Barclay’s paper in this volume.

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disposition, on the other hand, restrains those who are attracted to the rule of pleasure, and commands them to respect self-control and justice more highly. God directs all these matters’ (278). In short, the God who creates and governs all lies behind all that is good. That said, nothing suggests that the human beings God has made are incapable of doing good. 19. Israel’s habitual waywardness is well known to the author of Jubilees (1.7–14, 22). Nonetheless there is no doubt that Israelites are in a position to do what is right, should they choose to do so: such a capacity is implied in the exhortations found throughout the book, and it is confirmed by the recognition of righteous people within Israel (17.17–18; 23.10; 35.3, 6, 12, etc.). Even the attacks of demons against them fail (18.9–12; 19.28; cf. 1.20; 12.20). Moreover, God has ordained the rites of the Day of Atonement to cleanse Israel of its sins (34.18–19), and repentance is open even to sinners within Israel (1.15, 23; 5.17– 18; 41.25) – provided they have not committed any of the unforgiveable sins, about which Jubilees has a good deal to say (15.33–34; 30.14; 33.18, etc.). Gentiles are another matter.61 That none does what is right is self-evident to our author (21.21; 22.16–18); nor is it thinkable that any will survive the day of judgment (15.26; 22.22). That our author believes them culpable for their wrongdoing is also clear (5.13–16). What is not apparent – the issue does not exercise the author of Jubilees – is whether there was ever any chance that they could do otherwise. For one thing, the laws of Torah, including those that distinguish Jews from Gentiles – Sabbath observance, circumcision, observance of Jewish festivals – are the laws by which the universe is run; even angels observe them (2.17– 22; 6.17–19; 15.25–27, etc.); yet Gentiles do not, and apparently cannot – the text stresses that the Sabbath in particular was granted solely to Israel (2.31–33; cf. also 15.28–29) – and are damned for their failure (2.25; 15.26). Moreover, they are deceived by demons, who ‘are (intended) to corrupt and lead astray’ (10.8; cf. 7.27; 8.3; 11.5–6). On the one hand, subjection to demonic forces may be portrayed as a divine judgment for human sin (‘because the evil of the sons of men is great’ [10.8]); yet God is also said to have delivered the Gentile nations into the power of demons in order that they might be led astray – while reserving Israel for his own rule. (There are) many nations and many people, and they all belong to (God), but over all of them he caused spirits to rule so that they might lead them astray from following him. But over Israel he did not cause any angel or spirit to rule because he alone is their ruler and he will protect them. (15.31–32; cf. 16.17–18)

20. The Ascension of Isaiah speaks of a prince of the forces of evil, variously named Sammael, Beliar or Satan. Beliar is called ‘the angel of iniquity who rules this world’ (2.4); Manasseh’s wickedness is linked to Beliar, who is said to dwell in Manasseh’s heart (1.9; 3.11). Though the text has many Christian interpola-

61. Cf. Terence L. Donaldson, Paul and the Gentiles: Remapping the Apostle’s Convictional World (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), pp. 52–53: ‘Without a doubt, the most unrelentingly negative characterization of the status of the Gentiles is to be found in Jubilees… No other text is as categorical in restricting salvation to Israel’.

WESTERHOLM Paul’s Anthropological ‘Pessimism’ in its Jewish Context 93 tions, these elements of the text require no such explanation. There is no reflection on whether the influence of demonic forces can be overcome. 21. In Joseph and Asenath, Joseph is portrayed as a paragon of virtue; Levi and Benjamin, too, fear the Lord and do what is right (22.13; 23.9; 27.1). The great sin in the book is the worship of ‘dead and dumb idols’ (11.7–8; 12.5); but even for this sin there is repentance, and people of all nations who ‘attach themselves to the Most High God’ find refuge under the ‘wings’ of Asenath (15.7; 19.5), who herself repented and found new life in the service of the true God (8.9; 27.10). 22. The Life of Adam and Eve (extant in Greek as Apoc. Mos. [Apocalypse of Moses] and in Latin as Vita) shares with much Jewish literature of the period a tendency to account for what the biblical record left unexplained: it was at a time when the angels who normally guarded Eve were preoccupied with worshipping the Lord that she was deceived by the words of the serpent (Vita 33), who had been deceived by the flattery of the devil (Apoc. Mos. 16), who himself was jealous of humankind because he had been banished from heaven’s glory for his refusal to worship Adam (Vita 12–16). Adam in turn was deceived by the devil, who used Eve’s voice (Apoc. Mos. 21.3–5). All manner of evil befell creation as a result, including the ‘evil’ heart that humans possess and the concrete sins that they commit (Vita 44.2; Apoc. Mos. 10.2; 32.2; cf. 13.5). Yet humans are certainly thought still able to do the good and avoid evil (Apoc. Mos. 28.4; 30.1); indeed, Adam is assured by God, ‘There shall not be abolished from your seed forever (those who would) serve me’ (Vita 27.3). 23. Pseudo-Philo portrays Israel’s habitual waywardness in terms as bleak as those of the Deuteronomistic history itself; still, there is no suggestion that anything other than avoidable faults – the Israelites’ failure to attend to God’s law and the corruption of their own hearts – is responsible (LAB 12.2, 4; 22.5; 28.4; 30.4; 35.3; 49.3). We are reminded at several points of the good things of which humanity has been deprived as a result of Adam’s sin (13.8–9; 19.10; 26.14); but, though the universal sinfulness of his descendants is acknowledged (19.9), it is not itself ascribed to Adam. The gift of God’s everlasting law to Israel made it possible for all humanity – Gentiles explicitly included – to learn and do what is right (11.1–2). And righteous people who proved faithful in the midst of crooked and perverse generations are repeatedly mentioned (1.16; 4.11, 16; 6.3; 16.4–5; 38.1–2, etc.). God-pleasing behaviour is thus clearly within human capacities, even if practised only by a minority. 24. Pseudo-Phocylides is very concerned with the bad things that people do, and tells them not to do them; the operative assumption seems to be that people who are told what not to do are able to comply. The text never speculates about the origin of evil or suggests that evil is more than the bad things people do.62

62. On the poem’s peculiar combination of Jewish and Hellenistic traditions and its author as ‘a highly acculturated Jew, educated in the Greek literary and moral tradition and willing to explore the common ground between his Jewish heritage and his Hellenistic education’, see Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora, pp. 336–46.

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25. The Psalms of Solomon, like the Wisdom of Solomon, are explicit in crediting human beings with the capacity to do what is right as well as what is wrong, noting that they will be judged according to their deeds.63 Our works (are) in the choosing and power of our souls, to do right and wrong in the works of our hands, and in your righteousness you oversee human beings. The one who does what is right saves up life for himself with the Lord, and the one who does what is wrong causes his own life to be destroyed, for the Lord’s righteous judgments are according to the individual and the household. (Pss. Sol. 9.4–5)

Like their canonical counterparts, these psalms frequently distinguish between the ‘righteous’ and the ‘sinners’. Both sin, to be sure; but ‘sinners’ are those who arrogantly persist in sinning. The confidence of the righteous (comes) from God their savior; sin after sin does not visit the house of the righteous. The righteous constantly searches his house, to remove his unintentional sins … [The sinner] adds sin upon sin in his life; he falls – his fall is serious – and he will not get up. The destruction of the sinner is forever, And he will not be remembered when (God) looks after the righteous. (3.6–11)

God disciplines the righteous so that their sin does not increase (10.1–3; 13.6–11; 16.11); but he destroys the wicked (13.11). 26. The sectarian literature of the Dead Sea Scrolls64 contains descriptions of the ‘voluntary’ entrance into the community of those who undertake its vows (1QS I, 7, 11; V, 1, 6, 8, 10, etc.; cf. 1QH VI, 17–18; XIV, 6–7); expectations or claims of right behaviour (or even ‘perfection’) on the part of its members (1QS I, 13–15; II, 1–2; IX, 18–21; CD II, 14–16; VII, 4–6; 4QMMT 93–94; 1Q28a [1QSa] I, 2–3; 1QpHab VII, 10–12; VIII, 1–3; 1Q28b [1QSb] I, 1–2); exhortations (directed primarily but not exclusively to community members; cf. 4QMMT 109–117) that imply the ability of the exhorted to do as they are told; and condemnations of the wicked that imply (or, indeed, insist on) their responsibility for their misdeeds (1QS II, 11–17; V, 10–13; 4Q169 [4QpNah] 4, III, 3–4; 1QpHab VIII, 8–13; 1QH XII, 12–19; XV, 12–13, etc.). In short, there are abundant grounds for affirming that in this literature, too, human are deemed able to do both good and evil. Yet the qualifications that must accompany such a claim for the corpus of literature from Qumran are both more numerous and more radical than with any of the other (non-Pauline) texts we have treated. Here we can simply list the most 63. Cf. Simon J. Gathercole, Where is Boasting? Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul’s Response in Romans 1–5 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), p. 66: ‘What we have here [in the Psalms of Solomon] is probably the clearest expression from Second Temple times of a symmetrical judgment according to works, leading to salvation or condemnation’. 64. References and quotations are taken from Florentino García Martínez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated: The Qumran Texts in English (Leiden: E.J. Brill; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2nd edn, 1996).

WESTERHOLM Paul’s Anthropological ‘Pessimism’ in its Jewish Context 95 important qualifications without examining them in detail or asking how (or whether) they can be thought to cohere with the evidence noted above for human moral competence. i. According to the Community Rule (1QS),65 God has assigned angelic and human beings alike to the dominion of either the Prince of Lights or the Angel of Darkness (1QS III, 17–21; IV, 15–26; cf. 1QM XIII, 9–15; 1QH VI, 11–12). Inasmuch as the lot to which each has been assigned was determined before their birth, God can be said to have created both the righteous and the wicked (1QH VII, 16–26; XII, 38). Moreover, each individual deed done by the righteous and the wicked alike has been predetermined by God (1QS III, 13–17; cf. 1QM I, 10; 4Q180 [4QAges] 1,1–4; 1QH IX, 7–8, 20; cf. what Josephus says about the Essenes, Ant. 13.172; 18.18). The Angel of Darkness exercises ‘total dominion’ over his thralls (1QS III, 20–21); even the Sons of Light are subject to his influence – this explains their continued sins – though God assists them in their struggles (1QS III, 21–25; cf. 11Q5 XIX, 15). From this perspective, then, the Sons of Darkness (including all Gentiles) cannot be said to have the capacity to do good; and that the Sons of Light may do so is (again, from this perspective) not a consequence of any inherent capacity of their own. ii. As we have seen, several texts in the Jewish Scriptures insist that, in the presence of God, no mere human being can be deemed righteous; the notion finds occasional restatement in post-biblical Jewish literature as well. It becomes a major theme, however, in the Qumran hymns: the continued sinfulness of community members themselves is repeatedly stressed. Any ‘righteousness’ they possess must come from God (cf. 1QH IV, 21–24). O YHWH, do not judge me by my sin because no-one living is just in your presence. (11Q5 XXIV, 7; cf. 1QH XV, 28; 1QH XVII, 14–17) [One born of woman] is a structure of dust shaped with water, his base is the guilt of sin, vile unseemliness, source of impurity, over which a spirit of degeneracy rules… Only by your goodness is man acquitted, [purified] by your abundant compa[ssion.] (1QH V, 21–23; cf. IX, 21–23; XII, 29–32) However, I belong to evil humankind to the assembly of wicked flesh; my failings, my transgressions, my sins, {…} with the depravities of my heart, belong to the assembly of worms and of those who walk in darkness. For to man (does not belong) his path, 65. The crucial text (the ‘Sermon on the Two Spirits’, 1QS III, 13–IV, 24) is treated at length in Philip Alexander’s contribution to this volume, which demonstrates as well that the dualism and determinism of this text is ‘all pervasive in Qumran theology’. Alexander also notes, however, that the scrolls can speak of people sinning without any suggestion that they are anything other than free agents, faced with choices and choosing between them. He sees in the latter passages reflections of the everyday human experience of freedom.

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iii. Humans can only do what is right if they know what they are required to do;66 but knowledge of (the correct interpretation of) God’s laws is now confined to the community (1QS IX, 18–21) – and is a signal gift of God’s favour. Others are in no position to obey God’s laws (though, to be sure, those who rejected the Teacher of Righteousness are deemed guilty for that reason). But with those who remained steadfast in God’s precepts, with those who were left from among them, God established his covenant with Israel for ever, revealing to them hidden matters in which all Israel had gone astray: his holy Sabbaths and his glorious feasts, his just stipulations and his truthful paths, and the wishes of his will which man must do in order to live by them. (CD III, 12–16)

3. Preliminary Conclusions ‘Can mortals be righteous before God?’ Paul’s negative answer to the question follows naturally from his conviction that God ‘delivered up’ his Son for the salvation of humankind. The steps in the argument seem straightforward. 1. God requires goodness of all human beings (a goodness that is spelled out in the Mosaic law). 2. By God’s design, Christ died for our sins. 3. If, in God’s view, humans could be righteous by doing what is good (= through the law), then Christ would not have had to die. 4. Hence, in God’s view, humans cannot do the goodness God requires of them: ‘No one will be justified by the works of the law’.67 Indeed, the radical nature of humanity’s sinfulness can only have been underlined by the drastic nature of the divine remedy: humanity corrupted by sin must die with Christ on the cross if it is to rise to life in the new creation, in which sin can have no place (Romans 6). It would also seem to follow, however, that a Judaism for which Jesus is not the Christ does not have the same reasons for thinking humanity incapable of 66. Cf. Alexander’s insistence (in his contribution to this volume) that (in 1QS) ‘people cannot be righteous without a knowledge of the truth’, and that the ‘whole practical scheme of salvation’ implied in the text is ‘based on study of Torah and the words of the Teacher of Righteousness’. 67. Gal. 2.16; cf. Rom. 3.20. On one of the many interpretations of Gal. 2.17, the logic behind the verse (in its context) roughly parallels that spelled out above: Gentiles but not Jews are acknowledged to be ‘sinners’ (2.15); but if ‘we ourselves who are Jews’ have believed in Christ in order to be justified by him, then it follows that we too are ‘sinners’; i.e., from the solution the plight is defined. Cf. also the pivotal text in Sanders’ argument, Gal. 2.21. One should not, of course, attribute Paul’s negative statements about human moral capacities solely to the logic of such arguments. Paul was clearly affronted (as many Jews were) by the idolatry and immorality of the Gentile world; he must have sensed the enormity of his own wrong in ‘violently persecuting the church of God’ (Gal. 1.13); he no doubt shared with other religious Jews a profound sense that, in the presence of God, no human can be ‘pure’, etc. There is no reason to think that his head and his heart were not at one on this issue.

WESTERHOLM Paul’s Anthropological ‘Pessimism’ in its Jewish Context 97 doing good. Furthermore, a Judaism for which the Sinaitic covenant provides the framework within which God’s favour is enjoyed appears committed to the conviction that human beings (or Jews at least) can do the good required by the covenant for participation in its blessings. Different understandings of the required ‘good’ account for much of the diversity that characterized Judaism at the turn of the era; but all who think the Sinaitic covenant still in operation as a covenant of blessing must think humans capable of meeting its conditions.68 The anthropologies of Paul and Judaism cannot, then, be considered in isolation from their respective ‘soteriologies’: different plights demand different solutions, and (as Sanders has reminded us) different solutions demand different plights. Broadly speaking, our survey of the literature supports the notion that Paul’s anthropology, in corresponding to his ‘soteriology’, is a good deal more ‘negative’ than the anthropology typical among his contemporary Jews. Even a swift survey such as this, however, suggests nuances that may be added to broad claims of this sort. I conclude this paper by listing a number of observations to be tested in a more thorough examination of the literature. 1. Though Jewish sources routinely distinguish between the ‘righteous’ and ‘sinners/the wicked’ based on the fundamental orientation of people’s lives, they also routinely acknowledge that all human beings do in fact sin and that all are in need of God’s mercy. The sense that no human can (really) be ‘righteous’ in God’s eyes is also occasionally represented (e.g., 1 Esdras, 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch). It becomes thematic in the Qumran hymns, which stress (as does Paul) that any ‘righteousness’ possessed by humans must be theirs by divine gift. 2. The portrayal of God’s people as historically, and perhaps inherently, rebellious is as frequent in post-biblical Jewish writings as in the Jewish Scriptures themselves. And as in the Jewish Scriptures, there are occasional references to the transformation that God must bring about in the hearts of his people if they are to participate in the coming age of righteousness. These considerations do not, however, lead to a sense that righteous behaviour is beyond human achievement. (See the comments on Baruch, Jubilees, and Pseudo-Philo above. Paul, of course, believed himself to be living in the eschatological age of transformation and new creation, and believed such transformation to be a prerequisite for Godpleasing human behaviour.) 3. At times the number of ‘righteous’ may be seen as very limited indeed (e.g., 4 Ezra, Testament of Abraham, Pseudo-Philo); this, too, does not lead to a sense that righteous behaviour is beyond human achievement. (For Paul, ‘there is none righteous’.) 4. Though the sin of Adam and Eve is acknowledged to have brought death to humankind, it is generally not thought to have determined the moral character of their descendants (see 2 Baruch). Where humans are thought to be plagued by an evil heart (or inclination), they are not deemed incapable of doing good (4 Ezra, Life of Adam and Eve, rabbinic texts). (For Paul, Adam’s disobedience made ‘many’ [= all] ‘sinners’.) 68. Cf. Watson, Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith, p. 342.

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5. An unexpected (and perhaps counter-intuitive) result of our survey is that there appears to be no direct relationship in the texts between the activity of demonic forces and human moral capacities. Where the activity of demonic forces is emphasized (e.g., 1 Enoch, 2 Enoch, Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Jubilees), it is not thought to preclude the possibility of human goodness. (In Jubilees, Gentiles ruled by demons are incorrigibly wicked, though whether the rule or the wickedness comes first appears to be a chicken-and-egg proposition.) Conversely, in the texts that are most pessimistic about human moral performance (4 Ezra, Testament of Abraham, Pseudo-Philo), demonic powers are not a factor. (Nor, as we have seen, do they figure largely in Paul’s accounts of human sin.) 6. The sectarian literature of the Dead Sea Scrolls is here an exception: those under the rule of the Angel of Darkness (a ‘lot’ to which they have been assigned) are incapable of pleasing God and destined for damnation. The predestination of the scrolls does not, however, eliminate human responsibility. 7. Where (as in Jubilees) righteous behaviour is thought to be found only among those who submit to the distinctively Jewish practices prescribed in the Mosaic law (thus automatically excluding Gentiles who do not know them), or where (as in the sectarian literature of the Dead Sea Scrolls) it is thought to be found only among those who submit to a recently revealed interpretation of Mosaic statutes (thus automatically excluding most Jews as well), the Jewish literature introduces limitations to the possibilities of human righteousness unknown even to Paul. 8. A number of Jewish texts envisage the possibility of Gentiles who are righteous as Gentiles (e.g., Wisdom of Solomon; Pseudo-Phocylides); others are at least open to Gentiles who are willing to become proselytes (e.g., Judith, Joseph and Asenath). Some texts, however, write off the entire Gentile world as hopelessly mired in sin (e.g., Jubilees, the sectarian literature of the Dead Sea Scrolls). (For Paul, ‘there is no difference’ between Jews and Gentiles in terms either of sinfulness or of the path to righteousness through faith.) 9. A number of texts add vast numbers of contemporary Jews to the ranks of ‘sinners’. This is, as noted above, particularly true of the Qumran literature. Here, though life is still lived within the framework of the Mosaic covenant, the correct interpretation of its laws is a matter of recent revelation, and obedience to God’s will is only possible within the community to which that revelation was entrusted. In a sense, then, the Qumran literature occupies a half-way position between, on the one hand, those Jews who believed that God’s favour was enjoyed by all who were willing to submit to the laws of the covenant, and Paul, who no longer regarded the Sinaitic covenant as a salvific institution.

Chapter 6 CONSTRUCTING AN ANTITHESIS: PAULINE AND OTHER JEWISH PERSPECTIVES ON DIVINE AND HUMAN AGENCY Francis Watson Paul has typically been characterized as the archetypal opponent of the claim that divine saving action is consequent upon human action that conforms to the revealed will of God. On this view, what Paul opposes is the claim that the primary location of divine saving action is the eschatological future. The present is characterized above all by the demand for modes of human conduct oriented towards the future divine vindication; divine action is most fundamentally reaction rather than initiative. In opposition to all such apparent prioritizing of human over divine agency, Paul insists that God’s act in Christ encompasses past and present as well as future, and that the primary human act elicited by the divine saving action is simply its own acknowledgment as divine saving action – an acknowledgment or recognition that Paul calls ‘faith’. The great Pauline antitheses – faith and works, grace and law, Spirit and letter, slavery and freedom, and so on – are typically understood as attempts to articulate the opposition between two competing views of the relation of divine to human agency. Thus, speaking of the ‘remnant’ of faithful Israelites that exists now as it did in Elijah’s day, Paul states that this remnant is founded on the divine election of grace – adding in explanation that ‘if it is by grace it is no longer by works, for then grace would no longer be grace’ (Rom. 11.6). ‘Grace’ here stands for divine saving agency, whereas ‘works’ represents a form of human agency which appears to have become superfluous in the light of ‘grace’. Paul here leaves his readers in no doubt as to the sharpness of the antithesis he discovers at this point. His statement echoes an earlier assertion about the divine election, where the case of Jacob and Esau is used to show that election is realized through God’s call, irrespective of the good or evil deeds that they may later have performed (Rom. 9.11–12). Whether the reference is to ‘grace’ or to ‘the one who calls’, Paul’s understanding of divine agency entails the corollary, ‘not by works’ (9.12) or ‘no longer by works’ (11.6). On the conventional western and Protestant view, what is excluded here is the belief that salvation originates in the human endeavour to live by the revealed divine will. This belief is excluded on the grounds that God’s saving action in Christ is radically prior to all human action. That salvation is ‘by grace’ means that it is ‘not by works’: the affirmation and the negation are interdependent.

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In opposition to such an account, recent Pauline scholarship has sought to restore the Pauline antitheses to an original historical context within Second Temple Judaism. It is now argued that to translate the antitheses into opposing views on divine and human agency is to replace the apostle’s concrete and practical concerns with theoretical abstractions. We should be wary of reading the later controversies of Augustine and Pelagius or Luther and Catholicism into the Pauline texts.1 To do so is not only to be guilty of anachronism, it is also to perpetuate a negative and unfounded caricature of the Judaism against which Paul reacts. On this view, the primary task of the exegete is to make first-century sense of Paul’s texts; and such a sense will differ fundamentally from the spurious sense foisted upon them by the devotees of theologically inspired abstraction. The question is whether we are compelled to accept this polarizing of ‘old’ and ‘new’ perspectives on Paul – a polarization that seems perversely to mirror the structure of the Pauline antitheses themselves. In this paper, I shall develop a position that seeks to overcome the false dichotomy between the old Paul and the new one, between the ‘apostle of faith’ and the ‘Paul of history’.2 The argument will be based on the following three assumptions, which I have elaborated elsewhere:3 (1) Paul is most appropriately located within a Second Temple Jewish context when he is understood as an interpreter of Scripture alongside other such interpreters. (2) Opposing views on divine and human agency are indeed to be found in Pauline and other Second Temple Jewish writings, and these derive from differences in scriptural interpretation and hermeneutics. (3) The Pauline antithesis is nevertheless constructed within Pauline discourse, outside which it simply appears as one further manifestation of the interpretative difference that is everywhere evident in early Jewish literature. As these summary statements indicate, it is possible to envisage a position that, like the Matthean scribe, draws on interpretative treasures new and old – rather than playing them off against each other, as though a ‘post-Sanders’ perspective had to be opposed at every point to a Lutheran or Augustinian one. The new is represented by a close attention to the realities of Second Temple Judaism, within which Pauline Christianity is simply one among a number of variant or deviant forms. The old is represented by the continued preoccupation with the relation of divine and human agency, although mediated now through the Pauline reading of the scriptural texts.4 1. See, for example, the forceful statement of this point by S. Stowers, A Rereading of Romans, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1994, pp. 1–16. 2. The distinction is borrowed from the title of an article by N. T. Wright, ‘The Paul of History and the Apostle of Faith’, TynBul 29 (1978), pp. 61–88. 3. See my book, Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith (London and New York: T&T Clark International, 2004). 4. For important recent work more or less critical of the ‘new perspective’, see D. A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien and Mark A. Seifrid (ed.), Justification and Variegated Nomism: Volume, vol. 1: The Complexities of Second Temple Judaism, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001; Simon J. Gathercole, Where is Boasting? Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul’s

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On two occasions, Paul cites a scriptural text that seems to him to encapsulate a soteriology that is other than, indeed opposed to, that of the gospel: ‘The one who does these things shall live by them’ (Lev. 18.5). On one occasion, Paul cites this text in the context of a controversy with Christians who seek to harmonize the gospel with the way of life prescribed by the law (Gal. 3.12); on the other, he has in mind an ‘Israel’ which ‘seeks to establish its own righteousness’ (Rom. 10.5; cf. 9.31, 10.3). In both cases, Paul sets the law-observance highlighted in the Leviticus text over against a text that speaks instead of the priority of ‘faith’, the recognition and acknowledgment of the divine saving action (Gal. 3.11, citing Hab. 2.4; Rom. 10.6–9, citing Deut. 30.12–14). The Deuteronomy text has, indeed, been drastically rewritten,5 and is therefore attributed not to Moses but to a personified ‘Righteousness of faith’: and yet the scriptural text is still clearly marked out from the Pauline glosses. It seems, then, that Scripture bears witness not to a single soteriology but to two. It speaks of the faith that acknowledges God’s prior, comprehensive saving action, but it also speaks of human law-observance as the divinely appointed way to life. Readers of Scripture for whom the Leviticus text articulates its central message will read Scripture as a whole very differently from Pauline readers who find their own hermeneutical key in a text such as Hab. 2.4. The conflict of interpretations is grounded in Scripture itself, and the interpretations conflict precisely over the relationship of divine to human agency. In the Leviticus text, the divine life-giving action is consequent upon a prior law-observance. In the Habakkuk or (rewritten) Deuteronomy texts, the human act of faith is simply the recognition elicited by the prior divine saving action – which, as we learn elsewhere, is grounded exclusively in the unconditional promise to Abraham (Gen. 12.3, 15.5, 17.5; Gal. 3.8–9, Rom. 4.16, 18).6 The Pauline doctrine of faith presents itself as an interpretation of Scripture, and can also account for the fact that this interpretation is unpersuasive to non-Pauline readers of Scripture – Christian or otherwise. On this account, Paul attributes to Christian and non-Christian Jews the view articulated in the Leviticus text, that salvation or ‘life’ must be attained by way of the observance of the law. In recent scholarship, it has typically been assumed that Paul cannot have attributed any such view to his fellow Jews7 – or that,

Response in Romans 1–5 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002); Stephen Westerholm, Perspectives Old and New on Paul: The ‘Lutheran’ Paul and his Critics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004). 5. Details in my Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith, pp. 329–41. 6. For the Pauline tendency to reduce the multiple ‘promises’ to a singular ‘promise’, see Gal. 3.16–18; Rom. 4.16–18. 7. So J. D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998), p. 153, where the text is taken to mean that ‘keeping the statutes and ordinances of the law was the way of living appropriate to the covenant… Moses did not say, and Paul did not understand him to say, that keeping the law was a means of earning or gaining life (in the future)’. For a critique of this view, see Simon J. Gathercole, ‘Torah, Life, and Salvation: Leviticus 18:5 in Early Judaism and the New Testament’, in C. A. Evans and J. A. Sanders (eds.), From Prophecy to Testament: The Function of the Old Testament in the New (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2004), pp. 131–50; see also my Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith, pp. 320–23.

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if he did so, he was wrong to do so.8 Why? Because we now recognize that first-century Judaism was not a religion of legalistic works-righteousness but emphasized the priority of the divine grace manifested in the covenant. We may agree that pejorative and confused terms such as ‘legalism’ and ‘worksrighteousness’ should be eliminated. Yet there is no a priori reason to suppose that readers of Torah during the Second Temple period could not have chosen to highlight the fundamental significance of diligent, faithful, costly law-observance as the way to the fullness of the divine blessings for Israel or for the individual. Such a position would not necessarily entail a denial of the covenant or a fundamental misrepresentation of Scripture or tradition. If Pauline antithesis represents an opposition between two readings of Scripture, it follows that it is almost exclusively to be found in passages where the question of an appropriate scriptural soteriology is at issue.9 At this point alone, it matters to Paul to contrast a soteriology grounded in the practices of lawobservance (Leviticus) with one that appeals to a realized divine saving action grounded solely in the unconditional divine promise (Genesis). In the (more numerous) passages that speak of the practice of the Christian life, there is little if any sense of a potential tension between appeals to human and to divine agency. It is therefore wholly misguided to seek to impose the characteristic structure of Paul’s righteousness by faith language on Pauline discourse in its entirety. In ethically oriented contexts, Paul can speak of human agency as incorporated within the transformative divine agency (cf. Phil. 2.12–13), but the antithetical model developed in contexts of scriptural controversy has little relevance for him outside those contexts.10 In the discussion that follows, two contrasting texts have been selected which exemplify a scriptural hermeneutic based on the principle enunciated in Leviticus 18.5, and which – to that extent – conform to the hermeneutic that Paul attributes to his contemporaries. As we shall see, however, the two texts (4QMMT and 4 Maccabees) develop their respective appeals for faithful law-observance in very different ways, on the basis of different scriptural texts and hermeneutical assumptions. The contrast between the two formally analogous positions will demonstrate that the Pauline antithesis between faith and law is a Pauline construct. Paul’s attribution to his contemporaries of a certain view of human and divine agency is not unfounded, but it should not be understood as a simple statement of uninterpreted fact. 8. So H. Räisänen, ‘Legalism and Salvation by the Law’ (1980), repr. in his The Torah and Christ: Essays in German and English on the Problem of the Law in Early Christianity (Helsinki: Finnish Exegetical Society, 1986), pp. 25–54. 9. 1 Cor. 1.18–31 appears to be the only significant exception. 10. I am therefore in substantial agreement with Troels Engberg-Pedersen’s illuminating contribution to this volume, although I believe he is wrong to suggest that an oppositional understanding of divine in relation to human agency is a product of the modern era. Josephus’ depictions of Sadducees, Pharisees and Essenes refer to competing claims about the relation of divine to human agency (War 2.162–66; Ant. 13.171–73). Like Paul (another first-century Pharisee), Josephus uses this contrast strategically, for a highly specific purpose. In no sense does it constitute the heart or ‘centre’ of his thought as a whole.

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1. Works of the Law and Israel’s Good Like Paul’s letter to the Galatians, 4QMMT is a letter arising from an interpretative disagreement over ‘works of the law’. In 4QMMT as in Galatians, this has led to a sectarian separation from the wider community: ‘We have separated [wn#rp] from the multitude of the people…and from participating in these matters…’ (C 7–8) – although the addressee is not to understand this separation as a sign of treachery or wickedness (C 8–9).11 With the community he represents, the author is opposed to current practice in the temple at a number of points, and he writes to inform his addressee about these disputed points and to persuade him to accept the sect’s view of them, with a view to reform. In a concluding summary, it is said that ‘we have written you a selection of works of the law [hrwth y#(m tcqm] which we consider to be for your good and for that of your people’ (C 26–27). The language here echoes the unfortunately fragmentary opening: ‘These are a selection of our words [wnyrbd tcqm]… works [My#(m] which we…’ (B 1–2).12 The ‘B’ section lists around twenty of these ‘words’ or ‘works’, proposed regulations that explicitly diverge from current practice. A fragmentary line may suggest that the common theme of these regulations is priestly purity (B 3). In some cases, the scriptural basis to the regulation is clear.13 Thus, according to Leviticus, the ‘sacrifices of well being’ (Miyml#) can take the form of a ‘thanksgiving’ (ihdwt), in which case the animal sacrifice must be accompanied by offerings of leavened and unleavened bread (Lev. 7.11–14) – that is by a ‘cereal offering’ (hxnm) (cf. Num. 15.1–12). This sacrifice differs from other sacrifices of well being in the requirement that the sacrificial flesh must be consumed on the day of the sacrifice, rather than being left until the following day (Lev. 7.15; cf. 7.16–17, 19.5–6). Nothing is said about the consumption of the cereal offering, however. The author of 4QMMT opposes the pragmatic view that this may be left until the following day, insisting that it be consumed on the day of the sacrifice; otherwise the priestly practice will cause iniquity to be imputed to the people (B 9–13). Indeed, it is this danger that underlies all the proposed regulations (B 26–27): ultimately it is the well being of the entire people that is at stake.14 In Lev. 17.3–4 we read of the guilt imputed to the person who kills an ox, lamb or goat inside or outside the camp without bringing it to the door of the tent 11. For the text of this work, see E. Qimron and John Strugnell (eds.). DJD, X (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994). I have also consulted F. García Martínez and E. Tigchelaar, The Dead Sea Scrolls: Study Edition, vol. 2 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1998). Translations are my own. 12. The inclusio here is noted by Carolyn J. Sharp, ‘Phinehan Zeal and Rhetorical Strategy in 4QMMT’, RevQ 18 (1997), pp. 207–22 (207). 13. A useful overview of the scriptural material relevant to 4QMMT is provided by George J. Brooke, ‘The Explicit Presentation of Scripture in 4QMMT’, in M. Bernstein, F. García Martínez and J. Kampen (eds.), Legal Texts and Legal Issues: Proceedings of the Second Meeting of the International Organisation for Qumran Studies (Leiden and New York: E.J. Brill, 1997), pp. 67–88 (83). 14. See the discussion of this passage in relation to a parallel in the Temple Scroll in L. H. Schiffman, ‘Miqsat Ma‘aseh Ha-Torah and the Temple Scroll’, RevQ 14 (1990), pp. 435–57 (436–38).

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of meeting as a sacrifice. In citing this text, the author of 4QMMT is especially interested in its topography, asserting that ‘the tent of meeting’ corresponds to the temple, ‘the camp’ to Jerusalem, and ‘outside the camp’ to locations outside Jerusalem. According to Lev. 4.12, the remains of the animal sacrificed as a sin offering are to be taken ‘outside the camp’ and burnt ‘in a clean place where the ashes are poured out’. Since Jerusalem represents the camp, the author of 4QMMT argues that this place for the disposal of sacrificial remains must be located outside Jerusalem, ‘the place which he chose from among all the tribes of Israel’ (B 31–33; cf. Deut.12.11). Here and elsewhere, the author is concerned to assert the holiness of Jerusalem (cf. B 58–61), in opposition perhaps to the practice of disposing of refuse within the city limits. In Lev. 19.19, various types of ‘mixture’ are prohibited: one type of animal breeding with another, different kinds of seed sown in a single field, garments made of different materials. There are further examples of these illicit mixtures in Deut. 22.9–11. The author of 4QMMT draws on both passages, extending their underlying principle to the illegitimate marriages contracted by some of the priests (B 75–82): the ‘mixture’ here is that of the holy with the unclean.15 At these and a number of other points, the author communicates to his addressee various of the priestly ‘works of the law’ that he wishes to establish, in opposition to current practice. In many cases, there is a scriptural basis to the proposed regulations. The author is not only concerned with individual practices, however, but also with a scripturally based understanding of Israel’s current situation, for which he has recourse especially to Deuteronomy. In the ‘C’ section of this text, the author seeks to impart a new understanding of the law and the other scriptures as a whole: the author(s) ‘have [writte]n to you [sing.] so that you may understand the book of Moses and the book[s of the p]rophets and David’ (C 10).16 In particular, the author is anxious to instruct his addressee about the Deuteronomic ‘blessings and curses’ (C 14–15, 18–19, 20). The first of three scriptural citations is fragmentary, but the second and third are clearly identifiable: It is written that ‘[you will turn aside] from the w[a]y, and evil will befall [you]’. And it is wri[tten]: ‘And it shall come to pass, when [all] these [things shall co]me upon you in the last days, the blessing and the curse, [then you will take] it to your h[eart]. And you will return to him with all your heart [and with al]l [your] soul’. (C 12–16)

The passages cited here are drawn from Deut. 31.29 and 30.1–2: For I know that after my death you will surely act corruptly and you will turn aside from the way which I have commanded you, and evil will befall you in the last days, because you will do what is evil in the eyes of YHWH. (Deut. 31.29) And it shall come to pass, when all these things shall come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, then you will take it to your heart in all the

15. According to Carolyn Sharp, however, ‘the mixing in question is between Jews and nonJews, rather than between priests and non-priests’ (‘Phinean Zeal’, p. 217). 16. The assumption that ‘David’ here refers to the third division of the canon is, however, challenged by T. H. Lim (‘The Alleged Reference to the Tripartite Division of the Hebrew Bible’, RevQ 77 [2001], pp. 23–37).

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nations where YHWH your God has driven you. And you will return to YHWH your God and you will obey his voice according to all that I command you this day, you and your children, with all your heart and with all your soul. (Deut. 30.1–2)

These words of Moses, cited accurately though in abbreviated form by the author of 4QMMT, are addressed directly to the recipient of the letter. It is he (as representing the community) who once turned from the way laid down by Moses, but who is now given the opportunity to acknowledge this error and to turn back to the Torah. The passages from Deuteronomy enable the author to present the post-exilic present as a moment of unique opportunity, offering the possibility of a definitive turning away from a past dominated by disobedience and the consequent reality of the divine curse. The addressee finds himself in a position of immense privilege and responsibility; his reaction to the letter will determine whether or not he is to play a leading role in Israel’s final turning back to God. According to Deuteronomy 30.1, the return to YHWH and the Torah will take place ‘when all these things shall come upon you, the blessing and the curse’ and when the addressee ‘takes it to heart’. In his attempt to persuade the addressee that he stands at this critical turning point, the author of 4QMMT must show that the blessing and the curse have already been partially realized in Israel’s history – primarily the curse, since the turning point presupposes the reality of exile and dispersion, but also the blessing. A fragmentary line may have read, ‘[the bles]sing[s in the days of David and] in the days of Solomon the son of David’ (C 18); and this is followed by a better preserved reference to ‘the curses [which] came in the d[ays of Jer]oboam son of Nebat and until the captivity of Jerusalem and of Zedekiah king of Juda[h]’ (C 19). The history of Israel and its monarchs is the outworking of the Mosaic blessings and curses, and the author can therefore conclude: ‘We know that some of the blessings and curses have come which are written in the bo[ok of Mo]ses’ (C 20–21). Since what Moses predicted has come to pass, and since recognition of this occurrence is a precondition for the final return to YHWH (cf. Deut. 30.1), the addressee is invited to acknowledge that Israel’s history has turned out just how Moses said it would. Righteous kings have brought blessing to Israel, unrighteous ones the curse. As Moses implies when he refers to ‘the blessing and the curse’ in that order, the blessing comes first (David[?], Solomon) and is followed by the curse (Jeroboam to Zedekiah). The original blessing of the Israelite monarchy has long since been eclipsed by the curse, but the addressee is in a position to change all that – by implementing the proposed works of the law, ‘for Israel’s good’ (C 31–32). In the author’s citations from Deuteronomy, the phrase, ‘in the last days’ has slipped out of the first text cited (31.29) and found its way into the second (30.1– 2): And it is written: ‘And it shall come to pass, when [all] these [things shall co]me upon you in the last days, the blessing and the curse, [then you will take] it to your h[eart]. And you will return to him with all your heart [and with al]l [your] soul.’ (C 12–16)

Having explained the operation of the blessing and the curse in Israel’s history (C17–21), the author now returns to the phrase, ‘in the last days’:

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Divine and Human Agency in Paul And this is what is meant by ‘the last days’: when they shall return in Isr[ael] to the l[aw …], and they shall not turn bac[k…], though the wicked act wick[edly]. (C 21– 22)

This return to the Torah is already being practised by members of the sect, and the sectarian author here invites the representative of the wider community to join them in it. Thus, the whole passage following the Deuteronomy citations (C 17–22) is devoted to an interpretation of the scriptural references to ‘the blessing and the curse’ and to ‘the last days’, in an attempt to persuade the addressee of his true location within the scripturally preordained history of Israel. The addressee is to return to the law by endorsing the works of the law prescribed in this letter, and in doing so he is to take as his role models those kings of Israel who studied the Torah and whose sins were forgiven.17 David is the pattern for these righteous kings of Israel, who no doubt also include Hezekiah and Josiah – even though the latter two lived during the period between Jeroboam and Zedekiah, which stood as a whole under the law’s curse (cf. Sir. 48.17–49.5). The negative side of Israel’s history here gives way to the positive: Remember the kings of Israe[l] and reflect upon their works [hmhy#(m], how whoever of them feared [the la]w was delivered from troubles; and these were people who stu[d]ied the law [hrwt y#[q]bm] and whose transgressions were forgiven. Remember David, how he was a man of the pious [Mydsx #)]18 and was [de]livered from many troubles and received forgiveness. (C 23–26)

The history of Israel not only tells of the outworking of the divine blessing and curse, it also offers inspiring examples of righteous conduct. The addressee is to identify himself with the righteous kings of Israel who studied the Torah and experienced deliverance and forgiveness as a result – and above all with David, who, though a king, belonged to the company of the ­asidim.19 17. The reference in C 23 to ‘the kings of Israel’ may reflect the usage of the Chronicler (cf. 2 Chr. 28.27; 33.18; 35.18); so M. Bernstein, ‘The Employment and Interpretation of Scripture in 4QMMT: Preliminary Observations’, in John Kampen and Moshe J. Bernstein (eds.), Reading 4QMMT: New Perspectives on Qumran Law and History (Atlanta: Scholars Press), pp. 29–52 (50). 18. Or: ‘a man of pious deeds’. 19. Who is the addressee of 4QMMT? He is addressed respectfully and is differentiated from the Jerusalem priests whose practice is criticized; yet he must be in a position to impose reform if the content of the letter is to be relevant to him. The specific reference to ‘the kings of Israel’ (C 23–26) suggests that the addressee is one of their successors, and that the letter therefore postdates the decision of Aristobulus I to adopt the title of ‘king’ (see Josephus, War 1.70; cf. Ant. 13.301). While Hyrcanus and his father Simon are said to have held ‘the rule of the nation’ together with the high priestly office (1 Macc. 13.42; 14.35, 41–42; 15.2; Ant. 13.291, 299), they are identified primarily by their high priesthood (1 Macc. 14.27; 15.17, 21, 24; 16.24; Ant. 13.230, 259, 267, 282– 83). The addressee of 4QMMT might have been the anti-Pharisaic Alexander Jannaeus (103–76 BCE); so Otto Betz, ‘The Qumran Halakhah Text Miqsat Ma‘asê Ha-TôrƗh (4QMMT) and Sadducean, Essene, and early Pharisaic Tradition’, in D. R. G. Beattie and M. J. McNamara (eds.), The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context (JSOTSup, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), pp. 176–202 (195–96). Traces of a positive view of this figure are found in Qumran literature (see 4Q448 and the discussion of possible references in the pesharim in my Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith, pp. 102–105).

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The letter concludes with an appeal to the addressee to implement the proposed reforms to current priestly practice, for his own good and the good of his people Israel: We have written to you a selection of the works of the law [hrwth y#(m tcqm] which we consider to be for your good and that of your people Isr[a]el. For we have noted in you an understanding and a knowledge of the law. Consider all these things, and seek from before him that he will make straight your counsel and keep far from you evil thoughts and the counsel of Belial. Thus you shall rejoice in the last time in finding that this selection of our words is true. And it shall be reckoned to you for righteousness [hqdcl Kl hb#xnw] when you do what is right and good before him, for your good and that of Israel. (C 26–32)

The references to a ‘good’ that extends beyond the addressee to ‘your people Israel’ (C 27, 32) indicate the positive outcome of the return to the Torah for which the author has earlier appealed on the basis of Deut. 30.1–2 (C12–21). Beyond the history of the blessings (David, Solomon) and the curses (Jeroboam to the exile), in which history the curses have long outweighed the blessings, there lies the possibility of a final age in which ‘they will return in Israel to the l[aw…], and not turn back’ (C 21–22). This final age is what scripture calls ‘the last days’ (C 14, 16, 21), or ‘the last time’ (C 30), and the hope is that the addressee will help to usher in this dawning time by acting as the letter suggests, aided by his own knowledge of Torah and by the divine assistance that comes from prayer (C 27–29). The coming future good will confirm both the validity of the practices he is to implement (C 30) and his own righteousness in implementing them (C 31). What does 4QMMT contribute to our line of argument? How far does this letter confirm the Pauline claim that ‘Israel’ pursues the works of the law in accordance with the principle of Lev. 18.5, that ‘the one who does these things shall live by them’? On the one hand, this text gives the lie to the current consensus that Second Temple Judaism invariably understands divine grace as radically prior to human law-observance, and that to suggest anything to the contrary is to perpetuate an ancient and malicious caricature. The author of 4QMMT draws primarily on the closing chapters of Deuteronomy for his understanding of Israel’s current crisis and opportunity, and on Leviticus for the priestly practices that point the way towards ‘Israel’s good’. Assuming a functional equivalence between ‘Israel’s good’ and the ‘life’ conditionally promised in Paul’s Leviticus text, it is clear that 4QMMT does indeed prescribe ‘works of the Torah’ as the divinely appointed way to the desired goal.20 To that extent, this construal of Scripture is diametrically opposed to the Pauline one. In other words, it conforms closely to the soteriology that the Pauline antitheses serve to reject. 20. It is hardly adequate to claim that, in 4QMMT as in Paul, works of law are ‘understood as defining a boundary which marks out those of faith/faithfulness from others’ (J. D. G. Dunn, ‘4QMMT and Galatians’, NTS 43 [1997], pp. 147–53 [151]). The aim of the letter is precisely that the ‘boundary’ created by aberrant practice should be removed, for the future well being of the entire community.

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On the other hand, 4QMMT only exemplifies the claim that law-observance is the way to life if one subordinates its distinctive characteristics to an abstract soteriological logic. In this text, the ‘works of the Torah’ relate not to the Torah’s prescriptions in general, but to its prescriptions on matters of priestly practice as interpreted by the author and the dissident group he represents.21 Above all, these regulations are concerned to ensure the holiness of Jerusalem and of the temple. The author’s programme has a concrete content and context, and is not simply reducible to a general thesis about the soteriological significance of lawobservance. Nor can the general thesis do justice to the rendering of the Deuteronomy material that is so crucial for this text. It is only from the perspective of the Pauline ‘hermeneutic of faith’ that 4QMMT comes to embody the soteriological logic that Paul strives to exclude.22 From that perspective, life and salvation are the outcome of God’s own act in Christ, of which faith is the acknowledgment; such a claim is necessarily opposed to the claim that life and salvation stem from law-observance, irrespective of the concrete forms that claim may take. The image of an Israel that seeks life by law-observance is a Pauline construct, even though it is related to realities that can be known independently of Paul. The significance of this point may be further clarified by turning now to a second non-Christian Jewish text, the Fourth Book of Maccabees.23 In its own way, this text also teaches that law-observance is the divinely appointed way to life. Like 4QMMT, it therefore conforms to the scripturally based soteriology identified and rejected by Paul. And yet it is only from a Pauline perspective that these two texts could possibly look similar.

2. The Human Capacity for the Law Among the Jewish writings of the Second Temple period, 4 Maccabees is virtually unique in its consistent focus on a philosophical thesis – that ‘devout reason is sovereign over the passions [CW VQFG URQVQ L GUVKP VY`P RCSY`P Q GW UGDJAL NQIKUOQ L]’ (1.1). This thesis is repeated again and again. Although the main part of the book is devoted to narrative, the author avails himself of a range of philosophical resources in order to establish his thesis. He defines his terms (1.14–30); 21. This does not mean that ‘works of the law’ in itself refers exclusively to matters of priestly practice; only that the author so uses the phrase in this particular context. 22. Compare Simon Gathercole’s study of ‘obedience and final vindication in early Judaism’, in his Where is Boasting?, pp. 37–194. Gathercole demonstrates conclusively that many Jews of the Second Temple period understood law-observance as the essential precondition for eschatological vindication, and that the ‘new perspective on Paul’ is wrong to question this. At the same time, the juxtaposition of ‘obedience and final vindication’ is determined in advance by Paul’s reading of Lev. 18.5, with the result that the Second Temple material is read here from a Pauline perspective which may not do justice to its distinctive features. 23. For a summary of the debate on the dating of this work, see John M. G. Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora from Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE–117 CE) (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), pp. 448–49. A late-first-century dating cannot be ruled out, but there is no decisive evidence for this.

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he draws upon the tradition of the four ‘cardinal virtues’ (1.18: HTQ PJUKL MCK> FKMCKQUW PJ MCK> C PFTGKC MCK> UYHTQUW PJ); he refutes objections (1.5–6, 7.16– 23; cf. 8.16–26, 16.5–10); he stages a debate between the hedonistic philosophy of ‘the tyrant Antiochus’ and the nomistic theism of Eleazar, the first of the martyrs for the law (5.1–38); he engages in general reflections on the nature of brotherly and maternal love (13.19–27; 14.13–19); he assumes a common human nature (2.21–23; 12.13); and he is concerned, like Plato in the Phaedo, to demonstrate that death holds no terrors to those who adhere to the true philosophy. And yet the central philosophical thesis about reason and the passions is really a thesis about the law, and about the human being addressed by the law. The Greek philosophical and rhetorical resources that serve to establish the thesis are deployed in the service of an argument about the Jewish law. The aim of the book is to demonstrate the possibility of faithful law-observance; the author finds in the stories of the Maccabean martyrs (drawn from 2 Maccabees 6–7) a proof that in no circumstances, however extreme, is transgression of the law unavoidable or justifiable. That is what is implied by his thesis that devout reason is superior to the passions. Devout reason is reason schooled in the Law of Moses. This argument entails a quite different understanding of the law to the Deuteronomic one found in 4QMMT and elsewhere. The Deuteronomic view speaks of a single act of turning from a national past dominated by sin and the ensuing curse of the law, to a future in which the faithful observance of the law will usher in the fullness of the divine blessing. In 4 Maccabees, there is no such single act of turning back to the law, and there is no sense that the nation as a whole stands under the divine curse. In contrast, the narrative opens at a point where ‘our fathers were enjoying profound peace because of their observance of the law [FKCA VJAP GW PQOKCP]’ (4 Macc. 3.20). Antiochus’ persecutions are occasioned by the high priest Jason’s attempts to alter the nation’s constitution, in defiance of the law, which call forth the divine anger (4.19–21); through the actions of the martyrs, the divine blessing is restored. Another divergence from the Deuteronomic view may be seen in the understanding of suffering implied in 4 Maccabees. Antiochus is still represented as the agent of the divine wrath, like Nebuchadnezzar centuries before, and yet his punitive actions fall not upon the transgressors of the law (Jason and his supporters) but precisely on those who remain loyal to the law. The explanation is that those who endure unspeakable tortures, rather than submitting to the king’s demand that they should eat forbidden foods, are not being punished for their own sins. On the contrary, their endurance of these sufferings guarantees their participation in the eternal life of heaven and serves as a vicarious sacrifice for the sins of the people as a whole (6.28–29; 17.17–22; 18.4). The author’s redaction of material from 2 Maccabees gives important insights into the nature of his argument. His strategy is to play down his source’s emphasis on the ideological struggle between Judaism and Hellenism, and to use the martyrdom stories instead to demonstrate that, for those schooled in the law, observance of the law is always possible, even in the most adverse circumstances; correspondingly, transgression of the law is never unavoidable or justifiable. Thus, 2 Maccabees narrates the attempts of the high priest Jason and of

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King Antiochus to shift the Jewish people over to ‘the Greek way of life’ (4.10), in defiance of the law: the ‘Hellenizing’ motivation of this abandonment of the law is repeatedly emphasized (2 Macc. 4.10–20; 6.1–9).24 The later work abbreviates the material relating to Jason (4 Macc. 4.19–20) and omits altogether the account of the imposition of the Greek religion (cf. 2 Macc. 6.1–9). For the earlier author, Hellenism is Judaism’s archetypal ideological opponent: indeed, his use of the term ‘Judaism’ (KQWFCKUOQ L, 2 Macc. 2.21; 8.1; 14.38 [× 2]) appears to originate in polemical opposition to ‘Hellenism’ (GNNJPKUOQL, 2 Macc. 4.13).25 In contrast, the author of 4 Maccabees has little interest in this ideological conflict, and sees the king’s demand that Jews should eat forbidden foods as an extreme instance of the temptation to transgress, experienced by all who wish to remain faithful to the law.26 References in his source to ‘Hellenism’ or ‘Greek customs’ are virtually eliminated.27 The author is concerned not with the conflict of ideologies but with the (Greek) philosophical thesis about reason and the passions, by means of which he aims to demonstrate the practicability of obeying the law even under intense pressure to transgress. In the Eleazar material (4 Macc. 5–7), the victory of reason over the passions is ascribed to Eleazar’s ‘philosophy’, which is his life-long study and practice of the law. In the material relating to the seven brothers and their mother (4 Macc. 8–18), it is parental instruction in the law that enables the brothers’ courageous endurance of suffering. In both cases the extreme suffering that is narrated is itself an act of lawobservance, since it is undergone voluntarily in preference to the alternative, which is ‘to eat defiling food’ (OKCTQHCIJ`UCK), that is, ‘pork’ or ‘food sacrificed to idols’ (4 Macc. 5.2–3). The question put to each of the prospective martyrs is whether, under threat of torture, they will choose to obey the commandment or to transgress it. In contrast to his source, the author strongly emphasizes the voluntary nature of the martyrs’ sufferings. The link between the philosophical thesis and the question of law-observance is already implied in the book’s very first sentence, which opens the theoretical discussion that precedes the main narrative (4 Macc. 1.1–3.18). Here, in stating his thesis for the first time, the author emphasizes that it is ‘devout reason’ (GW UGDJAL NQIKUOQ L) that rules over the passions (1.1). Although he usually speaks simply of ‘reason’, without the additional reference to piety,28 formal 24. Note the explicit references to Hellenization in 2 Maccabees 4.13 (C MOJ VKL GNNJPKUOQW`); 4.15 (VCAL GNNJPKMCAL FQ ECL); 6.9 (OGVCDCKPGKP GRK> VCA GNNJPKMC ); 11.24 (VCA GNNJPKMC ). 25. So J. D. G. Dunn, The Epistle to the Galatians (BNTC, London: A. & C. Black, 1993), p. 56 (on Gal. 1.13). 26. John Barclay notes that, in this text unlike its source, ‘the martyrs are pitted against “the tyrant” (and his human tools) but not against Gentiles or the Gentile world’ (Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora, p. 376). 27. The one exception is in 4 Macc. 8.8, where the king advises the brothers to ‘enjoy your youth by adopting the Greek way of life [GNNJPKMQW` DKQW] and by changing your manner of living’. The fact that this author can still refer to ‘Judaism’ (4 Macc. 4.26), even in the virtual absence of the ideological conflict with ‘Hellenism’, is an indication that this term, once coined, can be used outside the context of this conflict. 28. ‘Reason’ (NQIKUOQ L) is referred to in unqualified form on 47 occasions, in all of which the

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restatements of his thesis frequently repeat the full phrase.29 Typically, the author signals a moment of transition between narrative and philosophical commentary by restating his thesis – ‘Clearly, then, devout reason is sovereign over the passions’ (6.31) – and by developing it in a series of statements in which ‘devout reason’ appears simply as ‘reason’.30 ‘Reason’, then, is simply an abbreviation of ‘devout reason’; ‘devout reason’ is the only kind of reason that this author would recognize as such. If, in arguing that ‘reason is sovereign over the passions’, he engages with a Greek philosophical debate that goes back at least to Plato, the fact that ‘reason’ everywhere means ‘devout’ or ‘religious’ reason is an indication that the philosophical conceptuality now operates within a distinctively Jewish framework, in which the ‘reason’ in question is the capacity whereby one knows and observes the law.31 Thus, in apostrophizing ‘reason’ and ‘piety’ (NQIKUOQ L and GW UG DGKC), the author treats them as synonyms: ‘O reason of the children, tyrant over the passions! O piety, more precious to the mother than her children!’ (15.1). The aged Eleazar claims to be youthful at least in the exercise of ‘reason on behalf of piety’ (5.31). When, in the midst of his tortures, the first brother tells the king that ‘your wheel is not so powerful as to strangle my reason’ (9.17), he means exactly what the second brother means in speaking of ‘our endurance for the sake of piety’ (9.30). This correlation of reason and (Jewish) piety or religion is most clearly expressed in the author’s concluding address to his readers, where his thesis is restated one last time: O offspring of the seed of Abraham, Israelite children, obey this law and in every way practise piety [GW UGDGKVG], knowing that devout reason is master of the passions, not only of those that stem from within but also of the sufferings that come from without. (18.1–2)

‘Devout reason’ is nothing other than the capacity that enables one to ‘obey this law’. There is, indeed, an element of circularity in this claim, for it can also be said that it is the law which itself enables the ‘devout reason’ by which it is observed. Thus, ‘reason’ is defined in 4 Macc. 1.17 as the choice of the ‘wisdom’ that is the outcome of ‘education in the law’ (J VQW` PQ OQW RCKFGKC). The human capacity to observe the law is not simply a given, it must be cultivated. Yet the author assumes that, within the sphere of the law, this human potentiality has already been actualized: here at least, although nowhere else to the same thesis about reason’s sovereignty over the passions is cited or alluded to. The author keeps his thesis in sharp focus throughout his work. 29. This is the case in 4 Macc. 6.31; 7.16; 13.1; 16.1; 18.1–2. There are further occurrences of the full phrase in 7.4; 8.1; 15.23; 16.4 (cf. also 5.38). 30. Thus Q GW UGDJAL NQIKUOQ L in 1.1 is followed by five unqualified references to NQIKUOQ L in 1.3–9. A similar pattern occurs in 6.31 with 6.32–7.1 (NQIKUOQ L x 5); in 7.16 with 7.17, 20; and in 13.1 (‘…it must be universally acknowledged that…’) with 13.3, 5, 7 (NQIKUOQ L, GW NQIKUVKC). 31. As E. Schürer notes, ‘the reason to which [the author] ascribes command over the passions is not reason in the sense used by the Greek philosophers but religious reason…, i.e. reason that follows the norm of the divine law’ (The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, 175 B.C.–A.D. 135, III.1 [rev. and ed. G. Vermes, F. Millar and M. Goodman; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993], pp. 589–90).

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degree, there exists a reason sovereign over the passions. The author seeks to instil in his (Jewish) readers a confidence that this really is the case, and a renewed determination to conduct their lives on this basis. Reason is sovereign over the passions; that is to say, the capacity to obey the law’s commandments has been bestowed upon them in full. If that is true even in boundary situations where law-observance means torture and death, it is certainly also true for readers who find themselves in less extreme circumstances.32 For the author, this claim about the practicability of the law is derived from the law itself, and is not a philosophical argument imposed on the law from outside. The law teaches the sovereignty of devout reason over the passions in the form of the tenth commandment. Following a reference to the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, the author claims that reason rules not only over the frenzy of sexual passion [JFWRCSGKC] but also over every desire [RC UJL GRKSWOKCL]. For that reason the law says: You shall not desire your neighbour’s wife or anything that belongs to your neighbour. Indeed, when the law tells us not to desire [OJA GRKSWOGKP], my argument that reason is able to control the desires is shown to be all the more persuasive. (2.4–6)

Here, the author seeks to identify his thesis with the tenth commandment. In his view, the commandment does not teach that desire for illicit objects can simply be eliminated by reason: ‘You shall not desire…’ means not, ‘You shall eliminate desire…’, but, ‘You shall not give way to desire…’ (3.2–5). It is the role of reason – the mind instructed in the law – to police the desires and to enforce the rule of law, but the desires themselves have been implanted in us by God or nature (cf. 2.21; 14.13–19), and belong ineradicably to the human bodily constitution. On this view, the meaning of the tenth commandment is purely formal: it demands that desires for objects prohibited by the law should not be realized, in accordance with reason’s God-given capacity to control the passions. To say, ‘You shall…’ or ‘You shall not…’ is to require that an otherwise possible action should be ruled out in advance, on the assumption both that such an action is potentially desirable, and that the addressee of the commandment is capable of resisting his or her desire for it. It is this double assumption about the law as a whole that is articulated in the tenth commandment. Thus, ‘You shall not desire your neighbour’s wife…’ is not simply a repetition of, ‘You shall not commit adultery’. The seventh commandment prohibits an action; the tenth commandment traces the action back to its origin in desire, and the abstention from action to the human capacity to restrain desire. On this reading, the tenth commandment is the theorization of the other commandments. And this theorization is identical to the author’s own claim that devout reason – reason schooled in the law – is master of the passions. On this basis, all other commandments can be understood as postulating both a desire and a human capacity to restrain it. For example, Moses commands that 32. If the martyrdom stories serve here to demonstrate the thesis about the practicability of the law, it cannot be said that ‘the major topic of 4 Maccabees’ is ‘the suffering of the Jewish people’ (contra D. J. Harrington, Invitation to the Apocrypha, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999, p. 216).

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interest-free loans should be given to impoverished fellow-Israelites (Lev. 25.35– 38; cf. Exod. 22.25), that debts should be cancelled every seventh year (Deut. 15.1–11) and that the remnants of the harvest should be left for the poor (Lev. 19.9–10, 23.22; Deut. 24.19–22). In the light of the preceding interpretation of the tenth commandment, we may understand the logic of these commandments as follows: As soon as one adopts a way of life in accordance with the law, even though he is a lover of money, he is forced to act contrary to his natural ways, and to lend without interest to the needy and to cancel the debt when the seventh year arrives. If one is greedy, he is ruled by the law through his reason so that he neither gleans his harvest nor gathers the last grapes from the vineyard. (4 Macc. 2.8–9)

The desire to maximize returns (whether financial or agricultural) is both acknowledged and countered by the law, the divine voice that addresses itself to a human ‘reason’ defined by its capacity to understand and to implement its demands, giving them priority over the contrary demands of desire. The reason that is sovereign over the passions is the human capacity presupposed and constituted by the law’s address. It is the law’s anthropological correlate, just as the law is reason’s theological correlate. The anthropological hypothesis of a reason sovereign over desire is therefore deduced from the law itself, whose demands make no sense except on the assumption that this hypothesis is true. The story of the martyrs for the law is a demonstration and confirmation that this hypothesis is indeed true, and that the human capacity presupposed and actualized by the law is a reality. For the author of 4 Maccabees, the law intends this human obedience with a view to the eternal life that is its goal and reward. The presentation here of the scriptural promise of life diverges markedly from 2 Maccabees, which was the author’s primary source. In the account of the martyrdoms in the earlier text, the emphasis lies on the hope of resurrection, interpreted as the martyrs’ divine vindication. The martyrs taunt the king with this hope, and with the contrasting fate that awaits him: You accursed wretch, you dismiss us from this present life, but, because we have died for his laws, the King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life [GK L CK YP KQP C PCDKYUKP \YJ`L JOC`L C PCUVJ UGK]. (2 Macc. 7.9) One cannot but choose to die at the hands of men and to cherish the hope that God gives of being raised again by him. But for you there will be no resurrection to life! (2 Macc. 7.14)

In this earlier text, there is a symmetry between the mutilation of the body through torture and its reintegration at the resurrection: I got these [tongues and hands] from Heaven, and because of his laws I disdain them, and from him I hope to get them back again. (2 Macc. 7.11; cf. 7.29, 14.46)

In 4 Maccabees, however, these references to resurrection have been eliminated from the account of the brothers’ martyrdom, which is here staged as the demonstration of the invincible power of devout reason. The brother who has his tongue cut out no longer expresses the hope of getting it back again at the resur-

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rection, but rather his confidence that ‘you will not make our reason speechless’ (4 Macc. 10.19). Consistently with this, a communally oriented emphasis on resurrection is replaced by a more individualistic understanding of ‘immortality’.33 The author is specially concerned to show that this is taught by the law itself. As they undergo their ordeal, the brothers remind one another that their souls would be in jeopardy if they were to transgress: ‘Great is the struggle of the soul and the danger of eternal torment lying before those who transgress the commandment of God’ (13.15). Yet religion or piety ‘saves, unto eternal life, according to God’s word [MCVCA SGQ P]’ (15.3). The martyrs win the contest and receive the prize of ‘immortality in endless life’ (17.12). They stand now before the divine throne and live through blessed eternity. For Moses says, ‘And all who are sanctified are under his hands’. (17.18–19)

This first scriptural proof of the doctrine of immortality is drawn from Deut. 33.3, Moses’ concluding blessing: And he spared his people, and all who are sanctified are under his hands, and these are under you; and he [Moses?] received from his [God’s] words a law, which Moses commanded us, an inheritance for the synagogues of Jacob (Deut. 33.3–4 LXX).

For the author of 4 Maccabees, to be ‘under his hands’ is evidently synonymous with ‘living to God’ (7.19; 16.25); the ‘sanctified’ (or ‘consecrated’) are identified specifically with the martyrs (17.20). Thus Moses, who received the law from God and handed it on to the people of Israel, also spoke in his final address of the eternal destiny of those who faithfully observe the law, if need be at the cost of their own lives. The Deuteronomy citation is almost the first formal scriptural quotation in the entire book (with the exception only of the citation of the tenth commandment in 4 Macc. 2.5), and it indicates the author’s concern to set his claim about the law as the way to life on a firm scriptural foundation. This concern comes into sharp focus in the book’s conclusion, where five scriptural proof-texts are given in support of the doctrine of immortality (18.14–19). In this passage, the mother recalls the scriptural instruction that her sons had received from their now deceased father, who ‘taught [them] the law and the prophets’ (18.10). This was the early training that later enabled their reason to triumph over their sufferings. The children were taught the scriptural narratives – about Abel slain by Cain, Isaac offered as a sacrifice, Joseph in prison, the zeal of Phineas, the faithfulness of Daniel and his companions. Scripture offers such figures as role models, but it also speaks of the eschatological destiny that awaits those who follow in their footsteps: [Your father] reminded you of the scripture of Isaiah which says, ‘Even if you pass through fire, the flame will not burn you’. He sang you the hymn of David which says, ‘Many are the afflictions of the righteous’. He taught you the proverb of Solomon: 33. The 2 Maccabees texts depict resurrection as ‘both the personal hope of the righteous individual and the national hope for faithful Israel’ (N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003, p. 153). The redaction of 2 Maccabees 7 in 4 Maccabees may, however, leads one to question Wright’s claim that resurrection was ‘woven into the very fabric of first-century Jewish praying, living, hoping and acting’ (p. 204).

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‘There is a tree of life for those who do his will’. He confirmed the saying of Ezekiel: ‘Shall these dry bones live?’ For he did not neglect to teach you the song that Moses taught, which says, ‘I shall kill and I shall make alive; this is your life and length of days’. (18.14–19)

The final three texts explicitly refer to life, and the last two identify this as a life beyond death; eternal life is probably at issue in the first two as well. The author has derived his final citation from Deut. 32.39 and 30.20, which he here conflates: See now that I am, and there is no god but me. I shall kill and I shall make alive, I shall wound and I shall heal, and there is no-one who shall deliver from my hands. (Deut. 32.39) I bear witness to you this day, by heaven and earth: Life and death I have set before you, blessing and curse. Choose life, so that you may live, you and your seed, to love the Lord your God, to obey his voice and to be his possession; for this is your life and length of days, to dwell in the land which the Lord swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. (Deut. 30.19–20)

The author’s conflation of the two Deuteronomy passages significantly affects their meaning. The phrase from Deuteronomy 30 originally referred to the prosperous life that the people will enjoy in the land if they obey the divine commandments, but it is here transplanted into a context in which it refers instead to a life beyond death – if we take ‘I shall kill and I shall make alive’ to refer to a single object, first put to death and then raised by the Lord. God has put the martyrs to death in the sense that it is God’s law that requires them to die rather than to transgress, but God has also made them alive by bestowing on them ‘souls holy and immortal’ (4 Macc. 18.23). The ‘life and length of days’ promised by the law is understood here as the eternal life of those who, beyond death, ‘live to God’ on the basis of their faithful observance of the law. From a Pauline standpoint, 4 Maccabees clearly exemplifies a soteriology in which law-observance leads to life – alongside 4QMMT and other texts. In Galatians as in Romans, this soteriology is identified, its scriptural basis is acknowledged, and yet it is rejected on the basis of the soteriology and hermeneutic entailed by faith. While Galatians (or Romans) might lead us view 4QMMT and 4 Maccabees as fundamentally similar, in spite of obvious differences, it is worth attempting the thought-experiment of setting up a genuinely three-sided relationship between the three texts, and attempting to view each pair of texts from the standpoint of the third. If 4QMMT and 4 Maccabees can be read from the perspective of Galatians, it should also be possible to read 4 Maccabees and Galatians from the perspective of 4QMMT, and Galatians and 4QMMT from the perspective of 4 Maccabees. The basis for the comparison is that all three texts are concerned with the interpretation of similar pentateuchal material – drawn especially from the closing chapters of Deuteronomy. From the standpoint of 4QMMT, Galatians and 4 Maccabees share a common and perhaps dangerous predilection for the Greek language and the conceptuality it makes available. There is a common concern to theorize about the law, for example in the attempt to derive its essence and foundation from the commandments concerning love of neighbour or desire. This speculative concern leads

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both texts to neglect the practical concern to clarify the law’s precise content. In 4 Maccabees, it is apparently assumed that the ‘works of the law’ can straightforwardly be read off the surface of the biblical text, with no need for interpretation or supplementation; in Galatians, the drift away from crucial questions of halakhah has gone still further. Both texts ascribe great significance to nonscriptural martyr figures, about whom extravagant claims are made. And both texts claim to find the doctrine of individual immortality in the Torah, but are relatively unconcerned about the attainment of the divine blessings in the life of the nation. From the standpoint of 4 Maccabees, Galatians and 4QMMT exemplify a lack of philosophical culture that can lead only to arbitrary and unfounded assertions. Both texts are sectarian in nature, representing groups that have cut themselves off from the mainstream of the national life either in the Land of Israel or in the Dispersion. Their authors are radicals and fanatics determined to impose their own idiosyncratic views on the moderate majority. Both authors give more weight to their own views than to the law itself – one by supplementing it with a potentially endless proliferation of new, authoritarian rulings, the other by subordinating it to the so-called Christ. Both insist that these products of their own imaginings represent the one truly valid reading of the law, and that all other readings are false. Both fail to note the dignity bestowed on the human person by the law’s address. They have, indeed, little concept of the human person as such, being preoccupied instead with the great divide that separates the sect from the parent religious body and from humankind as a whole. Finally, neither author has the slightest idea how to construct a rational argument. If proof be needed of the importance of philosophical education as a preliminary to scriptural interpretation, it may be found in the deficiencies of texts such as these. In each of these possible readings of two texts from the standpoint of a third, one particular element is asserted as fundamental – faith in the case of Paul, halakhah in the case of 4QMMT, philosophy in the case of 4 Maccabees – with the result that the opposing texts are characterized by its lack. Thus texts that appear to be very different from other perspectives come to look similar. Only from a Pauline perspective does the issue of divine in relation to human agency come to the fore. It is therefore inadequate to assume that Paul’s view of the law’s soteriology (as articulated in Lev. 18.5) either does or does not correspond to the realities of Second Temple Judaism as known to us from elsewhere. It is a matter of perspective, not of neutral statements about what is or is not the case. If and only if one is convinced by the Pauline claim that the scriptural testimony points ultimately to God’s saving act in Christ, then non-Christian Jewish texts will seem to be characterized by the same deficient soteriology, according to which law-observance is the way to life. Once the great antithesis between divine and human agency has been established, other variables may seem to fade into insignificance. Yet, outside a Pauline framework, these variables remain clearly visible. In their diversity, these texts make it clear that Pauline antithesis is an interpretative construct intended to serve the exposition of the gospel, not a neutral report about the theology of Second Temple Judaism.

Chapter 7 SELF-SUFFICIENCY AND POWER: DIVINE AND HUMAN AGENCY IN EPICTETUS AND PAUL Troels Engberg-Pedersen Introduction Divine and human agency: what does the distinction mean? When the two types of agency are played out against one another, do we have a clear contrast? And if so, what is the contrast about? My aim in this essay is to tease out the meaning of certain texts in Epictetus and Paul that appear to speak to the distinction. In this way I hope to be able to clarify whether, and if so how, the distinction has a grip, at least in these two thinkers. My approach will reflect an initial skepticism about asking an ancient text of its view of the specific question of the relationship between divine and human agency as if we knew beforehand exactly what that meant. The question of agency asks about who does what and in what senses of ‘doing’ the supposed agent is acting. The question of agency thus belongs within the theory of action. By contrast, the question of the relationship between specifically divine and human agency points in a different direction. Here the issue is rather one of theology. Are human beings crucially dependent in their actions on God? And if so, how? Or do we not need to bring in God to provide a satisfactory account of human action? At the horizon of this way of asking lies the question whether God ultimately exists. In antiquity the latter question was not a very important one. Of course God exists!1 It is possible, therefore, that the question of specifically divine and human agency understood in this theological sense is a fundamentally post-ancient one. Perhaps the distinction will turn out not to have any real grip in an ancient analysis of action but rather to have served as a weapon in a more recent battle between ‘religion’ and ‘humanism’, Christianity and philosophy. Instead of proceeding further along the line of the distinction, as if we knew beforehand precisely what it means, I propose to ask – with a view to a comparison of Epictetus and Paul – about the specific shape in either writer of the interaction of divine and human beings as part of a comprehensive picture of the basic features of human life and action as a whole. I shall first look at Epictetus,

1. Compare, for instance, Epictetus in Diss. 2.14.11–13, a text that is so relevant to Paul that it is sad not to be able to quote it in extenso.

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then turn to Paul and finally compare the two.2 As we know – I call it the lex Malherbe – comparison in this field requires a thorough knowledge of each figure to be compared in his own right and on his own premises. I shall presuppose this here for Paul, but need to present the essential shape of Epictetus’ understanding.

1. Epictetus a. Three Questions In a striking passage, Diss. 4.1.99–104, that would deserve extensive comment, Epictetus discusses what it means for a person to ‘attach himself to God’. The answer lies in grasping that God has given everything one has, and in living one’s life in relation to one’s body (and the rest of the world) and to God himself in a manner that reflects that grasp. We may focus on various aspects of this answer by asking three questions. (1) What is the relationship between God and human beings with respect to human autonomy? In the middle of the passage (4.1.100), Epictetus distinguishes between something God has ‘given me for my own and subject to my (own) power (GOQ>P MCK> CWVGEQWUKQP)’ and something ‘He [has] left for Himself’, namely, on the one hand, ‘the objects of choice (VCA RTQCKTGVKMC )’, which ‘He has made up to me, unhampered and unhindered’ and, on the other, ‘my body (VQA UY`OC)’, ‘my property, my equipment, my house, my children, my wife’, which ‘He has subjected (WRGVCEGP)…to the revolution of the universe’.3 Here we find the distinction that is central in Epictetus between what is ‘up to me’ (GR  GOQK), ‘my own’ (GOQP) or ‘in my own power’ (CWVGEQWUKQP), namely, whatever falls within the sphere of my own ‘choice’ (RTQCKTGUKL prohairesis) – and all the rest, including my own body (UY`OC).4 The former half of this contrast 2. The classic discussion of Epictetus’ ethics is A. Bonhöffer, Die Ethik des Stoikers Epictet (Stuttgart, 1894; English trans. The Ethics of the Stoic Epictetus, trans. W. O. Stephens; New York: Peter Lang, 1996). A splendid new contribution is A. A. Long, Epictetus. A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), with which I shall be in constant dialogue. On Epictetus and the New Testament see in particular A. Bonhöffer, Epiktet und das Neue Testament (Religions-geschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten, 10; Giessen: Alfred Töpelmann, 1911) and the discussion between R. Bultmann, ‘Das religiöse Moment in der ethischen Unterweisung des Epiktet und das Neue Testament’, ZNW 13 (1912), pp. 97–110, 177–91 and A. Bonhöffer, ‘Epiktet und das Neue Testament’, ZNW 13 (1912), pp. 281–92. Long, who rightly emphasizes the ‘theonomic foundations’ of Epictetus’ ethics (e.g. Long, Epictetus, pp. 186–89), also has some remarks (pp. 145–47, especially 145) on ‘a number of radical differences’ from ‘the great monotheistic religions’, primarily Christianity. These remarks reveal the still current wide gap between the modern study of ancient philosophy and the New Testament. My own aim is to do justice to both, which will also lead to a very different picture from that of either Bultmann or Bonhöffer. With Bonhöffer, Epiktet (passim) and Long, I shall presuppose that ‘in spite of numerous verbal affinities’ between Epictetus and the New Testament, ‘there are no decisive grounds for positing any direct influence of one on the other’ (Long, Epictetus, p. 176). In fact, the actual similarities become far more interesting on that presupposition. 3. My own translation, which draws heavily on Oldfather (LCL). The remaining translations from Epictetus have the same dual parentage. 4. The term CWVGEQWUKQP is used in the following places: 2.2.3 and 4.1.56, 62, 68 and 100

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is quite often identified by Epictetus under the concept of ‘freedom’ (GNGWSGTKC).5 But then, exactly how is the idea of human ‘freedom’, ‘self-power’ and ‘autonomy’ to be understood in Epictetus, not least if it is also correct – with A. A. Long (see n. 2) – to speak of the ‘theonomic foundations’ of his thought? In particular, does Epictetus’ idea of human freedom and autonomy contain ideas that contrast with the picture of human agency vis-à-vis God that we find in Paul? (2) What is the relationship between God and human beings with respect to the human body? When Epictetus speaks in 4.1.100 of God’s having subjected my body (plus my property, equipment etc.), or later (104) my ‘little portion of paltry flesh (QNKIQP UCTMKFKQP)’, under the revolution of the universe, is he giving expression to an understanding of human embodiedness (as distinct from the area of human freedom and autonomy) in relation to God that differs from what we find in Paul? (3) Finally, what is the relationship between God and human beings with respect to the present world and human life in that? When Epictetus brings together in 4.1.104 the two sides of the human being – that of the ‘mortal being’ (SPJVQP) who lives ‘with a little portion of paltry flesh’ (cf. 2 above) but may also act as a ‘spectator of God’s governance’ in virtue of having or being a prohairesis (cf. 1 above) – into the idea of living in a manner described as ‘joining with God in His pageant and festival’, is he giving expression to a manner of living in this world in relation to God that differs from what we find in Paul?

b. Epictetus: The Human Being in the Scala Naturae The starting-point throughout is God. In addition to speaking of ‘theonomic foundations’, A. A. Long is wholly right to speak of the basically ‘theological orientation’ of Epictetus’ thought, and indeed of his ‘theist’ and ‘personalist’ conception of God.6 Within the world created by God, however, a special place is reserved for human beings, ‘to whom God has made the additional gift of the faculty of understanding (MCK> VJAP RCTCMQNQWSJVKMJAP FWPCOKP GFYMGP)’ (1.6.15). Epictetus is fond of the term RCTCMQNQWSGKP (parakolouthein, ‘attend to’, ‘follow in thought’).7 It identifies the faculty of reason as a second-order capacity of ‘following’ in consciousness some other thing, for instance, the immediate kind of information delivered (even to irrational animals) by the senses. In this way reason is a critical faculty.8 The result is that the human being may be described as belonging in two worlds, as divided between ‘the body, which we have in common with the animals, and reason (NQIQL) and opinion (IPY OJ), which we have in common with the gods’ (1.3.3). The two sides of the human being are not of equal value, of course. Rather, quoted above. Long either leaves prohairesis untranslated or translates it as ‘volition’ (see Long, Epictetus, pp. 218–20 for discussion). I prefer the translation ‘choice’. 5. Cf. e.g. 4.1.56: Does freedom (GNGWSGTKC) seem to you to be something in your own power (CWVGEQWUKQP) and self-governing (CWVQPQOQP)? 6. Long, Epictetus, pp. 142 and 156; and ch. 6, pp. 142–79, as a whole. 7. See, e.g., 1.6.12–22 as a whole; also, e.g., 1.28.20 and 2.8.6. 8. Compare, e.g., 1.1.6 and 1.6.18 for the term FKCMTKPGKP.

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‘we are all primarily (RTQJIQWOGPYL) begotten of God, and God is the father of human beings as well as of gods’ (1.3.1). Human beings ‘alone share by nature with God in common (and reciprocal) association with him (UWPCPCUVTQHJ), being (reciprocally) intertwined (GRKRGRNGIOGPC) in accordance with reason (MCVCA VQ>P NQIQP)’.9 In spite of this emphasis on the special kinship (UWIIGPGKC, 2.8.11) of human beings with God, however, the bodily side remains in the picture. It is not highly valued in itself.10 Still, the body too is the result of God’s creation and part of God’s created order. In this ontological picture, then, there is a strong asymmetry between the two sides of the human being. But there is no rigid dualism.

c. Epictetus: Prohairesis Things look different when we move on to bring in Epictetus’ peculiar notion of the true human self. That is a more restricted notion than the one of the human being considered so far. And it involves a genuine anthropological dualism. Epictetus never himself speaks of a ‘true human self’, but there are passages, as we shall see, where he comes close to doing so.11 Instead, his anthropological dualism focuses on the notion of prohairesis. The true human self is that of prohairesis. In a way everything we need to say on Epictetus in this essay falls under an elucidation of different sides of the notion of prohairesis. Let us rapidly identify the most important of these sides. Prohairesis is a FWPCOKL (faculty, capacity) that is very closely related to the FWPCOKL of parakolouthêsis, but it is not just identical with it. What makes the ‘parakolouthic’ faculty ‘prohairetic’ is the fact that it focuses on the value (RQUQW…CEKC, 2.23.11) of a thing and the concomitant question of whether to act in relation to it, how to do it, at what time etc. (2.23.11–15). A further feature of prohairesis is that having this or the other prohairesis (making this or the other choice) is entirely ‘up to us’. Prohairesis is ‘by nature’ free from hindrances (CMY NWVQP) and constraint (C PCPC IMCUVQP, 1.17.21). This feature is derived from a characteristic that prohairesis shares with assent, desire and impulse: that they are all so many different forms of a belief (FQIOC), and a belief is wholly one’s own. ‘It is your own belief (FQIOC) which compelled you, that is, (one) prohairesis (another) prohairesis’ (1.17.26). A third feature of prohairesis follows directly from this: that it gives mastery or power. A human being is ‘one who has nothing more masterful (or powerful, MWTKY VGTQP) than prohairesis (= the prohairetic faculty), but has everything else subjected (WRQVGVCIOGPQP) to that, and this prohairesis itself free from slavery (C FQWNGWVQP) and subjection (C PWRQVCMVQP)’ (namely, to anything other than one’s own prohairesis, 2.10.1). 9. Epictetus is probably quoting here from some earlier Stoic, but with full endorsement. For the notion of ‘the seeds of being’ having ‘fallen down’ ‘primarily’ to human beings see 1.9.4. And for its consequence that all human beings are ‘brothers’ as ‘sons from the same seed’ see 1.13.3. 10. See, e.g., 1.9.11 together with 1.9.16–17. 11. Long, too, speaks in connection with prohairesis of ‘the self, what each of us is, as abstracted from the body’ and rightly says that Epictetus’ ‘conception of human beings is dualistic’ (Epictetus, p. 28). Elsewhere (pp. 29, 159, 237) he uses the phrase ‘our essential selves’.

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A fourth feature of prohairesis is that it involves a strong idea of the self. Speaking of the ‘things that fall outside the sphere of prohairesis’ (they are CRTQCKTGVC), Epictetus says that they are ‘nothing to me’ (QWFG>P RTQ>L GOG, 1.30.3). By contrast, ‘you are not flesh, nor hair, but prohairesis’ (3.1.40). Here we have the true human self. It is a genuine self, which stands in a clear and unmediated contrast with everything else in the world, even the person’s own body. The reason why Epictetus has such a heightened awareness of the self in comparison with other Stoics is probably that he focuses so strongly on the human freedom of mind which translates directly into the notion of individual mastery and power. For this intrinsic connection of a heightened awareness of self with freedom of mind and mastery, even in relation to one’s own body, see, for instance, 1.19.8–9. I have already claimed that this notion of the true human self implies a genuine dualism. But note two things. First, what is contrasted with the world is the human self in the form of prohairesis as we have treated this so far: as the purely formal capacity for deciding and choosing for oneself how to evaluate experiences of the world and how to react to them. Second, what is contrasted is only the individual human being (who of course has a body etc.) to the extent that he or she has completely identified with the formal capacity and with that alone. This leads to a fifth feature of prohairesis, which is now a matter of the substantive result in each individual of his or her actual use of the formal capacity. In addition to speaking of prohairesis as a formal capacity, Epictetus may also call a prohairesis ‘bad’ (MCMJ, e.g. 2.1.6). A bad prohairesis is one that is false or wrong in its ascription of evaluative properties to the impressions the person has received from the world (1.29.3, 3.3.19). Correspondingly, a prohairesis may be good (CICSJ, 1.29.3) or morally right (MCNJ, 3.1.41). That happens when its evaluative judgements are correct (QTSC , 1.29.3), and this means: when people place the good (VQ> CICSQP) in the correct (QTSJ) prohairesis itself (3.3.8), when they judge that the goods (VCA CICSC ) consist in ‘a prohairesis as it should be (QKC FGK) and (the proper) use of external impressions’ (1.30.4). Thus a substantive prohairesis (an individual person’s moral choice) is ‘good’ and ‘morally right’ if and only if it maintains the formal capacity for freedom and mastery that the prohairetic faculty is, the capacity that is always one’s own, in one’s own power and gives one authority (GEQWUKC, ‘power’) over oneself in the matters of good and evil.12

d. Epictetus: Prohairesis and the Human Relationship with the Body and the World With such an understanding of prohairesis, exactly how should we characterize the relationship with one’s own body and the world at large in the person whose prohairesis is the correct one? There are two things to be said here. The first flows directly from the precise character of the freedom and self-mastery that 12. See 4.12.7–8, ending in the strong claim that GIYA CWVQ>L GOCWVQW` MCVCA VCWVC GEQWUKCP GZY OQPQL (‘I myself alone have authority over myself in these matters’).

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goes with the notion of prohairesis. If one asks about the degree of direct, in the sense of wholly un-mediated, engagement in or concern with one’s body or the world at large, Epictetus’ answer is that one should ‘eradicate desire utterly’ and ‘pursue none of the things external’.13 This is the famous Stoic doctrine of apatheia (freedom from passion). In its most overt meaning, which it never loses, it stands for a stark disengagement from one’s body and the world. Thus Epictetus at one point insists that one must never give up the principle of not ‘depending’ on (MTGOCUSCK in the sense of being ‘wholly taken up with’) anything other than oneself (GE CNNQW, 3.24.58). This is the feature of prohairesis in relation to one’s body and the world that is most directly relevant to the theme of this essay. Do we not here find the kind of stark self-sufficiency that theologians, at least, are prepared to connect with a notion of specifically human agency? However, the second thing to be said is that, even with regard to the body and the world, the principle of freedom and non-dependence is rather more complex than it sounds. In a moment we shall see that it does not in the least exclude a close relationship with God. But of more immediate relevance to one’s living in the world is the fact that the principle of non-dependence does not in the least exclude an attitude of real care and love for other human beings, that is, of being genuinely ‘affectionate’ (HKNQUVQTIQL) towards them either.14 The traditional view that Epictetus’ fundamentally Stoic form of self-sufficiency somehow excludes caring for and loving other human beings is just wrong. He himself addresses the issue head-on, e.g. in 1.19.11–15: ‘This [attitude he is arguing for] is not self-love (HKNCWVQP)’. Unfortunately, one needs to consider the whole Stoic theory of oikeiôsis (with which Epictetus himself ends in the quoted passage: 1.19.15) in order to grasp this.15 With this account we have already approached the issue of the relationship of the true human self in the other direction, with God. The true human self is both free and also ‘a servant of’ God and indeed ‘subject unto’ God (3.24.65). How is this combination to be understood? If we now understand Epictetus’ view of the true human self and the relationship with the body and the world (compare our initial questions 2 and 3) that is involved in identifying with one’s prohairesis, then what relationship with God and divine agency (question 1) is involved in this self-identification? In what sense is the true human self self-sufficient vis-àvis God?

e. Epictetus: Prohairesis and the Human Relationship with God We may sharpen the issue like this. In a number of passages Epictetus states that the freedom that goes with a correct, substantive prohairesis is so absolute that it places the true human self on a par with God; see, for example, 4.1.81–82 (with 4.1.90), 1.12.26–27 (with 1.12.21) and 2.19.26–27. At the same time Epictetus also introduces an idea of dependence on God; see, for example, 2.17.23–29, 13. Cf., e.g., 4.4.33 and 4.12.15. 14. This is, rightly, a recurrent theme in Long, Epictetus, not least in ch. 9 (pp. 231–58). 15. For two passages that directly connect the relationship with God and others see 3.24.60 and 3.24.64–65, in which Epictetus speaks of his two heroes, Socrates and Diogenes.

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where he enjoins his audience to let ‘Zeus and the other gods…exercise the control (GMGKPQK MWDGTPC VYUCP)’ over their desires (25), ending like this: I am satisfied (CTMGK F [GOQK]) if I shall be free (GEGUVCK) to live untrammelled and untroubled, to hold up my neck (C PCVGKPCK VQ>P VTC ZJNQP) in the face of facts (RTQ>L VCA RTC IOCVC) like a free man (YL GNGWSGTQP) and to look up to heaven (GKL VQ>P QWTCPQ>P C PCDNGRGKP) as a friend of God, without fear of what may possibly happen.

How should we understand this combination of a notion of genuine human selfsufficiency, where the human being is said to be on a par with God, and the idea of letting Zeus and the other gods exercise control, which seems to imply that one subjects oneself to them? Again, is the person who has identified completely with the true human self also completely self-sufficient in relation to God? Is the same person not in any way dependent on God? If we recall the precise content of the true human self, we can see that with respect to the relationship with God the dichotomy between self-sufficiency and dependence is a false one. In relation to the world and one’s own body, the true human self is completely self-sufficient and non-dependent by possessing understanding, which cannot be forced by anything other than the way the person him- or herself actually sees things. But then, God too is essentially a possessor of understanding. God is the kind of rationality that permeates the world. Thus the only difference between the rationality of the true human self and that of God is one of scope. If this is the underlying picture, the true human self cannot be self-sufficient in relation to God in the way it is in fact self-sufficient in relation to the world. How could a local case of understanding close itself off from the wider rationality of the world as a whole? Nor can we say that the true human self is dependent on God in the sense of dependence according to which the true human self is not dependent on the world. In being open to the wider rationality of the world, how could a local case of understanding differ from that wider rationality in anything other than scope? Instead of speaking of either self-sufficiency or dependence of the true human self in relation to God, we need a different conception, one that brings out that the true human self and God lie on a single scale but at different ends of the scale with regard to comprehensiveness or scope. The first fact makes them qualitatively identical, the second renders them quantitatively different. We shall see in a moment that Epictetus does have a term for such a conception. He speaks in relation to human beings of VGVC USCK, which we may render as ‘directedness’ (being stretched out or directed towards, being intent upon). The Greek term elegantly captures two different dimensions of Epictetus’ talk of God, his personalist conception and the underlying physicalist one (see more below). The true human self will be personally intent upon God. But the true human self will also be stretched out physicalistically towards the allcomprehending structure of the whole world which is also God. Instead of speaking of self-sufficiency or dependence of the true human self vis-à-vis God, we should speak rather of directedness. Note once more that in this analysis we have been talking not of the individual self just like that, but of the true human self, and thus only of the individual self or person to the extent that this person has identified with the true human self of

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prohairesis. It is this self that is directed towards God. The sense in which this self and God lie on a single continuous line is so strong that it is difficult, in the final outcome, to draw a clear line between them (cf. e.g., 2.18.19 and 4.4.47). Thus when Epictetus discusses, in a very interesting text (1.14) that would deserve detailed analysis, the relationship between a number of entities: the self (or person who is being addressed), each person’s ‘particular daemon’ within the person (1.14.12), ‘God within’ (as a being who is apparently different from the daemon, 1.14.14) and the outside God, he ends up (1.14.15–16) more or less identifying the outside God with the person him- or herself. What does that mean? The best reading seems to be that when Epictetus speaks of the person, what he has in mind is precisely not this or that individual self but rather what we have called the true human self and what A. A. Long calls ‘the ideally rational and normative self’.16 In connection with this self there is neither self-sufficiency vis-à-vis God (as there is towards the world) nor dependence on him (in the sense there is not towards the world). Instead, there is a directedness towards him that reflects a qualitative identity with him.

f. Epictetus: A Personalist (and Physicalist) Conception of God – And a Cognitivist One This relationship of the true human self with God reflects Epictetus’ special conception of God. It is first of all a personalist one. God has personally acted with regard to the individual (see, e.g., the striking formulations in 2.8.21–23) and Epictetus himself paradigmatically responds (3.24.114): When I have been appointed (MCVCVGVCIOGPQL) to such a service (WRJTGUKCP), am I any longer to take thought as to where I am, or with whom, or what men say about me? Am I not wholly intent upon God (QNQL RTQ>L VQ>P SGQ>P VGVCOCK), and his commands (GPVQNC L) and ordinances (RTQUVC IOCVC)?

However, Epictetus’ conception of God is also a physicalist one even though, as Long notes, he only rarely alludes to the Stoic, physicalist worldview.17 But he does do it a sufficient number of times to indicate that it was his, too. Much more important is the conclusion we may draw from our analysis of the relationship – in terms of supposed self-sufficiency and/or dependence – of the true human self with God. What we saw there was that God is essentially rationality and that the question of understanding the relationship between God and human beings turns on the relationship between rationality as present in the world as a whole and far more locally in individual human beings. We saw that the two forms of rationality are qualitatively identical but quantitatively different. In addition to a personalist and a physicalist conception of God, we may therefore also speak of a cognitivist one. Moreover, it is this conception of God that is Epictetus’ central concern, as becomes clear, for instance, in 1.14 where he speaks of the self, the ‘daemon within’, ‘God within’ and the outside God and ends up more or less identifying them all.

16. Long, Epictetus, p. 166. 17. Long, Epictetus, pp. 148–49.

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With this conclusion we are finally ready to ask about the meaningfulness of speaking of divine and human agency in Epictetus.

g. Divine and Human Agency in Epictetus Does the distinction between these two types of agency have a grip in Epictetus? If we go by the personalist story from which we began, it seems that the answer should be positive. God has created and fashioned the world and everything in it, including human beings. In so doing, he has given them certain capacities. Human beings, therefore, must respond by using these capacities to their full extent. God has given and human beings should respond. This whole perspective would itself seem to trade on the distinction. A similar conclusion might be drawn when one considers the theme on which Epictetus spends most of his time: what it is that God has given to human beings, in particular. God has given the ‘parakolouthic’ faculty, and indeed the faculty of prohairesis, but in such a way that it is now wholly their own: ‘He has put the whole matter under our control without reserving even for Himself any power whatever (QWF CWVY^` VKPCA KUZWP ) to hinder or prevent’ (1.6.40). This is as stark an expression as anyone could wish of the notion of human self-sufficiency and ‘self-power’ (VQ> CWVGEQWUKQP). So, do we not here have the idea of human agency, originally given to human beings by God and thus in its origin reflecting divine agency, but now distinctly a matter of human agency and nothing else? Is this not something that human beings now have, even over against God? No. The burden of my argument has been that such a conclusion would be completely wrong. Rather, the claim that God has given human beings the faculty of prohairesis as something that is wholly under their own control is only the beginning of the story. All the material we have discussed – the precise logical shape of prohairesis, the ideas of mastery and the self, the relationship of the true human self with the body and the world and with God – goes towards showing that in Epictetus no distinction can be maintained between something to be called divine agency and something to be called human agency. On the contrary, the elucidation of the true human self showed that the divine and the human lie at either end of a single scale with the human being directed towards the divine and the divine, conversely, on its cognitivist conception being qualitatively identical with the true human self or ‘the ideally rational or normative self’.18 The secret lies in seeing that Epictetus is throughout fundamentally speaking of cognition. Once we focus – as Epictetus himself so strongly does – on the cognitive content of what God has given to human beings for their own, viz. the faculty of prohairesis, we can see that there is a kind of logical movement in the story. It goes from ‘God has given’ (and human beings should respond accordingly) to ‘it’s all their own’ – and from there to this: there is no distinction of agency between divine and human; on the contrary, the ‘agency’ of God and that of the true human self is one and the same since the theme itself of Epictetus’ talk 18. Long, Epictetus, p. 166, my emphasis.

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of divine gift and human ‘self-power’ is cognition. All three moments of the story are there and should be left standing. But the third is the one to which Epictetus gives his most sustained effort since this is where it becomes clear what he is most fundamentally talking about. Within this framework, then, the distinction between divine and human agency has no grip. With regard to self-sufficiency and power, however, we should conclude that in relation to the body and the rest of the world, there both is and should be, according to Epictetus, a complete self-sufficiency in human beings: a disengagement or turning one’s back on those things, which does not, however, exclude the kind of mediated engagement and concern with the body, the world and the others that we have noted. In relation to God, there also is self-sufficiency in human beings, not, however, in the sense of disengagement with or turning one’s back on God. On the contrary, it is the self-sufficiency of being (ultimately) at one with God.

2. Paul Turning now to Paul, we may move fairly rapidly to the central issue of the possible meaning in the apostle of the distinction between divine and human agency. If we bring in the notion of self-sufficiency that played such an important role in connection with Epictetus, we shall find that with regard to the body and the world, at least, fundamentally the same picture may be found in Paul. When he says, in Gal. 5.24, that ’those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh together with its passions and desires’, he is giving expression to the same kind of radical disengagement from the body that is a constantly recurrent theme in Epictetus. And when he says, in Gal. 5.14, that through Jesus Christ (or his cross) ‘the world (MQUOQL) has been crucified vis-à-vis me (GOQK) and I vis-à-vis the world’, he is giving expression to the same kind of disengagement from the world at large as we found in Epictetus. Furthermore, Paul’s talk of ‘belonging to Christ Jesus’ already suggests that this disengagement from the body and the world is the other side of some kind of unity with God, as was the case in Epictetus, too. There is perhaps nothing very strange about this comprehensive similarity between the two patterns of thought. It reflects the idea of a directedness towards God which lies at the heart of either pattern, as we shall see for Paul, too. Still, the similarity is of such fundamental importance for everything that is said by the two writers that it immediately sets a certain parameter for any further comparison and any dissimilarities one may come across. One point of similarity that follows from the fundamental one should just be mentioned in passing. In both patterns there is plenty of room for concern for others.19 Indeed, such concern is in both cases derived from the directedness towards God. This brings us immediately to the much more taxing question of the exact shape in Paul of the human relationship with God and Christ and, indeed, of his 19. I have argued this more broadly in ‘The Relationship with Others: Similarities and Differences Between Paul and Stoicism’, ZNW 96 (2005), pp. 35–60.

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whole conception of God. Here, surely, we shall find some important differences from Epictetus? Both yes and no. Let us focus our efforts on this issue. In the greater part of the ensuing discussion, I shall discuss a number of important texts in Paul in which the idea of a distinction between divine and human agency seems to be explicitly drawn upon. These motifs are directly a part of Paul’s own discourse. They express his own perspective and thus reflect the supposed distinction as seen from within. I aim to consider whether it is possible to develop a coherent picture of the many different sides of the relationship between divine and human agency that seems to be invoked within this perspective. One cannot take it for granted that there is such a picture. As always in Paul, the rhetorical purpose of each particular passage lies uppermost. Still, there seems to be enough consistency at the uppermost, rhetorical level to make it worth attempting to articulate a more comprehensive picture. At the end of this attempt I shall make a comparison with Epictetus, where we did find a consistent picture, and point out both similarities and dissimilarities. Here we shall see that the comparison with Epictetus helps us to diagnose a certain tension in the understanding of God within Paul’s thought itself. In some respects he is thinking of God in a manner that is closely comparable with Epictetus’ way of thinking, in others not. All through, however, the underlying question and the proposed answer are the same: that nothing like a fundamental and radical opposition between something called divine and human agency is involved in all this; neither Epictetus nor Paul is aiming to contrast the two types of agency in any of the ways in which this has been done in later thought, both within theology itself and in the battle between theology and humanism or (non-theological) philosophy;20 on the contrary, in both writers the two types of agency interweave in numerous and complex ways that together point towards an idea of the alignment of one with the other, rather than contrast.

a. Transferrals of Agency In five texts Paul performs what I shall call a ‘transferral of agency’. Here are the texts:21 1 (Gal. 4.8–11). (9) Now, however, having got to know God (IPQPVGL SGQP), or rather (OCNNQP FG>) having been known by God (IPYUSGPVGL WRQ> SGQW ).22 2 (1 Cor. 8.1–4) (2) If somebody believes (GK VKL FQMGK) that he has got to know (GIPYMGPCK) something, he has not known (GIPY) it the way he should know it (MCSYAL 20. Within theology the most famous form of the contrast is the one between human ‘faith’ (RKUVKL), to be seen as essentially initiated by God, and human ‘works’ (GTIC), which are conceived as being essentially initiated by human beings. This contrast underlies Francis Watson’s stimulating recent contributions to the debate, both in this volume and in Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith (London and New York: T&T Clark International, 2004). 21. Translations of Paul are my own all through. 22. Note in this passage that the Galatians’ having been ‘known by God’ apparently does not exclude that Paul himself has been mightily operative as an agent, too (v. 11). Indeed, he has ‘struggled’ with them. This duality is expressed even more clearly in 1 Cor. 15.9–10 (passage 6) quoted below.

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Divine and Human Agency in Paul FGK IPY`PCK).23 (3) But if somebody loves (CICRC^) God, then this man has been known by Him (GIPYUVCK WR  CWVQW ).24 3 (Phil. 3.12–16) (12) I hunt for it if only I can grasp it (MCVCNC DY), just as I have also been grasped (MCVGNJOHSJP) by Christ Jesus. (13) Brothers, I do not reckon that I have grasped it myself.25 But this I do: forgetting (GRKNCPSC PGUSCK) about what lies behind (QRKUY), and stretching out (GRGMVGKPGUSCK) instead towards what lies before (GORTQUSGP), (14) I hunt towards the goal (UMQRQL), the prize of God’s upward calling (MNJUKL) in Christ Jesus. 4 (1 Cor. 13.12) Up to now I know (IKPY UMGKP) in part (only); but then I shall know fully (GRKIPY UQOCK), just as I have also been fully known (GRGIPY USJP).26 5 (1 Cor. 4.6–7) (7) For who makes you something special? What do you possess (GZGKL) that you did not receive (GNCDGL)? And if you did receive it (GNCDGL), why do you boast (MCWZCUCK) of it as if you had not received it (YL OJA NCDY P)?

Let us note the following points about these texts. First, and most obviously, they are saying that God has acted and some human beings have re-acted. Second, and very importantly, the texts are speaking of how those human beings have acquired knowledge of God (or Christ for text 3). The theme is one of cognition, of the acquisition of knowledge.27 Paul is speaking of the way in which, in conversion, his addressees have come to ‘know God’ as a result of God’s ‘knowing them’ at that very moment. We may suppose that he is relying here on what in modern philosophical terminology has become a distinction between two types of knowledge: (i) knowledge by (direct) acquaintance and (ii) propositional knowledge or knowledge that (something is thus and so). His idea may be that in conversion human beings have acquired propositional knowledge of what God is like based on direct acquaintance with God, moreover a kind of acquaintance that has been brought about by God himself. Third, in answer to the question of how God has brought this about, we may guess that with regard to Paul’s addressees (cf. texts 1 and 2) God has acted, 23. Clearly, the perfect (GIPYMC, GIPYMGPCK) of IKPY UMGKP, which I have translated ‘get to know’, must have a pregnant meaning here. Is the point one that would have come out more explicitly if Paul had written GK VKL FQMGK CWVQ>L GIPYMGPCK VK (‘if somebody believes that he has himself got to know something’)? Probably not. 1 Cor. 3.18–19 has the same phrase ‘If somebody believes (GK VKL FQMGK) that he is wise (UQHQL)’ and here the contrast is explicitly stated to be one between what counts as knowledge with God and in the world. Anticipating a little, we may therefore take it that in 8.2, rather than opposing a peculiar ‘oneself’ to God, Paul is claiming that a way of understanding that is not God’s knowledge, but one that belongs instead to this world alone – is not in fact (genuine) knowledge. 24. This sentence, then, does raise the issue of divine agency. 25. Viz. as contrasted with Paul’s interlocutors. 26. Note the predicate ‘fully’ here (GRK-) and the time difference. Paul has apparently already been fully known, but will only himself come to know fully in the future. What does that mean? 27. This holds for text 5, too. (i) The overall theme of 1 Cor 1.10–4.21 is the question of who has the proper knowledge of God, Paul or those Corinthians he is addressing. (ii) 4:7 in text 5 repeats the essential content of 3.18–23 half a page earlier, where the theme is explicitly that of who has the proper kind of knowledge or wisdom (UQHKC), the one to be found ‘with God’ as opposed to this world (3.18–19). The person who has this knowledge will never ‘boast among human beings’ (3.21), and that is precisely what the person criticized in 4.7 does. (iii) Through its connection with 3.18–23, text 5 is also fairly clearly connected with text 2, as we already noted.

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among other things, by sending Paul as an apostle to them, proclaiming what God has (also) done to the world in the form of the Christ event. With regard to Paul himself (cf. texts 3 and 4) God has, among other things, literally shown Christ to him (cf. texts 6 and 7 below). Fourth, the shape of the human knowledge of God takes the form of a directedness towards God (cf. text 3) that literally leaves any earthly concerns behind (cf. Phil. 3.19–20 just after text 3). This directedness is both a matter of intentionality (cf. the talk of ‘hunting for the goal’ in text 3) and involves an understanding of the self as belonging with Christ and God (cf. Phil. 3.7–9 just before text 3). Fifth, we should never forget that Paul has a clear rhetorical purpose in all these texts, which is to place a truth-claim for the knowledge of God that he, Paul, is himself articulating towards his addressees. When they have come to know God (text 1) – namely, in the way Paul is articulating – then they have been known by God: then it is God’s own knowledge (of himself) that they have been made able to grasp.

b. Divine Agency in Conversion In addition to the five texts that perform a transferral of agency with regard to the generation of knowledge, there are two texts that recall Paul’s own conversion without explicitly tying it together with issues of knowledge. Instead, it seems, Paul is more concerned here about emphasizing divine agency on its own. Should we take it, then, that Paul may speak of divine agency on human beings in ways that are not intrinsically connected with imparting knowledge? In fact not, as we shall see. 6 (1 Cor. 15.7–11) (10) By the gift (ZC TKVK) of God, however, I am what I am; and His gift towards me did not become inefficient (MGPJ), on the contrary (CNNCA) I have struggled (GMQRKCUC) more than them all – not I (myself), however (QWM GIYA FG>), but God’s gift together with me (UW>P GOQK).28 7 (Gal. 1.11–17) (12) For I have neither had it transmitted (to me, RCTGNCDQP) from some (other) human being (RCTCA CPSTY RQW), nor have I had it taught (to me, GFKFC ZSJP), but (I have received it) through (FKCA) a revelation (CRQMC NW[KL) of Jesus Christ … (15) But when God decided – He who set me apart from my mother’s womb and who called (MCNGUCL) me through (FKCA) his gift (ZC TKL) – (16) to reveal (CRQ– MCNW[CK) His son in (or to) me.

Two points very briefly about these passages. First, Paul is once more clearly making the rhetorical move of backing his own knowledge of God up with a claim about what God, on his side, has done. Second, on closer inspection these two texts, too, are very much about the imparting of knowledge. Exactly what has God done to Paul? In what does his gift consist? The simple answer must be 28. There are two transmitted versions of the last phrase: (i) …CNNCA J ZC TKL VQW SGQW UW>P GOQK and (ii) …CNNCA J ZC TKL VQW SGQW J UW>P GOQK. The former text, which is the one I have adopted, is better attested. Also, one can perhaps explain the latter text as an emendation to prevent anyone from thinking that Paul was contrasting God’s ZC TKL and himself. As we shall see, however, the emendation was unnecessary since Paul himself precisely did not think in terms of such a contrast.

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that God has revealed Christ to Paul in a vision. Christ was ‘seen by’ Paul (text 6, 15.8), and the gospel preached by Paul was revealed to him directly by God (text 7, 1.12, 16). Moreover, the last act presumably constitutes the very content of God’s having ‘called’ Paul ‘through His gift’ (1.15). Thus in this context God’s gift is very much a matter of cognition, of God’s concretely doing something to a person so that the person will understand. In itself this claim is not very surprising. After all, receiving a revelation is necessarily about coming to understand something. But we need the point that Paul’s talk of God’s activity vis-à-vis human beings is primarily concerned with questions of cognition. We may add one point from text 7 to the picture we obtained from texts 1–5: that God has set Paul aside from the very beginning of his life as a future recipient of God’s gift of cognition. This point raises the question of predetermination, which will come up importantly in the later texts.

c. Divine Agency vis-à-vis Non-Christ-Believers Two texts from Romans (texts 8 and 9) broaden the picture considerably. Here Paul is speaking of non-Christ-believing Gentiles (text 8) and non-Christ-believing Jews (text 9), and he is both going back to the creation of the world (text 8) and looking forward to an unspecified future time (end of Romans 11, not quoted in text 9). 8 (Rom. 1.18–21) speaking of the way Gentiles had in fact come to know God (21) on the basis of God’s having made manifest to them what may be known of God (19) – but without glorifying Him and giving Him thanks (21). 9 (Rom. 8.28–30, 9.6–12, 9.16–24, 10.12–11.7) speaking of the way God has chosen those whom He has known beforehand (8.28–30), including only some Jews (9.6–12), since His is the power (GEQWUKC, 9.21) to choose whomever He wishes (9.16–24) and to call them through His apostles (10.12–15), the result being only a small remnant of Jews who have been elected through God’s gift while the rest were hardened (10.16–11.7).

Three rapid points about these rich texts. First, all through when he speaks of what God has done – and will further do (cf. 2.1–11) – Paul is concerned with the transmission of knowledge of God. Second, in a way God is himself responsible for the human lack of understanding since he has himself chosen – and chosen beforehand – those who will understand. Third, that does not mean, however, that they are not also themselves responsible for their lack of understanding. They most decidedly are, as Paul goes out of his way to emphasize (e.g. 1.20–21 and 2.1). We may take it from both texts 8 and 9 that Paul saw the possibility of claiming human non-responsibility on the basis of his own insistence on God’s predisposing people to grasp or miss the signs of the true nature of the world that God has himself given. We may also take it that Paul explicitly rejected this possibility. The fascinating question that is raised by this state of affairs is how we should understand Paul’s insistence on both divine predetermination and human responsibility. Since he cannot have seen a contradiction in this insistence, the question becomes one of constructing a sense of either claim that will allow us

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to insist on both. We shall address this question below when we summmarize the Pauline picture.

d. Divine and Human Agency After Conversion The two last texts to be quoted bring us from divine agency vis-à-vis non-Christbelievers via divine agency in conversion to divine agency in Christ-believers themselves after conversion. Here we shall again meet some of our earlier motifs, but also particularly strongly the idea of what I shall from now on call an overlap of divine and human agency. This idea may also underlie the insistence we noted on both divine predetermination and human responsibility. If divine and human agency overlap in the situations described by Paul, the risk of an inconsistency in speaking of divine predetermination and human responsibility will tend to evaporate. Here are the two texts: 10 (1 Thess. 2.13) For that reason too, we thank God unceasingly: that having had transmitted (to you) from us God’s word of proclamation (NQIQP CMQJL), you received it as what it genuinely is, not a word of human beings (NQIQP CPSTY RYP), but God’s word (NQIQP SGQW), which is also in operation (GPGTIGKUSCK) in (GP) you who believe. 11 (Phil. 2.12–13) (12) Work energetically (MCVGTIC \GUSG) with fear and trembling on your own salvation (VJ>P GCWVY`P UYVJTKCP); (13) for (ICAT) it is God who is at work in you (GPGTIY`P GP [!] WOKP) making you both will (SGNGKP) and work (GPGTIGKP) in accordance with his wish.

We might repeat here a number of the points we have already made. In particular, we might insist that here too Paul’s theme is in fact that of knowledge of God.29 However, what is added in these two texts is the claim that God (or his word) continues to be at work in believers. It is not stated exactly how this occurs. In the Thessalonians passage it may be that Paul is referring to the understanding that is implied in the word itself once it has been ‘received’ in the proper way. Such an understanding may well be ‘at work in’ the Thessalonians. Alternatively, he may have had in mind already here an idea that we find elsewhere to the effect that Christ-believers have the spirit (RPGWOC) ‘in’ them, working in the ways it sees fit.30 That would fit the quite active sense of ‘being at work’ (GPGTIGKVCK). However, what matters most for our purposes is the fact that already in this early text we are given a picture of something coming from God that is active within believers, in and through their

29. (i) Receiving (in the Thessalonians’ case) the word of the proclamation as God’s word is a matter of understanding. (ii) And when God makes the Philippians both ‘will’ and ‘work’ in accordance with his wish, he is presumably achieving this end through their own GRKIPYUKL (insight) and every CKUSJUKL (perception, see Phil. 1.9) so that they may FQMKOC \GKP … VCA FKCHGTQPVC (discern the differences) and become irreproachable on the day of Christ (1.10) to the glory and praise of God (1.11). 30. There is no developed philosophy of the RPGWOC in 1 Thessalonians, but Paul does presuppose its presence (5.19) and there is a tantalizingly brief ‘anthropology’ in 5.23, where Paul divides a Christ-believer up into ‘spirit’ (RPGWOC), ‘soul’ ([WZJ) and ‘body’ (UY`OC).

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faith. In other words, God and the human believers are being active together. That claim yields the idea I introduced of an overlap between divine and human agency. Similarly, in the Philippians passage there is no direct indication of the precise way in which God is at work in the Philippians to make them wish and do what they should. In this letter there is much more material on the RPGWOC than in the early letter to the Thessalonians. But this material is not brought into direct contact with the text on the overlap of agency. What matters most for our purposes is the fact that this text explicitly states the principle of such an overlap in believers after conversion.

e. Summary on Paul We may summarize and tighten our findings about Paul in the following way. There is first a group of motifs that revolve around divine agency. (i) God’s agency is emphasized all through. God has done and will do a number of things in the world, from its creation onwards, via the sending of Christ, to the day of judgement. (ii) However, all these things are not just done for their own sake. Rather, they are everywhere connected with the purpose of generating knowledge in human beings. This holds for non-Christ-believing Gentiles, to whom God’s works were made manifest (text 8), as well as non-Christ-believing Jews, to whom prophets, too, were sent (text 9). But it also holds, of course and quite generally, for Christ-believers, to whom Christ was sent and made manifest (cf. Rom. 3.21–26). (iii) God has also been more concretely active vis-à-vis individual Christ-believers – e.g. Paul’s addressees and Paul himself – in order to generate knowledge in them. He has sent them a vision of Christ (e.g., to Paul, texts 6 and 7) or apostles of the good news of Christ (e.g., Paul to his addressees, text 9). To those who have come to faith he has also sent the spirit (cf. e.g., Gal. 3.1–5), which is probably what now guides their desires and acts (texts 10 and 11).31 (iv) God has also been concretely active vis-à-vis groups and individual human beings in the way that he has chosen or rejected them beforehand. In accordance with the overall emphasis on knowledge, this is often expressed by saying that they have themselves been ‘known’ by him beforehand (texts 8 and 9). It is this general activity on God’s part – and not least the one referred to under (iii) – that is captured in the recurrent motif of transferral of agency (texts 1–5). Does Paul speak of a form of divine agency that is not related to human knowledge or lack thereof? At least not to any very large degree. And that, surely, has its reason. What Paul’s God, no less than Paul himself, is concerned about is that he be understood, and of course in the way he should (according to Paul). In Paul, divine agency is fundamentally about generating knowledge. 31. To my mind, passages like Gal. 3.15, 3.14, 3.26 and 4.5–7 show that Paul had a pretty clear idea of a sequence running from faith through baptism to reception of spirit. Gal. 5.16 and 18 then show that Christ-believers will ‘live by the spirit’ (RPGWOCVK RGTKRCVGKUSCK) in the sense of ‘letting themselves be led by the spirit’ (RPGWOCVK CIGUSCK). The other central passage on the spirit in relation to agency is Rom. 8.1–13 and 8.14–15.

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Next there is a group of motifs revolving around the human reaction to God’s agency. Here there are three integrated concepts: responsibility, action and knowledge. They lie on a logical line that goes back to knowledge. (v) Human beings are responsible for their ways – whether right or wrong – because they have been given the means for understanding (texts 8 and 9). This holds in spite of the fact that their knowledge or lack thereof is also said to have been generated by God beforehand (cf. [iv] above). Already here we may begin to see the special idea in Paul that I have identified as one of an overlap between divine and human agency. God is responsible, but human beings are responsible too. (vi) Human beings are responsible because they themselves also act. The actions performed by human beings – whether right or wrong – are their own. They are acting whenever they act. However, here too there is the notion of an overlap. When human beings act the way they should, it is also God who is acting ‘in’ them (text 11; end of text 6). (vii) The reason why we should say that human beings themselves act (though also ‘together with’ God)32 is that they have also in some sense themselves either acquired or missed the proper knowledge of God that this is all about. This is the crucial point. God knows beforehand (RTQIKPY UMGKP) those he has elected. When this knowledge on God’s part is ‘met’ by the chosen ones, then they also have knowledge (IPY`UKL) of God. In order for the kind of action that flows from this knowledge to be people’s own and in order for them to be therefore also themselves responsible for their ways, the knowledge must in some sense be their own, too, in addition to having clearly been generated by God. Let us therefore stay with this issue and ask in what sense this meetingpoint of shared knowledge that Paul is trying so strongly to articulate may (also) be said to be people’s own. Is human knowledge divinely or humanly generated in Paul? The first and obvious answer is that it is divinely generated. Everything we have said above points in this direction. God has known beforehand and done a host of things in order that human beings may come to know. The same is true for lack of knowledge. It is when we turn to the other half of the question that we begin to see that the question itself is misleadingly put. It would clearly be wrong to say that this kind of human knowledge has been humanly generated, even if we were prepared to speak of an overlap in this area too. Knowledge in a human being, in the sense of ‘oneself coming to see something’, is not the kind of thing that can be generated by the person who undergoes the experience. The idea of ‘selfgenerated coming to see’ is meaningless. (Think of Plato’s Meno.) One can certainly make another person come to see; or better: one can help another person come to see. But the coming to see itself cannot be generated either by another person or by oneself. Still, and this is the point, while not self-generated, the knowledge one has when one has come to see something is so intimately tied in with oneself, it is so intimately one’s own, that this fact in itself suffices to make also the acts that flow from it one’s own and hence also more broadly to render 32. This is the phrase employed for my notion of overlap at the end of text 6 (1 Cor. 15.10). One might of course speak of ‘synergy’ instead of ‘overlap’, which would be very close to Paul’s own phraseology. I am wary of the connotations, however, and prefer to employ a neutral term.

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one responsible for one’s own ways. Thus the kind of knowledge we are talking about may both be said to be divinely generated and also to be distinctly and intimately one’s own, without this requiring that it has also been humanly generated. It is this special feature of knowledge underlying individual action and responsibility that explains why one may in their case speak of an overlap between divine and human agency. There is an intense passage in 2 Corinthians in which Paul ends up describing his own experience of coming to the true insight in a way that brings out particularly strongly the way this experience, which has been generated by God, is also particularly and intimately Paul’s own: 2 Cor. 4.1–6. We cannot unfortunately go into this passage here. Suffice it to say that it culminates in a verse (4.6) in which Paul brings out very clearly the character of an inner vision and illumination that he understands as being characteristic of the kind of knowledge (IPY`UKL) he is trying to identify. Everything in this description is about inner illumination, apart from the single word IPY`UKL, which the rest is precisely intended to elucidate. Just as we find in 4.4, so here too there is a clear division between what God has done (shining forth in the interior in order to bring to light) and the resulting knowledge in the form of a vision, which is very much (also) the person’s own experience. This text, then, shows us in what way the proper knowledge is both generated by God (or prevented by the god of the present world, for 4.4) and is also very much the person’s distinctly own experience, even though not generated by him or her. We should conclude from this second group of motifs that the human reaction to God’s agency in terms of responsibility, action and also knowledge is very much their own. Finally, there is a third theme in all the texts we have been studying. This pertains in particular to the question of the rhetorical purpose of Paul’s talk of divine agency in relation to knowledge. Again and again Paul brings in the idea of divine agency in generating the knowledge for which he is arguing. The purpose is clearly to insist that what Paul presents as the true knowledge is in fact this, just because it has been generated by God himself. It is not some merely ‘human knowledge’, but ‘God-knowledge’. What Paul himself reveals or makes manifest (cf. HCPGTYUKL in 2 Cor. 4.2) is the truth (J C NJSGKC, ibid.) because it has been directly generated by God. The importance of this theme is vast. But the strong and exclusive emphasis on God’s agency in generating the proper knowledge must not be taken to obliterate the other result we have also reached: that the knowledge generated in this way in human beings by God is also distinctly their own, or in other words, that when they do have this knowledge, then they are aligning themselves (and of course also being aligned) with God.

3. Comparison of Paul with Epictetus We saw earlier that there are considerable similarities between Paul and Epictetus with regard to the relationship of human beings to their own bodies and to the rest of the world. This is also relevant to the question of the relationship with God in either thinker, but here we also find some rather interesting dissimilarities

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that are due to differences in the conception of God himself. What is the role of God vis-à-vis human knowledge? How should we organize the similarities and dissimilarities between Paul and Epictetus with regard to this question? (1) First, we should repeat a point already made regarding the phenomenological quality of the knowledge of God that both writers are concerned about. In this respect the similarity is quite close. In both writers, the formula for this knowledge is alignment with God. The basic description of this alignment is also rather similar. In both writers, it is a matter of an inner understanding of the self and its belonging which both reflects and is directed outwards to a God who is himself understood as being (also) external to the psyche. It is this fundamental similarity in the proper relationship with God – directedness towards God – that explains the broader similarity we noted to begin with regarding the relationship with one’s own body and with the rest of the world, that of disengagement and turning one’s back on it. I have already emphasized that this comprehensive similarity is a major one. It is what accounts for the sense that thoughtful people have had since antiquity itself to the effect that Stoicism and (Pauline) Christianity are sufficiently similar for it to be worth noting. We may focus the similarity by pointing out that the understanding of selfsufficiency in connection with this knowledge that we elaborated in our analysis of Epictetus may be brought over wholesale into Paul. In Epictetus, as we saw, a person who has the proper knowledge is certainly self-sufficient in relation to his body and the rest of the world, but distinctly not in relation to God. Exactly the same picture is given by Paul in Philippians (4.10–20) when he spells out the manner in which he himself – as he claims – is ‘self-sufficient’ (even down to the very word: CWVC TMJL, 4.11): entirely unconcerned about his bodily and worldly situation (4.12), but instead being (literally) ‘empowered’ by God (4.13, the word is GPFWPCOGKP) in such a manner that, as a consequence, he aligns himself with him. (2) Turning now to questions of epistemology rather than mere phenomenology, we may note a dissimilarity with regard to the way the proper knowledge is acquired. This dissimilarity is a very important one. It reflects a different conception of God. It is also the fundamental difference, I suggest, that underlies all claims to the effect that Stoicism and (Pauline) Christianity after all express quite different worldviews. We must be particularly careful, however, in the way we specify the difference. Let us begin from one of the two texts in which Epictetus explicitly refers to the Christians.33 He is discussing freedom from fear (4.7) and asking why a child or an adult who wishes to die will not feel fear when they come into the presence of a tyrant surrounded by his guards (4.7.2–3). Next he asks the same question for a person to whom it is completely the same whether to live or to die (4.7.4). What, then, (4.7.5) if ‘due to some madness (OCPKC) or complete lack of sense (C RQPQKC)’ somebody should have the same completely indifferent attitude towards his property, children, wife and so forth as the other one had towards his body? Would he too not be completely free of fear? (Yes) 33. The other passage is Diss. 2.9.19–21.

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Divine and Human Agency in Paul 12 (Diss. 4.7.6–7) (6) Therefore, if madness (OCPKC) can produce this attitude of mind towards the things just mentioned, and also habit (GSQL), as with the Galilaeans (QK )CNKNCKQK), cannot reason (NQIQL) and demonstration (CRQFGKEKL) teach a man that God has made all things in the world and the whole world itself so that the latter be free from hindrance and complete in itself (CWVQVGNJL, perfect, self-sufficing), whereas the parts of it (should) serve the needs of the whole? (7) Now all other animals…, but the rational animal…

Epictetus’ reference to the ‘habit’ of the Galilaeans is mysterious. Perhaps he means that the Christians are brought up more or less blindly, that is without ‘reason and demonstration’, to have their strange beliefs. But he is also implying that it is one and the same attitude to worldly affairs that one may acquire either from madness or from Christian ‘habit’ – or indeed in Epictetus’ own proper way: from reason and demonstration. Let us then bring in a famous passage in Paul in which he describes the character and content of his message to the Corinthians when he came to them the first time. 13 (1 Cor. 2.4–5). (4) And my speech (NQIQL) and my proclamation (MJTWIOC) did not consist in persuasive words of wisdom (UQHKC), but in demonstration of spirit and power (C RQ FGKEKL RPGWOCVQL MCK> FWPC OGYL), (5) in order that your faith (RKUVKL) be not in the wisdom of human beings (UQHKC C PSTY RYP), but in the power (FWPCOKL) of God.

The interplay between these two texts is so close that they may serve together to bring out the clear contrast between the two points of view. Where Epictetus relies on the idea of a ‘rational demonstration’ (NQIQL and CRQFGKEKL) which may ‘teach’ people the proper kind of knowledge and as such reflects Epictetus’ notion of God, Paul rejects this as ‘wisdom of human beings’ that is stated in ‘persuasive words of wisdom’. Instead, Paul’s NQIQL, which is a proclamation, is a ‘demonstration of spirit and power’ which will generate something other than Epictetus’ ‘learning’ (the word is OCSGKP), namely, faith (RKUVKL). The contrast seems stark and uncompromising. Indeed, the two patterns of thought appear to stand here in what appears to be a direct confrontation. But we must be very careful in specifying the exact content. Paul himself provides valuable help in the immediately preceding ch. 1 of the letter (1.18–25), where he has stated that the NQIQL of his proclamation (1.18, 23) is a case of ‘foolishness’ (OYTKC) – where Greeks expect wisdom (UQHKC) – and weakness (C USGPGKC) – where Jews expect divine power (FWPCOKL). The weakness lies in the message of a crucified Christ (1.23, cf. 2.2). In text 13, however, that follows almost immediately upon this, Paul’s proclamation is then said to be a demonstration of spirit and divine power (again FWPCOKL). The solution to this apparent paradox lies in keeping the two halves of Paul’s message together: the crucified Christ (weakness) and his resurrection (power). In this way Paul may be said to be operating – so far, at least (but see more below) – distinctly within the Jewish framework he has himself introduced of weakness and power; only, while sticking to this framework, he is turning it around: what Jews take to be weakness is in fact power. By contrast, when seen in relation to

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the Greek framework of wisdom and foolishness both the message of weakness and that of power are an example of the latter. They are foolishness. This – the contrast between God’s power and Greek wisdom (what Paul calls merely ‘human wisdom’ in text 13) – is the contrast we need in order to make sense of the two different pictures contained in texts 12 and 13 of God’s ways of making human beings acquire the proper knowledge. Epictetus’ God is, as it were, a predictable God. Indeed, he is eminently the guarantee of the predictability of the world. This predictability, furthermore, constitutes the very content of (Greek) UQHKC. Paul’s God, by contrast, is an unpredictable God.34 As he explains in Romans, God’s ways are inscrutable (11.33–36). And as he has also explained earlier in the same letter (4.17–25), this inscrutability is reflected in the fact that Paul’s God is able to generate life out of death, as reflected in the story of Abraham and, precisely, in the fate of Christ. It is obviously this difference of predictability and unpredictability in the conception of God that has struck people – rightly – throughout the ages as constituting a major dissimilarity between, for instance, Paul and Greek philosophy. It is also this difference that is nowadays often expressed by claiming – again rightly – that Paul was thinking within an ‘apocalyptic’ framework. As we have already seen, he does use the language of ‘revelation’ (CRQMC NW[UKL). Moreover, just as he speaks in the language of the apocalypticist of God’s ‘mystery’ at the end of Romans 11 (11.25) where he is also describing God’s inscrutability, so he again refers to a ‘mystery’ in our 1 Corinthians passage (at 2.7) immediately after having spoken of God’s power. Here, then, we have a strong and clear difference in the conception of God and the concomitant understanding of the way human beings may acquire the proper knowledge. On the one side we have ‘learning through reason and demonstration’ by considering the regular pattern of how God has from the start constructed the world and continues to manage it – and the relevance of that for human beings.35 On the other side we have hearing and believing a message that consists in a ‘demonstration of spirit and (God’s) power’, focusing on what God has unpredictably (though in accordance with his general character) done in the Christ event and the relevance of that for human beings. In spite of the shared anchorage of the overall picture in what God has done, the difference is also very clear. However, the immensely important point is that in Paul this whole picture of God and the way human beings may acquire the proper knowledge is only one half of the whole story. We must now look at the other half, which will once more bring Paul back into close proximity with Epictetus. (3) If there is the difference we have just noted in point 2 in the way human beings may acquire the proper knowledge, it remains the case that once they have acquired it, they are in a state that is very similar epistemologically within the 34. I have borrowed the notion of predictability/unpredictability from the title of Wayne Meeks’ article, ‘On Trusting an Unpredictable God: A Hermeneutical Reflection on Romans 9–11’, in J. T. Carroll, C. H. Cosgrove and E. E. Johnson (eds.), Faith and History (Festschrift P. W. Meyer; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990), pp. 105–24. 35. Note that this is the way Paul himself says in Romans 1 that Gentiles both should and could have reached the proper knowledge of God.

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two systems. Here we are not just talking, as in point 1 above, of the phenomenological character of the state in terms of the relationship it implies with the body, the world and God. Rather, it is its character of knowledge itself that is in view. In Epictetus, of course, the state that human beings may acquire in the way explained above is one of genuine knowledge (UQHKC). Similarly in Paul, the acquired state is also one of genuine knowledge. It is not just a matter of faith or belief (RKUVKL) in the sense of accepting a statement at face value without any further understanding. On the contrary, it is a state that may well have begun as faith, but has now turned into a case of understanding. It is faith with understanding. We have repeatedly seen that Paul describes this state as one of IPY`UKL. As we recall, it is a state in which human beings meet with IPY`UKL the IPY`UKL with which God has met them, from the beginning and now at the very moment when they acquire it. Then it is strikingly revealing that in 1 Corinthians 1–2, immediately after text 13 and after he has just denounced the Greek search for UQHKC, Paul himself begins to speak of UQHKC, though ‘not the wisdom of the present world nor of the rulers of the present world, who are on their way to perish’ (2.6), but ‘God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden one which God determined beforehand from the beginning of time for our glory’ (2.7). Is this talk of UQHKC just a nice linguistic paradox? Does Paul not really think of the new knowledge as UQHKC? He does. For he goes on (2.10–16) to anchor it in a new epistemological capacity: the spirit (RPGWOC). And here he ends with the startling claim that ‘we’, that is, pneumatic believers, ‘possess Christ’s PQWL’, that is, Christ’s (faculty of) understanding. 5QHKC and PQWL: through the RPGWOC, which believers have received directly from God, they are now in a state that is one of genuine knowledge; they fully know and understand what God has wanted them to understand; they have God’s knowledge. This point needs emphasis. We saw that Paul described God as unpredictable. That feature of Paul’s conception of God must remain in place. But now we must also say that once human beings have acquired the proper knowledge – through God’s unpredictable agency – they will have a knowledge which will either dissolve this unpredictability or at least push it into a subsidiary position. These people know God. They have understood God’s character as revealed in his unpredictable acts. And Paul never entertains the possibility that they may still be wrong about this. In this way the comparison of Paul with Epictetus ends up locating a number of similarities and dissimilarities between them. There is similarity in the phenomenology and content of the state of knowledge that is in focus in both systems with regard to the relationship of the knower with his or her own body, with the rest of the world and with God. And there is similarity in the precise kind of self-sufficiency that goes into these relationships (point 1 above). There is dissimilarity in the conception of God that underlies the picture in either system of how human beings may acquire the proper knowledge (point 2 above). But then again there is similarity in the level of knowledge had by human beings once they have been brought to acquire the proper knowledge. In both systems, these people genuinely know (point 3 above).

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The aim of this whole analysis has been twofold. I have partly wanted to tease out similarities and dissimilarities in the handling of divine and human agency in Epictetus and Paul in order to avoid generalizing statements, of which there are far too many. I have also wanted to address both writers at the same level of discourse in order to see what comes out of treating them as players in the same game, one that is not beforehand categorized as being either a religious or a philosophical one. We have seen that the last attempt fits the attitude adopted by the two writers themselves. While they are both more or less explicitly rejecting the other position, they also in fact make basic claims that are fundamentally similar and – more importantly here – claims that they themselves know to be similar. Epictetus knows that there is a similarity with what the ‘Galilaeans’ believe ‘from habit’ and what he himself thinks can be proved. And Paul knows that his own position is sufficiently similar to the Greek one to qualify as a form of ‘wisdom’, though an alternative one. It is as part of this shared level of discourse, with its many similarities, that the equally important dissimilarities should be understood.

Conclusion This essay remains a torso. I had planned to conclude by looking at the function of the talk of divine agency in both writers and thus to place their thought not only at the basic level of philosophy with which we have been engaged, but also within their historical context, which is a material (including bodily), social and not least political one. Here I would particularly have focused on the notion of power, trying to show how the two writers use the talk about God to forge a new ‘habitus’ (in the sense developed by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu) that has some striking similarities in the manner it relates to the worldly powers, but also some interesting differences. That will be for another occasion, however. Here I will conclude that there is no idea in either Paul or Epictetus of human agency and self-sufficiency of a more modern kind, that is, in opposition to and over against God and his agency. In other words, the distinction between divine and human agency has no grip in either writer.36 Instead, there is an idea of a self which is able to reject the world because in being directed towards and aligning itself with God it has the self-sufficiency – and indeed, power – of God.

36. Does this conclusion hold more generally for other writers in the context of Epictetus and Paul? What, for instance, about Philo, whom John Barclay analyses most suggestively in this volume? Here again, however, I find that the framework or perspective from which one begins the analysis is of crucial importance. What would come out of looking at this fascinating material against the background of those questions of epistemology and the phenomenology of knowledge with which I have been concerned here?

Chapter 8 ‘BY THE GRACE OF GOD I AM WHAT I AM’: GRACE AND AGENCY IN PHILO AND PAUL John M. G. Barclay The Jewish philosopher Philo and the Jewish apostle Paul were contemporaries whose paths never crossed and whose minds moved within startlingly different frameworks. Both, however, were profoundly engaged in the interpretation of the Jewish Scriptures, both reflected deeply on God, and both placed human action within the context of divine grace. A comparison which gives attention to the differences as well as the similarities between these two figures seems well justified, and has good precedent in recent scholarship.1 Of course, comparative projects have well-known procedural pitfalls: in this case we have a huge volume of Philo’s philosophical exegesis, in three modes (allegory; exposition; questions and answers), to place alongside just seven highly contextualized letters from Paul; and neither author is famed for his systematic consistency. On our topic there are also strong undercurrents which can skew the balance of the comparison. Both Philo and Paul consider it the height of impiety to fail to acknowledge the prior gracious action of God, and they have bequeathed to us the presumption that a higher or truer expression of religion is one which places God more clearly and more radically at the root of the process of causation.2 In its specific Christian expression – the priority of grace over works – this has spawned polemical assaults on Judaism, as well as internal polemics against ‘Pelagian’ or ‘Arminian’ tendencies. The issues at stake are huge: the place of Paul, or Christianity in general, in (or against) the history of religion. To allow this undertow to determine our comparison might cause us to exaggerate differences between Paul and Philo; to compensate overmuch in the opposite direction might lead us to homogenize two parallel but non-identical patterns of thought.

1. See on our topic especially D. Zeller, Charis bei Philon und Paulus (Stuttgarter Bibelstudien 142; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1990). Earlier scholarship includes H. A. A. Kennedy, Philo’s Contribution to Religion (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1919), and J. Moffatt, Grace in the New Testament (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1931). 2. Philip Alexander rightly highlights this presumption as operative even (indeed, especially) in Sanders’ treatment of Judaism; see his essay, ‘Torah and Salvation in Tannatic Literature’, in D. A. Carson, P. T. O’Brien and M. A. Seifrid (eds.), Justification and Variegated Nomism, vol. 1: The Complexities of Second Temple Judaism (Tübingen: Mohr, 2001), pp. 261–301.

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1. Philo on Divine Grace and Human Virtue Since Philo’s philosophy is throughout exegetical, we may best approach our topic by watching how he handles the first use of the term ZC TKL in the LXX, in Gen. 6.8: 0Y`G GW=TG ZC TKP GPCPVKQP MWTKQW VQW SGQW (Deus 86–116).3 Typically, he weighs every word here, while focusing on the central theme of grace. What does it mean to find grace? As usual, Philo shows no knowledge of the underlying Hebrew idiom. He engages on a philosophical distinction between finding and rediscovering, which, by means of other pentateuchal texts, leads to a reflection on the joy of unexpected discovery when, without human toil, God simply ‘delivers’ (Gen. 27.20) eternal wisdom and perfect happiness (GWFCKOQPKC), as the Israelites experienced in the land they entered, where they found cities and houses (allegorized as generic and specific virtues) without having to build them themselves (Deut. 6.10–11). But why is Noah singled out for mention here? It cannot mean simply that he obtained grace, since all creation receives that from the creator. Was he then found worthy of it? Perhaps, but perhaps not, since who could be judged worthy of divine grace (Deus 104–106)? The best solution is that he, as an C UVGKQL individual, eager to learn, discovered that all creation is the gift or grace of God (107–109). But the text shows he was well-pleasing (GWCTGUVJUCK) only to the two ‘powers’ of the Existent One (the ‘Lord’ power and the ‘God’ power), whereas Moses ‘found grace’ with the Existent One himself (Exod. 33.17). This multi-faceted exegesis introduces us to all the main themes in Philo’s treatment of grace. Noah’s discovery of the graced-character of the world is the foundation of all else: creation as gift and God as gracious cause of all that is. The discovery of happiness/virtue and the question of ‘worth’ is the key issue at the interface between the grace of the Creator and his human creatures. And the question of proximity to the Existent One alludes to the central dynamic in Philo’s soteriology, the ascent of the soul to the vision of God. We will examine each of these themes in turn from the perspective of grace, as space allows.

a. Grace in Creation and Causation For Philo, the fundamental paradigm of the grace of God is the creation of the world, which God out of pure goodness gifted to itself, not from need but because his nature is beneficent (Deus 108; Mut. 46). As Philo constantly reiterates, God is HKNQFYTQL (Leg. 3.166; Conf. 182; Migr. 30; etc.) and his goodwill to the world and to humanity is unfailing.4 While God’s powers (FWPC OGKL) can be distinguished as the ruling and the beneficent/creating powers, God himself is not responsible for evil but wills only the good (Spec. 4.187). Punishment and sanc3. See the commentary on this treatise in D. Winston and J. Dillon (eds.), Two Treatises of Philo of Alexandria. A Commentary on De Gigantibus and Quod Deus sit Immutabilis (Chico, CA: Scholars, 1983). 4. Zeller, Charis 38–41 rightly emphasizes that the foundation of Philo’s theology lies in this ‘ontological grace’.

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tions are the work of Justice, at some remove from God; it is right that the ten commandments were issued without mention of penalties since ‘it is fitting that the Great King…should be the guardian of peace and should richly and ungrudgingly supply all the good things of peace to all people everywhere, and always’ (Decal. 178).5 God’s gracious causation of all that exists is of critical importance for Philo in distinguishing his philosophy from impious alternatives, and in motivating the central core of piety, gratitude to God. Acknowledging God as the ultimate CK VKQP of all that exists saves us from the irreligion of thinking the world is the cause of itself (Deus 87), or that the world runs along by our own plans and decisions and not by a providential Mind which governs everything (Leg. 3.29– 30). The critical task is to ‘refer all things to God’ (CRCPVC RTQUC RVGKP SGY^). Adam conspicuously failed to do this: he claimed to have acquired an offspring (Cain) through God (Gen. 4.1), using the preposition FKC which makes God simply the instrument (Q T  ICPQP) rather than the proper cause (CK V  KQP, requiring the preposition WR  Q, Cher. 125–30).6 Abraham, on the other hand, got it right when he declared that he would take nothing from human beings (Gen. 14.22– 23), since he recognized that all he possessed came from God (RCTCA SGQW), even if it came through human agents (Ebr. 105–10).7 If this is the proper understanding of causation, its correlate is the offering of gratitude to God, the returning of ZC TKL for ZC TKL (Her. 104). Abraham was instructed by God to make an offering with the words NC DG OQK (Gen. 15.7), and in these two words Philo finds a wealth of meaning (Her. 102–11). First, it indicates we have no good thing of our own, since whatever we have we take from Another;8 and, second, that what we take is not for ourselves but for God, that is, to be returned, like a loan, in thanksgiving. If we acknowledge that what we have (soul, sense and speech) are a holy trust from God, we will not squander them in passions and illusions, but use sense to penetrate beyond sensible objects to the truth behind them, use the soul to comprehend the higher truths, and use speech to praise the world and its maker: then we will truly attain GW FCKOQPKC. Philo emphasizes thanksgiving so often that it becomes one of the most characteristic features of his religious philosophy.9 Countering the vanity and pride which attribute the causation of good things to ourselves (Virt. 161–74; Praem. 24–27), he insists on the necessity of returning the ‘first-fruits’ of praise to the source of all riches (Somn. 2.75–78). In a rare excursion outside the Pentateuch, he finds the ideal in Hannah (whose name means ‘her grace’). Having received the divine 5. Translations are my own, unless otherwise stated. The piling up of comprehensive expressions here is reminiscent of Paul’s equally extravagant statement in 2 Cor. 9.8. 6. As Zeller notes (Charis, 39), fine distinctions of prepositions were important in Hellenistic philosophy; see further bibliography in Zeller’s notes ad loc. 7. As the Adam example shows, Philo’s scruples here extend even to the question of agency in generating offspring; the final explanation of circumcision in Spec. 1.10–12 is that it represents the docking of human arrogance that we ourselves have generated our children. 8. Paulinists will be reminded of 1 Cor. 4.8, which similarly uses the verbs GZ  Y and NCODC PY. 9. On this theme, see J. LaPorte, Eucharistia in Philo (New York/Toronto: Edwin Mullen Press, 1983).

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seed to become pregnant, she dedicated Samuel to God, giving back to God what had been given to her (1 Sam. 1.28): ‘having received him she returned him in exchange to the giver, judging no good thing to be her own possession which was not a divine gift of grace [ZC TKL SGKC]’ (Her. 5).

b. Virtue as Gift The question which concerns us most is how this divine causation is related to the exercise of human virtues. If God is the giver of all good things to all people, how are some more virtuous than others? And if God gives unstintingly, does he also give indiscriminately? Would that not be shameful as well as wasteful? Would it not be more honourable to give to those capable of receiving what he gives? These questions, which reflect the classic dilemmas for any benefactor in antiquity,10 hover around Philo’s discussion of God as giver, and are usually resolved with some sense of the ‘worthiness’ (C EKQVJL) of the recipients of God’s gifts.11 As we saw at the outset, Philo was not entirely comfortable with this notion (in the example of Noah), but it features repeatedly nonetheless. Even in our passage on Gen. 6.8, if there were doubts about Noah, Moses can be said to be worthy of grace (Deus 109) and elsewhere the covenants (dehistoricized as examples of grace) are benefits to those who are worthy of the gifts (Mut. 51– 53).12 God makes his dwelling in the soul which is fitted to please him (Cher. 98– 101) – a ‘worthy house’ (C EKQZTGYL QK?MQL). There are apparent exceptions, where God gives to the clearly unworthy, but that is only for the sake of the worthy (Sacr. 124). What about the limiting case (also of interest to Paul), where God makes promises of blessing to people before any good deed is recorded of them, or even before they were born? In a long discussion of this matter, citing Noah, Melchizedek, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Bezalel (Leg. 3.77–96), Philo insists that their names suggest that their nature or character would bear fruit in their virtues: even before their birth they had been stamped by God with a good disposition and were thus predetermined to be worthy of his grace. Here and elsewhere ‘worthiness’ does not have the strong sense of earning or deserving God’s grace, but the weaker sense of being a fitting or appropriate recipient of that goodness (see, e.g., Spec. 1.43).13 Philo is concerned to show that God’s gifts 10. On the influence of benefaction-terminology and conceptuality on Philo see J. Harrison, Paul’s Language of Grace in its Graeco-Roman Context (WUNT 2.172; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), pp. 114–33. 11. There are occasional hints of a distinction between the common grace in creation, given to all, and the special or particular graces given to those who seek virtue (Ebr. 118–19; QG 2.75). But normally, all the grace which Philo discusses is an aspect of God’s activity as creator, even if differentially applied to individual recipients. Creation and salvation are not clearly distinguishable categories. 12. See the discussion of worthiness, and further examples, in Zeller, Charis, pp. 65–72. 13. It is clear here that God bestows what is QK MGKC for the recipient – worthiness means what he is capable of receiving. Despite citing this text, Harrison (like many predecessors) imports the notion of ‘merit’ into Philo’s discussion of this matter. I find no evidence for his statement that ‘the C EKQK somehow attracted God’s ZC TKL’ (p. 125), which Harrison attributes to the influence of a GraecoRoman reciprocity ethic, in contrast to the Old Testament.

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are neither arbitrary nor squandered; he does not envisage that humans have to prove themselves lovers of virtue before God will bless them. Indeed, at many points Philo specifically denies that human virtue is what merits divine grace, or is itself in any way self-generated. In a discussion of the mysterious fault in Cain’s sacrifice (Gen. 4.3), Philo counters three human tendencies: forgetting to give thanks to God, imagining we are ourselves the cause of the good things which happen to us, and (a middle category) regarding our virtues as our natural possession, considering ourselves therefore worthy of graces from God (Sacr. 52–58). As an antidote to this last group he cites Deut. 9.5 (‘it is not because of your righteousness or the holiness of your heart that you enter into the land …’): the covenant there mentioned is the gift of virtuous action which he imparts to the human recipient (Sacr. 57). Just as the soul’s capacity to conceive of God is ‘inbreathed’ by God in creation (Gen. 2.7; Det. 86 etc.), so the virtue represented by the patriarchs’ wives is ‘sown’ (fertilized) by divine grace. It is God who gives to the soul its zeal for virtue (Leg. 1.34) and it is God who gives it the strength to exercise that virtue. Explaining why in the instructions for sacrifice the shoulder (symbol of strength) is described as ‘of that removed’ (VQW C HCKTGOCVQL, Lev. 7.34 LXX), Philo writes (Leg. 3.137): It is necessary that the soul should not ascribe to itself its labour on behalf of virtue, but should remove this from itself (C HGNGKP) and refer it to God, confessing that it was not its own strength or its own power (FWPCOKL) which achieved the good (RGTKGRQKJUG VQ> MCNQP), but he who gifted the love for it (Q MCK> VQ>P GTYVC ZCTKUC OGPQL).

This does not deny the soul the action, but attributes the love for virtue, and the strength to achieve it, to God. Thus it is only by God’s help that virtue is possible at all, though the precise relation between divine and human agency can be variously described. In stringent mode, Philo insists that we are only instruments through whom God acts: it is impious to imagine that we are the CK VKQP of anything good (Ebr. 105–10).14 From this perspective he can emphasize the nothingness of humanity and press for a polar opposition between God, whose nature it is to act (RQKGKP) and humanity, whose nature it is to be acted upon (RC UZGKP; Cher. 77; Leg. 1.49). In less stringent mode, he can describe the striving of the soul towards virtue as being aided, furthered and enabled by the goodness of God. The moral activity of the soul is thus like a shrivelled ear of corn on which God sends his ‘saving powers’ to give power to rise up and bear full fruit (C PGIGTSJPCK VG MCK> VGNGKQIQPJUCK, Virt. 49), or like a spark, warmed into life, which flares up and gives bright light: ‘even so, meagre goodness, by the thoughtfulness of God (GRKHTQUWPJ^ SGQW), becomes large and abundant’ (Migr. 123). And to this Philo can bear personal testimony. Discussing the changeability of the human heart, he talks of the frequent occasions when, on the verge of admitting some vile thought, he has ‘washed it away’ with better thoughts, ‘God in his grace having poured on the soul a sweet draught in place of the bitter one’ (Leg. 2.32).

14. In Leg. 1.82, even praise to God is regarded as, first and foremost, an act of God.

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The dialectic between human inclination towards virtue and the divine initiative of grace can thus take varied expression. In his discussion of repentance in Virt. 175ff., Philo first stresses the importance of rejecting error and vice, in turning towards God. Gentiles must ‘desert’ to the ranks of virtue, and the admonitions to repentance teach us to ‘refit’ our lives into a better condition. Deuteronomy 30.11–14 springs to mind: this is not too hard, but can be effected by the harmony of our thoughts, words and actions (Virt. 183) and ‘if a man does not forget to keep this harmony he will be well-pleasing to God, becoming at once God-loving and loved by God’ (GW CTGUVJUGK SGY^ IGPQOGPQL QOQW SGQHKNJ>L MCK> HKNQSGQL, Virt. 184). The fitting comment on this is Deut. 26.17–18: ‘you have today chosen God to be God for you, and God has chosen you today to be a people for him’. Individualizing this, as usual (the ‘you’ is singular, after all), Philo finds here a ‘glorious reciprocity of choice’ (RCIMC NJ VJL CKTGUGYL C PVKFQUKL): humanity hastens to worship the Existent One, and God without delay takes the suppliant to himself and anticipates (RTQCRCPVCP) the will of those who honestly come to worship him (Virt. 185). That ‘anticipates’ is echoed in another passage on repentance (Leg. 3.211–15, on the ‘groaning’ of Gen. 3.16). The good kind of groaning is performed by the soul when the pleasure-loving disposition has ‘died out of the soul’ (C RQSC PJ^ GM VJL [WZJL), which then can groan in repentance, crying out to the master. Many souls have desired to repent but not been permitted by God to do so (Lot’s wife is the classic example). In other cases, however, ‘their cry has ascended to God’ (Exod. 2.23), but only because of the grace of God: the cry could only ascend because God has called it to himself. God thus anticipates (RTQCRCPVC^) some souls, ‘coming to’ us to bless us (Exod. 20.24), so great is the grace of the Cause (CK VKQP, Virt. 215). One further passage sets this dialectic in another perspective. This is preserved only in fragment, coming from the lost Legum Allegoriae Book 4; it is a commentary on Deut. 30.15, 19, where Moses sets before the people the challenge, ‘I set before you life and death, blessing and curse…therefore choose life that your descendants may live’. Philo is fascinated by this passage, but also concerned by the implication that human choice could determine salvation. I cite the passage here in full: It is a happy thing for the soul to have the power to choose the better of the two choices put forward by the Creator, but it is happier not for the soul to choose, but for the Creator to bring it over to himself and improve it (OCMCTKYVGTQP FG> VQ> OJ> CW VJ>P GNGUSCK VQ>P FG> FJOKQWTIQ>P RTQUC IGUSCK MCK> DGNVKY`UCK). For, strictly speaking (MWTKYL), the human mind does not choose the good through itself, but in accordance with the thoughtfulness of God (MCV’ GRKHTQUWPJP SGQW), since he bestows the best things upon the worthy. For two main principles are with the Lawgiver, namely, that, on the one hand, God does not govern all things as a man, and that, on the other, he trains and educates us as a man. Accordingly, when he maintains the second principle, namely, that God acts as a man, he introduces that which is in our power as the competence to know something, will, choose and avoid (VQ> GH’ JOKP GK UC IJ^ YL KMCPQ>L MCK> IPY`PCK VK MCK> DQWNGUSCK MCK> GNGUSCK MCK> HWIGKP). But when he affirms that first and better principle, namely, that God acts not as a man, he ascribes the powers and causes of all things to God (VCAL RC PVYP FWPC OGKL MCK> CK VKCL C PC [J^ SGY^) , leaving

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Philo is wrestling with the question of free will, which a strong doctrine of divine causation would make problematic; but he has to explain the presence of numerous injunctions in the Scriptures, including those which suggest that human choice is of decisive significance. Wolfson argued, against the grain of this passage, that Philo believed in absolute human free will (granted by God), but his thesis is impossible, and at most one could argue here for a relative free will.16 But rather than make room for human free choice and action within the divine causation, Philo presents one as the shallower truth (when God acts ‘as a man’ to educate us, he speaks as if we have freedom of choice) and the other as the deeper truth, accessible to those ‘initiated in the great mysteries’ of the sovereignty of God. According to this ‘better’ principle, God alone is the actor, and the created being only ‘inactive’ and ‘passive’. It appears that Philo’s principles of divine causation and divine grace can occasionally go so deep as to treat all ethical injunctions and corresponding claims of human virtue as no more than a useful rhetorical pretence.

c. The Ascent of the Soul The ‘greater mysteries’ just noted gesture to the drama of salvation in Philo, which consists of the soul’s upward journey from the life of the senses and the passions to the right conception about God, and on through, eventually, to the ‘mysteries’ in contemplation of the Existent One himself.17 We cannot trace here all the dimensions of this mysticism, but it is important to note two matters: first, that at every stage, and in every dimension of this soul-journey, the soul is dependent on the grace of God in revealing himself; and second, that the highest or climactic reaches of this ascent always end in the ‘rest’ or inactivity of the soul, where the soul comes to its limits and experiences the pure agency of God. 15. J. Rendell Harris, Fragments from Philo Judaeus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1886), p. 8; the passage is found in the Res Sacrae Leontii et Joannis (Cod. Vat. 1553). 16. H. A. Wolfson, Philo. Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (2 vols.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1948), vol. 1, pp. 432–56; rightly challenged by D. Winston, ‘Freedom and Determinism in Philo of Alexandria’, SP 3 (1974–75), pp. 47–70. 17. The importance of Philo’s mysticism was rightly grasped by E. R. Goodenough in his By Light, Light. The Mystic Gospel of Hellenistic Judaism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1935), even if he misconstrued it in part. Reaction against Goodenough has often dismissed his central thesis too easily. See now the valuably balanced treatment by C. Noack, Gottesbewusstsein: Exegetische Studien zur Soteriologie und Mystik bei Philo von Alexandria (WUNT 2.116; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000).

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As is well-known, Philo identifies the three patriarchs with the three soultypes discussed in Hellenistic philosophy: Abraham, who advances by learning; Isaac, who is ‘self-taught’; and Jacob, who progresses by practice/discipline (C U  MJUKL). Each of these is dependent in critical ways on the grace of God.18 Abraham progresses beyond cosmos-contemplation to the knowledge of God, but only as God reveals himself (Abr. 79–80). Isaac, the self-taught, is better described as God-taught, and represents the laughter which God sows in human hearts (e.g., Leg. 3.219). And although Jacob quintessentially works and wrestles to be the RTQMQRVYP on the upward journey, the critical moment is when God, in his mercy, allows him to pass over into the state of Israel (the one who sees God), or into the state of Isaac, that is, rest (Sacr. 42; Migr. 26–33). In this regard, Philo again offers a rare autobiographical remark, describing times when he thought he knew what he wanted to write, but proved incapable of giving birth to ideas, while at other times, coming to his work empty, ‘I suddenly became full, the ideas falling in a shower from above and being sown invisibly’, an experience of ‘divine possession’, ‘corybantic frenzy’ and sudden access to language, ideas and light (Migr. 34–35).19 This is the same experience which he elsewhere describes as ‘finding without seeking’, the moments of discovery noted in our opening passage about Noah, when unexpectedly, and without human toil or labour, knowledge is granted to the soul from God himself (cf. Fug. 166–76). Such supreme knowledge of God is only possible when God ‘draws’ the soul up to himself (Leg. 1.34–38), or when, in biblical terms, God ‘shows himself’ to the soul, as he did to Moses (Exod. 33.13; Leg. 3.97–103; Post. 16; Abr. 80). Here we can see only when our light is met by light from God (Deus 77–79). At the top of the ladder of ascent are the genuine worshippers and friends of God who apprehend God through God himself, light from light (Praem. 36–46). At this point, human labour, toil and effort are useless and must wholly cease: it is precisely without work that the goods of the land are inherited (Deut. 6.10–11), for the nature of the self-taught and the nature of rest is divine, ‘arising not by human designs, but by a divine ecstasy’ (QW M C PSTYRKPCKL GRKPQKCKL, C NN’ GPSGY^ OCPKC^, Fug. 168). Philo’s theology of grace thus extends across the whole human journey, from creation to perfection. God’s creatorial activity is central throughout, as grace is the expression of God’s causation of everything good that comes to be. It would be hard to find stronger expressions of the priority of divine grace: any hint that human activity was a prior cause of virtue or spiritual vision would suggest to Philo the grossest impiety. As we have seen, he will often use language of ‘worthiness’, but only in the weak sense of the characters being ‘fit’ to receive divine grace; and those characters are so formed by God’s imprint on the soul, 18. See the useful summary by Zeller, Charis, pp. 87–98. 19. The sense of inadequacy experienced by Philo is not often given existential expression, but it stands as the correlate of divine grace. As he puts it elsewhere, when Abraham most knew (GIPY) himself was when he despaired (C RGIPY) of himself, and this as a step towards knowing ‘the utter nothingness of created being. And the person who has despaired of himself is beginning to know the Existent One’ (Somn. 1.60).

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not, in the first place, by their own achievement. Philo can speak often of the moral and spiritual struggle of the soul, as it toils, yearns and progresses in virtue, but when he needs to press the point he can insist that, strictly speaking, God is the ultimate cause of virtue and, in the end, at the top of the ladder of ascent, the soul becomes passive and divine gift is found to be all in all. Even when one speaks of a human choice of moral options, there is a corresponding C PVKFQUKL of divine choice, and that, he insists, is the ‘first and better’ principle of explanation for those who understand the mysteries of God. The scriptural narratives are, in allegory, made timeless and individualized: at the deepest level they concern the soul and its interaction with God.20 And at its moments of deepest and truest reflection, the soul recognizes that what underpins, enables, aids and perfects its own moral struggle is the prevenient grace of God; by the grace of God it is what it is.

2. Paul on the Grace of God-in-Christ and Human Agency We may take as our entry point into Paul’s theology of grace a rapid trawl through the opening chapters of his earliest letter, Galatians.21 Here, proclaiming ‘grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ’ (1.3), Paul rebukes the Galatians for deserting ‘the one who called you in the grace of Christ’ (1.6),22 emphasizing both the divine initiative in the gospel as it encountered the Gentiles and the possibility that that calling could be denied and renounced. Later he will trace this gospel-initiative back to the promises given to Abraham (3.8), promises of an ‘inheritance’ which did not come through the law, but ‘God graced them through a promise’ (FK GRCIIGNKCL MGZC TKUVCK Q SGQL, 3.18). However, this is not a timeless principle of grace, but a phenomenon given specific concretion in the death of Christ: reminding the Galatians of the Son of God ‘who loved me and gave himself for me’, Paul insists: ‘I will not reject the grace of God: for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain’ (2.20–21). The same christocentric specificity applies in the case of Paul himself. After advancing superlatively along the path of the ancestral traditions, he encountered a revelation of God’s Son, which he interprets as the fulfilment of being set apart from his mother’s womb and called by God’s grace (1.15–16; cf. 2.9). The dramatic refashioning of the self that this revelation brought about is later described as sharing in 20. For the relationship between Philo’s allegory and the historical Israel (both Scriptural and contemporary) see my Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora from Alexander to Trajan (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), pp. 158–80; and E. Birnbaum, The Place of Judaism in Philo’s Thought. Israel, Jews, and Proselytes (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996). 21. Surprisingly little has been written on Paul’s understanding of grace since Sanders questioned its significance as a point of difference from Judaism (Paul and Palestinian Judaism, London: SCM Press, 1977). Harrison, Paul’s Language of Grace contextualises Paul’s discourse in the Graeco-Roman system of benefaction and reciprocity. See now F. B. Watson, Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith (London: T&T Clark International, 2004). 22. On the textual problem (some early texts omit :TKUVQW), see J. L. Martyn, Galatians (New York: Doubleday, 1997), p. 109, and R. N. Longenecker, Galatians (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1990), pp. 12–13, who reach opposite conclusions.

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the death of Christ: ‘I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me’ (2.19). Thus these chapters provide us with the central aspects of the theme of grace in Paul (grace in Christ, to Gentile and Jew, apart from the law, through death and new creation), which we pursue first in general terms, before looking more closely at grace and human agency.

a. Subversive Grace Although Paul can occasionally discuss grace in the context of creational blessings (2 Cor. 9.6–10), his characteristic stance is to associate the grace of God with the Christ-event. The foundational event to which he calls the Corinthians’ attention is ‘the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (2 Cor. 8.9), and there is little doubt what (or whom) he is referring to by God’s ‘inexpressible gift’ (2 Cor. 9.15). In discussing the figure of Adam, Paul identifies the grace of God not in the constitution or capacity of humanity in general, but in the overflowing of the ‘gift in grace’ of the one man Jesus Christ (Rom. 5.12–21). Although the Christevent is the expression of ‘the grace of God’ (Gal. 2.21), there is no gap between ‘Christ’ and ‘God’ in this regard: a historical moment becomes the definitive instance of divine grace which fundamentally alters the relationship between humanity and God. Christ is not, then, a new and substitutable ‘label’ for divine grace, but stands at a very particular moment when divine grace changes the history of the world, throwing all else, before and after, into a different light. As we have seen, a focal point of Paul’s theology is the calling of Gentiles, for which he is himself graced and equipped as an apostle (Gal. 1.6; 2.9; Rom. 15.15–16). But this is not just, as one might expect, an extension of grace, to widen the circle of those already gifted by inclusion of some who were hitherto ungraced. The radical edge of Paul’s gospel is that all are found to be under the power of sin, and all in the category of ‘enemy’ or ‘unrighteous’ to whom his grace is displayed (Rom. 3.8–20; 5.6–10). Like Philo, Paul is specially interested in the cases of the patriarchs to whom promises were made before they were born, or before they are recorded to have done any righteous deeds (Rom. 9.6– 29). For Paul, this underlines the sovereignty of divine grace: ‘I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy’ (Rom. 9.15, citing Exod. 33.19). He twice thereby emphasizes that the origin of salvation belongs to God, not the human actor (Rom. 9.12, 16; cf. 11.1–6).23 But he uses this catena of examples not only to justify the inclusion of Gentiles, but first and foremost to destabilize the category of ‘Israel’ (Rom. 9.6), since the grace of God he observes at work does not support but subvert the expected channels of inheritance. In the same way, Abraham in Romans 4 becomes the representative recipient of grace not only for Gentiles (whose father he is by the fact that he received the promise before he was circumcised) but also for Jews: for both it is crucially significant that he ‘believed God and it was reckoned to him for righteousness’ (Gen. 15.6), not as one working to whom a reward might be attributed MCVCA Q HGKNJOC, but as one who did not work, to whom his faith was reckoned for righteousness MCVCA ZC TKP 23. On Romans 9–11, see S. Westerholm, ‘Paul and the Law in Romans 9–11’, in J. D. G. Dunn (ed.), Paul and the Mosaic Law (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996), pp. 215–37.

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(Rom. 4.4–5). Paul is aware that this emphasis risks portraying God as arbitrary and unjust in his distribution of grace (Rom. 9.19–24), and that it threatens to dissolve the moral imperative which he continues to issue (Rom. 3.8; 6.15). Of course he counters this by affirming the power of grace to shape new patterns of obedience, but it is still a risk he seems prepared to run in order to stress that God in principle justifies the ungodly (Rom. 4.5). Thus, an essential feature of grace in Paul’s theology is its inherent subversiveness, its tendency to call into question the normal methods of reward or the expected channels of delivery. This is mirrored in (and no doubt partly based upon) his own life-story. There was none more successfully advancing (RTQMQRVYP) in Judaism, fulfilling the traditions of the ancestors and excelling in zeal for the law and righteousness, as defined by that law (Gal. 1.13–14; Phil. 3.6). But his encounter with the grace of God was emphatically not another stage in that advance, a further refinement to the righteousness he found in the law, but a total re-evaluation of all his norms, an act of God which undercut what he had previously held to be the definition of piety. This is nothing less than an experience of death, a co-crucifixion with Christ (2.18–19), since it involves the dismantling of the old self and the creation of a new. This certainly involves the realization of previous inadequacy, and the adoption of a new self-understanding, but it also entails discovering oneself to be positioned within a new agency, the life of the Spirit, or of Christ (2.20; 3.1–5). Romans 6–8 brings out and generalizes the full subversiveness of this experience. Crucified in baptism, believers live only inasmuch as they share the risen life of Christ; ‘under grace’ (6.14), they can now identify the crucial weakness of the law which was fatally exploited by sin. The depth of despair about the self here is matched by the shocking exposure of the inadequacy of the law; the power of the flesh can only be countered by the power of something newly present on the scene, the Spirit of Christ. Thus, divine grace in Paul is an eschatological event, which characteristically subverts before it recreates. The challenge is not only to the pride of the progressors, but also to the path on which they thought they were progressing, the conditions and frameworks in which piety (or righteousness, or wisdom) were previously defined. This dynamic of uncreation (in the cross, cf. 1 Corinthians 1– 2) precedes the establishment of a new creation on terms which are, in many respects, self-consciously counter-cultural. God’s grace is not only prior in time (though it is that), but also unexpected and destabilizing, and it continues as a threat to the church just when believers think they are secure (1 Cor. 10.1–13; Rom. 11.17–24). The single and decisive irruption of grace in the death and resurrection of Christ continues to press its dynamic into the life of believers, both in their initial baptism and in their subsequent experiences of suffering and service. If the narrative of the Christ-event is singular and particular, it is also re-enacted in patterns of grace writ large (and small) across the life of the believer and the church.24 To participate in Christ is to be continually reshaped by the event of grace, with unpredictable results. 24. See my essay, ‘Paul’s Story: Theology as Testimony’, in B. W. Longenecker (ed.), Narra-

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b. Divine Grace in Human Agency How does this grace operate within the life of believers? Paul is not a philosopher and we should not expect either a systematic or a consistent intellectual model within which to conceptualize this relationship. On the other hand, one of the characteristic features of Pauline paraenesis is the combination of indicative and imperative, in which the indicative more or less directly refers to the saving action of God, but the imperative follows, in strikingly similar terminology, as an urgent corollary. There are also several examples of a peculiar dialectic, which share in common a fluctuating ascription of agency, even if their expression is very varied. We may note briefly here five specific examples of this phenomenon, which I set out schematically to indicate the fluctuation between divine (A) and human (B) agency.25 (i) 1 Corinthians 15.10: in a concise depiction of his call, Paul recognizes the horror that his previous life was directed precisely against God’s purpose, in his persecution of the church. However: A: ZC TKVK FG> SGQW GK OK Q GK OK MCK> J ZC TKL CW VQW J GK L GOG> QW MGPJ> GIGPJSJ, B: C NNCA RGTKUUQVGTQP CW VY`P RC PVYP GMQRKCUC, A: QW M GIY> FG> C NNCA J ZC TKL VQW SGQW [J] UW>P GOQK

Paul’s calling, both as apostle and believer, can only be attributed to the grace of God (in this respect he is entirely ‘on a level’ with his Gentile converts); it is what constitutes his new identity. Yet, he entertains here (and elsewhere; cf. 1 Cor. 9.27; 15.2, 14; 2 Cor. 6.1) the possibility that this grace could be ‘in vain’, if it does not somehow take effect. The B-clause stresses that this grace did take effect, and not in his passivity but in his (hyper-)activity. So far the structure seems simple enough: divine grace calls forth, or takes effect in, human labour. But the final clause then swings back to emphasize the agency of grace again, and explicitly draws attention to this fluctuation by, in some sense, denying the agency of the ‘I’ in the labour, or at least strongly qualifying it by reference to the grace of God which is ‘with me’.26 Paul seems to be anxious to indicate that grace continues to be operative within his own labour, not just at the inception of his new life. But his rhetorical, and incomplete, expression leaves it hard to discern how to relate the two agencies. Philo would have been dismayed to find that even the prepositions are inconsistent (GKL GOG … UW>P GOQK).

tive Dynamics in Paul: A Critical Assessment (London: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2002), pp. 133–56. 25. Cf. the essay in this volume by Troels Engberg-Pedersen, who analyses a number of cases of such ‘transferrals of agency’. His stress lies on the cognitive dimensions of such a phenomenon which are, to my mind, only one feature of the entanglement of agencies described by Paul. 26. The textual variant is potentially significant. If the second definite article (in square brackets) is read (as in A, ;, and corrected versions of ʠ and D), it suggests an outright denial: the labourer was not ‘I’, but ‘the-grace-of-God-which-is-with-me’. If it is not read (as in ʠ*, B, D*, F, G, 1739, vg, etc.), the meaning could be taken either in this stringent sense or as a correction of B: ‘it was not (only) I who worked, but (also) the grace of God worked with me’.

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(ii) Philippians 2.12–14: having described the foundation and paradigm of salvation in 2.6–11 (A), Paul issues a call which he regards as its logical outcome (YUVG). The Philippians are instructed: B: OGVCA HQDQW MCK> VTQOQW VJ>P GCWVY`P UYVJTKCP MCVGTIC \GUSG A: SGQ>L IC T GUVKP Q GPGTIY`P GP WOKP MCK> VQ> SGNGKP MCK> VQ> GPGTIGKP WRG>T VJL GW FQMKCL B: RC PVC RQKGKVG ZYTK>L IQIIWUOY`P.

As the context in the whole letter makes clear, ‘salvation’ is a phenomenon which begins and ends with the initiative of God (1.6; 2.6–11; 3.20–21); indeed, earlier statements in this letter placed special emphasis on divine agency for and in believers (1.6, 19–20, 28–29). But paradoxically this induces in believers not simply joy but also ‘fear and trembling’; they are not spectators of an automatic procedure, but called to act (‘work out your own salvation’). But as soon as this strong and frightening imperative is issued, the A-clause swings attention back to the divine agent, who ‘effectively works in you’ (GPGTIGKP) in some correlation with ‘your work’ (MCVGTIC \GUSCK). The IC T conjunction suggests there is a logical link between the two (providing reason or motive for action), but leaves its precise nature unclear: does God’s work merely provoke, or also empower, or even constitute believers’ ‘working out’ of their own salvation (cf. 4.13; Col. 1.29)? Strikingly the divine work affects both the will and the action of believers: if even the will to act is attributed to God (whether as sole or as collaborative agent), the believers’ agency is entangled with divine agency from the roots up. (iii) Galatians 2.19–21: the same dialectical pattern seems to characterize this famous and paradigmatic statement about the formation of the believers’ new identity: A: :TKUVY^ UWPGUVCWTYOCK \Y` FG> QW MGVK GIY \J^ FG> GP GOQK> :TKUVQL B: Q> FG> PWP \Y` GP UCTMK GP RKUVGK \Y` VJ^ VQW WKQW VQW SGQW VQW C ICRJUCPVQL OG MCK> RCTCFQPVQL GCWVQ>P WRG>T GOQW

To which Paul adds: QW M C SGVY` VJ>P ZC TKP VQW SGQW… So fundamental is the recreation of the self that it can be described as a ‘cocrucifixion’ with Christ, and this participation means also the first subject of the new life is emphatically declared to be Christ, not ‘I’. But then, at least in a certain sphere, or a certain sense, the ‘I’ can be said to live, yet (whether the genitive be objective or subjective) it has its new identity focused on Christ, whose work of self-giving and loving is paradoxically precisely ‘for me’! The self here is not obliterated or hijacked by another agency; but neither is it simply informed of a new possibility, or instructed into a new view of the world. It is reconstituted in such a fashion that one has to speak thereafter of dual agency, and not simply of one operating in partnership with the other, but of Christ operating ‘in’ the human agent. But this new power is clearly non-coercive: Paul entertains as a real possibility (all too real in Galatia) that one can reject the grace of God. (iv) and (v) Romans 15.15–19 and 2 Corinthians 9.8–10: our two other examples can be summarized more briefly.27 In Romans 15 Paul reaffirms the ‘grace 27. I have discussed them more fully elsewhere in a forthcoming essay in honour of E. P. Sanders.

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of God given to me’ so that he served as a priest of Christ presenting the offering of the Gentiles. So, he has a boast in Christ Jesus since he will speak only of what Christ has worked through him (QW ICAT VQNOJUY VK NCNGKP Y]P QW MCVGKTIC UCVQ :TKUVQ>L FK’ GOQW ). Although this passage appears less programmatic than the others, it seems to reflect something typical in Paul’s selfappraisal: divine agency (interchangeably in this passage the grace of God, the work of Christ and the power of the Spirit) is what enables him to boast of his agency. The one does not cancel out or replace the other, but Paul’s agency is only comprehensible within a framework of divine work.28 In 2 Corinthians 9 Paul’s complex theology of grace reveals the same dynamics: it is because God is able to make all grace abound to the Corinthians that they have the sufficiency to abound in ‘every good work’, specifically here the good work of the collection (9.6–10). The fact that God is the source of the necessary grace does not reduce the imperative to give, which is the rhetorical force of the whole passage. On the other hand, the chief reason here offered for giving, and the proof that it is authentically Christian giving, is the spring of grace on which Christian generosity depends. These five texts (in different letters and on different topics) suggest that Paul entertains a self-consciously complex view of agency in relation to Christian work. In all cases, the logical sequence (whatever its grammatical expression) places divine grace anterior to human action, and affirms the continuation of that grace in human activity. But in no case does the human actor become passive or inactive in the face of divine grace, but is rather energized by that grace to action. The relationship between the two actors can be expressed through a variety of prepositions: grace may be described as ‘towards me’ (GK L GOG, 1 Cor. 15.10; 2 Cor. 9.8), ‘with me’ (UW>P GOQK, 1 Cor. 15.10), ‘through me’ (FK’ GOQW, Rom. 15.18) and ‘in me’ (GP GOQK, Gal. 2.20; Phil. 2.13). Paul appears to have no stable articulation of this matter. This brief analysis of a few texts only scratches the surface of the matter and a fuller enquiry would require a close analysis of the logical structure of Paul’s theology and ethics (if we may still use those category labels). To return to Galatians, and to its paraenesis in particular, the question may be focused by asking a simple question: what is the force of the dative of the noun RPGWOC in the three expressions RPGWOCVK RGTKRCVGKVG (5.16), GK RPGWOCVK \Y`OGP and RPGWOCVK UVQKZY`OGP (5.25)? We may best approach this question by a comparison of two contrasting interpretations. Martyn’s analysis of this passage (5.13–6.10) is brought under the heading, ‘The Galatians’ role in the Spirit’s war of liberation’ (p. 524).29 It is crucial for his interpretation of Galatians that the Spirit and Flesh (capitalized) are invasive powers who act upon the Galatian Christians, and who enlist those Christians to active engagement in their side of the apocalyptic war. The believers are not thereby rendered puppets (531–32), but neither are they merely offered resources in their own struggle (535). In the 28. On Paul’s apostolic agency, cf. 2 Cor. 3.4–6 where he reflects on its conditions of possibility. 29. All references here are to his Galatians.

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analysis of agency (the works of the Flesh and the fruit of the Spirit) humans are not autonomous: ‘the Spirit is and remains the primary actor in the military engagement … [The Galatians’] deeds are first of all the acts of the Spirit (5.22; cf. 4.6) and secondly the acts of themselves as persons into whose hearts the Spirit has made its entrance (5.24)’ (535). Thus the Galatians are not simply offered a choice of two paths. Although 5.16 is conditional in sense (if you walk by the Spirit, you will not fulfil the desire of the Flesh), it is predicated on the prior act of grace, which makes the Galatians addressable in these terms (534). Engberg-Pedersen’s interpretation is strikingly different, in crucial respects. This is not because there is serious disagreement on any of the major exegetical issues: they both read 5.16b as a strong negative assertion, both think 5.25a is a real condition, and both emphasize the communal dimension of the ethics of Galatians.30 Where they disagree is on the interpretative framework in which to read Paul’s ethical instructions. At one level, this surfaces in the different readings of RPGWOC and UC TE. Engberg-Pedersen resists capitalization (the Galatians are ‘led by the spirit’). Although he acknowledges that, at least in 5.17, these two terms are described as ‘mythical’ forces (163) in mutual conflict, his preference is to analyze their role here with a ‘naturalistic meaning’ (337 n. 39).31 The flesh thus stands for ‘any feature…that belongs to the individual…and is singled out as having a normative role to play’ (153), while ‘there is no new and different content to having the pneuma than what already went into having pistis’ (158). The lists, therefore, contra Martyn, are emphatically lists of human vices and virtues, and the term ‘fruit’ should not be pressed to produce ‘a contrast between God’s gift and human effort’ (339 n. 5). When Paul thus talks about being led by the spirit/Spirit, what he means is not (or not only – see below) the placing of human agency in relation to another external power, but the crucial moment (or process) of understanding who one truly is, in self-identification and commitment to community. Paul’s ethical imperatives and exhortations are, in EngbergPedersen’s view, utterly incomprehensible unless they presuppose that the Galatians can decide whether or not to let themselves be ‘led by the spirit’ in this way (342; see further below). It would take us too far afield to attempt to determine exactly the nature of this interpretative difference.32 When Engberg-Pedersen says that the social– ethical instructions in Galatians show us what the Christ-event is ‘all about’ (137) and ‘spell out’ the normative knowledge reflected in the Christ event (138), this can be taken merely in the sense that the new practices are what the theology is ‘geared towards’ (138, 140, 145–46): they are the target for the discourse. Both interpreters are strongly in agreement that ‘ethics’ is not a distinct 30. They even agree on the ‘subjective genitive’ reading of RKUVKL :TKUVQW in 2.20, which perhaps turns out to be less theologically pivotal than has been claimed. 31. Unless otherwise stated, references are to T. Engberg-Pedersen, Paul and the Stoics (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000). 32. The further conversation in JSNT 86 (2002) is illuminating in many respects: J. L. Martyn, ‘De-apocalypticizing Paul: an Essay focused on Paul and the Stoics by Troels Engberg-Pedersen’, pp. 61–102; T. Engberg-Pedersen, ‘Response to Martyn’, pp.103–14.

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or secondary feature of the letter. But there is some ambiguity (at least to this reader) over whether the apparently strong statements about divine/Spirit agency in Galatians are (i) merely being bracketed out by Engberg-Pedersen for the purposes of his very specific analysis; or (ii) are being given a strong and selfconscious interpretation/translation as statements that are really about human agency or self-understanding. There are several statements in Paul and the Stoics that would support reading (i): the X-I trajectory (for Christ/God to humanity) ‘in a manner of speaking lies outside and before the I-X-S model proper’ (140); the power-language of Galatians is thus not denied, but it is insisted that Galatians is ‘not just’ talking about that, but ‘also’ about the self-understanding of the Galatians’ (141–42, 150, 175–77).33 On the other hand, there are moments when the references to divine agency seem to be translated into other kinds of statement (reading [ii]), since the original sense (Paul’s) is inaccessible to us (see notes at 331, 335–36, 340).34 Engberg-Pedersen suggests, for instance, that we ‘translate’ participation in Christ as ‘self-identification’ (147). ‘Christ lives “in me”. That is, Paul sees and identifies himself normatively as nothing but a Christperson’ (147). But what is the meaning here of ‘that is’? I have indulged in this apparent digression, because these two very different readings of Paul raise the most critical questions about how to understand the relation between divine and human agency. If the ‘divine act’ is either bracketed out of the equation, or left dangling in an ‘untranslated’ form, a ‘mythical’ expression juxtaposed with non-mythical expressions of human agency, this has the effect of leaving the two agencies unrelated, quite contrary to the conscious and complex ways we have seen them interwoven in Paul. At best it leaves the human agent as a respondent to the divine, with response as a second and separable act from divine agency. Alternatively, the two may be juxtaposed as non-contrasting, a condition still requiring some conceptual apparatus to explain their mutual relationship.35 But Martyn’s stress on the prior agency of Spirit renders puzzling how 33. In his JSNT ‘Response’ (pp. 106–107), Engberg-Pedersen insists he was not advocating an either/or, and that the exclusive reading – emphasizing either divine power or human agency – is both a misreading of his text and an anachronism foisted on Paul by modern interpreters. Cf. his essay in this volume. 34. See further the introductory remarks (Paul and the Stoics, 25–30), with reference to Bultmann, and a crucial note (340 n. 9): ‘whether we like it or not, we are forced to step back a little from Paul’s own perspective… Since the language of the [ancient] philosophers is more immediately accessible to us, we are virtually forced by a number of facts (that this language is so close to Paul’s own, that Paul more or less explicitly uses it in places, and that other features in Paul may easily be fitted into what is basically a philosophical frame) to employ that framework in our interpretation of what Paul is talking about.’ Among the questions that arise are: how much is ‘a little’? Are there other features of Paul – critical, foundational and non-negotiable – that are not easily fitted into a philosophical frame? Whose philosophical frame, and can it accommodate statements about divine agency? If the Stoic model adopted here cannot give them much weight, is it commensurate with Paul? Would Philo’s philosophical frame (heavily influenced by Stoicism, by biblical language and by a Jewish piety of prayer and thanksgiving) be a closer point of comparison? 35. Engberg-Pedersen insists, against Martyn’s criticism, that he in no way denies the present agency of God (‘Response’, pp. 108–109; cf. Martyn, ‘De-apocalyticizing Paul’, p. 101). How the two agencies are related is one of the topics addressed in his essay in this volume.

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Paul can conceive of the possibility that the Galatians refuse to walk by the Spirit and sow to the Flesh: where do they derive the impetus (the will) to deny the Spirit, and, if from the Flesh, why does Paul exhort the Galatians on this matter?36 Can we give sufficient (I do not say ‘equal’) weight to both divine and human agency to make sense of both Paul’s prayers and his exhortations? Is it helpful to frame these in terms of chronological anteriority, or is the placement of one agency ‘within’ the other a better metaphor?37 It appears that human agency is the necessary expression of the life of the Spirit, and certainly not its antithesis; the two are not mutually exclusive as if in some zero-sum calculation.38 And it is necessary not only because God’s grace engages the will and action of the believer, but also because it is always possible to reject the grace of God. If, in some measure, Paul can envisage progress towards a ‘stronger’ faith and a better knowledge, he also regards himself and his converts as standing permanently on the edge of judgment, dependent not on their progress but on the grace in which they stand ‘in fear and trembling’. But here everything depends on how one conceives the ‘human agent’ reconstituted in Christ. Although in one sense we may speak properly of a ‘dual agency’, in non-exclusive relation, this would be inadequately expressed as the co-operation or conjunction of two agents, or as the relationship of gift and response, if it is thereby forgotten that the ‘response’ continues to be activated by grace, and the believers’ agency embedded within that of the Spirit. If we give any weight to Paul’s prepositions, some account must be given to ‘in’ and ‘through’, as well as ‘towards’ and ‘with’. Paul’s central theology of participation requires that human agency is reconceived without being abandoned, the self not merely relocated but reconstituted by its absorption within the non-coercive power of grace.39

3. Conclusion This brief discussion of Philo and Paul has attempted to identify the main characteristics of their thought, although much is required in further analysis. We may draw the following three conclusions: 1. Both Philo and Paul emphasize the priority of divine grace, as the originating cause of salvation, including human virtue. Their expressions of this matter are different, not least because Philo makes an effort (sometimes) at philosophical precision, whereas Paul delights in paradox and rhetorical surprise. But it 36. Each of our debaters accuses the other of emasculating Paul’s ethics. For Martyn, to advocate human decision without divine power is to condemn paraenesis to impotence (‘De-apocalyticizing Paul’, p. 92 n. 49; p. 102 n. 66); for Engberg-Pedersen, Paul’s appeals to his converts are meaningless unless their understanding and acts are of real significance (‘Response’, p. 107). 37. My presupposition is that Paul’s and Philo’s language is inevitably metaphorical, but not necessarily requiring to be ‘translated’ into terms accessible to (post-Enlightenment) philosophy. The life of faith (including prayer and thanksgiving) has its own requirements, not least unapologetic recognition of divine agency. 38. See above, the Introduction to this volume. 39. If we need a single term, though these are perhaps best avoided, ‘energism’ is preferable to ‘synergism’, not least because, as a neologism, it invites further enquiry.

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would be hard to adjudicate which was the more ‘radical’ in their viewpoint. Philo can press divine origination to the point where, in accordance with the ‘deeper mysteries’, he can relativize talk of human effort or choice as merely useful discourse for the less advanced. Paul can press divine election to the point where God appears wilfully arbitrary, and in dialectical mode can insist on a formulation such as ‘I, yet not I, but the grace of God’ (though never the other way around). 2. There is a substantial difference in the theological framework in which they place this grace. Philo identifies grace as the creative energy of God, and thus associates it with nature, the cosmos and the fulfilment of created human potential. For Paul, grace is revealed and enacted in the Christ-event, and thus as an eschatological event of new creation. It is this sense of novelty which gives his theology its greater subversive dynamic, its capacity to destabilize narratives of nature, tradition and progress. When compared as structural systems, this does not make Paul’s theology of grace any more ‘radical’ than Philo’s, but in its rhetorical and existential impact it bears the capacity to undercut the stable structures on which ‘nature’, ‘law’ and ‘ethics’ are built. To put this another way, Paul’s understanding of grace is both more ‘particularized’ than Philo’s (in its association with Christ) and very specifically ‘narrativized’. Divine grace took shape in the Christ-event, was experienced in a foundational event of ‘conversion’, continues to be experienced in daily experience, and is embedded in repeated acts of thanksgiving. Philo has some examples to tell of ‘daily experience’ of grace, and shares Paul’s concern with thanksgiving, but Paul’s theology is focused on a very particular narrative in its foundational and oft-remembered association with Christ. 3. If Paul lacks Philo’s concern with the ‘worthiness’ of the recipients of grace, this is not because Philo pollutes his theology of grace with notions of merit, in contrast to a ‘purer’ Pauline conceptuality. As we have seen, ‘worthy’ in Philo means ‘capable’, not ‘deserving’, and Philo’s concern is lest God’s gifts be arbitrary or wasted. Paul does not share this anxiety, or at least not to the same degree: he takes delight in the paradox of a scandalously profligate Giver, at the risk of falling into a hard and arbitrary predestinarianism. On the other hand, Philo stresses the causative dynamics of grace to the extent that, in deepest reality, or at least at its ultimate stages of ascent, the soul is represented as inactive or passive, to avoid any implication of synergism. Paul will not stretch his understanding of agency so far in that direction: the work of the Spirit does not substitute for, but precisely energizes, the work of the believer. If the ideal man for Philo is the resting sage, who approaches the vision of God in pure passivity, Paul’s is the obedient Adam, Christ.40 Perhaps each would have thought the other’s theology dangerously weak at these significant points.

40. In terms of the models outlined in the Introduction, Paul’s theology appears closer to 3, than to 2 or 1; Philo’s has at least some elements of 1.

Chapter 9 SIN IN GOD’S ECONOMY: AGENCIES IN ROMANS 1 AND 7 Simon Gathercole Introduction: Structure and Argument This chapter aims to contribute to the overall theme of ‘divine and human agency in Paul and his cultural environment’ by attempting to synthesize some aspects of Paul’s presentation of sin, particularly in Romans. Romans 1 and 7 are obviously two of the most heavily discussed passages in the New Testament, and so might seem to be an odd choice for analysis. However, what one sees much less frequently is the attempt actually to bring them into relation to one another. They are usually taken to be talking about rather different things. This paper is an attempt at a synthetic analysis, and also aims to integrate them with some of Paul’s other statements along the way. Part 1 will sketch, in basic outline, the way in which Romans 1 and 7 both depict a ‘history of sin’ – that is to say, they give an account of the world as having been dominated by sinful activity on the part of humanity. In the course of this, it can be seen that the two chapters share a considerable amount of common ground. Part 2, secondly, will focus on the distinctive aspects of agency in the two chapters. We will examine the way in which Paul shifts from an exposition which is centred on the action of humanity and God in chapter 1, to the very different picture in Romans 7 in which all the action seems to be carried out by the mysterious figure of ‘Sin’, in the course of Paul’s denial that he considers the Law to be an evil power. Thirdly, in Part 3 it will be explored how in both cases, Paul has a radically theocentric and gospel-centred view of sin, even as this applies to the processes of sin and sinful action. In particular, these processes both have a specifically revelatory character, with revelation here defined as ‘the public disclosure by God of a previously hidden reality, the apprehension of which accompanies salvation’. The main argument boils down to the following: that through the very different accounts of the history of sin in Romans 1 and 7, there is nevertheless a common concern to show how both function as means of divine revelation, and therefore play a crucial role in God’s economy.

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1. The Common Pattern Both Romans 1.18–32 and 7.7–25 function in Romans as accounts of what has become known in NT scholarship as ‘the plight’. The former is part of Paul’s larger Verdammnisgeschichte in Romans 1.18–3.20 which is immediately followed by the ‘solution’: the ‘but now the righteousness of God has been revealed’ in 3.21. Similarly, the account of life under the Law in Romans 7 is immediately followed by the triumphant note of 8.1: ‘Now, then, there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus’. The intention in Part 1 here is to identify some common elements in the two accounts of the ‘history of sin’ in Romans 1.18–32 and 7.7– 25. At this stage, the aim is simply to describe the stages of the process, without reference to the overarching purpose in that process.

1.1 Romans 1 Revelation: One of the goals of the argument in Romans 1.18–32 is to state that those ‘who suppress the truth’ (1.18) are ‘without excuse’ (1.20). To this end, Paul spells out the fact that the truth to be known about God has been made clear by him, and thus certain aspects of his character have been visible in or to his creatures since the creation of the world (CRQ> MVKUGYL MQUOQW VQKL RQKJOCUKP PQQWOGPC MCSQTCVCK).1 Everything in Romans 1.18–32 is thus predicated upon the divine action of revelation. Knowledge: As a result, it can be presupposed that those in question – at least for a specious moment – ‘recognized God’ (1.21). They have in some sense had access to the ‘truth’ which they now suppress (1.18). Suppression/Exchange: What is clear is that this knowledge has not been embraced. There appears, however, to be a certain tension in Paul’s account as to whether the knowledge described above is still a present possession of humanity. On the one hand, Paul implies that it is something which is being constantly rejected (CPSTYRYP VY`P VJ>P CNJSGKCP GP CFKMKCL MCVGZQPVYP ). But it has  NCECP VJ>P FQECP VQW CHSC TVQW SGQW ), an image also been exchanged (J N which would imply that it has in some important sense been lost. It has been exchanged specifically for worthless idols – a point to which we will return later on. Whichever category is used, this suppression/exchange is a kind of meta-sin in Romans 1. As such, the relation between divine and human agency here is 1. Although it is of no particular significance to the present argument, the phrase CRQ> MVKUGYL MQUOQW is likely to have a temporal sense: it is very similar to CRQ> MCVCDQNJL MQUOQW, which in the NT always denotes ‘since the foundation of the world’ (Mt. 13.35; 25.34; Lk. 11.50; Heb. 4.3; 9.26; Rev. 13.8; 17.8; cf. 2 Pet. 3.4; Mk 10.6; 13.19; Mt. 24.2). This reading of CRQ> MVKUGYL MQUOQW remains tentative, however, since there are parallels on both sides. See, e.g. Josephus, War 6.269–70 (though mistranslated in the Loeb: see S. Catto, ‘Does proseuchas poieisthai in Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews 14.257–58 mean ‘Build Places of Prayer’?’, JSJ 35 [2004], pp. 159–68 [p. 165 n. 29]); cf. Wis. 13.4. Again, the dative VQKL RQKJOCUKP can just as easily designate the recipients (‘to’) of the revelation as its locus (‘in’).

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clearly one of confrontation: the human response to the divine action of revelation is opposition. Sinful Action: The meta-sin of suppression or exchange then issues in a cascade of sins plural, in physical degradation in general (1.24), and in female and male homosexuality (1.26–27). This is then expanded to the entire sphere of ‘doing what is not fitting’ (RQKGKP VCA OJ> MCSJMQPVC), and to the whole host of different kinds of sin which emerges in the vice list depicting the social chaos of a world in rebellion against God (1.28–31). Death: The result of this behaviour is, according to the divine decree, death (QK VCA VQKCWVC RTC UUQPVGL C E KQK SCPC VQW GKUKP: 1.32).

1.2. Romans 7 Revelation: The commandment, or the Law, is the essential element of revelation in Romans 7. While the initial sound of Paul’s statements points towards the Mosaic Torah, there is also reminiscence of Eden language. ‘Law’ very obviously does not mean, in 7.1–6 and 7.7–12, anything but the Mosaic Law, and the reference to ‘the commandment’ is nevertheless a specific commandment – the tenth – from the Law of Moses. After a period without the Law, the commandment is said in verse 9 to have ‘come’. Nevertheless, there are echoes not only of Israel’s experience, but also of Adam and Eve, in such a way that Paul’s own pre-Christian biography is also drawn in. As Chester has put it: ‘he creates a fusion of the giving of the command not to eat in the Garden of Eden, the giving of the Law at Sinai, and his own experience’.2 Knowledge: Although it is by no means the only role played by the Law in Romans 7, the Law does have the revelatory function of providing knowledge. Throughout Romans 7.7–25, there is an oscillation between the ‘I’, which in its mind knows the Law, and the members which violate the Law. Verses 7 and 8 sketch the two aspects of the Law’s function in a way which will be elaborated on further in the rest of the chapter: What then shall we say? Is the Law sin? By no means! But I did not know sin except through the Law. For I would not have known about covetousness unless the Law had said, ‘You shall not covet’. But sin seizing an opportunity through the commandment produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the Law, sin is dead.

Paul’s question is initially answered by the first reference to the ‘I’, and the fact that the Law is a conditio sine qua non for ‘knowing’ sin. This is probably not a reference to participation in sin, but rather of recognizing what is determined as sin. Without the word of the Law, it is impossible to identify sin and righteousness. This knowing good and evil happens in the ‘mind’ of the ‘I’, such that ‘I agree that the Law is good’ (7.16), and ‘I delight in the Law of God according to 2. S. J. Chester, Conversion at Corinth: Perspectives on Conversion in Paul’s Theology and the Corinthian Church (London: Continuum, 2003), p. 187 n. 129.

GATHERCOLE Sin in God’s Economy: Agencies in Romans 1 and 7 161 my inner man’ (7.22). This is ‘the Law of my mind’ (7.23). In summary, despite the depiction of the ‘wretched man’ under the Law in Romans 7, that wretch was still – because of the Law – in possession at some level of the knowledge of what God required. Deception: Of course, the revelatory function of the Law in Romans 7 is almost eclipsed by the negative role it plays in the hands of Sin. There are a variety of expressions used to refer to this particular aspect of Sin’s activity: it seizes a start (7.8, 11), comes to life (7.9), and generates covetousness (7.8). Again, then, there is an event which interrupts the knowledge given by God – here, however, the emphasis in not on human culpability, but on the trickery of Sin. Sinful Action: As in Romans 1, in the wake of a meta-level event involving Sin, there are subsequent, specific instances of sinfulness. The earliest mention is of ‘every desire’ which Sin produces (7.8). Then the references to ‘what I hate’ and ‘evil’ that are ‘done’ later on in the chapter refer to the same process (7.15, 17, 18, 19, 20). Death: The final result of sin in Romans 7 is again, as expected, death. This is clear from the very compressed summary statement in 7.11: ‘For Sin seized a start and deceived me through the commandment, and, through it, killed me’. Similarly, the cry of despair from the wretched man is for deliverance ‘from this body of death’ (7.24).

Conclusion Most clearly, then, both depictions of the plight are predicated upon revelation and knowledge at the beginning of the process, and sinful action and death at the end. In the middle, the situation becomes more complicated; the agencies involved in the production of sinful action will require more careful treatment. 2. Congruences and Contrasts in Romans 1 and 7 Having examined the common structure of the elements in Romans 1 and 7, the focus will next be on the particular issues connected with agency and sin in the two chapters. Here we will focus on elements (3) and (4) in the taxonomy above: suppression/exchange leading to sinful action in Romans 1, and deception leading to sinful action in Romans 7.3

2.1. Romans 1 As noted above, at the outset of Paul’s discussion in Romans 1.18–32 there is the assumption that humanity is guilty of a meta-sin – that of rejecting and sup3. Justification for synthesizing the schemas of these two chapters – if justification is needed – can readily be found in Romans 5.14, where it is implied that those under the Law sin as Adam did, whereas those after Adam and before Moses did not. Here we see that the primeval ‘fall’ of Adam and Eve has already been brought into association with sin under the Law in the life of the people of Israel.

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pressing the revelation of God’s glory: ‘They knew God, but did not glorify, or give thanks to, him as God’ (1.21). There is no discussion of what it is about the human person which makes him or her able to sin, or predisposed toward rebellion against God. It is simply an observable fact which is not theorized. The images of agency used by Paul to describe the rebellion are varied. There is inactivity, in that there is no attempt made to grasp the truth of God’s glory and to respond in worship – this despite the fact of the clarity of God’s glory. On the other hand, this inactivity goes hand-in-hand with an aggressive suppression. As far as agency is concerned, both the inactivity and the active suppression (which for Paul are both aspects of the same reality) are unambiguously attributed to the humanity under indictment. It is commonly observed that there is in Romans 1 what Klostermann called ‘die adäquate Vergeltung’,4 a theme which is worth exploring since it offers valuable insight into the relation between divine and human agency in Paul’s thought, and the comments of commentators thus far can be considerably supplemented. We will treat Rom. 1.24, 28 and 26 in this unusual order since 1.26 is both very controversial as well as very fruitful for our theme. In fact, the key argument here is that the situation into which God hands over sinners is one which precisely highlights the meta-sin of the exchange of God’s glory for idolatry. In Rom. 1.22–24, we see the first instance of Paul’s understanding of the relationship between wrath and sin which has perplexed commentators: Claiming to be wise, they became foolish, and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the image of a likeness of a mortal human being, and of birds and animals and snakes. Therefore God gave them over to the desires of their hearts to uncleanness, to dishonour their bodies with one another.

The concept of ironic measure-for-measure punishment can easily be seen in this sequence. The action of the sinful human beings itself has an ironic element – a reversal whereby their desire is for the exact opposite of what it should be: x

x x

their exchange consists of getting ‘a likeness of an image’ (GP QOQKYOCVK GKMQPQL) in place of ‘glory’ (FQECP), the contrast being between what is insubstantial – indeed, being ‘an image of a likeness’, it is doubly removed from the reality of the object of an already misguided worship – and what is ‘weighty’;5 in place of the immortal one, they choose mortal objects of worship (CHSC TVQWHSCTVQW); in place of God, they serve people, birds, animals and snakes (SGQW CPSTYRQW MCK> RGVGKPY`P MCK> VGVTCRQFYP MCK> GTRGVY`P).

As a result of this, God repays according to deeds in 1.24 in two particularly notable ways: (a) they are handed over ‘to uncleanness’ (GKL CMCSCTUKCP), which 4. Cf. E. Klostermann, ‘Die adäquate Vergeltung in Röm 1,22–31’, ZNW 32 (1933), pp. 1–6. 5. The contrast between God’s kabod and the nature of idols in the OT and Jewish tradition is a commonplace.

GATHERCOLE Sin in God’s Economy: Agencies in Romans 1 and 7 163 corresponds particularly well with the construction of gods made in the form of things such as serpents, which are of course unclean; (b) their abandonment of God’s glory results in the dishonouring of their bodies.6 In Rom. 1.28, a similar pattern is evident: And just as they did not think God worthy (QWM GFQMKOCUCP VQ>P SGQP) of knowing, he handed them over to an unthinking mind (GKL CFQMKOQP PQWP), to do what is not fitting.

This is an expansion of the idea in 1.22. The measure-for-measure is difficult to capture in an English translation; it is hard to render FQMKOC \Y (‘distinguish as worthy’) in a way which corresponds with CFQMKOQL (‘which cannot distinguish what is worthy’). God punishes the action of not considering him worthy with a mind that cannot consider whether something is worthy or not. In Rom. 1.25–27, we come to an area where commentators often run over the issue which we are concerned with, for reasons which are obvious. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served creature rather than creator, who is to be praised forever, Amen. Therefore, God gave them over to shameful passions, for their women exchanged natural practice for that which is contrary to nature, and similarly, men also abandoned natural practice with women and burned with passion for one another – men committing shameful acts with other men, and receiving in themselves the corresponding penalty which was necessary for their error.

There are clearly a great number of controversial issues here, hardly any of which relate specifically to the theme in hand. At the most basic level, the ironic correspondence between idolatry and homosexual practice is expressed by the verb ‘exchange’ (OGVCNNC UUY/OGVCNNC VVY). Human beings have exchanged (OGVJNNCECP) the truth of God for a lie, and subsequently have exchanged (OGVJNNCECP) natural for unnatural pratice. It is sometimes further observed that there is some sort of connection in that the unnatural worship of idols corresponds somehow with unnatural sexual activity.7 This is particularly pertinent in light of Paul’s statement in Gal. 4.8: ‘But then, you did not know God, but served those ‘gods’ which by nature are not such’. Paul thus characterizes paganism prior to conversion as serving ‘gods who are by nature (HWUGK) not gods’. There may well, then, be a connection between the meta-sin of idolatry and the divine handing-over to that which is ‘against nature’ (RCTCA HWUKP). However, it is not particularly clear from Romans 1 that this is in view. Rather, there is a relation between idolatry and homosexual practice which is much more clearly at work in this particular argument. The key correspondence lies in the fact that both involve turning away from the ‘other’ to the ‘same’. Although the nature (understood as that which is determined by God) argument is certainly valid, it does not explain as much, perhaps, as the in se model. The greater scope of this latter model is apparent from the fact that Paul uses it in connection with both the 6. FQEC and VKOJ are virtual synonyms, as the nearby 2.7 shows (cf. also the presence there of C HSCTUKC). 7. See for example T. R. Schreiner, Romans (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament; Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1998), p. 94.

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meta-sin of idolatry (worshipping ‘creation, rather than creator’) and in the par UGPGL GP C T  UGUKP). ticular instantiation of homosexual practice (GKL CNNJNQWL C T In 1.25, creation worships creation, rather than creator; that is to say, it turns away from God, and worships itself. This leads, correspondingly, to a similar structure of sexual relationships: men give up sexual activity with women for passion ‘for each other’ (1.27). To put it another way: Humanity should be oriented toward God but turns in on itself (Rom. 1.25). Woman should be oriented toward man, but turns in on itself (Rom. 1.26). Man should be oriented toward woman, but turns in on itself (Rom. 1.27).

The meta-sin of creation turning in on itself toward self-worship, then, leads to sexual relationships which mirror this same turn in se. This line of reasoning is confirmed by Paul’s emphatic phrase ‘receiving back the corresponding repayment which their sin demanded’ (VJ>P CPVKOKUSKCP JP GFGK VJL RNC PJL CWVY`P GP GCWVQKL CRQNCODC PQPVGL) in 1.27. This explicitly draws attention to the fact that the divine penalty here corresponds very clearly to the sin of idolatry. The verb CRQNCODC PY is the first element which highlights a correspondence between the grounds for the charge and the ensuing punishment: according to LSJ, the word has the sense, as one might expect, of ‘receive what is one’s due’, or ‘regain, recover’ – it is correlative to CRQFKFYOK, the word Paul uses for God’s repayment according to deeds in Rom. 2.6.8 Secondly, the two elements of the compound CPVKOKUSKC conjure up a picture of a mirror-image response. This comes out explicitly in the only other NT occurrence of the term, in 2 Cor. 6.11–13: Corinthians, our hearts have been wide open (RGRNC VWPVCK); … so in return (VJ>P FG> CWVJ>P CPVKOKUSKCP) – I speak to you as children – open your hearts wide (RNCVWPSJVG) also to us.

The GFGK in Rom. 1.27 reinforces this point that there is a close correspondence between the human sinful attitude on the one hand, and the divine action on the other. The relationship which Paul construes between idolatry and homosexuality is a perfect illustration, then, of ironic measure-for-measure punishment in that the incurvatus in se of worship (Rom. 1.25) results in the incurvatus in se of sex – a rejection of the other in preference for the same. What then is the character of the RCTGFYMGP? God’s ‘handing over’ here is his personal action whereby, without withdrawing his presence, he gives the condemned what they want – with the reward ironically corresponding in some way to the sin of idolatry – but with the result that it ends up compounding the divine judgment. (It may well be that the ‘handing over’ implies a giving of the condemned over to their desires considered as enslaving powers, though this is not certain.) This is by no means a dictionary definition of RCTCFKFYOK, but is rather an attempt to describe the process in this very particular context. To elaborate briefly on the definition, it is personal, in that the action here is not merely an immanent process of cause-and-effect, but is the product of the ‘the wrath of 8.

LSJ, p. 205.

GATHERCOLE Sin in God’s Economy: Agencies in Romans 1 and 7 165 God from heaven’ (1.18).9 Similarly, God is not merely leaving his creatures here to their own devices; rather, he is portrayed by Paul as an agent in the process.10 Two partial analogies from the Old Testament illustrate this. Numbers 11 provides a parallel to the ironic character of the measure-for-measure judgment, and 1 Samuel 8 offers an analogy to the enslaving domination of the gift given by God in response to ungodly desire.11 Numbers 11 has not really been sufficiently explored for its relevance to Romans 1. Some scholars do note the relevance of Num. 11.31–35: ‘he [Paul] probably has in mind another classic example of human craving which brought divine wrath upon it (Num 11.31–35) which is twice referred to in the Psalms with the formula that God gave them their desire’, quoting Pss. 78.29 and 106.14– 15.12 This first point, that God’s wrath consists in giving them their desire, is important to note. There is more to be said, however: confining discussion to 11.31–35 misses out one of the most important elements. The most neglected point is that Numbers 11 uses the same kind of catch-word irony as Paul later will in Romans 1. When the people complain of not having any meat, this brings about YHWH’s wrath (wOp,)a) (11.1). When YHWH gives the Israelites what they desire, they will have meat not for one day, not for two days, nor five days, nor even ten or twenty days (11.19), but ‘for a month of days, until it comes out of your noses (Mkep;,)am') and becomes loathsome to you’ (11.20). Milgrom points out (following Ibn Ezra) the catch-word irony here: wrath and nose are obviously the same word because the latter is metaphorical for the former.13 A further reference comes in the consummation of God’s wrath at the end of the chapter, when the quail arrives: ‘And the wrath (P)a) of the Lord burned against them’ (11.33). In conclusion, then, God’s wrath in the quail incident at Kibroth Hattaavah has two elements: (a) it gives the sinful Israelites what they want, but also (b) manifests itself with a measure-for-measure punishment which has an ironic character to it. In 1 Samuel, Israel did not consider YHWH’s kingship as worthy of acceptance, therefore God gave them over to a rule which would tyrannize them. At the beginning of the chapter, the elders of Israel gather before Samuel, asking him to ‘appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations’ (8.5). This displeases 9. For more on this point, see S. J. Gathercole, ‘Justified by Faith, Justified by his Blood: The Evidence of Rom. 3.21–4.25’, in D. A. Carson, P. T. O’Brien and M. A. Seifrid (eds.), Justification and Variegated Nomism, vol. 2: The Paradoxes of Paul (WUNT; Tübingen: Mohr, 2004), pp. 147– 84 (pp. 169–75). 10. Cf. J. D. G. Dunn, Romans 1–8 (Word Biblical Commentary; Waco, TX: Word Books, 1988), p. 63: ‘The rationale is, presumably, that God does not retain control over those who do not desire it; he who wants to be on his own is granted his wish’. 11. A number of the commentators on Romans 1 point out the very similar uses of some of Paul’s vocabulary in other writers. Standard parallels are the reference in Ps. 81.13, which is also picked up in Acts 7.42 (GU  VTG[GP FG> Q SGQ>L MCK> RCTGFYMGP CWVQW>L NCVTGWGKP VJ^ UVTCVKC^ VQW QWTCPQW). But this is about as far as most commentators get. 12. Dunn, Romans 1–8, p. 62. 13. J. Milgrom Numbers (JPS Torah Commentary; Philadelphia/New York: Jewish Publication Society, 1990), p. 88.

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Samuel, and rightly so, for in God’s answer to Samuel’s prayer, God reveals that this request from the people is a symptom of their rebellion – ‘they have rejected me from being king over them’ (8.7). But God tells Samuel to grant their request, while also making it clear to the people what it is that they have asked for: ‘He [Samuel with the words of the Lord] said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots… He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants… He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day”’ (8.11, 13–14, 17–18). There are some key phrases which crop up which might point to an element of measure-for-measure punishment here: because they are the kind who ‘serve other gods’ (8.8), God will make them ‘servants’ (in a negative sense) to this king which they are so keen to have (8.17). But this irony is clearly not as strong as in Numbers 11 and Romans 1.14 The key point for our purposes is that we do nevertheless have God giving the Israelites what they want, with this desire turning out to be a curse rather than a blessing for Israel. To repeat our definition, the process is God’s personal action whereby, without withdrawing his presence, he gives the condemned what they want – with the reward ironically corresponding in some way to the sin of idolatry, and perhaps with the result that – like the monarchist Israelites – they are enslaved/ governed by what they are given. We noted above that in the meta-sin of rebellion, human agency is pitted in direct opposition to the divine action of revelation. Here, however, it is the very same events which are attributed simultaneously to both divine and human agency. The human agents may of course be now entirely unconscious that their turn to idolatry was in flagrant opposition to divine revelation, which ignorance Paul explains in terms of their darkened minds. Again, like Joseph’s brothers (cf. Gen. 50.20) or Herod and Pilate (cf. Acts 4.27– 28), they are equally unaware that in their present sinful behaviour they are acting in conjunction with God.

2.2. Romans 7 Our reading of Romans 7 here corresponds in outline to the excellent recent treatment of Chester, and will further develop elements of his interpretation.15 Essentially, on Chester’s line, Rom. 7.7–25 is a piece of biographical reconstruction. In it, Paul describes life under the Law, and with the benefit of hindsight 14. Similarly, there is a kind of measure-for-measure judgment in Genesis 3, but again the linguistic irony is not clear. One could, however, draw attention to the fact that as a result of persuading Eve to eat yrp (Gen. 3.2–3), the serpent is condemned to eat rp( (3.14); similarly, God says to Md) that as a result of his sin, the hmd) is cursed (Gen. 3.17). 15. Chester, Conversion at Corinth, pp. 183–95. Chester’s analysis draws in part (especially on 7.7–13) on that of G. Theissen, in Psychological Aspects of Pauline Theology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1987).

GATHERCOLE Sin in God’s Economy: Agencies in Romans 1 and 7 167 articulates the dichotomy between, on the one hand, the conscious ‘I’ which delights in the Law and perceives that it is obeying that Law, and on the other, the unconscious process whereby the agent is actually disobeying the Law under the influence of Sin. This dichotomy was not perceived as such by Paul before his ‘conversion’ – it is only having been liberated from life under the Law that he now realizes what was the case in his previous condition.16 So for example, Rom. 7.15: ‘For I do not know what I do; for I do not do what I want – rather, I do what I hate’. Here Paul does not describe opposing desires that warred within him, but rather that he thought that he was doing good even as in reality he was sinning. In fact, the ‘I know’ (IKPYUMY) in 7.15 makes better sense on this reading: the more obvious reading of Paul’s statement Q ICAT MCVGTIC \QOCK QW IKPYUMY is not ‘I do not understand why I do what I do’, but rather, ‘I do not know what I am accomplishing’. The verb MCVGTIC \QOCK generally has the nuance not only of doing, but of the end-product (‘bringing about’) of the action, as indeed it does in Rom. 7.8 and 13. The principal difference here in Romans 7 from the account of agency in Romans 1 consists, then, in the complication of the additional actors: Sin and the Law. The humanity so active in Romans 1 by contrast appears as virtually objectified in ch. 7: it ‘knows’ (7.7, 18), was alive, but died (7.9–10), ‘agrees’ with the Law and ‘delights’ in it, and ‘wants’ one thing and ‘hates’ another (7.15 et al.). However, presumably because the ‘I’ has been taken captive (7.23), it has very little in the way of agency. Similarly, the Law itself does very little: it comes (7.9) and speaks (7.7); again, because it is under the control of the far stronger ‘Sin’, it accomplishes nothing of what – at one level – is its God-given 16. It may appear that the person in Romans 7 who delights in God’s Law is the authentic, inner person, in contrast to the inauthentic, outer person. Thus Bultmann: ‘In Rom. 7.22, “inner” is man’s real self (das eigentliche Ich) in contrast to the self that has come under the sway of sin’ (R. Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament. Translated by K. Grobel [2 vols.; New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1951], vol. 1, p. 203). (Although criticism of Bultmann here is only partially justified, because of the particular meaning he gives to ‘eigentlich’.) However, it would be odd for Paul to hold that the real person was not under the domination of Sin. In Greek tradition, ‘interiority’ has to do with the process of thinking, and not with authentic personality (unless for the author the two were synonymous). HTJP, the midriff, is home to the HTGPGL (the ‘wits’), frequently designated as ‘inside’ the person: ‘Phaeacians, how does this man appear to you, now that you have seen his appearance and greatness, and witnessed his HTGPCL GPFQP?’ (Odyssey 11.337); cf. Euripides’ Orestes 1514, where Orestes accuses his Phrygian interlocutor of speaking one thing with the tongue, but thinking something different inside (VC PFQP QWM QWV  Y HTQPY`P). It is not just a given, but a desideratum that someone’s HTGPGL are inside them. In Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1052, Clytemnestra is confident of persuading Cassandra as long as the latter’s HTGPGL are within her. By contrast, if someone has lost their wits, the HTGPGL are no longer ‘inside’: ‘What is this thing you are intending? Are your HTGPGL not inside you, that you leave me abandoned with these my children?’ (Euripides, Heracleidae 709–10; cf. Pindar Odes 7.47). This is perhaps connected to the idiom familiar in the NT of GEKUVJOK in reference to being ‘out of one’s mind’ (Mk 3.21; 2 Cor. 5.14 etc.) – LSJ notes in classical Greek the phrases HTGPY`P CHGUVC PCK, GMUVJPCK or OGSGUVC PCK as referring to ‘losing one’s wits’. The HTGPGL, then, or one’s ‘inside’, is simply the faculty of thought: for a similar judgment (‘the organ of thinking’), see H. D. Betz, ‘The Concept of the “Inner Human Being”’, NTS 46.3 (2000), pp. 315–41 (323). So Paul’s phrase in Romans 7.22 is just another way of talking of the conscious ‘I’, and is synonymous with the PQWL of 7.23 and 7.25. It is not the authentic person as opposed to the outward person.

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task of leading to life (7.10; cf. 8.3). The agency of God is mentioned briefly in 7.13, but we will return to this later. The agent who dominates most of chapter 7 is clearly the mysterious figure ‘Sin’. Although at one point it was dead, Sin has now seized an opportunity for action (the C HQTOJ>P NCDQWUC in 7.8, 11), and come alive (7.9). Thus it deceives (7.11), and has produced (MCVGKTIC UCVQ) desire and death (7.8, 13; cf. 7.11). Paul in Rom. 7.7–13 envisages, then, a primeval ‘once’ in which Sin was dead (7.8) and humanity was alive (7.9). This perhaps echoes the situation in Gen. 2.7, where ‘the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature’. This is of course prior to the commandment not to eat in Gen. 2.17.17 In this primeval situation of life, Sin has no power to deceive and kill: this is surely the sense in which Sin is ‘dead’ apart from the Law in Rom. 7.8. However, God paradoxically provides the opportunity for Sin to deceive and kill by giving the commandment. What account best describes the action(s) of Sin and the Law in Romans 7? Three operations – although the heuristic division is rather artificial – seem to be at work. First, Sin affects the way in which the Law is perceived by ‘me’: there is probably truth in the conclusion of Das that ‘the ‘I’ sees the Law clothed in an unrecognizable shape because of Sin’.18 In this respect, there is important overlap with Romans 1: the ‘suppression of the truth’, and the failure to glorify God leading to the darkening of the mind and its inability to discern strongly resemble the deception of the ‘I’ here in Romans 7.19 In support of Das’ point is the fact that Sin’s deception does not simply work against the Law, but makes use of the Law for its own purposes. Hence it is highly likely that Sin’s corruption extends to the way in which the Law appears to ‘my’ mind. Second, as a result, Sin affects the way in which the human response to the Law appears to the mind of the agent. Chester again rightly argues that the motif of ‘deception’ in Rom. 7.11 strongly suggests that ‘the pre-conversion self portrayed in Rom. 7 [is] a victim of unrecognised sin’.20 He understands the deception to involve ‘a failure to recognise certain actions as transgressions of that commandment’.21 The reference to ‘me’ as having the knowledge of what constitutes sin (7.7) strongly suggests that when ‘I’ am deceived into disobeying in 7.11, that disobedience is not perceived as contravention of the Law. Similarly, the tension between the ‘I’ and ‘Sin’ throughout 7.14–25 strongly supports Chester’s reading here. Sin, then, presents a picture to ‘me’ that Sin’s own work 17. We have already noted how Paul’s discussion of Sin co-opting the commandment in Rom. 7.8–11 seems to arise out of his interpreting Israel’s history against the background of Genesis 2–3: his use of the action of the serpent in Genesis 3 seems to provide a good deal of content to his argument in Romans 7. 18. A. A. Das, Paul and the Jews (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003), p. 165. 19. I am grateful for Stephen Chester’s prompting on this point: ‘Suppression/exchange in ch. 1 and deception in ch. 7 are related to each other in that they both issue in human inability to recognize sin for what it is’. (Private letter, 13 July 2004.) 20. Chester, Conversion at Corinth, p. 186. 21. Ibid.

GATHERCOLE Sin in God’s Economy: Agencies in Romans 1 and 7 169 is in fact entirely consonant with the Law. In other words, sin is at this stage not recognized as sin at all. Finally, the end product is that Sin has provoked the very desire which the commandment prohibits. That is to say, Sin generates the polar opposite of the will of God through the specific content of the commandment. Sometimes Rom. 7.7–8 is explained by an appeal to general human obstinacy, whereby any command will make one want to do the opposite: psychologists use the language of ‘contra-suggestibility’.22 This approach to Romans 7, however, is probably not what Paul has in mind here: it is, in any case, not a universal phenomenon. Some light on this, however, can be shed by Rom. 8.7: ‘For the mind of the flesh is hostility to God; it does not submit to the Law of God, nor can it do so’. This statement by Paul suggests that the concern in Rom. 7.7–8 is not with general commands that human beings balk at, but specifically with divine commands. Since ‘the mind of the flesh is hostility to God’, with the advent of the command from God ‘you shall not covet’, Sin leaping into action to produce every kind of covetousness is comprehensible. (This also suggests, incidentally, that the realm of the mind is for Paul certainly a sphere of agency and responsibility.) In conclusion, then, the actor given most attention in Rom. 7.7–25 is the personified figure of Sin, although we will see in Part 3 that Paul considers God to have the decisive role in the chapter. The Law’s operation is entirely passive, though its function is crucial, first (implicitly) as the gift of God, and then explicitly as an instrument in the hands of Sin. Humanity in Romans 7, interestingly, is considerably objectified. As noted above, there is some scope for seeing ‘Sin’ as, in part, a human attribute when Romans 7 is read in the light of 8.7. Beyond this, however, it is difficult to draw any more definite conclusions.

Conclusion Here, then, the focus has been on the different ways in which Romans 1 and 7 depict the process of sinful action. In the former, the focus was very much on the human rebellion succeeded by the divine judgment which brought about sinful human actions. This condemnation is predominantly revealed in God’s measurefor-measure judgment, not least as the turn in se of idolatry is mirrored in the turn in se in fallen sexual practice in the chapter. In Romans 7, by contrast, the prime mover in the process of disobedience is the personified figure of ‘Sin’, whose main instrument is the Law. Thus, although there are some elements of a common framework to the two chapters (as seen in Part 1) the two portrayals of sinful action have very different foci. We turn in Part 3, however, to see the common deep structure to both. 3. Paul’s ‘Evangelical’ View of Sin This final part is concerned with how both Romans 1 and Romans 7 place the history of sin, as shaped by divine action, into the broader framework of God’s 22. See e.g. J. A. Ziesler, Romans (London: SCM Press, 1989), p. 176; J. R. W. Stott, Romans (Leicester: IVP, 1994), p. 203.

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economy by – paradoxically – assigning it a revelatory function. What both chapters have in common is that God is depicted in both accounts as using the history of sin for revelatory purposes. In Romans 1, the divinely moulded instantiations of sin are ‘the revelation of God’s wrath from heaven’ against the idolatry of humanity; in Romans 7, God’s overarching purpose in Sin’s use of the Law is so that Sin might be shown up in its true colours.

3.1. Romans 1 We have already explored the issue of measure-for-measure judgment in Romans 1. What has not yet been touched on here is what Paul means by subsuming all the divine actions of ‘handing over’ there under the ‘revelation of the wrath of God’ (Rom. 1.18). There is even a clear parallel between the revelations in Romans 1: For the righteousness of God is revealed in it [in the gospel]… For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against…

Such a close parallel with revelation of God’s saving power in the gospel in Rom. 1.17 has led commentators such as Cranfield to conclude that the locus of revelation of the wrath of God is also the gospel.23 There is a sense in which this is true, as we shall see. But the wrath of God in Rom. 1.18 seems in the first instance to describe the activity in 1.23–31.24 Paul is portraying individual sinful actions as the revelation of God’s wrath. The divine handing over is – for those who have eyes to see – God’s disclosure of his hatred of human idolatry. Second, this revelatory function is underscored by the measure-for-measure aspect of the judgment. The measure-for-measure element in the judgment is not only an aspect of judgment, but also functions to show up the nature of the meta-sin of idolatry. As we have seen, the particular instantiations of sin in Rom. 1.22–31 precisely mirror the ‘fall’ in which humanity suppressed the glory of God. Thus, the individual sins reveal more clearly the structure of the primeval ‘exchange’. The question remains – revealed to whom? It may well be the case that Romans 1–2 envisages a Jewish interlocutor who would heartily endorse the verdict that God hands Gentile sinners over to the particularly egregious sins of chapter 1.25 But Rom. 1.18–32 is actually an implicit condemnation of ‘all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of people who suppress the truth in unrighteousness’, a point which is made clear in Rom. 2.1–2. This universality of sin is precisely what is not clear to Paul’s Jewish interlocutor. In fact, that God’s judgement has come on all human sin in this way is only apparent from the perspective of the gospel.26 23. C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (ICC, New Series, 2 vols.; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1975), vol. 1, pp. 109–10. 24. It is important to understand the connection between 1.16–17 and the following IC T in 1.18. 1.16–17 are not explicated by 1.18–32 above, but by the much larger unit including both 1.18–3.20 and the Heilsgeschichte following. 25. See S. J. Gathercole, Where is Boasting? Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul’s Response in Romans 1–5 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), pp. 197–205. 26. In this sense, the verdict that the gospel is the pre-condition for understanding the wrath of God is correct.

GATHERCOLE Sin in God’s Economy: Agencies in Romans 1 and 7 171 Finally, the account of the history of sin in Rom. 1.18–3.20 is the background against which the gospel should be understood, and therefore the backdrop against which the revelation of God in the gospel should be interpreted. Presumably this assumption underlies Paul’s whole decision to give a lengthy Verdammnisgeschichte in Rom. 1.18–3.20 prior to the ‘but now’ in 3.21: the ‘but now’ of the revelation of the righteousness of God cannot be understood apart from the prior declaration that all – Jew and Gentile alike – are guilty. In sum, then, the history of sin can truly be described as an aspect of the way in which God makes himself known – it is, in God’s economy, the divinely ordained prologue to the revelation of God’s righteousness.

3.2. Romans 7 Romans 7 is clearer still. The key statement comes in 7.13: ‘But Sin, in order that it might be manifested as Sin, produced death in me through what was good, so that Sin might become supremely sinful through the commandment’. The first purpose clause here – ‘in order that Sin might be manifested’ – is emphatically not a part of the deliberate intention of Sin. It is not Sin’s goal to ‘appear as Sin’ – in fact, as we have seen, precisely the opposite is true. Sin’s purpose in Romans 7 is precisely to wreak havoc while covering its tracks, as we saw above in the discussion of the motif of deception. Rather, the purpose referred to here is the larger divine purpose. It is God’s purpose that through the activity of Sin in bringing death, Sin might be shown up for what it is: that as it over-reaches itself in becoming through the commandment ‘supremely sinful’, it becomes visible – again, for those who have eyes to see. It is important to note here that what in Romans 7 triggers this process is clearly a divine action – namely the giving of the Law. Thus the Law becomes the key instrument whereby Sin is ultimately shown to be sinful. This is another mechanism whereby Paul gives God a role in ‘handing over’ to Sin, without attributing to him authorship of that sin. It is clear, though, that God paradoxically provides the opportunity for Sin to deceive and kill by giving the commandment. Again, however, this is part of God’s larger purpose in which Christ and the Spirit bring life where the Law failed (Rom. 8.1–4). 3.3. Synthesis: Paul’s Evangelical Understanding of Sin Looking at the larger canvas of God’s action, then, we can see that for Paul, God is intimately involved in the history of human sin. In both Romans 1 and 7, he shapes human disobedience so that it serves a purpose in his economy – specifically the purpose of revelation. In Romans 1, the massa perditionis of a humanity under the meta-sin of rejection of the divine glory is all set within the framework of the revelation of his wrath. God’s judgment issues forth in the actions of that humanity, so that those actions function to reveal more fully the nature of the meta-sin of the human suppression, and exchange, of God’s glory. In Romans 7, this divine moulding takes a particular form within Israel. God gives the Law so that as Sin surges with all its energy, it is shown up in all its horror.

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We can see, then, that Romans 1 and 7 both fit into the pattern which Paul articulates elsewhere: For God has enclosed all in disobedience, in order that he might have mercy on all (UWPGMNGKUGP ICAT Q SGQ>L VQWL RC PVCL GKL CRGKSGKCP KPC VQWL RC PVCL GNGJUJ^ ). (Rom. 11.32)27

Paul here affirms a kind of double predestination, in which human history is described as determined in outline exclusively by God. Here, however, in contrast to texts such as 1QS 3–4, reprobation and election stand in series, rather than in parallel: there is a clear logical sequence here of judgment on all then mercy to all.28 The judgment, however, is not that of death or suffering per se, but actually consists of sin itself – God shuts all up into ‘disobedience’. In Rom. 1.18–3.20, the announcement of God’s revelation of the nature of Sin serves as essential to the understanding of the subsequent revelation of God’s righteousness. Similarly, in Romans 11, the divine handing over of all to disobedience is the background against which his mercy is to be seen. What is notable, then, is that we have in Romans 11 a statement from Paul of the integral place of the history of sin with God’s economy which is in a sense even more all-encompassing than both Romans 1 and 7. Paul, then, regards the history of sin as integral to God’s history with humanity because as the Verdammnisgeschichte is announced (as prologue to the Heilsgeschichte), it serves the purpose of revelation. So, it might be said, Sin itself receives a measure-formeasure punishment from God: although it sought precisely to suppress God’s revelation, it is – against its own will – press-ganged into service as an agent of that revelation.29

27. Attention should also be drawn to the very similar expression in Gal. 3.22, as well as to Rom. 5.20–21 in this regard. 28. On the other hand, since Paul does not seem to be a universalist either, the ‘mercy on all’ needs to be seen in the light of the immediately preceding discussion of the place of Jews and Gentiles in the economy of God. Thus the universality is a Jew + Gentile universality rather than a salvation of every individual. 29. In addition to the participants in the Aberdeen conference, I am particularly grateful to Prof. John Webster (Aberdeen), Professor Ian McFarland (Emory University) and Dr Stephen Chester (International Christian College, Glasgow), for their insightful readings of an earlier version. Various questioners at the SBL Pauline Epistles group also stimulated me to think further on particular issues.

Chapter 10 EPILOGUE: AN ESSAY IN PAULINE META-ETHICS J. Louis Martyn Introduction When we attend to a broad range of Jewish and pagan writings from the Hellenistic era, we are reminded that in several regards the Epicureans were quite unlike other philosophical groups. They gave, for example, virtually no attention to the relationship between divine acts and human ones. In their view the gods do not demand obedience from human beings, thereafter rewarding the good and punishing the evil. In fact, the Epicurean gods do not have the slightest interest in human affairs. Freedom from superstitious fear comes, then, when one recognizes that it is impossible either to please the gods or to offend them. To many other thoughtful people of the age, however, issues pertaining to divine agency and human agency were of great importance, as we see in the preceding chapters. Thinking deeply indeed about these issues, numerous Jews and pagans engaged in sustained and vigorous debates over questions of human autonomy and freedom, moral responsibility, divine providence and determinism.1 On the Jewish side such discussions are clearly reflected, for example, in the Qumran scrolls (Alexander) and in Jewish wisdom writings such as Sirach (Westerholm). Without pausing Josephus could even differentiate three Jewish groups from one another by crediting them with different ideas about what is determined by ‘Fate’ – fundamentally Josephus intended a reference to God – and ‘what is up to us human beings’ (Barclay; Bocaccini). In the pagan world, Stoics, Cynics and Epicureans engaged in endless discussions of determinism and human freedom.2 Indeed, in describing the three Jewish sects Josephus

1. In The Invention of Autonomy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), J. B. Schneewind makes a learned and impressive case for crediting Kant with the invention of ‘autonomy’, properly speaking. The writings of Sirach and Epictetus suffice in themselves, however, to indicate the wisdom of our using the term to refer to some patterns of thought found in the Hellenistic era. Note also that in speaking of the rabbis, F. Avemarie justly employs the word frequently, as does A. A. Long in his sterling interpretation of Epictetus: Epictetus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002). 2. See especially the magisterial treatment in S. Bobzien, Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998).

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borrowed much of his vocabulary and philosophical frame of reference from those pagan discussions, ‘what is up to us’ (ta eph’ hêmin) having become in Josephus’ time a technical expression for human autonomy, especially among the Stoics. The fundamental rationale behind the present volume lies in the fact that these wide-ranging and vigorous discussions formed a significant part of the context in which Paul did his own thinking and writing about the acts of God and the acts of human beings. I say ‘a significant part’ because the grand setting in which Paul pondered issues of agency included not only the Jewish sages and popular philosophers of the Hellenistic era, but also the bards and prophets of ancient Israel, the authors of what Paul himself called hê graphê (Watson). Paul’s education may even have included faint shades of the great figures of truly ancient Greece. When, then, we reread his letters, asking about his views of divine and human agency, we sense that we can truly hear his voice only when we also take into account the voices of other moral theologians and ethicists of his time, and of earlier eras as well. In the present work, then, we have listened to some of those thinkers in their own right, afterwards turning to Paul. The task of the epilogue is to revisit the essays, in order to reread in their light some of the sources on which they themselves draw. Can we in that way clearly identify a few of the major issues? I begin with a word about an apparently innocuous matter that on examination proves to be of importance. Regarding the human agent’s moral ability, several of the essayists draw from their sources some rather surprising terms. Barclay, for example, notes Philo’s use of the word ‘worthy’ to mean ‘capable’. Of course, one cannot impose a standard terminology on ancient authors. It is possible, however, – after reading the essays – to make a suggestion designed to facilitate ease and clarity of communication among ourselves. Is the Hellenistic era not marked in general by two major images of the human agent, the competent and the incompetent, and do these not correspond to two dominant forms of the moral drama?

1. Dominant Forms of the Hellenistic Moral Drama aside from Paul a. The Self-Limiting Divine Agent and the Competent Human Agent Especially pertinent to our subject are, of course, portraits of the two agents in close relation to one another. Here we begin with God as omnipotent, a motif throughout the Old Testament and common in both Jewish and pagan literature of the Hellenistic era (for example, Cleanthes’ Hymn to ‘omnipotent Zeus…you who with your law steer all things’). The complexity of the relationship between the divine agent and the human one is doubly evident, then, in traditions in which the omnipotent divine agent establishes a realm for human moral choice by explicitly or implicitly curtailing his own power, leaving room for the human agent to respond to commands and exhortations.3 In general some degree of divine self3. Here the essay of Engberg-Pedersen is of special interest. Early on he cites Epictetus, Diss. 4.1.100, a passage in which a distinction is drawn between ‘what God has given me for my own and

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limitation is implied precisely when the divine agent issues a command, as happens in the garden of Eden (Gen. 2.15–17); and the classic Hebraic instance occurs when, speaking for the self-limiting omnipotent divine agent, Moses says to the human agent, Israel: I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice. (Deut. 30.19–20)

As we see in several of the essays, the divine agent’s exhortation to choose life brings with it the images of both agents that – leaving Paul aside for the moment – are most widely encountered in literature of the Hellenistic era, the self-limiting divine agent and the human agent who is competent to choose.4 For in numerous regards that was an era of individualistic ‘choice’. And texts – both Jewish and pagan – in which the divine agent urges the human agent to choose life, virtue, happiness, etc. presume not only the self-limitation of God, but also the competence of the human agent to choose. The Competent Agent and The Two Ways. With impressive frequency the picture of the competent human agent is combined with that of the two ways, producing a moral synthesis that proved widely popular among Second Temple authors as well as among pagan philosophers. In an embryonic form the pattern of the two ways lies before us not only in Deut. 30.19–20, but also in Jer. 21.8, blossoming then in the Greek Didache (Alexander).5 What I have called a widely popular moral synthesis emerges, then, when the two-ways pattern is combined with the image of the competent human agent.6 And no Second Temple author presents

subject to my authority’ and ‘what He has left for himself’. Epictetus can refer to the former as ta proairetika, which – and I agree – Engberg-Pedersen renders ‘the objects of choice’. Calling for emphasis is the pertinent pair of opposites stated by Epictetus in 4.1.101: What can be willed by the human agent stands opposite what is not in the province of that agent’s will (ta mê thelêta). This pair of opposites suffices to remind us of the distinction between the divine agent and the human one, a distinction that remains fundamental even though God is within the individual as well as in the whole of the universe. The divine agent who gives to me what is ‘subject to my own authority’ is the very actor who retains other things ‘for himself’, thus clearly distinguishing himself from me, while being in me. Important, then, for all Stoics is an awareness of the human agent’s moral competence in an area bounded by divine decree, precisely ta proairetika. And that limitation of the human agent proves to be a corollary of Epictetus’ tendency to emphasize theism over pantheism (Long, Epictetus, pp. 148–49). 4. The charge against Stoics that they abolished human choice and thus human responsibility by their affirmation of Fate elicited numerous and complex answers from Chrysippus onwards, but it never went unanswered, chiefly by the insistence on bounded but emphatically genuine human competence to be obedient to universal law. See again the truly extraordinary contribution of S. Bobzien, Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy. 5. Cf. H. van de Sandt, and David Flusser, The Didache: Its Jewish Sources and Its Place in Early Judaism and Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002). 6. Qumran reminds us that this immensely popular moral synthesis is not inevitable; the two ways can be affirmed in the context of a sort of determinism (Alexander). Second Temple interpreters of Deut. 30.19–20, however, regularly present this moral synthesis to their readers, and

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that moral synthesis more clearly and emphatically than Sirach, with his picture of God placing the two ways before the Adamic human being, the agent who was at creation endowed with moral competence by the divine agent himself: Do not say ‘It was [the Lord] who led me astray’ … From the beginning he created the human being, and he left him in the power of his own decision. If it is your will to do so, you will keep the commandments, and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice. He has placed before you fire and water; stretch out your hand for whichever you wish. Before human beings are life and death, and whichever an individual chooses will be given to him. (Sir. 15.12–17)7

The Competent Agent and The Two Separate Steps. Equally important is Sirach’s way of filling out the picture of Deuteronomy 30. In order to emphasize the Godgiven autonomy of the Adamic agent, Sirach clarifies the identities of both agents by referring to their two sequential and separate steps. The first step is that of the divine agent, and it contains four elements. God acts by creating the human agent who is competent to choose, by placing before that agent the two ways, life and death, by calling for a decision, and by afterward keeping his distance. The last element is emphasized by Sirach, and it calls for our attention. Having endowed the human agent with moral competence, having put the two ways before that agent, and having exhorted that agent to choose life, the divine agent seems to go into a sort of retirement. He has apparently finished his part in the moral drama. Indeed immediately after creating the competent agent God ‘left him in the power of his own decision’, neither interfering in the human agent’s subsequent autonomous choice nor taking measures to improve that agent’s formation, as though such a move were needed. The second step follows. It is that of the human agent, and it provides a clear indication of that agent’s identity. He is the Adamic agent created by God with total moral competence. So equipped, and presented with the two possible paths, he stands alone at the fork in the road, competent in himself to make his own choice, and thereafter held responsible for his autonomous decision. This human decision is the second step in the moral drama, but it is also much more than that. It is also an emphatically separate act, separate, that is, from contemporary activity on the part of the divine agent, and thus the human agent’s autonomous it is equally common among the pagan philosophers. Note also the role of this moral synthesis in – to cite two examples – the popular Prodicus fable about Heracles (Xenophon, Memorabilia 2.1.21– 2.1.33; Philo, Sact. 20–42) and Pseudo-Cebes. For an excellent translation of the latter, with thoughtful notes, consult John T. Fitzgerald and Michael L. White, The Tabula of Cebes (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983). The authors give a well-conceived account of attempts to link PseudoCebes to one or another of the popular philosophical schools (pp. 20–27), finally noting similarities to both Seneca and Epictetus. 7. I follow here the Greek text. Note that Sirach portrays salvation as conditional on human action, a matter carefully addressed in Watson’s essay and in his extraordinarily perceptive volume, Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith (London: T&T Clark, 2004). Modern Jewish scholars customarily cite this passage in Sirach as the classic Jewish text for freedom of the will; e.g., H. Graetz, ‘Die Söhne des Tobias, die Hellenisten und der Spruchdichter Sirach’, Monatschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 21 (1872), pp. 49–64, 97–122 (105).

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and separate response.8 For, as just noted, after creating the competent human agent, and after addressing that agent with a hortatory reference to the two ways, the divine agent has finished his work with the human agent.9 In its dominant form, then, the Hellenistic moral drama places its accent on the portrait of the human agent as the competent figure who, standing at the two ways, is called on to make his own secondary and separate decision.10 Rather than the divine agent, then, it is almost always the human agent facing the two ways who provides the accented motif of movement in the moral drama, choosing to go one way or the other. No literary form tells us more about the Hellenistic, Second Temple era than hortatory and imperative paraenesis addressed to the human agent whose task is to carry out an action distinctly separate – autonomous – from any contemporary act on the part of the divine agent.11 The Competent and Disobedient Human Agent. What happens in the Hellenistic moral drama, then, when, in taking his own second and separate step, the human agent is disobedient? Continuing a pattern notably evident in the Deuteronomic history and often employed by the canonical prophets, many Jewish authors speak of a call to ‘repentance.’ And meaning something quite similar, and using basically the same locutions, pagan writers refer to ‘turning.’ Again we have from both Jew and pagan the widely popular moral synthesis: the competent human agent presented with the two ways, often accompanied by the two separate steps, with emphasis on the human agent’s movement. In itself disobedience does not alter but rather confirms the image of the competent human agent, for it brings guilt and a renewed exhortation to choose and follow the path of moral responsibility.

b. The Three-Actor Moral Drama and the Incompetent Human Agent Taking us to one of the Qumran texts and to certain strands of the Enochic literature, the essays of Alexander and Bocaccini remind us of the Hellenistic image of the incompetent agent. For the most part it is indeed in apocalyptic literature of the Second Temple era that this image is developed. One would turn, then, from the essays of Alexander and Bocaccini to the studies of what M. C. de Boer perceptively dubbed ‘cosmological apocalyptic eschatology’, the major point being 8. One might think the pattern of a second and separate step foreign to the Stoics because of their believing God to be a contemporary actor within the human agent (see n. 28 below). They also gave a crucial role, however, to ‘assent’ (sugkatathesis; adsensio), thus advancing their own form of the two-step pattern. 9. Sirach has his own eschatology – virtue and vice are rewarded and punished in this life – but there is no hint, nor is one thought to be needed, that God will one day bring a better scene by further fashioning the Adamic agent. On the contrasting text of Bar. 2.31 see n. 15 below. 10. Widely evident in Second Temple texts, especially those that interpret Deut. 30.19–20, the two-step pattern can also be seen in pagan literature. We have a non-theistic form in Epicurean tradition (Lucretius, de Rerum Natura 2.251–293); and, as noted, it is basically present in the Stoics’ references to ‘assent’. See also the paraenetic pattern as it is developed in the Prodicus legend and Pseudo-Cebes. 11. See again the qualification stated in n. 8 above.

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that in this pattern we have a moral drama with three principal actors rather than merely two: God, human beings and supra-human powers other than God.12 In the role of a supra-human power, Sin, for example, can be seen as more than an act committed by the human agent; it can be the subject of verbs; it can even be said to deceive the human agent. In the Enochic Book of the Watchers Sin is antecedent to acts of human choice, being introduced by evil angels. Moreover, in some of the traditions of ‘the evil impulse’ that entity possesses its own power (Avemarie).13 When on the cosmic stage there are three actors rather than two, the effects on the moral drama are obviously profound. In the three-actor drama there are, for example and contra 4 Maccabees, powers beyond, and often superior to the rational capacity of human beings.14 Especially from apocalyptic traditions we have, then, a truly weighty question: Given incompetence on the part of the human figure, will the divine agent remain inactive vis-à-vis that agent’s formation?15

2. Paul: Similarities and Radical Departures – A Third Anthropological Image and Meta-Ethics Here we begin with two factors in the letters that seem in tension with one another. On the one hand, we find numerous paraenetic passages, some explicitly hortatory, all focused primarily on what the recipients, as competent human agents, are to do and to avoid doing. From several of the essays we see, then, that considerable insight can be had into Paul’s mind by comparing and contrasting his moral instructions with those of Jewish wisdom teachers and pagan popular philosophers.16 As his paraenetic passages show, no development of any kind 12. See M. C. de Boer, ‘Paul and Apocalyptic Theology’, Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism (ed. J. J. Collins; New York: Continuum, 1998), pp. 345–83; idem, ‘Paul, Theologian of God’s Apocalypse’, Interpretation (January, 2002), pp. 21–33; and cf. John J. Collins, ‘The Origin of Evil in Apocalyptic Literature’, idem, Seers, Sibyls and Sages in Hellenistic-Roman Judaism (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2001), pp. 287–99; H. Lichtenberger, Studien zum Menschenbild in Texten der Qumrangemeinde (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980). In the present essay I use the term ‘apocalyptic’ for the most part to refer to this three-actor cosmic drama. 13. On ‘the evil impulse’ (e.g., 1QS 5.4–5; 1QH 10.23 [ysr bsr]) and 4 Ezra’s cor malignum (3.20–23) see in addition to the essays of Avemarie and Bocaccini, Joel Marcus, ‘The Evil Inclination in the Epistle of James’, CBQ 44 (1982), pp. 606–21; idem, ‘The Evil Inclination in the Letters of Paul’, IBS 8 (1986), pp. 8–21. 14. Were we surveying anthropological images beyond those portrayed in the present volume, we could ask what happened in the Hellenistic era to traditions coming from the classical tragedians, Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles, with their portraits of human beings who are incompetent in the sense of scarcely being in complete rational control of their own lives. We could note, for example, that in speaking of Fate, Chrysippus referred to its being impossible for the parents of Oedipus to avoid the evil that had been predicted (SVF 2.939). 15. A pre-Pauline picture of the divine agent acting to re-form the incompetent human agent lies before us in Baruch 2.31 – ‘In the land of their exile… I will give them a heart and ears that hear’ – a text surely drawn from Jer. 24.7; 32.39 (O. H. Steck, Das apokryphe Baruchbuch [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993], p. 109). On 1QH 21 see n. 18 below. 16. Beyond the essays in the present volume see especially A. J. Malherbe, ‘Hellenistic

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eclipses Paul’s concern with patterns of behaviour in his churches, how the members are to think and what they are to do.17 On the other hand, we find passages in which Paul places heavy emphasis not on what human agents have done, are doing and are to do, but rather on what has been done, is being done and will be done to them – both by powers other than God and by God himself. Being to some degree peculiar to Paul, these references seize our attention, suggesting a basic route by which we can rethink and remap the apostle’s views of the divine and human agents.18 That is to say, when we attend to what has been done, is being done and will be done to the human agent – not limiting our horizon to God’s past deed of creating/fashioning that agent – we find that Paul works with multiple anthropological images. Indeed, there seem to be determinative events in what we might call the history of the human agent, a matter that can be related to the standard question – what does God do and what do human beings do? – while also being significantly different from it. Merely to reread Paul’s letters while entertaining the expression ‘history of the human agent’ is to begin to suspect that a historical series consisting of several images may be a central key, enabling us to bring Paul’s understanding of agency into truly sharp focus (cf. Gathercole’s references to the history of sin): 1. Like Sirach and Epictetus, Paul knows of the Adamic agent who was created/fashioned by God with moral competence (Rom. 1.19–20). 2. From the competent Adamic agent God elects a specific people, Israel, calling into existence a corporate and corporately addressable agent (Rom. 9.4–5; 3.2; 11.1–2, 28b). The apple of God’s eye, this people is, however, repeatedly disobedient. Indeed, there is universal Adamic disobedience (Rom. 3.9–18; 11.32). 3. Disobedient, the Adamic agent becomes without exception incompetent; and, handed over by God to anti-God powers, this agent finds his incompetence deepened (Rom. 1.21–28).19 From this point forward the entire series of images proves to be fundamentally apocalyptic, in the sense that the human agent plays his or her part in a three-actor moral drama, ‘the Flesh’ and ‘Sin’ (in the singular), for example, being the subjects of verbs, actors who do things. Now the Moralists and the New Testament’, ANRW 2.26.1 (1992): 267–333; idem, Paul and the Popular Philosophers (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989); W. A. Meeks, The Origins of Christian Morality (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993). 17. The English-language classic here remains V. P. Furnish, Theology and Ethics in Paul (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1968); see also W. Schrage, The Ethics of the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress Press. 1988); R. B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1996). 18. It is primarily because of Bar. 2.31 (n. 15 above) and 1QH, as examples, that I say ‘to some degree peculiar to Paul’. See the whole of 1QH 21, and especially lines 10 and 11. Having been begun in the Community, the new creation of the human agent promised in Ezek. 36.26 is held to be as yet incomplete (G. T. Manning, Echoes of A Prophet [London: T&T Clark, 2004], p. 50). Do we not find in Ezekiel, in Baruch, and in 1QH hints pointing, then, to a history of the human agent (a matter to which we will shortly turn in our reading of Paul)? 19. See B. R. Gaventa, ‘God Handed Them Over: Reading Romans 1:18–32 Apocalyptically’, Australian Biblical Review 53 (2005), pp. 42–53; Martyn, Galatians, Comment #39.

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human agent is not only disobedient but also thoroughly deceived by Sin and thus universally enslaved to the powers of Sin and Death (Rom. 3.9; 6.6, 12–22; 7.11 in its context).20 4. Given that development, the divine agent known to Paul does not remain inactive, in the sense of doing virtually nothing more than repeating an exhortation to repent (cf. the section on ‘Virtue as Gift’ in Barclay’s essay, especially Philo’s reading of Deut. 30.15, 19). This is the God who is on the move. In the gospel of Christ (for Paul an event) God steps on the scene. Far from allowing the human agent to stand alone at the road fork, this invasive God powerfully meets both the incompetent, enslaved agent and the powers that enslave him in their own orb.21 God does that, however, not in a renewed word of exhortation, but rather in the logos tou staurou, the totally strange word-event that shatters ‘the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning’, thus destroying prior images of the human agent as well as old-age images of God (1 Cor. 1.18– 19).22 And in that meeting the divine agent does something unheard of. Destroying old-age images of the human agent, God changes human agency itself!23 That is to say, meeting the incompetent and enslaved human agent in the gospel of his Son, God creates the corporate, newly competent and newly addressable agent, forming this new human agent in the image of the crucified Son, Christos estaurômenos, by sending the Spirit of the Son into its heart (Gal. 4.6; Rom. 8.29).24 Nothing less than God’s new creation, this new human agent contains individuals, but, as was the case with ancient Israel, this agent is the new community itself (1 Cor. 12.4–31), typically addressed by Paul with plural verbs, a pattern

20. See M. C. de Boer, The Defeat of Death (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1988); P. W. Meyer, ‘The Worm at the Core of the Apple’, ch. 5 in idem, The Word in This World (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2004); and cf. again Gathercole in the present volume. 21. Centered in God’s active, new-creative power, this meeting involves much more than God’s holding out to the Adamic agent a new possibility/option. Concerning this crucial matter in Pauline interpretation, see J. L. Martyn, Theological Issues in the Letters of Paul (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997), p. 219 n. 23; idem, ‘De-apocalypticizing Paul: an Essay focused on Paul and the Stoics by Troels Engberg-Pedersen’, JSNT 86 (2002), pp. 61–102; cf. Watson, Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith, pp. 464–65. Note also that, referring to far more than a new possibility, A. Badiou speaks of an agent (he uses the term ‘subject’) who is induced by the process of truth, an agent that was ‘absolutely nonexistent “before” the event’ of truth (Ethics [London: Verso, 2001], p. 43). 22. Analyses that skirt the plain sense of Paul’s repeated antithesis – ouk…alla (e.g., Gal. 1.1, 11–12; 1 Cor. 2.4) – always preserve in some form the mistakes of Pelagius and Arminius. For strong correctives see S. Westerholm, Perspectives Old and New on Paul (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004) and Watson, Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith, the first part of which is appropriately titled ‘Antithesis’. 23. Quoting Isaiah, while making no reference to Bar. 2.31 (n. 15 above) and Ezek. 36.26, Paul says that God’s deed of changing the human agent itself is unprecedented (1 Cor. 2.9–16). There is, however, a truly remarkable theological congeniality between Ezekiel’s eschatological portrait of the newly competent agent and Paul’s picture of the same, a matter addressed in a forthcoming work by the present author. 24. On this corporate, newly created ‘addressable agent’ see Martyn, Galatians, pp. 447, 524– 36, 570–74.

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quite infrequent in Hellenistic paraenesis.25 The Israel of God (Gal. 6.16), this newly competent and corporate agent, is the only agent that can be effectively addressed with hortatory and imperative verbs; for, as noted, it is into the heart of this agent that God has sent the Spirit of his Son, specifically the pneuma tou estaurômenou, thus reforming the human agent by communally forming Christ in that agent, the church (Gal. 4.19; Rom. 8.29). The newly created, corporate agent is fundamentally distinguished, then, from the Adamic agent, the latter failing to be – in Paul’s theology – addressable in paraenetic language. Here we find a sharp contrast with Sirach and Epictetus, both of whom – as Second Temple and Hellenistic examples – address in the hortatory and imperative moods the individual Adamic agent, the figure assumed to be competent as he stands before the two ways.26 When, being the newly addressable agent, and being confidently exhorted to do so, one of Paul’s churches corporately follows the lead of the Spirit – infused by God into their hearts and thus already active among them (e.g., Gal. 5.16–26) – it is indeed taking a second step after God’s first step. But in Paul’s theology 25. On Israel as corporate agent see now Paul M. Joyce, Divine Initiative and Human Response in Ezekiel (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989); J. S. Kaminsky, Corporate Responsibility in the Old Testament (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1995); Jacqueline Lapsley, Can These Bones Live? The Problem of the Moral Self in the Book of Ezekiel (BZAW; Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2000). Numerous specialized studies of Paul’s paraenetic sections are very helpful, but they are also often in need of supplementation with regard to Paul’s departure from the emphatic individualism characteristic of the Jewish sages (including Philo) and of popular philosophers such as Epictetus (not to mention the individualism of the philosophers of our modern Enlightenment). If the analysis offered here should prove essentially correct, Christian ethicists who wish to call on Paul will perhaps ask themselves whether their work is to be reoriented to a considerable extent, shifting the primary focus away from the individual Adamic agent of the sages and philosophers, in order to concentrate on the newly competent agent who, inspired by the Spirit’s activity, is a thoroughly corporate figure. Hence the reference in my title to ‘meta-ethics’. One step in this direction was taken by Paul L. Lehmann, Ethics in a Christian Context (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), and it is further developed by Nancy J. Duff, Humanization and the Politics of God: the Koinonia Ethics of Paul Lehmann (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992) and Philip G. Ziegler, ‘Justification and Justice’, Berliner Theologische Zeitschrift 21 (2004), pp. 140–53. 26. If the moral synthesis of the competent Adamic agent and the two ways (with the two separate steps included) proves to be fundamentally inapplicable to Paul – as is argued here – then a number of truly learned treatises may be in need of some revision, e.g., W. A. Meeks, The Origins of Christian Morality, a book from which I have learned much, and one which is altogether worthy of its own analysis elsewhere. Here briefly, on the one hand, there are the illuminating references to the moral community into which the individual is ‘resocialized’. On the other hand, the ‘resocialized’ human agent apparently remains that individual who is faced with the two ways of virtue and vice, these being options either of which he can choose to follow as an individual. If I am listening attentively, we have, then, at least a partial eclipse of Pauline, corporate apocalyptic, in which the third actor – in Gal. 5.19–23 the sarx and the pneuma – exerts its own power, producing in communal life erga and karpos respectively. And in that eclipse is there not a sacrifice of Paul’s truly extraordinary use of second-person plural hortatory language? See further Meeks, ‘The Circle of Reference in Pauline Morality’, in D. L. Balch, E. Ferguson and W. A. Meeks (eds), Greeks, Romans, And Christians: Essays In Honor of A. J. Malherbe (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), pp. 305–17; and cf. the carefully nuanced study of Loveday Alexander, ‘Paul and the Hellenistic Schools’, in T. Engberg-Pedersen (ed.), Paul in His Hellenistic Context (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), pp. 60–83.

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that second step is emphatically not a separate step, one that is separate from the continuing causative activity of the divine agent in the daily life of the community. As God the Father has sent the Son’s Spirit into the hearts of members of this newly created community, and as the divine agent continues to work wonders in this community (Gal. 3.5), so this God is very far indeed from placing the communal human agent at the road fork and there leaving him alone to make his own decisive response.27 In the process of creating the new human agent as the new Spirit-led community, this invasive God consistently participates in human morality itself.28 Led by the Spirit, this communally competent agent is neither alone nor passive, being literally inspired and collectively called by God to vigorous, worldwide activity; for, forming Christ in their communities, God places this communal agent in the front trenches of his war of cosmic liberation for all (Gal. 4.6, 19; 2 Cor. 3.18; Gal. 5.13–6.10).29 5. The final image is that of the corporate human agent in God’s ultimate apocalyptic victory (1 Thess. 4.13–18; 1 Cor. 15; Rom. 8; 11.26–32). Being in the end all of what was the Adamic agent and emphatically all of God’s Israel, this eschatological human agent will be the all, made alive in Christ and fashioned in his image (Rom. 8.29 again).

Conclusion When, then, we focus our attention on the grand sweep of this series of images, we sense that a single factor very nearly suffices in itself to reveal the radical disjunction between Paul’s moral drama and the dominant forms of that drama in his time and culture, Jewish and pagan. That factor is precisely the monumental difference between individualistic protological images of the human agent and 27. Given the general meaning of the term ‘response’ in our linguistic setting, considerable care has to be taken when we use it in our interpretation of Paul. If, that is, we employ that term to refer to the human agent’s step at all, then it is important consistently to issue the caveat that this ‘response’, although second, is not an autonomous human deed separate and alone from the continuation of the divine agent’s causative activity. Behind Gal. 5.19–23 we can sense the pattern of the two ways, but the acts of the sarx and of the pneuma tou Christou in the corpus of the community change that pattern fundamentally, without turning the Galatians into puppets (note Gal. 5.24). 28. In this regard there is a genuine and impressive similarity between Paul and Epictetus, for the latter repeatedly insists to his students that, given God’s being in them, they are not alone (e.g., Diss. 1.14.13–14; cf. Seneca, Epistle on God in Man). See especially Long, Epictetus, pp. 147, 163–68, and cf. Engberg-Pedersen in the present volume. For Paul, however, the active presence of the Spirit of Christ in the corporate human agent, the church, relates agency to early Christian eschatology, not to something comparable to Stoic protology; and the difference is monumental. For a quasieschatological motif in Stoic teaching we turn not to Epictetus, but rather to the final lines of Cleanthes’ famous hymn, with their fascinating image of a prayed-for newly competent agent. Cf. J. C. Thom, Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus (Tübingen: Mohr, 2005). 29. Martyn, Galatians, comment #49. An important project for another setting: How is Paul’s understanding of the human agent’s history related to his view of the church’s life in the civic, Adamic society? Regarding the latter see especially V. P. Furnish, ‘Uncommon Love and the Common Good’, in D. P. McCann and P. D. Miller (eds), In Search of the Common Good (London: T&T Clark, 2005), pp. 58–87.

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corporate eschatological ones.30 It is only at the final apocalyptic victory that God will have finished fashioning the human agent, for God’s present re-creation of that agent en tô pneumati tou estaurômenou demonstrates what is fully determined but not yet finished: the chief concern of God for the entire cosmos (Rom. 8.18–25).

30. I have said above that for Paul the corporate, newly competent and newly addressable agent is formed by God in the image of the crucified Son, Christos estaurômenos (Rom. 8.29; cf. Gal. 4.19). The factor that sharply distinguishes protological images of the human agent from Paul’s eschatological ones begins, then, in the cross; and in the true life of the church the cross is never left behind, Christ’s resurrection at God’s hands being God’s active interpretation of the cross, power made perfect in the weakness that is hyper hêmôn. One can imagine a volume that would supplement the present one by being focused on the relationship between agency and the cross in Paul, perhaps accenting texts from the Corinthian letters. Meanwhile, see C. B. Cousar, A Theology of the Cross: The Death of Jesus in the Pauline Letters (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990); A. R. Brown, The Cross and Human Transformation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995); Martyn, Theological Issues, pp. 89–110; R. A. Harrisville, Fracture: The Cross As Irreconcilable in the Language and Thought of the Biblical Writers (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006).

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INDEXES INDEX OF BIBLICAL AND OTHER ANCIENT REFERENCES

OLD TESTAMENT

Genesis 1 1–3 1.28 2–3 2.7 2.15 2.15–17 2.17 3.1 3.1–7 3.2–3 3.12–13 3.14 3.16 3.16–19 3.17 4.1 5.1 6.1–4 6.8 9.25 12.3 14.22–23 15.5 15.6 15.7 17.5 27.20 50.20

11, 29 27 29 168 168 31, 58, 59 175 168 22 31 166 85 166 145 59 166 142 41 12 141, 143 85 101 142 101 149 142 101 141 166

Exodus 2.23 15.6 20.24 22.25

145 57 145 113

24.7 33.17 33.19 Leviticus 4.12 7.11–14 7.15 7.16–17 9.5–6 17.3–4 18.4 18.5

57 141 149

19.9–10 19.19 23,22 25.35–38

104 103 103 103 103 103 66 75, 101, 102, 107, 116 113 104 113 113

Numbers 11 11.1 11.19 11.20 11.31–35 11.33 15.1–12 15.39 15.41

165, 166 165 165 165 165 165 103 56 52, 53

Deuteronomy 6.10–11 141 8.19 11.18 65 12.11 104

14.1 15.1–11 22.8 22.9–11 24.19 24.19–22 26.17–18 30.1 30.1–2 30.12–14 30.15 30.19 30.19–20 30.20 31.29 32.2 32.39 33.3 33.3–4

53 113 62 104 55 113 145 1–5 104, 105, 107 101 145, 180 180 115, 175 115, 145 104, 105 57 115 114 114

Joshua 18–19

45

1 Samuel 1.28 8 8.5 8.7 8.8 8.11 8.13–14 8.17 8.17–18

143 165 165 166 166 166 166 166 166

2 Samuel 7.16

11

Index of Biblical and Other Ancient References 2 Chronicles 28.27 33.18 35.18 Job 4.14 4.17–19 3.2 9.32–33 15.14.16 25.4–6 Psalms 16.7 78.29 81.13 106.14–15 119.126 143.2

106 106 106

71 87 14 14 87 87

60 165 165 165 67 87

Ecclesiastes 2.14 3.1–9 3.11 5.8–9 7.14 8.3 9.2 Isaiah 43.12

14 14 14 14 15 14 14

69

Jeremiah 16.11 18.18 21.8 24.7 32.39

58 13 175 178 178

Ezekiel 7.26

13

195

18.20 36.26

12 179, 180

Daniel 7 9 12

17 17 17

Jonah 4.2–3

14

Habakkuk 2.4

101

Ancient Near-Eastern Writings Yasna 30.3–4 34–35

APOCRYPHA

Tobit 1.3 1.4–5 1.8 1.10 3.3 3.14 4.5–6 4.5–19 5.14 9.6 12.6–10 12.7 13.11 13.16 14.6 14.7 14.8 14.19 Judith 5.17 5.17–21 5.19 5.21 8.8

83 83 16 83 83 83 83 83 83 83 83 83 83 83 83 83 83 83

84 84 84 84 84

8.20 8.31 11.10 13.20 14.10

84 84 84 84 84

Wisdom of Solomon 1.1–2 84 1.8 84 2.23–24 84 3.1–9 84 3.10 84 4.7–9 84 4.16 84 5.15 84 6.9 84 6.12 84 6.21 84 7.1–6 84 7.7–11 84 8.21–9.18 84 9.5 84 9.10–12 84 9.17–18 84 10.1 84 10.4 84

10.6 10.10 10.15 10.15–11.1 11.15 11.23–24 12.2–27 12.10–11 12.26 13.4 13.6–7 13.8–9 14.12 14.15–21 14.27 14.30–31 15.2–4

84 84 84 84 84 84 84 85 84 159 84 84 84 84 84 84 84

Sirach 2.8 6.32–33 7.1–2 7.36 8.5 11.22 15.11–20

85 85 85 85 86 85 4, 16, 85

Divine and Human Agency in Paul

196 Sirach (cont.) 15.11–17.24 15.12–17 16.11–12 16.11–14 19.16 21.27 23.4–6 24 24.23 28.2 28.4 33.10–15 35.5 35.24 37.3 37.15 42.24 44.17 48.15 48.17–49.5 49.4 Baruch 1.19–22 2.31

88 176 16 85 85 16, 85 86 16 16 86 86 86 85 85 86 86 86 86 86 106 86

2.31–32 3.7 4.1

86 177, 178, 179, 180 86 86 16 86

1 Esdras 1.23 4.36–38

87 87

1 Maccabees 13.42 14.27 14.35 14.41–42 15.2 15.17 15.21 15.24 16.24

106 106 106 106 106 106 106 106 106

2 Maccabees 2.21 4.10–20 4.13 4.15 6.7 6.1–9 6.12–17 7.9 7.11 7.14 7.23 7.29 8.1 14.38 14.46 4 Maccabees 1.1 1.1–3.18 1.3 1.5 1.5–6 1.7 1.9 1.14–30 1.17 2.4–6 2.5 2.8–9 2.21 2.21–23 3.2–5 3.20 4.19–20 4.19–21 4.26 5–7 5.1–38 5.2–3 5.31 6.28–29 6.31

110 110 110 110 109 110 17 17, 113 113 17, 113 17 113 110 110 113

87, 108, 110 110 87 87 109 87 87 108 111 112 114 113 112 109 112 109 110 109 110 110 109 110 111 109 111

7.4 7.16 7.16–23 7.19 8–18 8.1 8.8 8.16–26 9.17 9.30 10.19 12.13 13.1 13.3 13.5 13.7 13.15 13.19–27 14.13–19 15.1 15.3 15.23 16.1 16.4 16.5–10 16.25 16.32–7.1 17.12 17.16 17.17 17.17–22 17.18–19 17.20 18.1–2 18.4 18.10 18.14–19 18.23

111 111 109 114 110 111 110 109 111 111 114 109 111 111 111 111 114 109 109, 112 111 114 111 111 111 109 114 111 114 111 111 109 114 111, 114 111 109 114 114–115 115

Prayer of Mannasseh 7–8 87

PSEUDEPIGRAPHA

Ascension of Isaiah 1.9 92

2.4 3.11

92 92

Apocalypse of Abraham 13.7–14 90

Index of Biblical and Other Ancient References 23.1–11 23.6 23.9–13 23.12 23.14 31.4–5

22 22 90 22 22 22

2 Baruch 9.1 11.4 14.5–7 18.2 19.1 21.11 21.13 24.1 41.4 42.5 44.7 44.15 48.38–40 48.42–43 51.10 51.16 52.6 54.14–19 55.2 56.5–7 77.6–7 84.2–5 84.11 85.1–3 85.14

90 90 90 90 90 90 24 90 90 90 24 24 90 90 24 90 24 24, 90 90 90 90 24 90 25 25

1 Enoch 1.9 5.4–5 6.1–8.3 6.4–6 6.8 10.9–10 10.21 12.17 15.8–10 27.2 38.1 45.1–2 46.5–8 50.2–3

88 88 88 13 13 13 88 88 13 88 88 88 88 88

60.6 63.6–9 81.5 85.1–90.42 89.29–33 90.28–30 90.37–38 91.4 91.14 91.19 94.1 94.3 94.4 94.6–11 95.5–7 96.5–8 97.7–10 98.4 98.8 104.6 104.9

88 88 88 19 19 19 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 20, 88 88 88 88

2 Enoch 2.2 9.1 18.4 30.15 36.4 41.2 42.6 70.1

89 89 89 89 89 89 89 89

Epistle of Aristeas 16 91 18 91 130 91 144 16 154 17 231 91 237 91 238 91 248 91 271 91 272 91 274 91 277 91 278 92 283 91 290 91 292 91

4 Ezra 3.21–22 3.26 3.116–119 4.30 6.32 7.21–22 7.45–48 7.48 7.52–61 7.77 7.88–89 7.92 7.118 7.127–131 8.1–3 8.47–49 9.10–12

197

22, 89 89 22–23 89 90 89 23 89 90 a90 89 89 89 23, 89 90 90 89

Joseph and Aseneth 8.9 93 11.7–8 93 12.5 93 15.7 93 19.5 93 22.13 93 23.9 93 27.1 93 27.10 93 Jubilees 1.7–14 1.9 1.15 1.20 1.22 1.23 2.17–22 2.21 2.25 2.31–33 5.13–16 5.17–18 6.17–19 7.27 7.33 8.3 10.8 11.5–6

92 19 92 92 92 92 92 19 92 92 92 92 92 92 19 92 92 92

Divine and Human Agency in Paul

198 Jubilees (cont.) 12.20 92 15.25–27 92 15.26 92 15.31–32 92 15.33–34 92 16.17–18 92 17.17–18 92 18.9–12 92 19.28 92 21.21 92 22.16–18 92 22.22 92 23.10 92 30.14 92 33.18 92 33.20 19 35.5 92 35.6 92 35.12 92 41.25 92 Life of Adam and Eve Apocalypse of Moses 10.2 93 13.5 93 16 93 21.3–5 93 28.4 93 30.1 93 32.2 93 Vita 12–16 27.3 33 44.2

93 93 93 93

Psalms of Solomon 3.6–11 94 5.4 18 9.4 18 9.4–5 94 9.9 18 10.1 18 10.1–3 94 13.6–11 94 13.11 94 14.9–10 18 15.1 18

16.11 18.12–14

94 94

Pseudo–Philo 1.16 4.11 4.16 6.3 11.1–2 12.2 12.4 12.9–10 13.8–9 16.3 16.4–5 19.9 19.10 22.5 26.14 28.4 30.4 35.3 38.1–2 49.3

93 93 93 93 93 93 93 93 93 93 93 93 93 93 93 93 93 93 93 93

Pseudo–Phocylides 93 Testament of Abraham 1.4–7 91 4.6 91 9.4–6 91 10.12–13 91 10.14 91 11.12 91 Testament of Job 8.2–3 91 14.2–3 91 16.2 91 10.2 91 23.11 91 26.6 91 27.2–6 91 Testament of the 12 Patriarchs Testament of Asher 1.3–5 90 1.5 90

1.8–9 5.4

90 91

Testament of Benjamin 3.3–4 90 3.4 20 6.1 90 6.7 20 Testament of Dan 1.3 90 4.7 90 5.1 90 Testament of Issachar 3.2–4 90 3.6–5.3 20 4.1 90 4.4 90 7.6–7 20 7.7 90 Testament of Joseph 1.3 91 Testament of Judah 20.1–2 20 20.1–3 90 Testament of Levi 19.1 90 Testament of Naphtali 3.1 90 8.6 90 Testament of Reuben 2.1–2 20 4.1 20 4.4 91 4.11 90 Testament of Simeon 3.5 90 5.2 90 Testament of Zebulum 1.4–5 91 1.5–4.13 91

Index of Biblical and Other Ancient References

199

DEAD SEA SCROLLS

1QpHabakkuk 7.10–12 94 8.1–3 94 8.8–13 94 1QMysteries (1Q27) 1i3 42 Community Rule (1QS) 37–38, 39 1–4 38 1.7 94 1.11 94 1.13–15 94 2.1–2 94 2.2–5 46 2.11–17 94 3–4 172 3.13–15 28 3.13–16 29 3.13–17 95 3.15 30 3.17–18 29 3.17–21 95 3.13–4.24 27, 95 3.20 31 3.20–21 95 3.21–25 32, 95 3.23 31 3.24 31 3.25 29 3.25–26 29 4.4–6 39 4.6–8 32 4.11–14 32 4.15–16 29, 32 4.15–26 95 4.17 31 4.18 31 4.18–23 33 4.19 29 4.20–22 30 4.21 31 4.22 31 4.23 30 4.23–24 31, 32 4.24 32

4.25 4.26 5 5.1 5.3 5.4–5 5.6 5.8 5.10 5.10–13 6.16 6.18–19 9.18–21 11.9–11

29 29, 31, 45 38 94 45 178 94 94 94 94 45 45 94, 95 95

1QRule of the Congregation (1Q28a) 1.2–3 94 1.16–17 45 1QRule of Benediction (1Q28b) 1.1–2 94 4.25–26 45 1QHodayot (1QH a) 5.21–23 95 6.11–12 95 6.17–18 94 7.16–26 95 9.7–8 95 9.20 95 9.21–23 95 10.23 178 11.20–23 46 11.19–36 49 12.12–19 94 12.29–32 95 12.38 95 14.6–7 94 14.21–24 95 15.12–13 94 17.14–17 95 21 178, 179 25.28 95 1QWar Scroll (1Q33) 1.5 46

1.10 8.9–15 13.5

95 95 46

1QpNahum (1Q169) 4 iii 3–4 94 4QAges of Creation A (4Q180) 1.1–4 95 4QAges of Creation B (4Q181) 15 46 Astrological Physiognomy (4Q186) 28, 39–41 38 4QSb 38, 39 4QSc 38, 39 4QSd Damascus Document (CD) 2.2–13 42–44, 48 2.14–16 94 3.12 44–45 3.12–16 96 7.4–6 94 13.3–4 45 13.12 43 20.3–4 46 4QDamascus Document a (4Q266) 44 4QBrontologion (4Q318) 39 4QHalakhic Letter(4Q394–399) B 1–2 103 B3 103 B 9–13 103 B 26–27 103 B31–33 104 B 58–61 104

Divine and Human Agency in Paul

200 C 7–8 C 8–9 C 9–10 C 12–16 C 12–21 C 14 C 14–15 C 16 C 17–21 C 17–22 C 18 C 18–19 C 19

103 103 94 104, 105 107 107 104 107 105 106 105 104 105

C 20 C 20–21 C 21 C 21–22 C 23 C 23–26 C 23–31 C 26–27 C 26–32 C 27 C 30 C 31–32 C 32

104 105 107 106, 107 106 106 94 103 107 107 107 105 107

4QSongs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (4Q400–407) 402 4 12–15 41 406 1 1–2 41 4QRitual Marriage (4Q502) 39 11QPsalms a (11Q5) 19.15 95 24.7 95

NEW TESTAMENT

Matthew 13.33 13.34 24.2 25.34 26.27

58 159 159 159 21

Mark 2.10 2.17 3.21 8.35 10.6 13.19

21 21 167 64 159 159

159 58 24

John 8.58

23

Acts 1.23–26 4.27–28 7.42

45 166 165

1.3 1.16

1.18–21 1.18–32 1.18–3.20

Luke 11.50 13.21 29.16

Romans 1

1.16–17 1.17 1.18

75, 158, 169, 170 77, 81 78

1.19–20 1.20 1.20–21 1.21 1.21–24 1.21–28 1.22 1.22–24 1.22–31 1.23–31 1.24 1.25 1.25–27 1.26 1.26–27 1.27 1.28 1.28–31 1.32 2 2.1 2.1–2 2.1–11

78, 170 170 77, 159, 165, 170 130 76, 159, 161, 170 78, 170, 171, 172 179 81, 159 130 81, 159, 162 77 179 163 162 170 170 2, 160, 162 164 163 2, 162, 164 160 164 2, 162, 163 160 75, 81, 160 74 130 170 130

2.6 2.6–11 2.7 2.8 2.10 2.13 2.14 2.14–15 2.14–16 2.15 2.17–24 2.17–30 2.25 2.25–29 2.26 2.27 3 3.1–2 3.2 3.5 3.8 3.8–20 3.9 3.9–18 3.9–20 3.10 3.19–20 3.20 3.21 3.21–26 3.23 3.23–24 3.24

164 74 74, 75, 163 21 74, 75 74, 75, 76 75, 76 75 75 76 76 74 76 76 74, 76 76 75 76 179 21 150 149 77, 180 179 76 73, 77, 88 78 21, 96 159, 171 21, 132 76, 78 78 78

Index of Biblical and Other Ancient References 3.24–26 3.22 4.4–5 4.4–6 4.5 4.6 4.13–16 4.16 4.16–18 4.17–25 4.18 5 5–7 5.6 5.6–10 5.8 5.9 5.10 5.12 5.12–21 5.12–8.8 5.13 5.14 5.17 5.19 5.20 5.20–21 5.21 6 6.1–11 6.6 6.12–22 6.15 6.16–23 6.20 7

7.1–6 7.7 7.7–8 7.7–12 7.7–13 7.7–25 7.8 7.8–11

21 3 150 1 78, 150 78 77 101 101 137 101 73 77, 79, 81 78 149 78 78 78 79, 81 149 77 74 161 78 77, 78, 81 79 172 79 96 77 180 180 150 77, 79 21 71, 158, 160, 166, 169, 171 160 160, 161, 167, 168 169 160 166, 168 1, 159, 160, 166 160, 161, 167, 168 168

7.9 7.10 7.11 7.13 7.14–23 7.14–25 7.15 7.15–25 7.16 7.15 7.17 7.18 7.19 7.20 7.22 7.23 7.24 7.24–25 7.25 8 8.1 8.1–4 8.1–13 8.3 8.7 8.7–8 8.8 8.14–15 8.18–25 8.28–30 8.29 8.29–30 9.4–5 9.6 9.6–13 9.6–29 9.11–12 9.12 9.15 9.16 9.16–24 9.21 9.31 9.31–10.5 10.3 10.3–5

167, 168 77, 168 161, 168, 18 167, 168, 171 59 168 161, 167 74, 77 160 161 161 161, 167 161 161 161, 167 161, 167 161 23 167 182 159 171 168 169 81 88 132 183 130 180, 181, 182, 183 48 76, 179 149 1 149 99 99, 149 149 149 130 130 75, 81, 101 78 101 81

201

10.5 10.6–9 10.12–15 10.12–11.7 10.16–11.7 11.1 11.1–2 11.1–6 11.6 11.17–24 11.25–32 11.28 11.32 11.33–36 13.8–10 15.15–16 15.15–19 15.18

75, 77, 101 101 130 130 130 76 179 149 1, 99 150 77 179 172, 179 137 75 149 152 153

1 Corinthians 1–2 1.10–4.21 1.18 1.18–19 1.18–25 1.18–31 1.23 2.2 2.4 2.4–5 2.6 2.7 2.9–16 2.10–16 3.18–19 3.18–23 3.21 4.6–7 4.7 4.8 5.13 6.9–10 8.1–4 8.2 9.27 10.1–13 11.32 12.4–31

138, 150 128 77, 136 180 136 102 136 136 180 136 138 137, 138 180 138 128 128 128 128 128 142 74, 79 74 127 128 151 150 74, 79 180

Divine and Human Agency in Paul

202 1 Corinthians (cont.) 13.12 128 15 182 15.2 151 15.7–11 129 15.8 130 15.9–10 1, 2, 127 15.10 133, 151, 153 15.14 151 2 Corinthians 1.6 2.8–9 2.15–16 3.4–6 3.7 3.7–11 3.9 3.18 4.1–6 4.2 4.4 5.14 6.1 9.6–10 6.11–13 9.8 9.8–10 9.15 Galatians 1.1 1.3 1.6 1.11–12 1.11–17 1.12 1.13 1.13–14 1.14 1.15 1.15–16 1.16 2.1 2.9 2.15 2.15–17 2.16

134 149 77 153 77 80 77 182 134 134 79, 134 167 151 149, 153 164 142, 153 152 149

180 148 148, 149 180 129 130 71, 78, 96 78, 150 71, 80, 81 130 148 130 96 148, 149 96 79 3, 96

2.17 2.18–19 2.19 2.19–21 2.20 2.20–21 2.21 3.1–5 3.5 3.6–9 3.7–8 3.8 3.8–9 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16–18 3.18 3.21 3.22 3.26 3.29 4.5 4.5–7 4.6 4.8 4.8–9 4.8–11 4.19 4.24 5.13–6.10 5.14 5.16 5.16–26 5.17 5.18 5.19–23 5.22 5.24 5.25 6.14 6.16

96 150 149 152 150, 153, 154 148 79, 149 132, 150 182 79 77 148 101 77, 79 101 75, 77, 101 77, 79 77, 132 132 101 148 78 77, 79, 172 132 77 77, 79 132 154, 180, 182 163 79 126 181, 182, 183 77 153, 182 126 132, 153 181 154 2, 132 181, 182 154 126, 154, 182 153, 154 150 181

Philippians 1.6 1.9 1.10 1.11 1.19–20 1.28 1.28–29 2.6–11 2.12–13 2.12–14 2.13 3.2–9 3.3–4 3.4–6 3.6 3.7–9 3.8 3.12–16 3.19–20 3.20–21 4.10–20 4.11 4.12 4.13

152 131 131 131 151 79 152 152 1, 102, 131 152 153 78 76 80 75, 76, 80, 81, 150 78, 129 3 128 129 152 135 135 135 135, 152

Colossians 1.29

152

1 Thessalonians 1.9–10 77 1.10 74, 79 2.13 131 2.16 79 4.13–18 182 4.6 79 5.2–3 79 5.2–9 74 5.9 79 5.19 131 5.23 131 Hebrews 4.3 9.26

159 159

II Peter 3.4

159

Index of Biblical and Other Ancient References Revelation 13.8 17.8

159 159

Jewish Authors Josephus Antiquities 3.223 83 6.269–270 159 13 48 13.171–173 15, 102 13.172 42, 95 13.172–173 4 13.230 106 13.259 106 13.267 106 13.282–283 106 13.291 106 13.299 106 13.301 106 18.12–18 4 18.18 20, 95 War 1.70 2.162–166

106 102

Against Apion 1.42 1.60 1.190–192 2.82 2.150 2.156 2.178 2.228 2.184 2.220–224

83 83 83 83 83 83 83 83 83 83

Philo De Cherubim 77 144 98–101 143 125–130 142 De Confusione Linguarum 182 141 De Decalogo 178

142

203

Quod Deterius Potiori Insidari Soleat 86 144

De Mutatione Nominum 46 141 51–53 143

Quod Deus Immutabilis Sit 77–79 147 86–116 141 87 142 104–106 141 107–109 141 108 141 109 143

De Opificio Mundi 3 17

De Ebrietate 105–110 118–119

142, 144 143

De Fuga et Inentione 166–176 147 168 147 Quis Rerum Divinarum Heres 5 143 102–111 142 104 142 Legum Allegoriae 1.34 144 1.34–38 147 1.49 144 2.32 144 3.29–30 142 3.77–96 143 3.97–103 147 3.137 144 3.166 141 3.211–215 145 3.219 147 4 145–46 De Migratione Abrahami 26–33 147 30 141 34–35 147 79–80 147 80 147 123 144

De Posteriate Caini 16 147 De Praemiis et Poenis 24–27 142 36–46 147 Quod Omnis Probus Liber Sit 84 20 Quaestiones et Solutiones in Genesin 2.75 143 De Sacrificiis Abelis et Caini 42 147 52–58 144 57 144 124 143 Se Somniis 1.60 2.75–78

147 142

De Specialibus Legibus 1.10–12 142 1.43 143 4.187 141 De Virtutibus 49 161–174 175 183 184 185 215

144 142 145 145 145 145 145

Early Christian Literature Didache 1.1–6.2 28, 35

Divine and Human Agency in Paul

204

RABBINIC LITERATURE

m.Avot 2.4 3.15 4.2 m.Berakhot 9.5 m.Sanhedrin 10.1 m.Sukkah 3.9 Pirqe ’Avot 3.16

64, 70 60 56, 65

b.Baba Metzia 59b 67 b.Berakoth 17a 40a

36 57

67 b.Eruvin 19a

68

b.Gittin 44a

54

b.Menahot 43b

56

44

60

37

Genesis Rabbah 9.7 36, 65 42.4 61 59.7 65 61.1 60 67.3 64 69.3 69 72.5 61 82.10 61 89.4 69 Leviticus Rabbah 4.5 62 20.4 60 36.4 61

b.Quiddushin 30b 36, 65 81b 65 b.Rosh Hashanah 17a 68

Avot de–R. Nathan A2 52 A 16 65 A 25 56 B 33 56 Mekhilta Bahodesh 2 57 5 62 6 52 Melkhilta de–Rabbi Ishmael Exod. 12.6 82 Exod. 12.23 82 Exod. 13.4 82 Exod. 14.29 82 Exod. 15.26 82 Exod. 19.2 82 Exod. 20.2–3 82 Mekhilta de–R. Shimon b. Yohai Exod. 19.17 54 Exod. 20.20 52, 63 Exod. 24.7 57

b.Yoma 69b

65

y.Sanhedrin 8./1 105a

61 68

Mekhilta Neziqin 1 53

b.Shabbat 32a

63

Mekhilta Vayyassa 1 57

b.Sukkah 52a–b

36

Midrash Tannaim 63

y.Rosh Hashanah 1.3/8 62 1.3/14–15 67

Pesiqta de–Rav Kahana 4.3 61 12.1 59 12.6 69 15.5 58 25.1 68

Targum Neofiti Gen. 3.24 25

y.Sanhedrin 6.9/2

68

Sifre Ahare–mot pereq 13.10 66

b.Avod. Zar. 17a–b

y.Sotah 1.4/4

61

Lamentations Rabbah petihta 34 65 Lam. 1.6 68

65

Sifre Behuqqotai pereq 8.10, fol. 112c 54

Index of Biblical and Other Ancient References Sifre Deuteronomy 41 59 45 65 47 68 48 57 79 57 96 57 229 63 306 57, 64 346 69 Sifre Numbers 112 56

115

52, 53, 55, 60, 66

205

Tosefta Nega‘im 6.1 52

Sifra Qedoshim preeq 11.22 66

Tosefta Peah 3.8

Sifre Shemini 12.4 52

Tosefta Sanhedrin 11.6 52 13.2 68 13.4 68 14.1 52

Tosefta Haggai 2.2 61

55

GRECO–ROMAN LITERATURE

Aeschylus Agamemnon 1052

167

Collectanea Rerum Memorabilium 34.9–12 19 Epictetus Dissertations 1.1.6 1.3.1 1.3.3 1.6.12–22 1.6.15 1.6.18 1.6.40 1.9.4 1.9.11 1.9.16–17 1.12.21 1.12.26–27 1.13.3 1.14 1.14.12 1.14.12–14 1.14.14 1.14.15–16 1.17.21 1.17.26 1.19.8–9 1.19.11–15

119 120 119 119 119 119 125 120 120 120 122 122 120 124 124 182 124 124 120 120 121 122

1.19.15 1.28.20 1.29.3 1.30.3 2.1.6 2.2.3 2.8.6 2.8.11 2.8.21–23 2.9.19–21 2.10.1 2.14.11–13 2.17.23–29 2.17.24 2.18.19 2.19.26–27 2.23.11 2.23.11–15 3.1.40 3.1.41 3.3.4 3.3.8 3.3.19 3.24.58 3.24.59 3.24.64–65 3.24.114 4.1.56 4.1.62 4.1.68 4.1.99–104

122 119 121 121 121 118 119 120 124 135 120 117 122 123 124 122 120 120 121 121 121 121 121 122 122 122 124 118, 119 118 118 118

4.1.100 4.1.101 4.1.104 4.4.33 4.4.47 4.7 4.7.2–3 4.7.4 4.7.5 4.7.6–7 4.12.7–8 4.12.15

118, 119, 174 175 119 122 124 135 135 135 135 136 121 122

Euripides Heracleidae 709–10

167

Orestes 1514

167

Homer Odyssey 11.337

167

Lucretius De Rerum Natura 2.251–293 177 Xenophon Memorabilia 2.1.21–33

176

INDEX OF MODERN AUTHORS

Albani, M. 39 Albeck, C. 51 Alexander, L. 181 Alexander, P. S. 19, 28, 32, 37, 38, 39, 42, 45, 46, 47, 62, 74, 82, 95, 96, 140, 175, 177 Allen, W. 73 Audet, J.-P. 35 Avemarie, F. 3, 52, 53, 57, 68, 83, 173, 178 Badiou, A. 180 Baillet, M. 39 Balch, D. L. 181 Barclay, J. M. G. 73, 74, 78, 84, 91, 93, 108, 110, 139, 148, 150, 174 Barr, J. 34 Barth, K. 80 Bauckham, R. J. 87, 88 Baumgarten, J. M. 39 Beattie D. R. G. 106 Becker, A. H. 22 Becker, H.-J. 39, 51, 57 Beer, G. 51 Bell, R. H. 61 Bernstein, M. J. 103, 106 Betz, H. D. 167 Betz, O. 106 Birnbaum, E. 148 Blenkinsopp, J. 13 Bloch, M. 10, 11 Bobzien, S. 173, 175 Boccaccini, G. 9, 11, 12, 15, 17, 18, 19, 21, 24, 25, 48, 71, 73, 81, 82, 85, 91, 177, 178 de Boer, M. C. 177, 178, 180 Bonhöffer, A. 118, Bonsirven, J. 50, 56, 61 Bourdieu, P. 139

Boyce, M. 33, 34 Brooke, G. J. 103 Brown, A. R. 183 Buber, S. 51 Bultmann, R. 118, 155, 167 Burkert, W. 34 Cancik, H. 39 Carroll, J. T. 137 Carson, D. A. 3, 86, 87, 100, 140, 165 Catto, S. 159 Charlesworth, J. H. 28, 41, 87 Chazon, E. G. 42 Chester, S. J. 160, 166, 168, 172 Chialà, S. 21 Cohen, A. A. 61 Cohen Stuart, G. H. 36 Cohon, S. S. 36 Collins, J. J. 12, 15, 87, 178 Cosgrove, C. H. 137 Cousar, C. B. 183 Cranfield, C. E. B. 170 Das, A. A. 168 Davies, P. R. 19, 42 Davies, W. D. 33 Di Lella, A. 85, 86 Dillon, J. 141 Donaldson, T. L. 92 Duchesne-Guillemin, J. 33 Duff, N. J. 181 Dunn, J. D. G. 22, 101, 107, 110, 148, 165 Dupont-Sommer, A. 38 Engberg-Pedersen T. 3, 4, 8, 73, 126, 151, 154, 155, 156, 174, 175, 181, 182 Epstein, J. N. 51 Evans, C. A. 47, 101

Index of Modern Authors Ferguson, E. 181 Fields, W. W. 46 Finkelstein, L. 33, 51 Fletcher Louis, C. H. T. 30 Flint, P. W. 32, 39 Flusser, D. 35, 176 Fisch, M. 27 Fitzgerald J. T. 176 Furnish, V. P. 179, 182 García Martínez, F. 19, 38, 94, 103 Garin, E. 11 Gathercole, S. J. 8, 77, 81, 94, 100, 101, 108, 165, 170, 180 Gaventa, B. R. 179 Gnoli, G. 35 Goldin, J. 61 Goodenough, E. R. 146 Goodman, M. 111 Gowan, D. E. 86 Graetz, H. 176 Grabbe, L. L. 10, 13 Grenet, F. 33, 34 Hammer, R. 63 Harrington, D. J. 112 Harrison, J. 143, 148 Harrisville, R. A. 183 Hay, D. M. 3 Hayman, A. P. 27 Hays, R. B. 179 Hengel, M. 80 Hoffmann, D. 51 Horovitz, H. S. 51 van der Horst, P. W. 65 Hruby, K. 60 Hultgård, A. 33 Jaffee, M. S. 12 Jastrow, M. 60, 62, 63 Jenson, P. P. 11 Johnson, E. E. 3, 137 Joyce, P. M. 181 Kaminsky, J. S. 181 Kampen, J. 103, 106 Kant, I. 6 Kelner, M. M. 61 Kennedy, H. A. A. 140

207

Klostermann, E. 162 Knibb, M. A. 28 Kraft, R. A. 46 Kohler, K. 56, 61 Kunin, S. D. 62 Laato, T. 71, 72, 73 Lange, A. 49 Lapide, P. 71 LaPorte, J. 142 Lapsley, J. 181 Lasker, D. J. 63 Lauterbach, J. Z. 82 Leaney, A. R. C. 28 Licht, J. 28 Lichtenberger, H. 36, 39, 58, 178 Lehmann, P. L. 181 Leibowitz, J. 70 Lieberman, S. 51 Lim, T. H. 104 Long, A. A. 118, 119, 120, 121, 124, 125, 173, 182 Longenecker, B. W. 150 Longenecker, R. N. 148 McCann, D. P. 182 McFarland, I. A. 172 McKeon, R. 62 McNamara, M. J. 106 Malherbe, A. J. 5, 118, 178, 179 Mandelbaum, B. 51 Manekin, C. H. 61, 62, 70 Manning, G. T. 179 Marcus, J. 178 Margulies, M. 51 Martone, C. 28 Martyn, J. L. 3, 8, 78, 80, 148, 153, 154, 155, 156, 179, 180, 182, 183 Meeks, W. A. 137, 179, 181 Melamed, E. Z. 51 Metso, S. 38 Meyer, P. W. 180 Merrill, E. H. 19, 49 Milgrom J. 165 Millar, F. 111 Miller, P. D. 182 Mittmann-Richert, U. 65 Moffatt, J. 140 Montefiore, C. G. 72, 80 Moore, G. F. 36, 48, 50, 57, 61

208

Divine and Human Agency in Paul

Nickelsburg, G. W. E. 10, 12, 20, 87, 88 Neusner, J. 23, 27 Newsom, C. A. 41 Noack, C. 146 O’Brien, P. T. 3, 86, 87, 100, 140, 165 Paul, S. M. 46 Philonenko, M. 33 Porter, S. E. 47 Puech, E. 38 Qimron, E. 103 Rabin, C. 42 Rabin, I. A. 51 Räisänen, H. 75, 102 Reed, A. Y. 22 Rendell Harris, J. 146 Rietbrock, I. 50 Romm, D. 51 Sacchi, P. 12, 21 Safrai, S. 60 Sagi, A. 67 Saldarini, A. J. 15 Sanders, E. P. 2, 10, 50, 51, 52, 54, 56, 72, 73, 75, 86, 87, 97, 101, 148, 152 Sandmel, S. 80 van de Sandt, H. 35, 176 Schäfer, P. 39 Schechter, S. 36, 50, 51, 52, 57, 61 Schiffman, L. H. 15, 37, 39, 46, 103 Schneewind, J. B. 4, 6, 173 Schoeps, H. J. 71 Schrage, W. 179 Schreiner, T. R. 163 Schürer, E. 111 Segal, A. F. 25 Seifrid, M. A. 3, 86, 87, 100, 140, 165 Shaked, S. 33 Sharp, C. J. 103, 104 Skehan, P. W. 85, 86 Steck, O. H. 178

Stegemann H. 28 Stöhr, M. 70 Stone, M. E. 89 Stowers, S. 100 Stott, J. R. W. 169 Strawson, P. F. 49 von Stuckrad, K. 39 Stuhlmacher, P. 71 Tanner, K. 4, 7 Thackeray, H. St. J. 83 Theissen, G. 166 Theodor, J. 51 Thom, J. C. 182 Tigchelaar, E. 103 Trebolle Barrera, J. 19 Urbach, E. E. 36, 50, 52, 61, 63 VanderKam, J. H. 12, 32, 33, 37, 39 Vawter, B. 14 Vermes, G. 28, 29, 38, 45, 111 Watson, F. B. 3, 73, 80, 85, 87, 97, 100, 127, 148, 174, 176, 180 Webster, J. 172 Wernberg-Møller, P. 28 Weiss, I. H. 51 Westerholm, S. 73, 79, 148, 180 White, M. L. 176 Widengren, G. 33 Willett, T. W. 24 Williamson, C. 50 Winninge, M. 73, 78 Winston, D. 33, 86, 141, 146 Wise, M. O. 40 Wolfson, H. A. 48, 146 Wrede, W. 79 Wright, N. T. 100, 114 Zeller, D. 140, 141, 143, 147 Ziegler, P. G. 181 Ziesler, J. A. 169 Zuckermandel, M. 51