But something more will have to be said as illustrat ive of Pharisaic teaching on this
subject. No one who has entered into the spirit of the Old Testament can doubt that its
outcome was faith, in its twofold aspect of acknowledgment of the absolute Rule, and
simple submission to the Will, of God. What distinguished this so widely from fatalism
was what may be termed Jehovahism - that is, the moral element in its thoughts of God,
and that He was ever presented as in paternal relationship to men. But the Pharisees
carried their accentuation of the Divine to the verge of fatalism. Even the idea that God
had created man with two impulses, the one to good, the other to evil; and that the latter
was absolutely necessary for the continuance of this world, would in some measure trace
the causation of moral evil to the Divine Being. The absolute and unalterable pre-
ordination of every event, to its minutest details, is frequently insisted upon. Adam had
been shown all the generations that were to spring from him. Every incident in the history
of Israel had been foreordained, and the actors in it - for good or for evil - were only
instruments for carrying out the Divine Will. What were ever Moses and Aaron? God
would have delivered Israel out of Egypt, and given them the Law, had there been no
such persons. Similarly was it in regard to Solomon, to Esther, to Nebuchadnezzar, and
others. Nay, it was because man was predestined to die that the serpent came to seduce
our first parents. And as regarded the history of each individual: all that concerned his
mental and physical capacity, or that would betide him, was prearranged. His name,
place, position, circumstances, the very name of her whom he was to wed, were
proclaimed in heaven, just as the hour of his death was foreordered. There might be seven
years of pestilence in t he land, and yet no one died before his time.62 Even if a man
inflicted a cut on his finger, he might be sure that this also had been preordered.63 Nay,
'wheresoever a man was destined to die, thither would his feet carry him.'64 We can well
understand how the Sadducees would oppose notions like these, and all such coarse
expressions of fatalism. And it is significant of the exaggeration of Josephus,65 that
neither the New Testament, nor Rabbinic writings, bring the charge of the denial of God's
prevision a gainst the Sadducees.
62. Sanh. 29 a.
63. Chull. 7 b.
64. The following curious instance of this is given. On one occasion King Solomon,
when attended by his two Scribes, Elihoreph and Ahiah (both supposed to have been
Ethiopians), suddenly perceiv ed the Angel of Death. As he looked so sad, Solomon
ascertained as its reason, that the two Scribes had been demanded at his hands. On this
Solomon transported them by magic into the land of Luz, where, according to legend, no
man ever died. Next morning Solomon again perceived the Angel of Death, but this time
laughing, because, as he said. Solomon had sent these men to the very place whence he
had been ordered to fetch them (Sukk, 53 a).
65. Those who understand the character of Josephus' writings will b e at no loss for his
reasons in this. It would suit his purpose to speak often of the fatalism of the Pharisees,
and to represent them as a philosophical sect like the Stoics. The latter, indeed, he does in
so many words.
But there is another aspect of this question also. While the Pharisees thus held the
doctrine of absolute preordination, side by side with it they were anxious to insist on
man's freedom of choice, his personal responsibility, and moral obligation. 66 Although
every event depended upon God, whether a man served God or not was entirely in his