123

freedom of will and makes Him act from necessity." He believes in God, as the Creator, and does not attempt to improve the Deity out of existence. He sees God in the law and order that permeates the Uni

123 Cf. White: Spinoza's Ethics, N. Y., 1883, p. 32; also Elwes: The Chief Works of Benedict de Spinoza, London, 1891, vol. II, p. 70.

124 Pessimistic passages in Ecclesiastes: 1:2-11, 14, 17, 18; 2:11, 15-17, 22, 23; 3:9, 18-21; 4:3, 4; 5:14, 15, 20 (to 14 comp. Job 21 and Ecclus. 40:1); 6:3-9, 11, 12; 7:1b, 2; 8:14; 9:2-6; 10:14; 11:8.

CHAPTER V

REWARD AND PUNISHMENT IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

The Mosaic Code is peculiarly practical in character, contemplating the weal of the commonwealth and the welfare of its citizens. The transgression of divine ordinances, embodied in the code, is to be followed by earthly misfortune and physical sufferings;' while obedience is rewarded with happiness in this life. In the one case one must expect disease, death, swarms of locusts, barrenness of soil, and, ultimately, exile; in the other, rich harvests, plentitude, tranquillity, longevity, and a numerous progeny. Post-mortal gratifications, as a reward for righteousness and piety, are not promised. As the mental and moral horizons became more expanded, the teachings, touching upon reward and punishment, became the source of much anxiety and doubt, and, here, we must look for the germinal seed of Pessimism. So long as the patriarchal and national solidarity remained unassailed, people never questioned the old teachings concerning reward and punishment. But, later, when the solidarity of the nation was seriously threatened, by a long succession of misfortunes, reward and punishment became a serious problem.

The solidarity of the nation, of such great moment

1 "Leiden sind eine Folge der Sünde; " cf. Goitein: Der Optimismus u. Pessimismus, Berl., 1890, p. 1.

for the political and religious life of the ancient Hebrews, stands in close relation to the doctrine of reward and punishment. Whether in religious or secular affairs, the habit of the old world was to think much of the community and little of the individual. First of all it is to be noted, says Robertson Smith: "that the frame of mind in which men are well pleased with themselves, with their gods, and with the world, could not have dominated antique religion, as it did, unless religion had been essentially the affair of the community rather than that of the individual. It was not the business of the gods of heathenism to watch by a series of special providences over the welfare of every individual. The benefits which were expected from the gods were of a public character, affecting the whole community. Fruitful season, increase of flock, and success in war, all so essential to ancient life, were, wholly, the business of the community.

Their ideal of life was based upon the social idea:* first the home with its patriarchal regime, and later the home broadening out into the wider community of the Theocracy. The Hebrew idea of the relation of the individual to the community came near the Hellenic idea of the relation of the citizen to the State."

The relation of God to each human soul is far less marked in the writings of the prophets than in the so-called Khokma literature and in the Psalms. While in the New Testament the community gradually re

Rel. of the Semites, 1894, p. 258.

8 Cf. Causse: Les Socialisme des Prophètes, Montauban, 1900, pp. 8 ff.

cedes behind the individual, in the Old Testament the individual is lost in the community. It is the nation that is of paramount significance, not the single units. For Israel's continuance as a Theocracy it is requisite that there should be a continuity of self-identity from age to age. There is, indeed, something sublime in that complete effacement of personal interests, oftentimes of ambitions, in those of the community. The solidarity of the nation is so real that it carries with it the consequences that are most important for they suggest many a moral problem.

In keeping with the traditional solidarity of the family, of the tribe, and of the nation, there was a universally accepted theory of joint and several responsibility for sin. Thus retributive judgment might fall upon the subject for the sin of the king; on the son for the sin of the father; on the whole nation for the sin of a single individual. Furthermore, upon the assumed solidarity of the family, the city, and the nation, the Deity is supposed to act frequently in the earliest periods; for each family, clan and people had its own god or gods, who cared for the individual only as a member of the broader social organization. The Priestly-Code recognizes the solidarity of the nation by the institution of the sin-offering brought by the High-Priest, as the representative of the whole people, on Yom-Kippur, the Day of Atonement.*

In the story of Sodom, ten good men would have sufficed to secure forgiveness for the inhabitants of the

'Lev., chpt. 16 (H); comp. Neh. 10:34.