THE TWO SPIRITS OF THE RULE OF THE COMMUNITY

THE TWO SPIRITS OF THE RULE OF THE COMMUNITY

The English word "spirit", the French "esprit", the German "Geist", the Italian "spirito" have each a variety of meanings, not all of which are to be found in the Biblical Hebrew word ruah. This word can mean "wind", "breath", "disposition", "mind", "the God-infused principle of life", "the inspiration of the Prophets", etc. (1). It never meant — in Old Testament language — "an incorporeal being, such as an angel, a demon, or a fairy". We must keep these lexical facts in mind when we try to understand the doctrine of "the two spirits" in the Rule of the Community (also called the Manual of Discipline) III, 13-IV, 26 and the page on "the seven spirits of deceit" in the Testament of Reuben II, l-III, 8.
In my opinion these spirits are simply the tendencies or propensities which are implanted in every man's heart. They are infused by God inasmuch as the whole man, body and soul, with all his potential virtues and shortcomings, is God's creation according to Jewish doctrine. They may be compared with the yezer tob (good inclination) and the yezer ra` (evil inclination) of later Judaism (2).
This meaning occurs also in modern languages : Non hai tu spirto di pietate alcuno? (Dante, Inferno XIII, 36). Tu ti lasciasti nel petto entrare il maligno spirito della gelosia (Boccaccio, Decameron, VII, 5). Dieu, notre Dieu sans doute, a versé dans son coeur Cet esprit de douceur (racine, Esther II, 9). Elle répondait au dedans de lui l’esprit de sagesse (Fenelon, Telemaque X). And in the Bible itself we find a spirit of jealousy (Numbers 5, 14), a spirit of wisdom (Deuteronomy 34, 9), a right spirit (Psalm 51, 10), a spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord (Isaiah 11, 2) a spirit of whoredom (Hosea 4, 12 and 5, 4), a spirit of grace and of supplication (Zechariah 12, 10), etc. (3).
I do not think that the "spirits" in the Rule of the Community should be identified with the angels (4). Let us examine our text: The mention of all the varieties of men's spirits (III, 14) suggests that each kind of man has a different kind of spirit. The mention of all the spirits allotted to the single Angel of Darkness (III, 24) shows that here the terms "spirit" and "angel" are not synonyms. God sprinkles a spirit of truth upon man (IV, 21) and angels cannot be "sprinkled" (5). The spirits of truth and perversion strive within man's heart (IV, 23), but Old-Testament angels do not dwell inside men's hearts (6).
If my interpretation is correct, the doctrine of the two spirits is unlike Zoroastrian dualism. In my opinion it is an affirmation of strict monotheism, in accordance with Isaiah 45, 6-7: "I am the Lord, and there is none else. I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create evil. I am the Lord, that doeth all these things" (7). The author of the doctrine presumably intended to solve the problem of reconciling the belief in God's omnipotence with the fact that some men are wicked (as the apostates, for instance), while others are righteous (as the Hasidim). I con­jecture that his solution was roughly as follows: There is only one God, who created everything that exists. He implants in the heart of each man an impulse to do good and an impulse to do evil. Each man with his free will may choose between these two impulses. If he yields to the evil impulse he falls under the domination of the Angel of Darkness and commits all kinds of sins. But if he follows the good impulse he is governed by the Prince of Lights and obeys God's righteous laws.
The section of the Rule dealing with the two spirits does not mention freedom of the will and does not say whether the spirits are infused at the moment of birth or subsequently, so that some scholars (8) have tried to make the author into a predestinarian. However, since it appears from III, 24 and IV, 23 that each man is influenced by both spirits, from V, 12 that sin is voluntary, from V, 1 and 8-10 that a man can voluntarily forsake the wicked and join the righteous, and from III, 10-11 that God's grace is the effect of man's good works, it seems to me that our author's predestinarianism has been somewhat exaggerated. Actually he does not appear to have diverged very widely from the tradi­tional Jewish views (9).
We cannot expect to find in a Jewish doctrine of the second century before Christ the technical precision which characterizes Christian dogmas defined after centuries of sharp controversies. However, it seems to me that this doctrine of the two spirits is opposed to the dualistic systems which postulate two primordial beings who created good and evil (10), and that it is also opposed to the pessimistic systems which regard human nature as totally depraved (11).
The Jew could pray: "Create in me a clean heart, o God; and renew a right spirit within me" (Psalm 51, 10).
A number of ancient texts show traces of the doctrines of the Rule of the Community. We shall mention here only the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. It is natural to suppose that the seven spirits of deceit of the Testament of Reuben II, 1-2 and III, 3-6 are an amplification of the single spirit of perversion of the Rule, because imitators have the custom of increasing figures and adding details. These seven spirits are inclinations to various sins and are seated in various organs of the human body. The passage dealing with the other seven spirits (Testament of Reuben II, 3-III, 2) is an interpolation according to R. H. Charles. These other spirits are the senses, faculties, and physical powers of man, like the spiriti sensitivi etc., in Dante's Vita Nuova II, 4-6.
In other texts, probably later in date than the Rule of the Community and written by different authors, we find new non-Biblical acceptations of the word "spirit".
In the Hymns I, 9, 11 spirits in "the form of holy angels" are the powers that regulate the movements of the heavenly bodies and the atmospheric phenomena. They may be compared to the Intelligenze le quali la volgare gente chiamano Angeli in dante's Convivio II, iv, 2 and to the beati motori in his Paradiso II, 129. The War of the Sons of Light, too, calls the angels "spirits". The Ethiopic Book of Enoch mentions the voices of the spirits of dead men.
It would be interesting to trace the origin and development of all these meanings.

(1)See the Hebrew dictionaries and the concordances of the Old Testament, and also: W. E. addis, "Spirit", Encyclopaedia Biblica, IV, 4751-4752; Alphonsus Benson, The Spirit of God in the Didactic Books of the Old Testament, Washington, 1949.
(2)On the two inclinations see: J. Jacobs, "Yezer ha-ra’", The Jewish Encyclopedia, XII, 601-602; H. fuchs, "Jezer hara'", in G. Herlitz and B. Kirschner, Jiidisches Lexikon, III, 265; I. Mattuck, Jewish Ethics, London, 1953, p. 34-40. See also the Testament of Asher, I, 3-VI, 6. The comparison of the two spirits with the two yezarim is suggested by T. H. Gaster (The Dead Sea Scriptures in English Translation, Garden City, New York, 1956, p. 95).
(3)See M. Delcor, "Un problème de critique textuelle et d'exégèse", Revue biblique, LVIII (1951), p. 191.
(4)This identification is suggested or implied by W. H. Brownlee, A. Dupont-Sommer, M. Burrows, and others.
(5)Compare the use of the verbs verser and répandre in the French sentences quoted above. The spirit is imagined as a liquid, not a person. The same image occurs in Isaiah 29, 10 ("The Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep") and in Zechariah 12, 10. Possibly in 1 Q Serek IV, 21-22 man wallows or is steeped in the spirit of impurity.
(6)The angels of the Old Testament either appeared on earth, usually in human form, or dwelt in the Heavens. See G. B. buchanan, "Angel", Encyclopaedia Biblica, I, 165-170, and L. Blau and K. Kohler, "Angelology", The Jewish Encyclopedia, I, 583-597.
(7)"Evil" in this verse means "tribulation", "adversity", "calamity". It was regarded as a trial of the righteous and a punishment of the wicked.
(8)L. Rost, M. Burrows.
(9)The ancient Jews generally believed in the freedom of the will as a basis for the moral responsibility of man. See Genesis 4, 7; Deuteronomy 30, 15-20; Joshua 24, 15; Jeremiah 3, 12-14; Ezekiel 18, 4-32; Joel 2, 12-14; Ecclesiasticus 15, 11-20; Testament of Levi XIX, 1; Testament of Judah XX, 2; Psalms of Solomon IX, 7-9; Pirke Aboth III, 16. The doctrine of free will is occasionally combined with the doctrine of God's grace and of His prescience in ways that are not always clear and consistent. See I. Broyde, "Free Will", The Jewish Encyclopedia, V, 505-506, and "Predestination", ibidem, X, 181-182; George Foot Moore, Fate and Free Will in the Jewish Philosophies according to Josephus, Harvard Theological Review XXII (1929), p. 371-389, and the studies on the inclinations cited in note 2. 1 Q Serek III, 15-17 refers to the immutability of the laws of nature, and not to a predestination of the individual to sin, righteousness, damnation or salvation.
(10)I do not deny Iranian and Greek influence on the doctrines of our covenanters. The conception of the two angels and the use of the words "light" and "darkness" to symbolize righteousness and iniquity probably derive from the Zoroastrian religion. The "two ways" perhaps come from the apologue of Hercules at the crossroads. But these images and beliefs are adapted to Jewish monotheism.
(11)The passages (1 Q Serek X, 11 and XI, 9.15; Hymns IV, 30, 34) which state that all men are sinners are quite in keeping with the traditional Jewish doctrine (1 Kings 8, 46; 2 Chronicles 6, 36; Job 4, 17; 9, 2; 15, 14-16; 25, 4; Psalms 130, 3; 143, 2; Proverbs 20, 9; Ecclesiastes 7, 20). Our text implies that man is not totally depraved, since he has both an evil and a good impulse. The phrase "my justification belongs to God" (1 Q Serek XI, 2), if this is the correct translation, may refer to the fact that God by dictating the Torah decreed once for all which acts are meritorious and which are sinful, that God by infusing the good spirit helps man to perform the works of the Law, and that God is the judge of man's conduct and the forgiver of man's sins. The poet, a Hasid who has observed the Torah, trusts that God will recognize the correctness of his conduct, though the apostates may scoff at him and the Greek judges may condemn him for disobeying Antiochus Epiphanes' edicts.