PAGANS AND GNOSTICSThe Dai~anite position was exactly the same as the Mazdaean, and
the spiritual elitism of Marcionites and Manichaeans suggests that
whether or not a person could be saved was determined by fate at
birth. Miiriitha of Maypherkat treated Manichaeans as astral fatalists
and accused Dai~anites of denying the Creator the power to rule the
world.
In opposition to Chaldaeans, Magians, and gnostics, Jews and Chris-
tians emphasized the kind of ethical monotheism that made only one
God responsible for creating, sustaining, and judging people. They
insisted that God was not only omnipotent but also good and just.
Consequently it was necessary to reconcile these attributes of God
with enough human ability to act, so that God's justice in meting out
rewards and punishments could be preserved. The connection between
fatalism and this combination of ideas is explicit in a series of hymns
composed in the fourth century by Ephrem Syrus in opposition to
astrology and in imitation of Barc;laisan. In these hymns fatalism, hor-
oscopes, and Chaldaean astrology are associated with a denial of the
human freedom to act in a responsible way, whereby fate can be used
to excuse murder and adultery. Against the power of fate, Ephrem
emphasized that one God is responsible for both good and evil, that
God is not evil because of that, and that justice is important,173 Against
Marcion, who had divided the cosmic responsibility for good, evil,
and justice and had identified the Judaeo-Christian God with the Just
One who rewarded righteousness and punished evil, Ephrem stressed
the mercy and bounty of God towards everyone in this world, even
towards the ungrateful Marcionites.^174 Elsewhere Ephrem argued that
sin was not inherent in human nature, that children were innocent at
birth, that sin resulted from free acts of will, and that it was overcome
by the power granted to the will by the grace of God.175 The possibility
that Jews were concerned with some of the same issues is suggested
by the language of the prayer given by the exilarch Mar Zutra I at
the house of Rabbi Ashi in the early fifth century after Rabbi Ashi
had suffered a bereavement: "God of truth, true judge, who judges in
righteousness and takes away injustice, who rules over his world to
do as he pleases in it, for all his ways are justice."176
Judging by the number of polemic tracts in the list of 'Abhd Ish6"
173 Assemani, BO, I, 122-27.
174 Mitchell, Prose Refutations, pp. xxv-xxvi, 54-55.
175 V66bus, "Human Nature," pp. 109-110.
176 Neusner, Talmudic ]udaism, p. 67.