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182 THE TWO SPIRITS IN QUMRAN THEOLOGY
Seitz included far more exegetical data, as well as frequent relevant references
to the rabbinic conception of the two inclinations, to substantiate
his view that the teaching of the two spirits could best be understood as
the product of creative exegesis. It is nonetheless the correspondences he
discerned between the complex coexistence of dualisms in the Shepherd
of Hermas, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and the Community Rule,
alongside the ability to trace them together to 1 Sam 16:14, which constitute
Seitz’s primary contribution.
Two Spirits: The Via Media
Although most scholars have responded primarily to Wernberg-Møller
or to Kuhn and Dupont-Sommer, they have tended nonetheless to
adhere, like Seitz, to an interpretation which acknowledges the coexistence
of anthropological and cosmic dualisms in 1QS 3–4. What is
indeed striking, despite this superficial consensus, is the variety of rationales
for these interpretations, as a whirlwind review of select studies should
illustrate.
B. Otzen explained 1QS 3–4 as an instance of a late Jewish belief
according to which what happens in the world at large is played out in
individual human beings. Within each human transpires a psychological
dualism (microcosm) of spirits which corresponds to a cosmic-mythological
dualism (macrocosm) of angels and demons. 37
E. Schweizer underscored the ethical dimension of 1QS 3–4 by placing
it in the context of the fundamental decision to obey Torah. Although the
formulation of the two spirits is analogous to the rabbinic conception of
the two impulses, this understanding of the two spirits does not suffice.
Human beings can decide only from God’s power; accordingly the two
spirits are identified as angels who act in God’s power to help and to hinder
people in their ethical decisions. 38
37. Benedikt Otzen, “Die neugefundenen hebräischen Sektenschriften und die Testamente
der zwölf Patriarchen,” ST 7 (1954): 135–36. Otzen contended as well that
both dualisms are ethical and thus influenced by Iranian religion, as opposed to the
Hellenistic and gnostic dualism of body and soul.
38. Eduard Schweizer, “Gegenwart des Geistes und eschatologische Hoffnung bei
Zarathustra, spätjüdischen Gruppen, Gnostikern und den Zeugen des Neuen
Testaments,” in Neotestamentica (ed. E. Schweizer; Zürich/Stuttgart: Zwingli Verlag,
1963), 159–64. Originally published in The Background of the New Testament and its
Eschatology. Studies in Honour of C. H. Dodd (ed. W. D. Davies and D. Daube;
Cambridge: University Press, 1956), 482–508.