4. At the first encounter of Judaism with those philosophical schools of Hellas which denied the freedom of the human will, the Jewish teachers insisted strongly on this principle. The first reference is found in Ben Sira, who refutes the arguments of the Determinists that God could make man sin, and then goes on: “God created man at the beginning, endowing him with the power of self-determination, saying to him: If thou but willest, thou canst observe My commandments; to practice faithfulness is a matter of free will.... As when fire and water are put before thee, so that thou mayest reach forth thy hand to that which thou desirest, so are life and death placed before man, and whatever he chooses of his own desire will be given to him.”(713) The Book of Enoch voices this truth also in the forceful sentences: “Sin has not been sent upon the earth (from above), but men have produced it out of themselves; therefore they who commit sin are condemned.”(714) We read similar sentiments in the Psalms of Solomon, a Pharisean work of the first pre-Christian century:(715) “Our actions are the outcome of the free choice and power of our own soul; to practice justice or injustice lies in the work of our own hands.” The Apocalypse of Ezra is especially instructive in the great stress which it lays on freedom, in connection with its chief theme, the sinfulness of the children of Adam. “This is the condition of the contest which man who is born on earth must wage, that, if he be conquered by the evil inclination, he must suffer that of which thou hast spoken (the tortures of hell), but if he be victorious, he shall receive (the reward) which I (the angel) have mentioned. For this is the way whereof Moses spoke when he lived, saying unto the people, ‘Choose life, that thou mayest live!’... For all who knew Me not in life when they received My benefits, who despised My law when they yet had freedom, and did not heed the door of repentance while it was still open before them, but disregarded it, after death they shall come to know it!”(716)