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Of original sin.[168] Ample tradition of original sin according to the Jews.

On the saying in Genesis viii, 21:  “The imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.”

R.  Moses Haddarschan:  This evil leaven is placed in man from the time that he is formed.

Massechet Succa:  This evil leaven has seven names in Scripture.  It is called evil, the foreskin, uncleanness, an enemy, a scandal, a heart of stone, the north wind; all this signifies the malignity which is concealed and impressed in the heart of man.

Midrasch Tillim says the same thing, and that God will deliver the good nature of man from the evil.

This malignity is renewed every day against man, as it is written, Psalm xxxvii, 32:  “The wicked watcheth the righteous, and seeketh to slay him”; but God will not abandon him.  This malignity tries the heart of man in this life, and will accuse him in the other.  All this is found in the Talmud.

Midrasch Tillim on Psalm iv, 4:  “Stand in awe and sin not.”  Stand in awe and be afraid of your lust, and it will not lead you into sin.  And on Psalm xxxvi, 1:  “The wicked has said within his own heart, Let not the fear of God be before me.”  That is to say that the malignity natural to man has said that to the wicked.

Midrasch el Kohelet:  “Better is a poor and wise child than an old and foolish king who cannot foresee the future."[169] The child is virtue, and the king is the malignity of man.  It is called king because all the members obey it, and old because it is in the human heart from infancy to old age, and foolish because it leads man in the way of [perdition], which he does not foresee.  The same thing is in Midrasch Tillim.

Bereschist Rabba on Psalm xxxv, 10:  “Lord, all my bones shall bless Thee, which deliverest the poor from the tyrant.”  And is there a greater tyrant than the evil leaven?  And on Proverbs xxv, 21:  “If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat.”  That is to say, if the evil leaven hunger, give him the bread of wisdom of which it is spoken in Proverbs ix., and if he be thirsty, give him the water of which it is spoken in Isaiah lv.

Midrasch Tillim says the same thing, and that Scripture in that passage, speaking of the enemy, means the evil leaven; and that, in [giving] him that bread and that water, we heap coals of fire on his head.

Midrasch el Kohelet on Ecclesiastes ix, 14:  “A great king besieged a little city.”  This great king is the evil leaven; the great bulwarks built against it are temptations; and there has been found a poor wise man who has delivered it—­that is to say, virtue.

And on Psalm xli, 1:  “Blessed is he that considereth the poor.”

And on Psalm lxxviii, 39:  “The spirit passeth away, and cometh not again”; whence some have erroneously argued against the immortality of the soul.  But the sense is that this spirit is the evil leaven, which accompanies man till death, and will not return at the resurrection.