author of evil as in describing the Word (1 Jn 3^ P) . both are ' from the beginning. ' The final triumph, though complete, is represented symbolically as the imprisonment (Rev 20^- ^- '• i"), not the annihila- tion, of Satan. The Hebrew mind, which, in spite of mystical affinities Avith Platonism and, poss- ibly, of direct influence from Greek sources, is dominant in St. John, did not feel the necessity of a metaphysical monism, being content to respond to the revelation of a supreme spiritual Person, the fear of whom was the beginning of wisdom and man's chief end (Job 2828, pg upo^ gg i2i3). It is enough to know that they who ' abide in him that is true ' have by a transference of allegiance over- come the Evil One (1 Jn 2^^).
The Epistle of Jucle, with which 2 Peter must be closely associated, clearly exhibits that apocalyptic view of the spiritual issues behind the facts of human life and experience of which there are abundant traces in the NT outside the Book of Revelation, and which indicate a ' Avar in heaven ' (Rev 12'') as the ultimate explanation of sin (Jude «• 3- ", 2 P 2* 3^- ^% To the Jewish mind this language is not what Western thought Avould understand by mere symbol. It is rather the symbolic representation of real existence, the HebreAv equiA'alent of Greek mysteries. It is a mistake, therefore, to neglect either the Apocalypse or the apocalyptic passages of other writings in the interpretation of the NT, or to fail to perceive that their characteristic ideas underlie the theology of the Apostolic age, as the Platonic mould of thought goA'erns the religious philosophy of the 4th cent., the biological that of the 19th. The contempt of millenarianism, Avhile it banished much that was fantastic in Christian teaching, had tlie correspondingly unfortunate result of obliging interpreters of the NT to arrange its statements against a background not contemplated by the Avriters themselves. The result in the case of sin has been the assigning of inadequate and shifting values to the term, and the misapplica- tion of physical or other analogies. For Apostolic Christianity the background is ahvays God Avith His Kingdom of angels and men on the one hand, and on the other the devil Avith his angels, ex- tending his usurped authority over those human servants whom he holds captive. Sin is active hostility to God.
i. The Avhole question of original sin is remo\'ed from the atmosphere in which it is usually dis- cussed, when it is realized that the difference betAveen sin and righteousness is not one of infused or implanted characters, but of relationship to God. It need not be either affirmed or denied that moral and spiritual tendencies are, like the physical organism, capable of transmission. Still more irrelevant is the discussion whether acquired characters descend by inheritance. These are questions for psychological research, and may be left for decision upon scientific grounds. No doubt theories of transmission, from the crudest Augus- tinian notions of sexual propagation to the subtlest doctrine of heredity, have been advanced by re- ligious philosophers to account for the universal need of salvation. So inveterate has this type of thought become, that it adheres to the phrases, e.g. ' depravity,' ' corruption of nature,' and the like, in Avhich theology has endeavoured to express the Scripture teaching. Though the confessional formulas that employ such phrases are not com- mitted to interpretations of the NT Avhich imply a theory, opponents of what is supposed to be the traditiongQ doctrine have in consequence been alloAved to attack it in the interests of a more scientific psychology, on the assumption that original sin is held to be a predisposing cause of actual sin. Mr. F. R. Tennant, for example, in
liis Ilulsean Lectures, starting from the premiss tliat ethical attributes are not rightly applied to anything but the activities of a will that knows the moral law, has no difficulty in proving that appetites and passions are the raw Tnaterial of morality, belonging to the environment of the will, not an ' universal and hereditarily transmitted dis- turbance of man's nature.' The consequence follows that sin, which must involve guilt, applies properly only to the individual, while ' original sin is little more than a name for the solidarity in nature and environment of the race of actual sinners. Whatever may be said of the background of Augnstinian thought or the atmosphere in which the confessions of the 16th cent, were drawn, there can be no doubt that they only reasserted the language of the NT in ascribing the wrath of God to tlie race no less than to the individual. Terms like 'abnormal humanity,' 'taint of nature,' 'in- firmity of will,' may be useful practical analogies, but, like all analogies, they defeat their end if rigorously pressed. For what Scripture means is, not that individual responsibility is conditioned by racial defect, but that the guilt attaching to indi- viduals belongs, in the first instance, to the community (see art. GuiLT).
5. The controversies that have arisen about the question whether sin is a. privation or a depravation of nature., would have lost much of their force if theological thought had adhered more closely to tiie Scripture mode of regarding sin. The later medifeval view, stereotyped by the standards of Trent, represented man as deprived of a gift which raised liim above nature (supernaturale donum). The unsophisticated experience of human ^lature leads us to regard it as not in its chief outlines evil, and so far as it denies an inherent corruption in the actual content of manhood the Tridentine position is sufficiently justified. But the Reformers were right in their main contention, which was that sin involved a positive departure from the Divine purpose. If .sin in its essence is neither the loss nor the disturbance of personal endow- ments, but simply disloyalty to God, then to be outside the Kingdom and to own allegiance to the Evil One means that positive ho.stility to the law of God which is to be ' very far gone from original righteousness.' For sin disturbs nature only in the sense in which all personal action disturbs, by directing towards .spiritual ends the material which nature supplies. Again, we have to emphasize the truth that sin enters only when spiritual relations have been established.