FALL OF MAN"
471
FALL OF MAN
ever, is not j-et solved why Moses has kept back the name of Satan. I willingly subscribe to the opinion of those who maintain that the H0I3' Spirit then pur- poselj' used obscure figures, because it was fitting that full and clear light should be reserved for the kingdom of Christ. In the mean time the prophets prove that they were well acquainted witli the meaning of Moses when, in different places, they cast the blame of our ruin upon the devil. We have elsewhere said that Moses, by a homely and uncultivatad style, accommo- dates what lie delivers to the capacity of the people, and for the best reason ; for not only had he to in- struct an untaught race of men, but the existing age of the Church was so puerile that it was unable to re- ceive any higher instruction. There is, therefore, nothing absurd in the supposition that they whom, for the time, we know and confess to have been but as in- fants, were fjd with milk. Or (if another comparison be more acceptable) Moses is b}' no means to be blamed if he, considering tlie office of schoolmaster as imposed upon him, insists on the rudiments suitable to chil- dren. They who have an aversion to this simplicity must of necessity condemn the whole economy of God in governing the Church." A similar view is given b}^ Kurtz, Bible and Asironomt/ {Ph'ila. 1861), p. 17-1 sq. The modern extreme Kationalists generally interpret the narrative as mytliical. Eichhorn (^Urgeschichte) finds trutli ia it in the form of poetry, that is, he makes it a myth ; so Gabler, Paulus, and others. Kant, Schelling, and other recent German philoso- phers and interpreters make it a "speculative myth." Von Bohlen (On Genesis iii) follows Rosenmtiller in supposing that the narrator had the Zendavesta in view. Julius Miiller gives up the historical character of the narrative. " If now," he says, " we turn to tlie narrative in the book of Genesis, we shall find that not sin, but physical suffering and deatli, are there connected with Adam's fall. This fact, and the les- son that man's ruin originated in himself, are the great truths whicli are to be gathered from the story, which must be regarded as fundamentally true, although the story is in the form of a fable. Tiiat it is not to be taken literallj' is plain from Scripture, for the storj' in Genesis speaks of the serpent as tlie agent in the temp- tation of Eve. St. Paul speaks of the same temptation as coming from Satan. It is usual to assume that the serpent was the mere instrument of Satan, but there is nothing to lead us to this view in the words of the narrative. St. Paul, b)' interpolating this into the nar- rative, shows us that it is not to be taken as literally true. We find in John viii, 44, ' the devil was a mur- derer from the beginning,' an allusion to the ruin of man by the temptation. If this be so, it is a plain reference to Satan as the cause of man's bodily death. To bring in the idea of spiritual death seems less ap- propriate, for our Lord was rebuking the murderous intentions of the Jews. It was tlirough conduct like that of the devil that they showed themselves his chil- dren" {Doctiim of Sin, Edinb. ISlJS, p. 78, 79).
Tlie more recent German interpreters of the better class (e. g. Hiivernick, Delitzsch, Keil, etc.) admit the historical character of the account, but there are, of course, various theories among them as to its inter- pretation. ^Martensen (Christian Dogmatics, § 79) in- terprets the Mosaic account as a comliination of hi.s- tory and sacred symbolism, a figurative representa- tion of an actual event. Lange (On Genesis, Amst. edit. p. 24:)), speaking of the narrative, says : " Like the Biblical histories everywhere, and especially the primitive traditions of Genesis, it is a historical fact, to be taken in a religious-ideal, that is, a symliolical form. It is just as little a mere allegory. It is just as little a wire, naked fact, as the speaking of the ser- pent is a literal speaking, or as the tree of life, in it- self regarded, is a plant wliose eating imparted imper- ishable life. Tliat sin began with the beginning of the race, that the first sin had its origin in a forbidden en-
jojmient of nature, and not in the Cainitic fratricide or similar crimes, that the origin of human sin points back to the beginning of the liuman race, that the woman was ever more seducible than the man, that along witli sin came in the tendency to sin, consciouf- ness of guilt, alienation from God, and evil in general — all tliese are affirmations of tlie religious historical consciousness which demand the historicalness of our tradition, and would point back to some such fact, even though it were not written in Genesis."