are good and what are evil. This is a point determined for us by tlie revealed will of God. Whatever He commands is good, and what- ever He forbids is evil. The question is determined by authority. We cannot answer it from the nature of things, nor by considera- tions of expediency. Instead of submitting to the authority or law of God as the rule of duty, it is assumed that Adam aspired to know for himself what was good and wliat evil. It was emancijia- tion from the trammels of authority that he sought. To this how- ever, it may be objected that this was not the knowledge which he attained by eating the forbidden fruit. He was told that his eyes should be opened, that he should know good and evil ; and his eyes were opened ; the promised knowledge was attained. That knowledge, however, was not the ability to determine for himself between riglit and wrong. He had less of that knowledge after than before his fill. In the tliird place, " good and evil " may be taken in a physical sense, for happiness and misery. Eating of the forbidden tree was to determine the qiiestion of Adam's being happy or miserable. It led to an experimental knowledge of the difference. God knew the nature and effects of evil from his omnis- cience. Adam could know them only from experience, and that -knowledge he gained when he sinned. Whichever of these partic- ular interpretations be adopted, they all are included in the gen- eral statement that the tree of knowledge gave Adam a knowledge which he had not before ; he came to an experimental knowledge of the difference between good and evil.
The Serpent.
It may be inferred from the narrative, that Adam was pi'esent with Eve during the temptation. In Gen. iii. 6, it is said the woman gave of the fruit of the tree to her husband who was " with her." He was therefore a party to the whole transaction. When it is said that a serpent addressed Eve, we are bound to take t!ie words in their literal sense. The serpent is neither a figurative designation of Satan ; nor did Satan assume the form of a serpent. A real serpent was the agent of the temptation, as it is plain from what is said of the natural chai'acteristics of the serpent in the first verse of the chapter, and from the curse pronounced upon the ani- mal itself, and the enmity whicli was declared should subsist between it and man through all time. But that Satan was the real tempter, and that he used the serpent merely as his organ or instrument, is evident, — (1.) From the nature of the transaction. What is here attributed to the serpent far transcends the power of any irrational
128 PART n. Ch. VII. — THE FALL.
creature. The serpent may be the most subtile of all the beasts of the field, but he has not the high intellectual faculties which the tempter here displays. (2.) In the New Testament it is both directly asserted, and in various forms assumed, that Satan seduced our first parents into sin. In Rev. xii. 9, it is said, " The great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which de- ceiveth the whole world." And in xx. 2, " He laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan." In 2 Cor. xi. 3, Paul says, "I fear lest .... as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so also your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ." But that by the serpent he understood Satan, is plain from v. 14, where he speaks of Satan as the great deceiver ; and what is said in Rom. xvi. 20, " The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet," is in ob- vious allusion to Gen. iii. 15. In John viii. 44, our Lord calls the devil a murderer from the beginning, and the father of lies, because through him sin and death were introduced into the world. Such was also the faith of the Jewish Church. In the Book of Wisdom ii. 24, it is said, that " Through the envy of Satan came death into the world." In the later Jewish writings this idea is often presented.^
As to the serpent's speaking there is no more difficulty than in the utterance of articulate words from Sinai, or the sounding of a voice from heaven at the baptism of our Lord, or in the speaking of Balaam's ass. The words uttered were produced by the power of Satan, and of such effects produced by angelic beings good and evil there are numerous instances in the Bible.
The Nature of the Temptation.
The first address of the tempter to Eve was designed to awaken distrust in the goodness of God, and doubt as to the truth of the prohibition. " Hath God indeed said, ye shall not eat of eveiy tree of the garden ? " or, rather, as the words probably mean, " Has God said, ye shall not eat of any tree of the garden ? " The next address was a direct assault upon her faith. " Ye shall not surely die ; " but on the contrary, become as God himself in knowledge. To this temptation she yielded, and Adam joined in the transgression. From this account it appears that doubt, un- belief, and pride were the principles which led to this fatal act of disobedience. Eve doubted God's goodness ; she disbelieved his threatening ; she aspired after forbidden knowledge.
J See Eisenmenger, Endecktes Judenthum, edit. Konigsberg, 1711 ; i. p. 822.