THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
the same spirit (see Image of God). God, the absolute personality, reflects himself in man and, therefore, the latter becomes the lord of creation. Adam was the representative of the race — humanity in person. Opposite to the species and genera of beasts stood the single man. He was not a male, still less a man-woman; he was man. Out of him, as the progenitor of the race, Eve was taken.
But man's true position can not be comprehended until he is considered in relation to Christ, the second man, as is most clearly expressed in Rom. v. 12 sqq.; I Cor. xv. 21-22, 45-49. By Adam's fall, sin and death entered into the world, and condemnation has come upon all through him; but from the second Adam has come just the opposite — righteousness, justification, and life. Those who by sin are united to the first Adam reap all the consequences of such a union; similarly do those who by faith are united to the second Adam. Each is a representative head.
Materialism sees in man a mere product of nature. It is difficult to see how it makes place for self -consciousness. The unity of the race is also given up; and so logically Darwinism leads to belief in a plurality of race origins. Theology, on the other hand, holds fast to the 2. The Posi- personality of man, but has, from the
tion of beginning of the science, wavered in
Adam to regard to the position occupied by the Race. Adam toward the race. The oldest Greek Fathers are silent upon this point. Irenseus is the first to touch it; and he maintains that the first sin was the sin of the race, since Adam was its head (III. xxiii. 3; V xii. 3; cf. R. Seeberg, Dogmengeschichte, i., Leipsic, 1895, p. 82). Origen, on the other hand, holds that man sinned because he had abused his liberty when in a preexistent state. In Adam seminally were the bodies of all his descendants (Contra Celsum, iv.; cf. C. F A. Kahnis, Dogmatik, ii., Leipsic, 1864, pp. 107 sqq.). Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa, and Chrysostom derive sin from the fall. Tertullian, Cyprian, Hilary, Ambrose, and Augustine represent the Biblical standpoint. Pelagius saw in Adam only a bad example, which his descendants followed. Semi-Pelagianism similarly regarded the first sin merely as opening the flood-gates to iniquity; but upon this point Augustinianism since it was formulated has dominated the Church — in Adam the race sinned. (Carl von BucHRucKEiff.)
The prominent orthodox views are: (1) The
Augustinian, known as realism, which is that
human nature in its entirety was in Adam when
he sinned, that his sin was the act of human nature,
and that in this sin human nature fell;
3. The that is, lost its freedom to the good,
Orthodox becoming wholly sinful and producing Views. sinners. " We sinned in that man when we were that man." This is the view of Anselm, Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas, and Luther. (2) The federal theory of the Dutch divines Cocceius and Witsius is that Adam became the representative of mankind and that the probation of the human race ended once for all in his trial and fall in the garden of Eden. Accordingly the guilt of Adam's sin
was imputed to his posterity. This is the theory of Turretin and the Princeton theologians. (3) The theory of mediate imputation (Placams) is that the sin of Adam is imputed to his descendants not directly, but on account of their depravity derived from him and their consent to his sin. (See Imputation; Sin.)
According to the evolutionary view of man's origin, which is not necessarily materialistic, Adam may be designated as the first individual or individuals in the upward process of de- 4. The Evo- velopment in whom self-consciousness lutionary appeared or who attained such sta- Views. bility of life that henceforth humanity was able to survive the shock of death. By some, the first man is conceived of as a special instance of creative wisdom and power; by others, as the natural result of the evolutionary process. Whether the human race sprang from one individual or from several is, for lack of evidence, left an open question. In this position the unity of the race is in no wise compromised, since this is grounded not in derivation from a single pair but in identity of constitution and ideal ethical and spiritual aim. This view of the first man brings into prominence the dignity of human nature and its kinship with the divine, yet at the same time profoundly modifies the traditional doctrine of original sin. In the disproportion between the inherited instincts, appetites, and desires of the animal nature and the weak and struggling impulses of the moral consciousness there arises an inevitable conflict in which the higher is temporarily worsted and the sense of sin emerges. By virtue of heredity and the organic and social unity of the race, all the descendants of the earliest man are involved with him in the common struggle, the defeat, and the victory of the moral and spiritual life. This conflict is a sign that man is not simply a fallen being, but is in process of ascent. The first man, although of the earth, is a silent prophecy of the second man, the Lord from heaven.
C. A. Beckwith. II. Historical: The sources of knowledge of Adam are exclusively Biblical and, indeed, wholly of the Old Testament, since the New Testament adds nothing concerning his personality and his doings to what is recorded of him in the Book of Genesis. The main inquiry, therefore, must be as to the place occupied by Adam 1. The Use in the Old Testament. Here several of "Adam" striking facts confront us: (1) There as a is no allusion to Adam direct or in- Proper direct after the early genealogies. Name. In Deut. xxxii. 8 and Job xxviii. 28 the Hebrew adham (adam) means " mankind." In Hos. vi. 7 the reading should be " Admah " (a place-name). The latest references (apart from the excerpt in I Chron. i. 1) are Gen. iv. 25 (Sethite line of J) and Gen. v. 1, 3 (Sethite line of P). (2) Outside of the genealogies there is no clear instance of the use of the word as a proper name. The definite article, omitted in the Masoretic text, should be restored in Gen. iii. 17, 21 (J) in harmony with the usage of the whole context, which reads " the man " instead of " Adam."