ART. IV. STUDIES ON THE BIBLE, NO. VI. The First Gospel.*

SOON after our first parents had tasted the forbidden fruit, they were arraigned for trial before the Almighty. They answered separately. The answer of each began with an apology and ended with a confession of guilt. Their apologies were insufficient and shuffling. The man offered a plea which divided the blame of what he had done between his wife and her Creator: "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." The woman said: "The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat;" but she made no excuse for beguiling her husband. The serpent

offered no defense; indeed, he was not interrogated. The Almighty then proceeded to pass judgment upon all the parties before him, following the order in which they had severally taken part in the transgression; that is to say: first on the serpent, next on the woman, then on the man.

Now, in the first of these judicial awards, to-wit: in the curse on the tempter, God said: "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." Gen. 3:15. In these words the Church has always recognized what has been variously styled the First Gospel-the first promise of salvation-the first Messianic Prophecy, or, as it is called in the schools, the Protevangelium.

An inquiry into the structure of the narrative must precede an examination of the First Gospel. Is the Mosaic account of the creation and apostacy of the human race a fable, or is it a myth, or is it a veritable history? And, if a history, is every part of it to be interpreted in a literal sense, or must. particular portions be taken as allegorical? As to the essential character of the narrative, the skeptical critics have gone

*Helps to the Study. Calvin's Comm. on Gen., ch. iii; Fairbairn's Typology, i: 273-280; Hengstenberg's Christology, i: 1-20; Kurtz' Old Cov't., i: 77-88; Turner on Genesis, 183-199; Kitto's Cyclo. sub voce Adam; Herzog's Encyc., ib.; McDonald on Penta., ii: 275.

wild in their conclusions. Gabler pronounces the whole history "an absurdity." Eichhorn thinks our first parents brought death upon themselves by eating a poisonous plant. De Wette sees nothing in the fall but a transition from a state of innocence and inactivity to a state of cultivation and degeneracy. Kant and Schelling treat the origin of evil in man's nature as necessary to a complete development of the human being; and they hold the Biblical history of the fall to be a higher species of the fable. The general tendency of this school of criticism, however, is towards the mythical theory. This theory receives the narrative as a collection of legends, well told and well woven together, of the creation of the world, the origin of the human race, its primeval innocence and its fatal degeneracy; the whole colored over by the light of antiquity, and embellished by the creations of the imagination. This myth is, according to some, of Grecian, and, according to others, of Persian origin. The analogies in literature are the story of Romulus and the she wolf, and the chronicles belonging to the legendary period of Egyptian or Grecian history. According to this school of criticism a distinction is to be taken between the "form of the narratives and the ideas which they embody;" and it is the province of the Biblical student to separate, as best he may, the facts of history from the mythology and fiction under which they appear in the Pentateuch, even as the gold hunter culls the grains of gold from the drifts of sand and mud. This theory may be dismissed with three observations. First, if the Mosaic history of the creation and fall be mythical, there is no trustworthy account of these events in existence. So simple and artless is the narrative, so true to nature and reason are its ethical and psycological features, that if this be discarded, what other tradition, written or unwritten, of that early period is worthy of credit? Secondly, the historical value of the subsequent scriptures rests upon the verity of the first three chapters of Genesis. If that book describe a mythical apostacy, then the Gospels unfold a mythical redemption. Straus' conception of Christ is the logical sequent to Von Bohlen's notion of Adam. Thirdly, Christ and his Apostles have made themselves responsible for the strict veracity of

Moses. In what John says of the tree of life, he refers, without doubt, to the tree that stood in the garden of Eden. Rev. ii: 7; xxii: 2, 14. Christ described the tempter when he said: "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do, for the devil was a murderer from the beginning." John viii: 44. John also describes him as "the great dragon, that old serpent, called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world." Rev. xii: 9; xx: 2. "For," adds Paul, "we are not ignorant of his devices." 2 Cor. ii: 11. Still further, according to Paul, "Adam was first formed, then Eve;" "the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty;" "Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, was in the transgression;" "by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin;" "in Adam all die." 1 Tim. ii: 14; 2 Cor. xi; 3; Rom. v: 12; 1 Cor. xv: 22. These passages exhibit a compendious history of the fall-the tree of life in Eden, the serpent, the devil, his arts of deception, his access to our first parents, the order in which he proceeded-first beguiling Eve, then Adam, the entrance of death into the world, and the ruin brought on the race. Now, if, Moses was a retailer of idle legends, what were the apostles? Were they the dupes of Moses, or were the apostles, as well as Moses, willful deceivers?

Those who accept the narrative as strictly historical in its form, are not perfectly agreed in the interpretation of certain parts of it. Some writers teach that the serpent itself was the real and only tempter, and not the instrument used by some other being more intelligent than itself. But this opinion is in conflict with several passages in the New Testament, which recognize the presence of another agent on the occasion. Some, again, maintain that the devil was alone engaged in the temptation, and that whatever is said in Genesis respecting the serpent is figurative or allegorical. This criticism is liable to the exception urged with so much effect by Bishop Horsley upon another point. If the reptile was an allegorical serpent, then the conversation between Eve and the serpent was an allegorical conversation, and the excuse offered by Eve was an allegorical apology. Why not carry out the idea by saying that "Paradise is an allegorical garden, the trees that grew in it, allegorical trees, and the rivers that watered it,

allegorical rivers?" The narrative, in all its particulars, bears the marks of a real history, and it is impossible, without doing violence to the language, to resolve any part of it into either a legend or an allegory. Accordingly the church has always held that the devil was the principal responsible tempter, and the serpent was his instrument. This is undoubtedly the sense of the Scriptures. The active, malignant agent was the devil; a statement which is sustained by the passages cited above from the New Testament, in which the devil is described as that old Serpent who deceiveth the world. Still further, in Rev. xii: 13, may be found a vivid description of the struggles between the dragon, or serpent, and the woman "which brought forth the man-child." The conflict between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent is here clearly recognized, and the fact is stated that the serpent is the devil. But in the seduction of our first parents, he used the reptile as his instrument; a statement which is sustained by the opening words of the narrative: "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field;" by the terms of the curse: "upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life;" and by the language of Paul, quoted above: "the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty."

From the structure of the narrative, the transition is easy to the form under which its most conspicuous feature, the first Gospel, is revealed. On supposition that God, in his infinite mercy, would provide a way of salvation for the fallen race, and that his goodness would lead him to make it known very early to our first parents, it might be conjectured that he would convey the glad tidings in the form of a promise. Not so, however. He put the first Gospel into the bosom of the curse on the serpent. In its essential character and substance, it is an assurance of redemption to man; in manner and form it is an integral part of the sentence passed on his seducer. It took this form from the nature of the proceeding then pending. That proceeding was strictly retributive. God was engaged in the administration of divine justice upon the parties to the great transgression. Addressing the reptile, which had been employed as the instrument and organ of the tempta

tion, God said: "thou art cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the field." Then addressing Satan, who was the real tempter, God said: "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." So strictly judicial, so stern and strenuous was the occasion, that its proprieties put upon even the word of salvation, the force and frown of a divine malediction on the enemy of souls!

It is to be observed, still further, that the contents of the First Gospel materially affected the judgments afterward pronounced separately on the woman and the man. What God said to the serpent, announced that the reign of grace was begun; what God said to our first parents, corresponded precisely to that gracious assurance; and his words to each of the three parties before him were in perfect harmony. This harmony appears, for example in the fact pointed out, as long ago as the third century, by Tertullian, that no curse was pronounced on either Eve or Adam. Only to the serpent God said: "Thou art cursed." God condemned the woman to multiplied sorrows and perpetual subjection, but he pronounced no curse upon her person. God condemned the man to sorrow and toil all the days of his life; he cursed the ground for man's sake, but not the man himself. Satan only was accursed, not the victims of his subtilty.

This unity of purpose appears, further, in the intimation conveyed to each of the parties, to the effect that the lives of our first parents should be spared for a season. The original threat was: "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." When the guilty pair stood before their awful Judge, they had reason to fear the infliction of instant death. But when God said to the tempter: "I will put enmity between thy seed and her seed," they were warranted to infer that, their lives would be spared until at least they should see the promised seed. This respite entered also into the judgment pronounced on each of them individually. To the woman God said: "In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children"-but then she should live to bring them forth; to the man God said: "In sorrow shalt thou eat of the ground"-but then he should live to enjoy the fruits of his toil. It was, however, a