already created the male and the female; why, therefore, remove a rib from the man to form out of it a woman who was already in being? It is answered, that the author barely announces in the one case what he explains in another. It is answered farther, that this allegory places the wife in subjection to her husband, and expresses their intimate union. Many persons have been led to imagine from this verse that men have one rib less than women; but this is a heresy, and anatomy informs us that a wife has no more ribs than her husband.

pent, from that time, has moved creeping on its belly, why we always are eager to crush it under our feet, and why it always attempts (at least according to the popular belief) to bite and wound us. Precisely as, with respect to presumed changes affecting certain animals recorded in ancient fable, reasons were stated why the crow which originally had been white is at the present day black; why the owl quits his gloomy retreat only by night; why the wolf is devoted to carnage, &c. The fathers, however, believed the affair to be an allegory at once clear and venerable. The safest way is to believe like them.

"I will multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children. Thou shalt be under the power of the man, and he shall rule over thee.”

Why, it is asked, should the multiplication of conception be a punishment? It was, on the contrary, says the objector, esteemed a superior blessing, particularly among the Jews. The pains of childbirth are inconsiderable in all, except very weak or delicate women. Those accustomed to labour are delivered, particu

"But the serpent was more subtle than all animals on the earth; he said to the woman," " &c. Throughout the whole of this article there is no mention made of the devil. Everything in it relates to the usual course of nature. The serpent was considered by all oriental nations, not only as the most cunning of all animals, but likewise as immortal. The Chaldeans had a fable concerning a quarrel between God and the serpent, and this fable had been preserved by Pherecides. Origen cites it in his sixth book against Celsus. { A serpent was borne in procession at the feasts of Bacchus. The Egyptians, ac-larly in warm climates, with great ease. cording to the statement of Eusebius in the first book of the tenth chapter of his Evangelical Preparation, attached a species of divinity to the serpent. In Arabia, India, and even China, the serpent was regarded as a symbol of life;tural course of events; it is the effect of and hence it was that the emperors of China, long before the time of Moses, always bore upon their breast the image of a serpent.

Eve expresses no astonishment at the serpent's speaking to her. In all ancient histories, animals have spoken; hence Pilpay and Lokman excited no surprise by their introduction of animals conversing and disputing.

Brutes frequently experience greater suffering from this process of nature: some even die under it. And with respect to the superiority or dominion of the man over the woman, it is merely in the na

strength of body, and even of strength of mind. Men, generally speaking, possess organs more capable of continued attention than women, and are better fitted by nature for labours both of the head and arm. But when a woman possesses both a hand and a mind more powerful than her husband's, she every where possesses the dominion over him; it is then the husband that is under subjection to the The whole of this affair appears so wife. There is certainly truth in these clearly to have been supposed in the na- remarks; but it might, nevertheless, very tural course of events, and so uncon- easily be the fact, that before the comnected with anything allegorical, that the mission of the original sin, neither subnarrative assigns a reason why the ser-jection nor sorrow existed.

"The Lord made for them coats of skins."

This passage decidedly proves that the Jews believed God to be corporeal. A Rabbi, of the name of Eliezar, stated in his works, that God clothed Adam and Eve with the skin of the very serpent who had tempted them; and Origen maintains that this coat of skins was a new flesh, a new body, which God conferred on man. It is far better to adhere respectfully to the literal texts.

speaking, (according to the opinion of liberal, not to say licentious commentators) proceeds upon the idea which has prevailed in every past age, and still exists, that the first times were better and happier than those which followed. Men have always complained of the present and extolled the past. Pressed down by the labours of life, they have imagined happiness to consist in inactivity, not considering that the most unhappy of all states is that of a man who has nothing to do. They felt themselves frequently miserable, and framed in their

"And the Lord said; Lo! Adam is { become like one of us." It seems as if the Jews admitted, ori-imaginations an ideal period in which all ginally, many gods. It is somewhat more difficult to determine what they meant by the word God, Elohim. Some commentators have contended that the expression one of us signifies the Trinity. But certainly there is nothing relating to the Trinity, throughout the Bible. The Trinity is not a compound of many or several Gods: it is one and the same god threefold; and the Jews never heard the slightest mention of one god in three persons. By the words like us, or as one of us, it is probable that the Jews understood the angels, Elohim. It is this passage which has induced many learned men very rashly to conclude that this book was not written until that people had adopted the belief of these inferior gods. But this opinion has been condemned.

the world had been happy; although it might be just as naturally and truly supposed that there had existed times in which no tree decayed and perished, in {which no beast was weak, diseased, or devoured by another, and in which spiders did not prey upon flies. Hence the idea of the golden age; of the egg pierced by Arimanes; of the serpent who stole from the ass the recipe for obtaining a happy and immortal life, which the man had placed upon his packsaddle; of the conflict between Typhon and Osiris, and between Opheneus and the gods; of the famous box of Pandora; and of all those ancient tales, of which some are ingenious, but none instructive. But we are bound to believe that the fables of other nations are imitations of the Hebrew history, since we possess the ancient history of the Hebrews, and the early books of other nations are nearly all destroyed. Besides, the testimonies in favour of the book of Genesis are irrefragable.

"And he placed before the garden of Eden a cherub with a flaming sword, which turned all round to guard the way to the tree of life."

"The Lord sent him forth from the garden of Eden to cultivate the ground." "But," it is remarked by some, "the Lord had placed him in the garden of Eden to cultivate that garden." If Adam, instead of being a gardener, merely becomes a labourer, his situation, they observe, is not made very much worse by the change. A good labourer is well worth a good gardener. These remarks The word kerub signifies or. must be regarded as too light and frivo-armed with a flaming sword is rather a lous. It appears more judicious to say, singular exhibition, it is said, before a that God punished disobedience by ba-portal. But the Jews afterwards reprenishing the offender from the place of his nativity.

The whole of this history, generally

An ox

sented angels under the form of oxen, and hawks, although they were forbidden to make any images. They evidently de

?

rived these emblems of oxen and hawks everything, has delivered down this confrom the Egyptians, whom they imitated temptible production to our own times. in so many other things. The Egyptians Knaves have extolled it, and fools have first venerated the ox as the emblem of believed it. Such is the language of a agriculture, and the hawk as that of the tribe of theists, who, while they adore a winds; but they never converted the ox God, dare to condemn the God of Israel; into a sentinel. It is probably an alle- and who judge of the conduct of the gory; and the Jews by kerub understood eternal Deity by the rules of our own nature. It was a symbol formed of the imperfect morality, and erroneous jushead of an ox, the head and body of a tice. They admit a God, to subject him man, and the wings of a hawk. to our laws. Let us guard against such rashness; and, once again it must be repeated, let us revere what we cannot comprehend. Let us cry out, O altitudo! O the height and depth! with all our strength.

"The gods Elohïm, seeing the daughters of men that they were fair, took for wives those whom they chose."

race, and attached themselves to those who were most interesting and beautifui: the issue of this connection between gods and mortals must of course have been superior to other men; accordingly, Genesis informs us, that from the association it mentions, of the gods with women,

"And the Lord set a mark upon Cain." What Lord? says the intidel. He accepts the offering of Abel, and rejects that of his elder brother, without the least reason being assigned for the distinction. By this proceeding, the Lord? was the cause of animosity between the two brothers. We are presented in this piece of history, it is true, with a moral, This imagination, again, may be traced however humiliating, lesson; a lesson to in the history of every people. No nation be derived from all the fables of antiquity, has ever existed, unless perhaps we may 3 that scarcely had the race of man com- except China, in which some god is not menced the career of existence, before described as having had offspring from one brother assassinates another. But women. These corporeal gods frequently what the sages of this world consider descended to visit their dominions upon contrary to everything moral, to every-earth; they saw the daughters of our thing just, to all the principles of common sense, is that God, who inflicted eternal damnation on the race of man, and useless crucifixion on his own son, on account merely of the eating of an apple, should absolutely pardon a fratricide! nay, that he should more than pardon, that he should take the offendersprang a race of giants. under his peculiar protection! He declares, that whoever shall avenge the murder of Abel shall experience seven- I will merely observe here that St. fold the punishment that Cain might Augustin, in his "City of God," No. have suffered. He puts a mark upon 8, says, "Maximum illud diluvium him as a safeguard. Here, continue Græca nec Latina novet historia:"these vile blasphemers, here is a fable as neither Greek nor Latin history knows execrable as it is absurd. It is the raving anything about the great deluge. In of some wretched Jew, who wrote those fact, none had ever been known in Greece infamous and revolting fooleries, in imi-{ but those of Ducaleon and Ogyges. tation of the tales so greedily swallowed They are regarded as universal in the by the neighbouring population in Syria. fables collected by Ovid, but are wholly This senseless Jew attributed these atro-unknown in eastern Asia. St. Augustin, cious reveries to Moses, at a time when therefore, is not mistaken, in saying that nothing was so rare as books. That fa-history makes no mention of this event. tality, which affects and disposes of "God said to Noah, I will make a

"I will bring a deluge of waters upon the earth."

"But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of Adam had built, and he said,—Behold a people which has but one language. They have begun to do this, and they will not desist until they have completed it. Come then, let us go and confound their language, that no one may understand his neighbour."

covenant with you, and with your seed by rain; yet in this place it is repreafter you, and with all living creatures."sented as something supernatural, exhiGod make a covenant with beasts! {bited in order to announce and prove What sort of a covenant? Such is the that the earth should no more be inunoutcry of infidels. But if he makes a dated. It is singular to choose the cercovenant with man, why not with the tain sign of rain, in order to assure men beast! It has feeling, and there is some-against their being drowned. But it may thing as divine in feeling as in the most also be replied, that in any danger of metaphysical meditation. Besides, beasts inundation, we have the cheering security feel more correctly than the greater part of the rainbow. of men think. It is clearly in virtue of this treaty, that Francis d'Assise, the founder of the Seraphic order, said to the grasshoppers and the hares,-"Pray sing, my dear sister grasshopper; pray browse, my dear brother hare." But what were the conditions of the treaty? That all animals should devour one another; that they should feed upon our flesh, and we upon theirs; that, after having eaten them, we should proceed with wrath and fury to the extermination of our own race,-nothing being then wanting to crown the horrid series of butchery and cruelty, but devouring our fellow-men, after having thus remorsely destroyed them. Had there been actually such a treaty as this, it could have been entered into only with the devil.

Observe here, that the sacred writer always continues to conform to the popular opinions. He always speaks of God as of a man who endeavours to inform himself of what is passing, who is desirous of seeing with his own eyes } what is going on in his dominions, who calls together his council in order to deliberate with them.

"And Abraham having divided his men (who were three hundred and eighteen in number) fell upon the five kings, and pursued them unto Hoba, on the left hand of Damascus."

From the south bank of the lake of Sodom to Damascus was a distance of eighty leagues, not to mention crossing the mountains Libanus and Anti-Libanus. Infidels smile and triumph at such exaggeration. But as the Lord favoured Abraham, nothing was in fact exaggerated.

"And two angels arrived at Sodom at even."

The whole history of these two angels, whom the inhabitants of Sodom wished to violate, is perhaps the most extraordinary in the records of all antiquity. But it must be considered that almost all Asia believed in the existence of the demoniacal incubus and succubus; and moreover, that these two angels were

angels. Such is the reasoning of a species of monsters who wish to lord it over the understandings of mankind.

creatures more perfect than mankind, and must have possessed more beauty to stimulate their execrable tendencies. It is possible that the passage may be only It is true, that many eminent fathers meant as a rhetorical figure to express of the church have had the prudence to the atrocious depravity of Sodom and turn all these histories into allegories, Gomorrah. It is not without the great-after the example of the Jews, and par

est diffidence that we suggest to the learned this solution.

As to Lot, who proposes to the people of Sodom the substitution of his two daughters in the room of the angels; and his wife, who was changed into a statue of salt, and all the rest of that history, what shall we venture to say? The old Arabian tale of Cinyras and Myrrha has some resemblance to the incest of Lot with his daughters; and the adventure of Philemon and Baucis is somewhat similar to the case of the two angels who appeared to Lot and his wife. With respect to the statue of salt, we know not where to find any resemblance; perhaps in the history of Orpheus and Eurydice. Many ingenious men are of opinion, with the great Newton and the learned Le Clerc, that the Pentateuch was written by Samuel when the Jews had a little knowledge of reading and writing, and that all these histories are imitations of Syrian fables.

But it is enough that all this is in the holy scripture to induce us to reverence it, without attempting to find out in this book anything besides what is written by the holy spirit. Let us always recollect, that those times were not like our times; and let us not fail to repeat, after so many great men, that the Old Testament is a true history; and that all that has been written differing from it by the rest of the world, is fabulous.

Some critics have contended, that all the incredible passages in the canonical books, which scandalise weak minds, ought to be suppressed; but it has been observed in answer, that those critics had bad hearts, and ought to be burnt at the stake; and that it is impossible to be a good man without believing that the people of Sodom wanted to violate two {

ticularly of Philo. The popes, more discreet, have endeavoured to prevent the translation of these books into the vulgar tongue, lest some men should in consequence be led to think and judge, about what was proposed to them only to adore.

We are certainly justified in concluding hence, that those who thoroughly understand this book should tolerate those who do not understand it at all; for if the latter understand nothing of it, it is not their own fault: on the other hand, those who comprehend nothing that it contains should tolerate those who comprehend everything in it.

Learned and ingenious men, full of their own talents and acquirements, have maintained that it is impossible Moses could have written the book of Genesis. One of their principal reasons is, that in the history of Abraham, that patriarch is stated to have paid for a cave, he purchased for the interment of his wife, in silver coin, and the King of Gerar to have given Sarah a thousand pieces of silver when he restored her, after having carried her off for her beauty at the age of seventyfive. They inform us, that they have consulted all the ancient authors, and that it appears very certain that at the period mentioned, silver money was not in existence. But these are evidently mere cavils, as the church has always firmly believed Moses to have been the author of the Pentateuch. They strengthen all the doubts suggested by Aben-Ezra, and Baruch Spinoza. The physician Astruc, father-in-law of the Comptroller-general Silhouette, in his book (now become very scarce) called "Conjectures on the Book of Genesis," adds some objections, inexplicable undoubtedly to human learning, but not so