creation. "All nature stands, as a matter of fact," Delitzsch remarks, "in the closest relation to man, who is, in virtue of his personality, which is at once spiritual and material, the link between it and God." If man had asserted and developed his original integrity, had victoriously resisted temptation to evil, the disorganizing forces of moral darkness could not by any other avenue have entered into human personality, nor into the kingdoms subjected to his behest.

6. Of the relation which the probation of Adam bore to the angelic world Christian anthropology cannot speak explicitly. That there was an intimate connection between the integrity of man and the blessedness of holy angels, and that angels had an interest in the development and perfection of man's original life, revelation does not justify us in entertaining doubts. On this question the general tenor of the New Testament is unequivocal. But of the nature of this intimate connection we cannot speak with any definiteness; nor may we attempt to determine to what extent the higher perfection of holy angels was involved in the first man's fidelity to God.

But what we do know respecting the scope and grandeur of redemption requires that anthropology recognize the fact of a positive relation between the momentous issues of Adam under trial and the objective life of angels. As we have before seen, this relation comes clearly to view in the ultimate glory of the Mediator; for the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth are in the fulness of the times to be summed up in Christ, the Son of Man.' If from the teaching of Christ and His apostles we reason back to Eden, we are warranted in affirming that the proEph. i. 10; iii. 9, 10.

bation of Adam had meaning for the transcendent world of personal spirits as really as for the impersonal world of nature. The perfection of harmony between the supernatural and the natural turns on the ideal autonomy of man, on his faith in God, on his perfect obedience to the divine law.

CHAPTER IV.

THE FALL.

§ 202.

The probation of Adam was the probation of the human race, of that organic constitution of which he was the ideal beginning; and the issues of his probation involve the race no less than his individual person. If he had triumphantly passed the ordeal, like Jesus in the wilderness and in Gethsemane, firmly resisting the solicitations of the evil one by continuous self-reference to God, not only would the individual person of the first Adam have risen into the life of confirmation in righteousness, but in his person he would also have advanced his constitution, the whole nature of the race as realized in his individuality, into the same state of righteous life. Humanity as such would, by resistance of temptation, in his person have triumphed over the adversary, and would thereby have been raised, objectively, into a higher status of positive moral perfection. Persona consummat naturam.

The same organic law is operative in Adam's apostasy. His fall was the fall of an individual, but no less really

the fall of his nature, the generic constitution in which the individual person stood, of the nature in the personality; for the nature was personal, and the person was one with the nature. Adamic humanity fell when the individual Adam fell. Hence in considering the fall of the primeval man we are dealing with a calamity which affects not one person only, nor one family only, but affects the Adamic race.

§ 203.

The account of the fall given in Genesis, like that of the probation, is pictorial. This mystery and the magnitude of its consequences are presented under the form of an external transaction, every part of which symbolizes profound moral significance for the whole nature of the first man and of his posterity.

1. The account in Genesis' is in one respect to be taken according to the letter. It is a becoming mode of representing an historical fact of spiritual import; and into its import we may get an insight by accepting the symbolical representation as valid. The picture answers to the reality. But in forming our judgment of the reality we may not be limited by the superficial meaning of the letter, or the outward form of the symbols. There is a depth and breadth of truth in the record which the letter indicates, but does not adequately express.

Nor can an interpretation commensurate with the implicit truth of the record be given, if we reflect exclusively on the record. Interpretation in the service of Christian anthropology must be guided by that fuller manifestation of man's sinfulness as contrasted with his original good

.'Gen. iii. 1-S.

ness, which Christianity has brought into the light. As from the dignity and exaltation of Jesus we may learn the grandeur of the divine idea respecting man, so by reflection on the abyss of humiliation and suffering into which it was necessary for the Redeemer to descend we may learn the magnitude of the calamity which Genesis depicts. Such interpretation does no violence to the primitive record; it only uncovers the wickedness of the catastrophe which otherwise is partially hidden.

2. The fall is an ethical process of decadence, including several distinct stages. Gradually the tempter gains access to man's personal life. Gradually man asserts a false independence of God; and in the degree that he relinquishes confidence in the wisdom of the divine prohibition he surrenders himself to the control of his adversary.'

The serpent' addresses the woman by putting the question: "Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of any tree of the garden?" The words are a "half-interrogatory, half

'Gen. iii. 1-8.

"The serpent was preeminently adapted to represent an earthly power of seduction with a mysterious background. And this mysterious background is, as revelation in its onward course discloses, the evil which before the fall of man had already invaded the world of spirits. The ancient Persian tradition is that which has remained most faithful to the original meaning of the scriptural tradition. The serpent (Dahaka) is the first creature by means of whom Ahriman destroys the first created land of Ormuzd."

"If the biblical account had placed in the stead of this serpent, the serpent of natural history as a symbol of sensuality and the charms of sense, it would have imparted a moral shallowness to the national legends, while in truth the scriptural reproduction of such national popular legends has stripped them of their mythological tinsel, and reduced them to the germ of the genuine and simple state of the case.” -Delitzsch, Com. on Gen. i., 151.

exclamatory expression of astonishment; the aim of which is to awaken mistrust of God. He approaches that member of the primeval family who is the more accessible to the spiritual world. God's authority is not directly assailed, nor is His love impugned; but a question is raised respecting the divine will, by which the prohibition to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is distinctly brought to the consciousness of the woman, in order to awaken the sense of needless restraint put upon her liberty of action.

Instead of instantly repelling the insinuation, the woman gives it a place in her mind, so far at least as to make reply to it: "Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat: but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die." The reply lays stress on three things: the permission to eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; the prohibition to eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden; and the consequence of transgression, "lest ye die." By the assertion of these three things against the tempter's cunning she seems to make a firm stand for truth and right; but in responding to his insinuation, though she repeats the words of the prohibition, she has opened her heart to the poisoning influence of the tempter. Having led the woman to reflect on the prohibition as something contrary to her freedom and independence, he has awakened a measure of sympathy with himself, and thus has brought about incipient divergence from the line of ideal rectitude. The reply kept her in contact with the tempter's mind, and that contact. was abnormal moral action. Fidelity to God is incom

1Cf Gen. xviii. 13; 1 Sam. xxii. 7.