enabled men to perceive that progress in the knowledge of physical laws constituted no encroachment upon the domain of the spiritual. The readjustment of interpretation satisfies the claims of reason and belief. The primitive Hebrew tradition is made, through the Divine Spirit, the first step in the stairway of Divine Revelation. The chief apprehension that has been felt has rightly related to the belief in inspiration. And I venture to plead that the line of interpretation suggested in this and the previous chapter, instead of degrading the doctrine, safeguards it from an unworthy and mechanical conception. Popular opinion is tempted to confuse inspiration with the passive receptiveness of religious ecstasy. From the introduction to St. Luke's Gospel, and indeed from the character of both historical and prophetical books of Scripture, we infer that the contents of books of Scripture are the result of patient labour and arduous research, overruled for the Divine purpose and guided by the Holy Spirit. The inspiration which, we believe, breathes through the varied and often secular material of Scripture, selected and collected, e.g., in the chronicles of old times, in bare genealogies, in laws of ritual, in popular sayings, breathes too in those early narratives which in Hebrew, as in other literature, lie at the back of the more strictly historical records. The common type which the Hebrew shares with the Assyrian cosmogony is patent. But, differing from the Assyrian in this respect, the Hebrew narrative has descended to us distinguished by a sobriety, dignity, and elevation communicated to it by those whose spirit had been schooled by the Divine Teacher. Its simple story was dignified to be the messenger of profoundest truths. On every side from which ideas respecting God and the universe were capable, in those early days, of mean or idolatrous degradation, the Israelite version of the Creation epic is fenced about. Did other nations believe in the pre-existence of matter? Israel received the doctrine of the pre-existence of God. Did they regard matter as essentially evil, or as needing to be vanquished by the Deity? Israel learned that there was nothing created which God had not created in its essence good. Had the worship of the heavenly bodies become a common form of misleading idolatry? Israel learned that they were themselves the handiwork of God, and served the supreme purpose in the ordered succession of His creative work. Did some regard man's nature as the offspring of a lower emanation or of some subordinate divinity? Israel learned that man was made by the Most High in His own image and in His own likeness. However much the Hebrew narrative may transcend in verisimilitude the teaching of other cosmogonies in matters of human cognisance, its form is but the shell and husk of the Divine Message. The eternal truths, conveyed in the spiritual teaching of the chapter, are infinitely more precious than any possible items of agreement with the present aspects of so changeful and progressive a study as that of the physical laws which interpret the Creator's Will. CHAPTER III THE STORY OF PARADISE WE come now to the consideration of the second section in the Early Narratives of Genesis which seems to offer itself for separate treatment. In these two chapters (ii. 4'-iii. 24) the narrative falls naturally into two divisions, of which the first (chap. ii. 4'-25) is occupied with a description of the creation of man, his first dwelling-place, and the formation of the vegetable and animal world; the second (chap. iii.) narrates the account of the Temptation, the Fall, and the Judgment consequent upon it. I shall do little more than touch upon some of the more important points to be noticed in the literary structure, origin, and religious teaching of this important narrative. (a) Structure. Many a reader has been surprised to notice that a description of the Creation occurs in the second chapter, when the successive stages of the Creation have already formed the theme of the * previous passage. According to the explanation that has generally been given, the double narrative is intended to furnish an account of the same events regarded from different points of view. And, undoubtedly, in the first chapter, the Creation is described in its relation to the Physical Universe, the formation of man marking the concluding feature of the whole; whereas, in the second chapter, it is described in its relation primarily to Man, each portion of the universe being called into existence in order to contribute to the benefit of the human race. No one would contest the existence of this difference of view in the two descriptions, nor the possibility of the same writer describing the same events in different ways. But the divergence of view is not sufficient to account for the absence in chap. ii. 4-25 of any reference to the Days of Creation, nor for the statements which differ so widely from the contents of chap. i., as in ii. 5-7, where we read that when man was made neither plant nor herb yet existed; and in ii. 8, 9, 19, where it appears that the vegetable and animal world owed its origin to the purpose of satisfying the needs of man; and in ii. 21-23, where we find that the formation of woman as a helpmeet for man was an act of Divine favour in recognition of his inability to find true companionship in the brute creation. Now, it may fairly be said, we certainly do not expect that a writer, who is going a second time over the same D |