of woman one of purity and safety as to her husband. It is hard, indeed, to resist the conviction that the whole is a proemium to the narrative of temptation and ruin, and of redemption from ruin. Adam and Paradise, temptation and transgression, ruin and redemption, are the central objects. Geologist, astronomer, theologian, who attempts to explain the Hebrew narrative, is bound to take it with all belonging to it. Consider somewhat more deeply the nature and meaning of the second narrative. Man is "a living soul," : the living or efficient soul in the flesh-body and soul being one man. Sometimes, as the soul is the efficient or chief, it is taken as title for the dead (Lev. xix. 28). The soul is not an exile from happier existence, and placed in the body to do penance for formerly committed sins, but that which the self-movement of God Himself called into being by effectual interference when He made man. We rightly say-the cause was God. The material of the outer body was earth. The inner spiritual ground or consciousness was fashioned into the Divine form, image, likeness, by Inspiration. The effected object was a human form, of flesh subsisting, with inner Divinely embodied spirit. If there was any man before this, he was not a true man, but a psychical man, not having the pneuma, spirit. The peculiarity separating the real man from animals and angels is, that animals have a nature which is wholly used up in the necessary expenditure of life; but man, being spiritual, is not expended in natural use; angels are in the image of God, being sons (Job i. 6, xxxviii. 7), personal, not corporeal; but man, the earthly one in God's likeness, has a bodily form. This-which leads some of us erroneously to regard God as man-like, because we, in a sense, are God-like-means that the spirit-embodied man, being exalted above the material world, yet not purely spiritual, stands between the impersonal bodily world and the personal bodiless spirits as the connecting link of all created beings (Ps. viii. 5, 6). Not only so, man being a law unto himself, while God was shining forth in his spirit, his life was in very deed the vision of God. This light was quenched in the Fall, and life became a dead life; but the Soul of Man and Soul of Beast. 289 living spirit, though in moulded dust, subsisted; that by restoration in Christ we may be transformed again and assimilated to God. Thus viewed, man is God-man; and when laid in the grave, is that grain of wheat out of which springs, by Divine energy, perfect and glorified humanity. In Christ's life, death, resurrection, there is a manifest oneness with our own. In the Scriptural sense, we live and die in Christ; in and with Christ are buried; in, by, and with Christ we rise from the tomb, ascend to heaven, dwell with God. Cattle, reptiles, beasts of the earth, are called “living souls ;" but there was no embrace of love, no breath, no special moulding in their creation. They grew, every one after his sort, having life from God-nutritive life, sensuous life, but all by means of the earth. There was no in-breathing, whatever that may mean, nor spirit from Jehovah, whatever that may convey. As to man, there was creation of body, enduing with life, inspiration of soul. Scripture traces man no further back than to Adam from whom we all proceed. Adam is placed in Paradise to dress and keep it. Through some strange influence, a brute becomes an intelligent speaking creature, a means of temptation, and a power by which man, who was to subdue evil, is himself overcome by evil. If the whole be counted an allegory, the underlying truth is not the less intense or real. The world, in consequence of evil, seems a mingling of wrath and love—but love has supremacy; and Satan, who had been banished into narrower dominion (2 Pet. ii. 4), setting himself to war against man (Ephes. vi. 12), is to find that man whom he abused-man who began with lower powers, made yet lower by sin-shall attain to high, even glorious state (Heb. ii. IO, II). Man is called "Adam," D7, "earth," because of the earth was formed that body which became a vessel to contain the soul wherein resides the spirit, which is the image of God. Adam is the earthly one, in contrast with that second Adam who is the Heavenly One. The former was a living soul, the latter a quickening spirit (1 Cor. xv. 45). One is the likeness of God in an earthen vessel, the other is the likeness of God (Phil. ii. 6) in brightness of glory (2 Cor. iv. 6, 7; Heb. i. 3). U Adam, and we in him, are earthly living souls, and, having a spirit, are in the form of God. It is characteristic that, being in the form of God, our natural life is transformed and raised into the participation of spiritual living. The matter may be seen in fact; for Christ, by generation, is God-man; and we, through Christ, by regeneration, are God-men. This confirms our kinship with the whole earth, and the promise of our elevation above the earth into the "house not made with hands." Man is as other earthly things, yet above other earthly things. He lives in twofold relation: first, to all natural and physical life by special operation; and secondly, in Divine kinship and communion by inspiration, regeneration, sanctification. If we draw a little nearer, the truth appears in this form : the entire life of Nature, in reciprocal action and varied powers has unity and purpose in and from the great Architect. The vegetative life is subordinated to the animal life, and the animal to the spiritual. The human body contains all the substance and powers of previously existing life; and these, being combined by special operation, constitute that organic individuality into which the Lord breathed the breath of life: not making man a part of Godhead, but creating a spirit of moral and intellectual power in likeness to the Godhead. At our death this created spirit is separated from the mortal, and at our resurrection is joined to the immortal body. The soul is the body of the spirit, the flesh is the body of the soul; so far as soul is animal, it is the informing part of that which is corruptible; in so far as it is spiritual, or the vessel containing the spirit, it is the inner man. The narrative is the simplest story ever told, suited for the childhood of our race, and for children now, yet the grandest ever written, the most mysterious ever conceived. We have in it "truths that perish never," requiring thousands of years for fulness of growth. Many a discovery in science died, like a thing born out of due time, and lived not again till ages had passed away. These living things never die. They are a song of strangest, sweetest melody which saddened yet gladdened the purest spirits of our race; God's psalm of life, giving glorious ideas, making deeps where was no depth nor inwardness. No argument as to the verity of these two narrativesthe former in historical reality, and the latter as containing symbols of mysterious and spiritual, yet actual events-will be deemed conclusive without the evidence derived from the cuneiform inscriptions, or "Chaldean Account of Genesis." The discovered tablets are fragmentary, and in a mutilated condition; not one is complete, and only a general view of the whole subject can be obtained. The inscriptions agree with the Scriptural account of Creation, and of the Fall; and it is conjectured that every creative day had its own tablet. Taking the best known arrangement of the fragments according to subjects,1 we have— 1. An account of chaos and the generation of the gods. 2. A fragment, perhaps of the second tablet, on the foundation of the deep. 3. The creation of land. 4. Part of the fifth tablet, giving the creation of the heavenly bodies. 5. Fragments of the seventh tablet, giving the creation of land animals. 6. Fragments of three tablets on the Creation and Fall of man. 7. Fragments of tablets relating to the war between gods and evil spirits. The translation of the fragments of the first tablet is :1. "When above, were not raised the heavens ; 2. and below on the earth a plant had not grown up; 3. the abyss also had not broken open their boundaries; 4. the chaos (or water) Tiamat (the sea) was the producingmother of the whole of them. 5. Those waters at the beginning were ordained; but 6. a tree had not grown, a flower had not unfolded." 2 The other translated portions-except 8, " a plant had not grown, and order did not exist "-refer to the creating of gods. "The three next tablets in the creation series are absent, there being only two doubtful fragments of this part of the "The Chaldean Account of Genesis," pp. 62-100: George Smith. 2 Ibid. pp. 62, 63. 1 story." It is conjectured that they contained an account of the bringing forth of light, of the firmament, of dry land, of plants. "The word The fifth tablet narrates the creation of the heavenly bodies as contained in Genesis under the fourth day; and a subsequent tablet, probably the seventh, records the creation on the sixth day. This double example leads to the inference that every day's work was recorded on a separate tablet, and in the Genesis order of the days. A tablet, thought to be the eighth, appears to state the Creation and Fall of man. There are several other tablets, but very mutilated; and no number can be positively proved beyond the fifth tablet. The moon is created before the sun. As to the fragments regarding man, one fragment might belong to the purest system of religion, but mutilations render the sense uncertain. On another fragment is an account of the curse after the Fall. "The obverse of the tablet giving the Creation of man, when it breaks off leaves him in a state of purity, and where it recommences on the reverse man has already fallen." 'Adam,' is not used as a proper name, but for all mankind. The Tree of Life seems referred to as the grove or forest of the gods. The dragon of the sea, answering to the serpent in Genesis, is connected with the Fall, bringing it about, and sharing the curse." He is conceived of as a spirit of evil, self-existent, eternal, belonging to the original chaos, opposed to and older than the gods. "He is 'the intelligent guide,' or, according to another interpretation, 'the intelligent fish,' 'the teacher of mankind,' 'the lord of understanding.' One of his emblems is the 'wedge' or 'arrow-head,' the essential element of cuneiform writing, which seems to be assigned to him as the inventor, or at least the patron, of the Chaldean alphabet. Another emblem is the serpent, which occupies so conspicuous a place among the symbols of the gods on the black stones recording benefactions, and which sometimes appears upon the cylinders. This symbol, here as elsewhere, is emblematic of superhuman knowledge-a record of the primeval belief 5 1 "The Chaldean Account of Genesis," p. 67: George Smith. Ibid. pp. 82-85. • Ibid. p. 86. 5 Ibid. p. 90. |