As Holzinger says, "We have to do with a story-teller of the first rank, who displays a wonderful knowledge of the human heart." The same scholar who will scarcely be suspected of reading later theological ideas into the story interprets it thus: "The traditional material is thoroughly penetrated with the mode of thought of the spiritual and ethical religion. God is not a pale abstraction, not the deity of a heathen myth, but the God of Israel's prophetic religion, a holy God who spurns wickedness, but at the same time a kind, sympathetic father, even if that expression is not used. Paradise is lost through sin." At this point it may be well to note that the "Prophetic Document" of the Pentateuch in its written form is supposed to belong to the time of the earliest writing prophets, so that the modern view does not, as its opponents say, represent these prophets as springing suddenly into being without any preparation. The spiritual ideas of this second narrative form an atmosphere in which a simple noble prophet might breathe freely. The narrative no doubt presupposes traditional material, which had circulated a long time among the Hebrew people; the original colours are not deadened to the same extent as in the first narrative, but crude, fantastic features have in large measure been cast away, while the poetic charm is retained and made the vehicle of the purest spiritual teaching. The material is here thoroughly Hebraised, though there may be reminiscences of foreign elements and of Israel's earliest days. It comes to us from a time when the people were thoroughly settled in Palestine. We have not space to dwell in detail on the differences between the two nar. ratives and to discuss the many special questions that arise. That is the less necessary, as any one reading them carefully in the ordinary version can see their different treatment of God, man and the world-in the first the transcendent, in the second the anthropomorphic God; in the first man takes his place in the general scheme, in the second he is "formed" and placed in Paradise; in the first the animals are placed under their natural lord, in the second they are grouped round man as his intimate companions; in the first physiological facts are implied in a matter of fact style, in the second they are touched with a poetic pathos which makes us feel the burden of this weary, perplexing life; in brief, the first is a general statement, the second is full of ideas.

Two different treatments of one point in the second narrative may be noticed as giving an example of two different styles of exegesis. Holzinger views the serpent as a mythological feature, "exegetically we must regard the serpent as a beast, not as a demoniac being, an element given in tradition, not an artistic clothing of the lust by which the woman is tempted. The Satan-idea is a post-exilic Jewish one. In the mythological basis, however, the serpent may have been an instrument of a demon hostile to the creating God. If nothing of this can now be traced it shows how energetically the material has been worked over." Whether we accept this conclusion or not, we can appreciate the method of exegesis. The aim of exegesis is to discover the meaning that the writer had in his mind and intended to convey. The question is, when we set the writer in his place in history and take his language in its natural sense, what impression does it convey? We know that in the earlier time from which this document came the supremacy of Jehovah played such a great part in the minds of the religious teachers that heathen demonology would be repulsive to them. We know also that the conception of Satan became prominent in later Jewish theology. We are not now directly concerned with the dogmatic validity of these ideas, but with the correct interpretation of a given document. It seems to us that in the following statement by Dr. Davis, of Princeton, these two things are confused instead of being separately considered. "Eve saw a snake. It is not necessary to suppose that she opined more; but back of the snake was an evil spirit. (Cf. the swine, Mark v. 13.) This was the current interpretation in Israel when insight into religious truth was clear." (Genesis and Semitic Tradition.)

Whatever we may make of the details of the second narrative it is a wonderful picture of the coming of sin and sorrow into human life as a result of man's disobedience, the skill and inspiration of the writer are more powerfully manifested in presenting the truth in this concrete form that if he had set forth his faith in so many abstract propositions. The purpose of our brief sketch is attained if we have shown that in these narratives we have a fruitful field for devout study, and that they bring before us in miniature some great questions of Old Testament history and theology.

As to the sources of the original material of the two narratives there is general agreement among scholars that the cosmological basis of chapter I. is closely related to the ancient Babylonian cosmogony. The attempt to prove specifically Babylonian feaures in the second narrative cannot be said to have been successful. (See article by Dr. Morris Jastrow, American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literature, July 1899). The original material if not of pure Hebrew origin has been thoroughly Hebraised so that it is difficult to trace absolute connection with either Egypt or Babylon. Much skill and strength has been spent on this problem and it is still unsolved, it is an interesting problem no doubt, but its solution is not essential to an understanding of Israel's life.

"It would indeed have been surprising if such similarities had not appeared. The Hebrew people before and after Moses was a member of a larger group of nations, had already for a long time had intercourse with Semitic and non-Semitic people, and had, in its morality and customs as well as in its knowledge and ideas, grown up along with a larger circle of nations. Many of their old mythological ideas betray themselves in various forms long after Moses. Theories about the origin of the world, also, akin to those of the other peoples, must undoubtedly have long continued current among them."

"But it is quite evident that by the Mosaic faith in God those traditionary views as well as the life and thought of the people in other directions must have been purified and transformed, even if already the simpler consciousness of God prevailing in earlier times among the Hebrews had not had its effect. In fact the incomparable pre-eminence of the Biblical narrative lies not in the material sub-structure or physical explanations which it may give, but in the penetration of the traditional matter with the higher faith in God." (Dillmann.)

Dr. Driver also believes in the connection of chapter I. with the Babylonian cosmogony, but that in its present form it "comes at the end of a long process of gradual elimination of heathen elements and of gradual assimilation to the purer teachings of Israelitish theology carried on under the spiritual influence of the religion of Israel;" but we do not think that on this account it is fair to say that he is "hampered by the idea, that

there must be a natural development of religious ideas, from a degrading polytheism through long periods up to a sublime monotheism." (Prof. T. M. Lindsay, Critical Review, Jan. 1900, page 36.) These two statements are very different, but to discuss them at length would require a full review of the growth of Israel's religious life. In the one the fact of gradual growth is carefully stated and sympathetically presented, in the other it is put in a way likely to create prejudice and give to the ordinary reader an utterly false impression.

The present attitude of what is called "the Higher criticism," to this and similar problems may perhaps be set forth in the following brief summary. These two narratives which belong to two different documents show traces of revision and addition since they assumed a written form. The written form is based upon traditional material, and this material reflects reminiscences of early mythologies. The remarkable feature is the extent、to which the faith and theology of Israel has transformed this early material, informing it with its own ideas and bringing it into harmony with its own life. We have here as elsewhere in the Old Testament a testimony to the tremendous power of Israel's religion, which while partly assimilating some, conquered so many hostile and inferior elements.

If it be asked how such a view affects our idea of inspiration, the answer must be that as the doctrine of evolution modifies the old argument from design, so this treatment of Scripture material leads us to take wider views. Instead of fastening upon small unessential details we must grasp the spirit of the whole. This religion shows in its earliest records a simple comparatively noble view of God, but what is more, it had the life to grow and advance to ever loftier thoughts of the divine; hence its teachers had the power to reject many things that were crude or coarse, and show their strength and wisdom in using their best traditions and purest poetry as vehicles of the loftiest spiritual instruction. Such a religion is inspired in the very deepest sense, for is not inspiration only another name for the purest, highest life? It came from God, it drew to God those who followed its teachings, and it has left to the world a heritage which we cannot prize too highly, and so prepared the way for Him who is the truest revelation of the Eternal Father. "God having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions, and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son." W. G. JORDAN.

THE RELATIONS OF LEGISLATION AND MORALITY.

FORM

ORMAL legislation comes late in the history of most legal systems.

"It is a matter of historical observation that long before any supreme political authority has come into being, a series of practical rules determines the main relations of family life, the conditions of ownership, the punishment of the more violent forms of wrong doing, &c. Maine says codes succeed customary laws at certain stages of progress in each community. According to Plato past time is the maker of states; it is also the maker of laws. The legal rule of to-day is the last link in an historical series." "Law is the record of human progress, the golden deposit in the stream of time." Moses is a law-giver not a lawmaker. He is the declarer of the Divine Laws and the Divine Judgments. To his own people he is their discoverer. Says the latest writer on this subject, "The truth must not be pressed too far, but a truth it is that even now, law is rather a thing to be discovered than a thing to be made. Law is made unconsciously by the men whom it concerns. It is the deliberate result of human experience working from the known to the unknown, a little bit of knowledge won from ignorance, of order from Chaos."

And the radical defect in some of our legislation is that the legislator has not discovered the law which he is trying to formulate in a statute. Do these observations apply to legislation affecting morality? Spencer holds that there is "an ideal code formulating the behaviour of the completely adapted man to the completely evolved society."

Are then the laws of good living to be discovered before they can be declared ?

Lecky points out that a Roman of the age of Pliny, an Englishman of the age of Henry 8th, and an Englishman of our own day would all agree that humanity is a virtue and its opposite a vice, but their judgments of the Acts which are compatible with a humane disposition would be widely different. A humane man of the first period might derive a keen enjoyment from those gladiatorial games which an Englishman even in the days of the