which is here spoken of. But I would say, first: What do we know of the nature of this, or of all the other animals, previous to the fall of man? How do we know that they did not partake of faculties, which they lost by participating in the disorganization which sin has introduced into the world, and which the most superficial observer can perceive?* And, however that may be, consider the remains of instinct, I had almost said of reason, in those creatures, whose nature is so little studied, those creatures which we call brutes, but which, however, compare and judge of objects, distinguish a friend from an enemy, revenge, in the latter, an injury committed a long time before, and testify towards the former their gratitude for a kindness received, which supposes in them a kind of feeling, passion, and memory. What surprisingly difficult lessons are some animals capable of learning! and, finally, if we hear some of them repeat whole phrases, distinctly articulated, what is there incredible in a serpent's speaking? Besides, what do we know of the manner in which beings of another order than our * Exegesis on ch. i. 14-17. own communicate their thoughts? We, indeed, require organs to speak! But what organs pronounced, at the baptism of Jesus, those words which the by-standers heard, This is my beloved Son?" What organs addressed to Saul those terrible words, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" And not to bring forward the numerous examples 'which the Bible contains, what organs communicated to the Saviour, in a temptation which has more than one point of resemblance with that which now occupies us, the words of the Tempter? We confess, then, our faith in the purely and simply historical sense of the narrative of Moses. But it will be said, the serpent not only pronounces words, but it thinks, it reasons. "Yea, hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" This objection leads us to another class of ideas, and to the real point of the temptation. Yes, indeed, the serpent reasons; it addresses to Eve an insidious question, the subtlety and depth of which strike us, arrest us, and compel us to say, Here the serpent is but a miserable instrument. There is here a secret power which thinks, speaks, and acts through it. The words which it pro nounces cannot proceed from an innocent, irrational being. I hear, on the contrary, from its mouth the wily and insidious question of a seducer. Moses, for good reasons, which it is not difficult to account for, relates the thing, it is true, as it must have appeared to our first parents, and in a simple and child-like language, which so strongly bears the character of that age, that if his narrative were different, we should be strongly tempted to call it in question. But who can think that he attributes to an animal that seduction which, according to his own testimony, was followed by such terrible consequences? No, without any doubt, he saw in these facts, the agency of a being, upon whose nature and existence the subsequent revelations of God have thrown the greatest light. Indeed, the existence of a malevolent being of a spiritual nature, fallen from God," because he continued not in the truth,”* a being who, as the spirit of evil, takes an infernal pleasure in plunging into ruin those of God's creatures over which he can exercise his fatal influence; a being who has thus established upon earth a kingdom of John viii. 44. darkness, and whom the Scripture calls Satan, the devil; the existence of this being is constantly supposed, and expressly taught by Jesus Christ and his Apostles.* Now we find in the New Testament, testimonies which most clearly ascribe to this spirit of darkness the seduction of our first parents. Paul could not have seen in this event merely the agency of an irrational creature, when he said, "The serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety."+ Our Lord makes an evident allusion to the chapter upon which we are meditating, when he declares that the devil was "a murderer from the beginning." And St. John seems to comment upon these words of his master, when he says, "The devil sinneth from the beginning; for this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil." But to confine myself to one more testimony of an inspired author, I shall again cite the last-mentioned writer, who, alluding to the form under which the devil beguiled our first parents, designates The reader is requested to peruse attentively, among a hundred other passages, the four following: Matt. xiv. 39; xii. 28. 1 Pet. v. 8. Eph. ii. 2. + 2 Cor. xi. 3. John viii. 44. § John iii. 8. him, in two passages of the Apocalypse, "that old serpent, called the devil and Satan, that deceiveth the whole world."* And lastly, we know that the Jews admitted, as an article of faith, the influence of the devil in the first sin committed upon earth. "Through the envy of the devil, death hath entered into the world." It was then Satan, he "who goeth about as a roaring lion," that uttered in Eden words of temptation and of sin. Observe now what the Apostle calls "his devices." See how the character of the seducer betrays itself in the external circumstances of the temptation. First, the enemy attacks the woman, knowing her to be more weak and more impressionable. Though, like her husband, she bore in her all the features of the divine likeness, it is probable that she was inferior to him, as well in strength as in knowledge; perhaps, also, she had received only mediately, through Adam, the prohibition, the violation of which was the cause of her ruin. However this may be, it is against the weak that the dastardly enemy of souls especially directs his assaults; it is the weak that have the * Rev. xii. 9; xx. 2. † Wisd. ii. 24. |