what extent he did so. Besides, objections have been urged to the genuineness of this passage; see Duncker, s. 115, Anm. But Irenæus speaks elsewhere plainly enough of the fall of Adam as an historical fact, iii. 18 (Gr. 20), p. 211 (Gr. 248), iii. 21 (Gr. 31), p. 218 (Gr. 259) ss. Thus he labours to defend the threatening of God: "For in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die," from the chronological point of view, by taking the word "day" (as in the account of the creation) in the sense of "period," for "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." Adam and Eve died during that period on the same day of the week on which they were created and disobeyed the command of God, viz. on a Friday within the first one thousand years; Adv. Hær. v. 23, 2. See Duncker,

́s. 129.

(4) Tert. Adv. Judæos, ii. p. 184; De Virg. vel. 11; Adv. Marc. ii. 2 ss., and other passages. He insists upon the literal interpretation of the particulars of the narrative, as they succeeded each other in order of time, in his De Resurr. Carn. 61: Adam ante nomina animalibus enunciavit quam de arbore decerpsit; ante etiam prophetavit quam voravit.

(5) On the Gnostic (Basilidian) doctrine of the fall (ouyXvois ȧрxin), comp. Clem. Strom. ii. 20, p. 488. Gieseler, Studien und Kritiken, 1840, s. 396. Baur, s. 211. The author of the Clementine Homilies goes so far in idealizing Adam, as to convert the historical person into a purely mythical being (like the Adam-Cadmon of the Cabbalists), while he represents Eve as far inferior to him. Hence Adam Icould not sin, but sin makes its first appearance in Cain. See Credner, ii. 258, iii. 284. Baur, Gnosis, s. 339. Schliemann, s. 177 ff. Hilgenfeld, s. 291. Baur, Dg. s. 582. The origin of sin is derived from the disorder introduced by the domination exercised by the feminine principle. On the other hand, the Gnostic Cainites rendered homage to Cain, as the representative of freedom from the thraldom of the demiurge; while the Gnostic Sethites considered Cain as the representative of the hylic, Abel as that of the psychical, and Seth as that of the pneumatic principle, the ideal of humanity. Neander, Kircheng. i. 2, s. 758 ff.

$62.

State of Innocence and Fall.

With all their differences of opinion respecting the original endowments of the first man (1), and the nature of his sin (2), all the Catholic teachers agreed in this, that the temptation of the serpent was a real temptation to sin, and, accordingly, that the transgression of the command given by Jehovah was a fall from a state of innocence, followed by disasters to the human race (3). On the other hand, the Clementine Ebionites denied that Adam could have sinned (4); and the Ophites thought that by this event (at least in one respect) man was elevated to his proper dignity,-a transition to freedom; inasmuch as the prohibition had proceeded from the envy Jaldabaoth, but the act of disobedience had been brought about by the influence of wisdom (Sophia), the symbol of which is the serpent (5).

of

(1) These were especially exaggerated by the author of the Clementine Homilies (see the preceding section). Adam possessed prophetic gifts, Hom. iii. 21, viii. 10 (Credner, ii. s. 248; Baur, s. 363; Schliemann, s. 175; Hilgenfeld, s. 294), which, however, Tertullian, De Resurr. Carn. c. 61, also ascribed to him. The Ophites taught that Adam and Eve had light and luminous bodies, see Baur, s. 187. The theologians, previous to the time of Augustine, attached less weight to what was afterwards called justitia originalis. According to Theophilus of Antioch (ad Aut. ii. 24, 27), Adam was výπios, and had to be treated as a child; he was neither mortal nor immortal, but capable of either mortality or immortality. Clement of Alexandria maintains the same, Strom. vi. 12, p. 788: "They may learn from us (he says in opposition to the Gnostics), that Adam was created perfect, not in relation to his moral excellences, but in respect to his capacity of receiving virtue; for there is certainly a difference between a capacity for virtue and the real possession of it. God will have us attain to

bliss by our own exertions, hence it belongs to the nature of the soul to determine itself," etc. (in Baur, Gnosis, s. 493). Clement accordingly restricts the original endowments (Strom. iv. p. 632) to what is purely human as a basis for action: Οὐδὲν γὰρ τῶν χαρακτηριζόντων τὴν ἀνθρώπου ἰδέαν τε καὶ μορφὴν ἐνεδέησεν αὐτῷ.

(2) Justin M. attributes the fall mainly to the cunning malignity of Satan; Dial. c. Tryph. c. 119, p. 205. A beast (Onpíov) seduced man. On his own part he added disobedience and misbelief; comp. Semisch, 1.c. s. 393, 394. Clement of Alexandria conceives that it was sensuality which caused the fall of the first man; Coh. p. 86: "Opis åλλnγορεῖται ἡδονὴ ἐπὶ γαστέρα ἕρπουσα, κακία γηΐνη εἰς ὅλας τρεφομένη. (Thiersch conjectures the reading τρεπομένη in Rudelbach's Zeitschrift f. d. luth. Theol. 1841, 2, s. 184.) Comp. Strom. iii. 17, p. 559 (470, Sylb.). Clement does not (like the Encratites whom he combats) blame the cohabitation of our first parents as in itself sinful, but he objects that it took place too soon; this is also implied in the passage, Strom. ii. 19, p. 481: Τὰ μὲν αἰσχρὰ οὗτος προθύμως εἵλετο, ἑπόμενος τῇ γυναικί. Comp. § 61, 2.

(3) The notion that the tree itself was the cause of death (its fruit being venomous), is rejected by Theophil. of Antioch, ad Autol. ii. 25: Οὐ γὰρ, ὡς οἴονταί τινες, θάνατον εἶχε τὸ ξύλον ἀλλ ̓ ἡ παρακοή.

(4) Comp. § 61, note 5. Adam could not sin, because the θεῖον πνεῦμα, or the σοφία itself, having been manifested in him, the latter must have sinned; but such an assertion would be impious; comp. Schliemann, u. s. Yet the Clementines seem to adopt the view, that the image of God was defaced in the descendants of the first human pair; comp. Hilgenfeld, s. 291.

(5) The Ophites are in confusion about their own doctrines; for at one time they render divine homage to the serpent, at another they say that Eve was seduced by its deception. Epiph. Hær. 37, 6. Baur, s. 178 ff.

$63.

The Effects of the Fall.

Death was the punishment which Jehovah had threatened to inflict upon the transgressors of His law. Nevertheless the act of transgression was not immediately succeeded by death, but by a train of evils which came upon both the man and the woman, introductory to death, and testifying that man had become mortal. Accordingly, both death and physical evils were considered as the effects of Adam's sin; thus, e.g., by Irenæus and others (1). But opinions were not as yet fully developed concerning the moral depravity of each individual, and the sin of the race in general, considered as the effect of the first sin. They were so much disposed to look upon sin as the free act of man's will, that they could hardly conceive of it as simply a hereditary tendency, transmitted from one to another. The sin of every individual, as found in experience, had its type in the sin of Adam, and consequently appeared to be a repetition, rather than a necessary consequence, of the first sin (2). In order to explain the mysterious power which drives man to evil, they had recourse to the influence of the demons, strong, but not absolutely compulsory, rather than to a total bondage of the will (as the result of original sin) (3). Nevertheless we meet in the writings of Irenæus with indications of more deepreaching effects of the fall (4). Tertullian and Origen aided more definitely the theory of original sin, though from different points of view. Origen thought that souls were stained with sin in a former state, and thus enter into the world in a sinful condition. To this idea he added another, allied to the notions. of Gnostics and Manichees, viz. that there is a stain in physical generation itself (5). According to Tertullian, the soul itself is propagated with all its defects as matter is propagated. The phrase "vitium originis," first used by him, is in perfect accord

ance with this view (6). But both were far from considering inherent depravity as involving accountability, and still farther from believing in the entire absence of human liberty (7).

et

(1) Iren. iii. 23 (Gr. 35), p. 221 (Gr. 263): Condemnationem autem transgressionis accepit homo tædia terrenum laborem et manducare panem in sudore vultus sui et converti in terram, ex qua assumtus est; similiter autem mulier tædia et labores et gemitus et tristitias partus et servitium, i.e. ut serviret viro suo: ut neque maledicti a Deo in totum perirent, neque sine increpatione perseverantes Deum contemnerent (comp. c. 37, p. 264, Grabe). Ibid. v. 15, p. 311 (Gr. 423)... propter inobedientiæ peccatum subsecuti sunt languores hominibus. V. 17, p. 313 (p. 426). V. 23, p. 320 (p. 435): Sed quoniam Deus verax est, mendax autem serpens, de effectu ostensum est morte subsecuta eos, qui manducaverunt. Simul enim cum esca et mortem adsciverunt, quoniam inobedientes manducabant: inobedientia autem Dei mortem infert, et sqq. (Hence the devil is called a murderer. from the beginning.) But Irenæus also sees a blessing in the penalty inflicted by God, iii. 20, 1: Magnanimus (i.e. μakpóOvμos) fuit Deus deficiente homine, eam quæ per verbum esset victoriam reddendam ei providens. He compares the fall of man to the fate of the prophet Jonah, who was swallowed by the whale in order to be saved. Thus man is swallowed by the great whale (the devil), that Christ may deliver him out of his jaws; comp. Duncker, s. 151. According to Cyprian, De Bono Patientiæ, p. 212, even the higher physical strength of man (along with immortality) was lost by the fall; Origen also connected the existence of evil in the world with sin. Comp. above, § 48. By death, however, the Alexandrians do not mean physical death, which, on their postulates, they must regard as a wise arrangement of nature (φυσικὴ ἀνάγκη θείας oikovoμías), and so as a blessing; but moral and spiritual death. Clement, Strom. iii. p. 540, and the passages from Origen in Gieseler's Dogmengesch. s. 182. [Comm. in Matt. xiii. § 7, in Joan. xvii. § 37. On the Ep. to the Romans, lib. vi. § 6, Origen declares the death effected by sin to be the separation of the soul from God: Separatio animæ a Deo mors appellatur, quæ per peccatum venit.]