quence. St. Paul (who probably accepted the Jewish Devil) does not identify the serpent with the Devil, 2 Corinthians xi. 3, he merely says the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety; nor is there any other allusion to the serpent of Genesis in the New Testament.

42. Now all we know about this story of Eve's temptation by the serpent with the apples' is that it is one of a large number of similar stories connected with tree-worship and serpentworship, not peculiar to the Jews but common throughout the East, and that it covered beneath the symbolism of the serpent and the fruit an allusion to the seductive nature of the earthly desires. I need not say that this has been long known to every student of theological lore, and why it is systematically withheld from the people the clergy will some day have to explain. The fact is that we know, as a rule, so much about Jewish religion, and so little about other religions, that we have been led to think that the story of Eden was peculiar to

See an "Armen-Bibel," in Dresden Library (circ. 1400), with woodcut of Eve holding two apples. Also picture in Dresden Gallery (No. 1,744), by Lucas Cranach.

the Jews; but in fact it is a parable of human nature, and is for all time, its symbols are those of our common humanity, and its lesson is the lesson of our common experience.

43. But if the story of Eden, of the apples and the serpent, is prevalent throughout the religion of the East, is it not because it is true? The reply is simple. Discover that of which the story is a symbol, and you have explained the story. Just as, when you have discovered that Apollo's arrows mean the rays of the sun, you seek no further for an historical Apollo, so when you discover the nature of serpentworship you understand the story of Eve's temptation, together with all stories of a similar class, without the dull conversion of myth into history, still alas! popular with the literal but illiterate school of theologians.

44. The famous prophecy, " It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel," commonly interpreted to mean that the woman's seed, Christ, should bruise the head of the serpent, that is, the Devil, is only one more instance of the common ransacking of the Bible for

Messianic texts, quite excusable amongst the Jewish Rabbi, but inexcusable in fair-minded Christian scholars. When the words were written the doctrine of a chief Devil, as I shall presently show, was not known. The words simply imply the victory of the carnal desires in the bruising of the woman's heel, symbol of humanity in its lower aspects, but the ultimate and ever-growing subordination of the lower nature in the higher progress and development of the race; in other words, to understand the bruising of the serpent's head, compare the relations of the sexes in a wellregulated society and in primitive or savage life, and the fulfilment of the prophecy will be evident.

So far from the serpent in the Jewish version of the story being the Devil, Roskoff in his History of the Devil has conclusively shown that such a dualism was so abhorrent at this time to the Jews, that although in the original Eastern but un-Jewish myth from which the story of Eden is derived the tempter is a kind of sublime demon, he is reduced in Genesis to the humble position of the "most subtle of the beasts." Roskoff in his elaborate work has

shown in the same way that the mysterious Azazel, to whom a goat was offered, was not a real being, but only the personification of uncleanness, the monotheistic feeling of the Jews again reducing this evil deity to a mere shadowy abstraction. Neither Azazel nor the serpent then can be taken for the Devil of a later creed.

45 There is no mention of Satan at all in the Old Testament, except in the later books of Job, Zechariah, and the first book of the Chronicles. Of evil spirits there is mention-Saul's evil spirit, lying spirits in the mouths of the prophets, &c.-but not of the King-Devil. All through the earliest books we have no allusion whatever, as far as I can see, to any Arch-Fiend or Chief-Devil: on the contrary, all the functions that we have attributed for ages to the Devil were in the early times referred to Jehovah Himself.

It was Jehovah, the God of the Jews, who was said to destroy, to provoke, to harden. It was not the Devil, it was God who hardened Pharaoh's heart, God who destroyed Pharaoh's host, God who "moved" David to number the people. And here I come to the very

link where the functions of Jehovah in the Jewish theology are seen passing over to the Arch-Fiend; for notice that in the earlier book of Samuel (2 Sam. xxiv.) it is said that God "moved" David to number the people of Israel, whereas in a later book (1 Chron. xxi.) Satan is said to "provoke" him to number the people. We can see the spiritual sensitiveness of the race growing and developing, until the Jews found it impossible to credit Jehovah with tempting His people. As St. James says, "God tempteth no man, neither is He tempted of any," &c., so gradually all functions dishonouring to the Deity, although originally attributed to Him, were transferred to one of His celestial agents, not yet distinguished as the Arch-Fiend but a "son of God," a chief prosecutor, an accuser of the brethren, or a satan, which means an "adversary "—not yet of God, only of man.

46. We must now fasten our attention closely upon this celestial prosecutor or satan, and we shall see how step by step he grows in importance, until he ends in the Arch-Fiend of the popular theology.

Turn to the book of Job i. 6, there you will