io's
view of the paradisaical condition and the fall of man and the progress
of society is at all in conformity with the ideas we ought to form of the
institutions of an infinitely wise and powerful Being. Besides, Ambrosio
speaks of the reasonableness of his own opinions; of course his notions
of reason must be different from mine, or we have adopted different forms
of logic. I do not find in the biblical history any idea of the supreme
Intelligence conformable to those of the Greek philosophers; on the
contrary, I find Jehovah everywhere described as a powerful material
being, endowed with organs, feelings, and passions similar to those of a
great and exalted human agent. He is described as making man in His own
image, as walking in the garden in the cool of the evening, as being
pleased with sacrificial offerings, as angry with Adam and Eve, as
personally cursing Cain for his crime of fratricide, and even as
providing our first parents with garments to hide their nakedness; then
He appears a material form in the midst of flames, thunder and lightning,
and was regarded by the Levites as having a fixed residence in the Ark.
He is contrasted throughout the whole of the Old Testament with the gods
of the heathens, only as being more powerful; and in the strange scene
which took place in Pharaoh's court He seemed to have measured His
abilities with those of certain seers or magicians, and to have proved
His superiority only by producing greater and more tremendous plagues. In
all the early history of the Jewish nation there is no conception
approaching to the sublimity of that of Anaxagoras, who called God the
Intelligence or [Greek text]. He appears always, on the contrary, like
the genii of Arabian romance, living in clouds, descending on mountains,
urging His chosen people to commit the most atrocious crimes, to destroy
all the races not professing the same worship, and to exterminate even
the child and the unborn infant. Then, I find in the Old Testament no
promise of a spiritual Messiah, but only of a temporal king, who, as the
Jews believe, is yet to come. The serpent in Genesis has no connection
with the spirit of evil, but is described only as the most subtle beast
of the field, and, having injured man, there was to be a perpetual enmity
between their races--the serpent when able was to bite the heel of the
man, and the man when an opportunity occurred was to bruise the head of
the serpent. I will allow, if