as another and
older race. Father Peyrere wrote a book, called "Praadamita," more
than two hundred years ago, pointing out this fact and arguing
that there really were men before Adam. If science should
thoroughly establish the truth of this view, religion need not
suffer; but the common theology, inextricably built upon and
intertangled with the dogma of "original sin," would be hopelessly
ruined. But the leaders in the scientific world will not on that
account shut their eyes nor refuse to reason. Christians should
follow their example of truth seeking, with a deeper faith in God,
fearless of results, but resolved upon reaching reality.

It is a very singular and important fact that, from the appearance
in Genesis of the account of the creation and sin and punishment
of the first pair, not the faintest explicit allusion to it is
subsequently found anywhere in literature until about the time of
Christ. Had it been all along credited in its literal sense, as a
divine revelation, could this be so? Philo Judaus gives it a
thoroughly figurative meaning. He says, "Adam was created mortal
in body, immortal in mind. Paradise is the soul, piety the tree of
life, discriminative wisdom the tree of knowledge; the serpent is
pleasure, the flaming sword turning every way is the sun revolving
round the world."10 Jesus himself never once alludes to Adam or to
any part of the story of Eden. In the whole New Testament there
are but two important references to the tradition, both of which
are by Paul. He says, in effect, "As through the sin of Adam all
are condemned unto death, so by the righteousness of Christ all
shall be justified unto life." It is not a guarded doctrinal
statement, but an unstudied, rhetorical illustration of the
affiliation of the sinful and unhappy generations of the past with
their offending progenitor, Adam, of the believing and blessed
family of the chosen with their redeeming head, Christ. He does
not use the word death in the Epistle to the Romans prevailingly
in the narrow sense of physical dissolution, but in a broad,
spiritual sense, as appears, for example, in these instances: "To
be carnally minded is death;" "The law of the spirit of life in
Christ hath made me free from the law of sin and death." For the
spiritually minded were not exempt from bodily death. Paul himself
died the bodily death. His idea of the relations of Adam and
Christ to humanity is more clearly expressed in the other passage
alre