Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Prehistoric Religion: A Study in Pre-Christian Antiquity; An Examination of the Religious Beliefs of the Oceanic, Central African, and Amazonian Primitives, Their Development Among the Later Indo-Asiatic and Totemic Peoples, Their Interpretation by the Western-Asiatic
Then again there are other subjects which have a more intimate rela tion to man's supernatural destiny. The fact that the Redeemer points to an age of original innocence which was subsequently lost by an act of moral rebellion, this can hardly be squared with the current notions. Popular or professional, that. The human race has on the contrary raised itself by its own impetus from the lowest fetichism and animal-worship to the most exalted monotheism and monogamous practices of modern times. If the one is true, the other is clearly false. Now whatever view we may take of the Paradise-story as having a mystical content, it is quite certain that the Messiah refers to it not simply as speech-figure, but as an actual condition of the first couple. Have ye not read, that He who made man from the beginning, made them male and female? Moses by reason of the hardness of your heart permitted you to put away your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. (matt. 19, 4. '19, As Christ is continually quoting the Torah. It is clear that He regards it as revealed history, and part of this history includes the originally sacred character of the marriage-tie. Primitive man was monogamous, polygamy belongs to a later age.
In like manner the story of Eden cannot be dissolved into myth, but is a definite prehistoric event, upon which the Whole of Christian theology is founded. And as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive. (i. Cor. 15, What becomes of this doctrine if man be regarded as a mere product of nature, of blind evolutionary forces? The first and second Adam stand and fall together; and in defending the one, we are defending the other.
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