MAN'S PRIMITIVE STATE 131 



Eden, as therein described in geographical terms, ever 

 existed; as to whether the tree of life, and the tree of 

 knowledge ought to be interpreted literally; as to 

 whether Eve was really built up from one of Adam's 

 ribs; and as to whether the bringing of animals to 

 Adam to be named by him is genuine history. Some 

 of the ancients interpreted the whole narrative as 

 historical, others as symbolical, and St. Augustine 

 appears to have thought it to be partly historical and 

 partly symbolical. Perhaps we shall not be far from 

 the truth if we think — remembering, of course, that 

 the opinion binds no one — that the sacred writer 

 described man's primitive state in terms derived from 

 fallible tradition, his narrative, none the less, being 

 made by divine inspiration to exhibit a true spiritual 

 picture of the state from which mankind has fallen. 

 Whether this opinion is correct or not, we cannot re- 

 ject the spiritual impKcations of the narrative without 

 impugning the catholic doctrine of biblical inspiration.* 



1 In reply to the criticism that he assumes "that the doctrines 

 of the Fall and Original Sin are shown to be invalid by a critical 

 examination of their origin and growth," F. R. Tennant says, Origin 

 of Sin, Pref. to the 2d ed., p. xvi., that his argument "does not make 

 'genesis the determinant of validity,' but it implies that proven valid- 

 ity is not established by genesis in fiction." It must be granted that 

 proven validity is not established by genesis in mere fiction, but fic- 

 tion that is found in divinely inspired Scripture, and obviously has 

 didactic meaning, is more than mere fiction; moreover, the doctrine 

 of man's primitive state and fall has its genesis, not in the Eden 

 narrative considered alone, but in a progressive revelation, 

 inductively regarded, of which that narrative constitutes an early 

 stage. It is in the light of redemption that the story in Genesis is 

 perceived to embody a spiritual description of man's primitive state 



