It is sense which yields to pleasure, and in turn enslaves the reason and destroys its immortal virtue. This exposition, in which the elements of the Bible narrative become mere symbols of the abstract notions of Greek philosophy, and are adapted to Greek conceptions of the origin of evil in the material and sensuous part of man, was adopted into Christian theology by Clement and Origen, notwithstanding its obvious inconsistency with the Pauline anthropology, and the difficulty which its supporters felt in reconciling it with the Christian doctrine of the excellence of the married state (Clemens Alex. Stromata, p. 174). These difficulties had more weight with the Western church, which, less devoted to speculative abstractions and more deeply influenced by the Pauline anthropology, refused, especially since Augustine, to reduce Paradise and the fall to the region of pure intelligibilia; though a spiritual sense was admitted along with the literal (Aug. Civ. Dei, xiii. 21).[1]
The history of Adam and Eve became the basis of anthropological discussions which acquired more than speculative importance from their connexion with the doctrine of original sin and the meaning of the sacrament of baptism. One or two points in Augustinian teaching may be here mentioned as having to do particularly with Eve. The question whether the soul of Eve was derived from Adam or directly infused by the Creator is raised as an element in the great problem of traducianism and creationism (De Gen. ad lit. lib. x.). And it is from Augustine that Milton derives the idea that Adam sinned, not from desire for the forbidden fruit, but because love forbade him to dissociate his fate from Eve’s (ibid. lib. xi. sub fin.). Medieval discussion moved mainly in the lines laid down by Augustine. A sufficient sample of the way in which the subject was treated by the schoolmen may be found in the Summa of Thomas, pars i. qu. xcii. De productione mulieris.
The Reformers, always hostile to allegory, and in this matter especially influenced by the Augustinian anthropology, adhered strictly to the literal interpretation of the history of the Protoplasts, which has continued to be generally identified with Protestant orthodoxy. The disintegration of the confessional doctrine of sin in last century was naturally associated with new theories of the meaning of the biblical narrative; but neither renewed forms of the allegorical interpretation, in which everything is reduced to abstract ideas about reason and sensuality, nor the attempts of Eichhorn and others to extract a kernel of simple history by allowing largely for the influence of poetical form in so early a narrative, have found lasting acceptance. On the other hand, the strict historical interpretation is beset with difficulties which modern interpreters have felt with increasing force, and which there is a growing disposition to solve by adopting in one or other form what is called the mythical theory of the narrative. But interpretations pass under this now popular title which have no real claim to be so designated. What is common to the “mythical” interpretations is to find the real value of the narrative, not in the form of the story, but in the thoughts which it embodies. But the story cannot be called a myth in the strict sense of the word, unless we are prepared to place it on one line with the myths of heathenism, produced by the unconscious play of plastic fancy, giving shape to the impressions of natural phenomena on primitive observers. Such a theory does no justice to a narrative which embodies profound truths peculiar to the religion of revelation. Other forms of the so-called mythical interpretation are little more than abstract allegory in a new guise, ignoring the fact that the biblical story does not teach general truths which repeat themselves in every individual, but gives a view of the purpose of man’s creation, and of the origin of sin, in connexion with the divine plan of redemption. Among his other services in refutation of the unhistorical rationalism of last century, Kant has the merit of having forcibly recalled attention to the fact that the narrative of Genesis, even if we do not take it literally, must be regarded as presenting a view of the beginnings of the history of the human race (Muthmasslicher Anfang der Menschengeschichte, 1786) Those who recognize this fact ought not to call themselves or be called by others adherents of the mythical theory, although they also recognize that in the nature of things the divine truths brought out in the history of the creation and fall could not have been expressed either in the form of literal history or in the shape of abstract metaphysical doctrine; or even although they may hold—as is done by many who accept the narrative as a part of supernatural revelation—that the specific biblical truths which the narrative conveys are presented through the vehicle of a story which, at least in some of its parts, may possibly be shaped by the influence of legends common to the Hebrews with their heathen neighbours. (W. R. S.; [T. K. C.])
EVECTION (Latin for “carrying away”), in astronomy, the
largest inequality produced by the action of the sun in the
monthly revolution of the moon around the earth. The deviation
expressed by it has a maximum amount of about 1° 15′ in either
direction. It may be considered as arising from a semi-annual
variation in the eccentricity of the moon’s orbit and the position
of its perigee. It was discovered by Ptolemy.
EVELETH, a city of St Louis county, Minnesota, U.S.A., about 71 m. N.N.W. of Duluth. Pop. (1900) 2752; (1905, state census) 5332, of whom 2975 were foreign-born (1145 Finns, 676 Austrians and 325 Swedes); (1910) 7036. Eveleth is served by the Duluth, Missabe & Northern and the Duluth & Iron Range railways. It lies in the midst of the great red and brown hematite iron-ore deposits of the Mesabi Range—the richest in the Lake Superior district—and the mining and shipping of this ore are its principal industries. The municipality owns and operates the water-works, the water being obtained from Lake Saint Mary, one of a chain of small lakes lying S. of the city. Eveleth was first chartered as a city in 1902.
EVELYN, JOHN (1620–1706), English diarist, was born at
Wotton House, near Dorking, Surrey, on the 31st of October
1620. He was the younger son of Richard Evelyn, who owned
large estates in the county, and was in 1633 high sheriff of Surrey
and Sussex. When John Evelyn was five years old he went to
live with his mother’s parents at Cliffe, near Lewes. He refused
to leave his “too indulgent” grandmother for Eton, and when
on her husband’s death she married again, the boy went with her
to Southover, where he attended the free school of the place.
He was admitted to the Middle Temple in February 1637, and in
May he became a fellow commoner of Balliol College, Oxford.
He left the university without taking a degree, and in 1640 was
residing in the Middle Temple. In that year his father died, and
in July 1641 he crossed to Holland. He was enrolled as a
volunteer in Apsley’s company, then encamped before Genep
on the Waal, but his commission was apparently complimentary,
his military experience being limited to six days of camp life,
during which, however, he took his turn at “trailing a pike.”
He returned in the autumn to find England on the verge of
civil war. Evelyn’s part in the conflict is best told in his own
words:—
“12th November was the battle of Brentford, surprisingly fought. . . . I came in with my horse and arms just at the retreat; but was not permitted to stay longer than the 15th by reason of the army marching to Gloucester; which would have left both me and my brothers exposed to ruin, without any advantage to his Majesty . . . and on the 10th [December] returned to Wotton, nobody knowing of my having been in his Majesty’s army.”
At Wotton he employed himself in improving his brother’s property, making a fishpond, an island and other alterations in the gardens. But he found it difficult to avoid taking a side; he was importuned to sign the Covenant, and “finding it impossible to evade doing very unhandsome things,” he obtained leave in October 1643 from the king to travel abroad. From this date his Diary becomes full and interesting. He travelled in France and visited the cities of Italy, returning in the autumn of 1646 to Paris, where he became intimate with Sir Richard Browne, the English resident at the court of France. In June of the following year he married Browne’s daughter and heiress, Mary, then a child of not more than twelve years of age. Leaving
- ↑ Thus in medieval theology Eve is a type of the church, and her formation from the rib has a mystic reason, inasmuch as blood and water (the sacraments of the church) flowed from the side of Christ on the cross (Thomas, Summa, par. i. qu. xcii.).
