. iii. 1, is a natural
attribute of that animal; and the comparison, in this respect, of the
serpent with the other beasts, clearly indicates that a real serpent is
spoken of. To such an one the denunciation of the punishment must
necessarily, in the first instance, be referred. The last two reasons
also exclude the opinion that Satan assumed merely the semblance of a
serpent.

The serpent itself cannot, however, have acted independently; it can
only have served as an instrument to the evil spirit. The position
which the serpent would occupy, in the event of our considering it as
the self-acting, independent seducer, would be in direct contradiction
to the position assigned to the animal creation throughout Holy
Scripture--especially in the history of the creation--and would break
down the limits which, according to it, separate man and beast. By
such an assumption we should be transferred from the Israelitish
territory--which is distinguished by the most sharply defined
limitations of the respective spheres of God, angels, men, and
beasts--to the heathenish, were these are all mixed up together, and
where all the distinctions disappear in the confusion. Such a fact
would be altogether isolated and without a parallel in Holy Scripture.
Nor is it legitimate to adduce the argument, that the conditions and
circumstances of the paradisaic period were different from those of
subsequent times. It is indeed true, according to the statements
contained in the Mosaic account itself, that the animal world of that
time was different from that of the present; but whatever, and how
great soever, this difference may have been, it had no reference to the
fundamental relation of the beasts; and hence we cannot, from it,
explain the high intellectual powers with which the serpent appears
endowed, and by the abuse of which it succeeded in seducing men. Man,
as the only being on earth created in the likeness and image of God,
is, in Gen. i., strictly distinguished from all other living beings,
and invested with the dominion over them. Into man alone did God
breathe the breath of life (ii. 7); and, according to ii. 19, 20, man
recognises the great gulf which is fixed betwixt him and the world of
beasts. This gulf would be entirely filled up, the serpent would
altogether step beyond the sphere appointed by the Creator to the world
of beasts, if there were no _background_ in Gen. iii. 1-5. _Further_,
The words [Pg 16] of the serpent are an e