Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 13.pdf/230

 Chapters from the Biblical Law, in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shall surely die," and yet in sentencing Adam, the law was not strictly applied; and instead of being condemned to death, he was con demned to work for a living. It may be presumed that the judge in this case took into consideration the fact that there was a strong inducement for the breach of the law, inasmuch as Eve had alreadyeaten of the fruit; and it was through her persuasion that Adam ate of it also; and in this view of the case the sentence of death would have been too severe a punishment for the crime. I call the attention of criminologists to this case. The abolition of capital punishment and the substitution of life imprisonment at hard labor finds its arche type in this decree. The manner in which the Lord God con ducted the investigation in this case is also characteristic of patriarchal administration of justice. The principal offender is brought before him, and is immediately subjected -to a cross-examination whereby he is com pelled to criminate himself. The very ques tion, "Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat?" was intended to elicit a confession; and the man who lived in a state of innocence and who was blissfully ignorant of modern rules of law, which have been invented for the purpose of saving criminals from endan gering- their lives by their own confessions, promptly admitted the deed. I If Adam had been a well-posted modern offender, he would have said, "I decline to answer on the ground that the answer to this question would incriminate me;" and then, as the only witness against him was his wife, and it would not have been difficult for Adam's counsel to have her testimony ex cluded on that account, it would have been impossible to prove a case against him. But procedure in patriarchal days was simplicity itself. The man admitted his offence and blamed it on the woman, thereupon the woman is summoned to appear, and she, although she has been guilty of no breach

201

of law, is similarly subjected to an examina tion, "What is this that thou hast done?" And then she tells her story and blames it on the serpent, and the serpent, not being a legal person at all, and having no higher status in this legend than a slave would have in the patriarchal society is condemned without being heard. Now, the serpent's only fault was that it induced Eve to eat of the tree, and if Eve had not induced Adam to do the same, no crime would have been committed. The serpent's action was the very remote cause of the breach of the law by Adam. The proximate, and indeed, the only cause of the breach of the law was the solicitation of Eve; but all these refinements and distinctions did not exist in the primitive patriarchal society. God felt that the serpent had done wrong in beguiling Eve and ought to be pun ished, even though there was no breach of the law involved. That is exactly the man ner in which the patriarch would administer justice. ' The punishment inflicted upon the serpent was by no means commensurate with the character of its offence. It had been guilty of a species of seduction; and although it had been more subtle than any beast of the field, and had been permitted to hold free inter course with its human companions, it was now disgraced below every beast of the field, condemned to crawl on its belly and eat dust, and be in a state of perpetual warfare with the human species. Thus, for some trivial offence, the house slave of the patriarch might be disgraced below the most menial of the slaves of the field. The punishment meted out to the woman was likewise excessive. She who had been the equal of man was now made his subor dinate, "Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thec." The real offender is by this decree elevated above the comparatively innocent cause of the crime. The solicitude of the woman that her hus band should also eat of the tree was probablydue to the fact that finding that she did not die when she had eaten of it, that it was good