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Eve
by
Grace Aguilar
Part Two
The longer paragraphs have been split for ease of reading and some very long sentences broken apart for the same reason. All the headings have been inserted by us, as has all the coloured emphasis. The italics are in the original.
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FIRST PERIOD.
THE WIVES OF THE PATRIARCHS.
_______
Ed’s Note: It should be recognised at this point that the Jews as a whole do not understand the true state of the dead as revealed in the Bible, but believe in an "immortal" soul which exists apart from the body (like most professed Christians). This writer’s comments should be read with this in mind.
CHAPTER 1.
EVE
Part Two
(The headings, the words in square brackets, and the coloured emphasis have all been supplied by the editor)
Years must have rolled over the heads of our first parents since their expulsion, ere the fearful event took place, which, although it mentions not their names, must recall our attention to them [Cain’s killing of Abel].
Although, in comparison, they had become degraded, and the recollection of their sin must ever have remained with its stinging remorse, - still, repentance and real sorrow, meek submission to their chastisement and acknowledgment of its justice, raised them from their first abject misery, and permitted them once more, through prayer and thanksgiving and sacrifice, to commune with the Lord.
Eve’s exclamation on the birth of Cain – ‘I have gotten a man from the Lord,’ proves how closely and devoutly she still traced all blessings from His gracious hand: - hallowing her maternal joy by gratitude to Him. His love had bestowed on her a blessing unknown even in Eden [and in the universe] – a child – a possession peculiarly her own and her husband’s; and in the exultation of her grateful joy she calls his name [Hebrew character] Cain, from [Hebrew character], to possess or to acquire.
In his early infancy, ere he became awake to right and wrong, his parents could but feel enjoyment to train him up so as to know no sin, to love and serve the Lord, and to give them love and reverence in return for the deep, endless fondness they lavished upon him.
But by the name bestowed upon their second son, Abel, we may almost suppose that they had already felt the vanity of these hopes and wishes; that even in his boyhood Cain manifested those evil passions and that headstrong will, which led in after years to such fearful consequences.
The effects of Eve’s disobedience were now to be displayed in her own offspring – the child of exultation and joy – whom she had welcomed with such delight, that she almost felt as if no sorrow or suffering could assail her more, was the instrument in the Eternal hand to bring her back meekly and submissively to Him, in prayer for that beloved one; in recognition that her sin was working still. The passions and rebellion of her firstborn brought all the agony of remorse fresh upon her heart; and, deep as was the joy with which she had hailed his birth, was the anxiety, the suffering his dawning character called forth.
Actuated by such emotions, it was with sorrow, then, more than joy that the birth of her second boy was hailed. She had already felt the vanity, the transientness [the passing] of her hopes: - and mournfully she called his name [Hebrew character] Hebel [Abel] – transientness or vanity, from [a Hebrew character], which signifies to follow a vain thing, to cherish vain thoughts.
But as is the case (how often even now!) the child of tears and anticipated sorrow proved as dear and precious a blessing as the son of exultation was of grief.
She saw in him [Abel] the ascendency of the spiritual, the deathless part of their mingled nature, that evil could still be subdued, and man be still acceptable and worthy in the sight of his Creator. The compassionate love of the Eternal, while He chastised through Cain, gave hope and trust and comfort through Abel. He showed, through these varying natures, that free-will to choose the good and eschew [turn away from] the evil was still given; and that though the latter to the eyes of the world might seem, nay, was the ascendant, He would yet preserve His witnesses among mankind, to keep alive the knowledge of the Lord, and prove the pre-eminence, the beauty, the glory, and the consolation of piety and virtue.
So years rolled on: the boys grew up to manhood. And though it is not specifically mentioned, it is evident that Eve must also have borne a daughter, who, as was absolutely necessary in the early stages of the world, became the wife of Cain. Some writers believe that Cain and Abel were both born with twin sisters. It may or may not be, as it must be only conjecture, though Cain’s wife only is mentioned.
The words of Scripture ‘and he (Adam) begat sons and daughters,’ are sufficient for our information. In all probability his family was a large one, that his seed might fulfil the intention of the Eternal in peopling the world; but how many daughters he had before the death of Abel does not appear, and is of little consequence.
During the growth of their elder children, the lives of our first parents differ little in feeling from those of the present day. Their employments, indeed, were as unlike as patriarchal simplicity is from worldly interest and luxury – the peace of nature from the contention of the world. In reading the narratives of the Bible, we often blend situation with feeling, and believe that as the one is too antiquated for interest and example, so is the other for sympathy and love. But the Bible tells of no character above human nature; and why not, then, in perusing the circumstances of their simple lives, try their feelings by the standard of our own?
Who that is a mother does not feel anxiety, pleasure, grief, joy, despondency, and hope, almost all at the same time, according to the differing dispositions of her children? Who that is a parent does not acknowledge that maternal love may combine the intensest joy with the intensest grief? And will they not then sympathize the feelings of Eve? – at one time bowed to the very dust in the anguish occasioned by the sinful inclinations and rude temper of her first-born, in self-accusation that she, perhaps, was the original cause, even as an affectionate mother very often accuses herself for the faults of her offspring – at another, weeping tears of sweet joy, and love, and consolation, on the gentle bosom of her Abel, whose whole life and thoughts were directed to piety and virtue to God and to his parents – whose very existence, as her own had been in Paradise, seemed bright with reverence and love?
But even this life of mingled grief and comfort might not last. Not yet had Eve sufficiently atoned for her disobedience, and proved her love and faith to pass through the awful portals of death, to the home prepared for her in heaven. Death, as concerned herself, her husband, her children, was still the dark shadow through which as yet no certain light had beamed. The Eternal, in His mercy, had prepared to reveal it, but through clouds of denser, more appalling blackness than had yet gathered round His creatures.
Wrought up to frenzy by the preference manifested toward the pious offering of his younger brother – refusing to acknowledge that it was the temper of his own mind at fault, and that he had himself trampled on and defied the favour he had yet coveted, when shown to another – still sullenly and obstinately encouraging the evil, even when the Lord, in infinite mercy, condescended Himself to speak with His rebellious servant, and asking why he was wroth, informed him, that though sin was ever crouching beside him, he (Cain) had the power to rule over and subdue it, still disregarding even this, listening but to the fearful instigations of his own heart, - ‘it came to pass, when they were in the field together, that Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and slew him.’
The dark terror of death was mysterious no longer. In its most fearful, most appalling shape, it had descended upon earth – the bright, the beautiful, the loving, and the holy, there he lay before the eyes of his agonized parents, his life-blood dyeing the greensward – that face, so fair, so sweet an index of the pure glorious soul – those limbs, so soft and round and graceful, whose every movement had brought joy to his mother’s heart – they gazed upon them still, beautiful as if he slept, save that there was a stillness and a coldness as the earth on which he lay. This, then, was death, and it had been dealt by a brother’s hand.
Can any woman, much less a mother, reflect on Eve’s immeasurable agony, and yet pass lightly and heedlessly over this first narration of Holy Writ, refusing sympathy, even interest, in the deep dark floods of misery with which, though her name is not mentioned, those few words of a brother’s hate and wrath and murder teem?
Not alone a mother’s anguish, deprived of both her children in one fearful day – no, not alone the wild yearnings of affection towards the guilty and the exile, struggling with the passionate misery for her own bereavement, but more crushing, more agonizing still – it was her work – she had disobeyed, to obtain the knowledge of good and evil – and how appallingly had that forbidden knowledge poured back its stinging poison into her own heart!
Her beautiful had fallen – she might never, never gaze upon him, list his sweet voice more – the dust had gone to its dust – sent to his grave in his youth, his sinlessness – the helpless and the innocent crushed by the strong hand of the guilty – and the Eternal had looked down from His awful throne and interfered not. Why had the only innocent, the only righteous, been the first to pay the penalty of death, when his guilty parents and yet more guilty brother were permitted still to live? Nay, the doom of Cain, which the hardened one himself declared ‘was greater than he could bear,’ was not to die, but to live as a wanderer whom none might slay. Why might such things be? Were they reconcilable with those attributes of justice and of love and long-suffering which the Eternal had already proclaimed, through His conduct to His creatures? They were: for in the death of the innocent IMMORTALITY was proclaimed!
The disobedient looked on the death their sin had brought – they felt, in their own bosoms, the deepest agony of bereavement – they saw not the terror, only as the end of existence; but by the scythe cutting down the young in his first beautiful spring, and in the full prime of holiness and good, they learned what their own death, at the moment of disobedience, could not have taught – that the righteous must also be cut off, as well as the guilty – that death was not only chastisement for itself alone, but in the deep agony it inflicted upon the living, in the awful trial of separation and bereavement, and the utter loneliness of heart when a beloved one goes; and this learned, the world beyond death, the dwelling of the righteous, the reunion of the divine essence with its parent Fount – immortality – was revealed!
That the caviller [critic], the sceptic, the thoughtless will deny this, because we can bring forward no written proof of its truth, we are perfectly aware: but we write for the believer, for the Israelite, who not only reads the words of his Bible, but explains them by one only unerring test – the ATTRIBUTES of God.
The question is simply this – Do we believe in a God? That He is, as He proclaimed Himself, ‘merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and sin, ‘yet clearing not the guilty,’ without repentance and amendment? Do we believe in Him, as in every page of His Holy Word He is revealed, or do we not?
If we do not – if we deny the existence of a just and merciful, though in many instances inscrutable, God, then indeed we may deny our immortality; but if we acknowledge there is a God, ay, and one whose justice and whose love are infinite and perfect as Himself, we must not only believe in our own immortality, but trace its doctrine running through the Holy Scriptures, alike from the death of Abel to the last verses of Malachi, pervading, vivifying, spiritualizing its every portion, even as our mortal frame is pervaded, vivified, and spiritualized, by the invisible, yet ever-breathing SOUL. We do not doubt and question that we have a soul, because we have nothing palpable and evident by which to prove it; and even as the soul is the essence, the spirit of our being, so is immortality the essence and the spirit of the Bible.
Where was the mercy, nay, the justice of the Eternal, had He punished with eternal death the only righteous of His creatures? We can scarcely even dwell upon the idea for a moment without impiety. Abel was taken, that while death in its most fearful form was revealed, to manifest all the terrible evil and anguish Eve’s sin had brought, the hope and promise of immortality might be given, and the agonized parents comforted. He was removed ‘from the evil to come,’ to that world where ‘light had been sown for the righteous’ from the beginning, and would be for ever.
But though this revelation must have brought with it comfort unspeakable, yet the heavy trial of Eve might not even, through this beneficent assurance, be entirely assuaged [lessened]. She could not now, as she had done in Eden, realize so blessedly the pre-eminence of the spirit over the feelings of the clay. Though comforted, the weakness of humanity must still have been too often in the ascendant, and taught her all the bitterness of grief. Even though the thought of Abel might, through the unselfishness of woman’s love, be tranquillized by the idea, that however she might suffer, he was happy, as she had been in Eden, no such comfort could attend the thought of Cain.
It is vain to measure maternal love by the worth of unworthiness of its objects. It was not only that he was exiled for ever from her sight, that her yearning heart might never seek to soothe him more; but she knew that he was, he must be, a wretched wanderer; and the mother felt his wretchedness, though she saw it not, in addition to her own. Mercy, indeed, had tempered his chastisement, for he had not been cut off in his sin – he had been doomed to length of days on earth, that he might repent and atone; but this, to a weak and suffering parent, though she might struggle to lift up her heart in gratitude, could not afford consolation.
There is little more to narrate in the life of Eve; but that little, as every other incident in her life, proves forcibly the Eternal’s still compassionating love. To remove all of utter bereavement from His first created, first beloved, when the first agony of Eve’s heavy trial was over, God gave her another son, ‘And she called his name [Hebrew character] Seth, because, she said, God has appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.’
And as from Seth descended a line of venerable patriarchs, one of whom [Enoch] was taken up to heaven, without dying, for his righteousness; and from them came Noah, who alone was saved from universal destruction; then through him Abraham, the favoured servant and friend of the Eternal – Abraham, for whose sake Israel was the chosen, and is still the beloved of the Lord, we may quite believe that Eve was not only comforted by the gift of a son, but that even as Abel he was righteous, and that he was the comforter of his parents – that in beholding his opening manhood, the dawning virtue and graces of his spirit, the fiery trial of their early life was soothed, and they could trace the hand of the Lord bringing forth good out of the very midst of evil, and rest satisfied, that however the strong and the guilty might seem to prosper, He would never leave Himself without witnesses upon earth.
Although there is no mention of the death of Eve, the words of Holy Writ, informing us that ‘Adam lived eight hundred years after he had begotten Seth, and had sons and daughters,’ would prove that she, too, lived that period, there being no mention whatever, as is often the case with the other patriarchs, of Adam taking another wife. The former temptations, trials, and sorrows of our first parents must, then, have been looked back upon by them in their old age, as we should look on the events which may have befallen us before the age of twenty, when we have reached the venerable years of fourscore [eighty].
That long life was evidently granted in mercy. Had they been cut off on the instant of their transgression, it must have been for eternity, or death would have been no punishment. Had they been taken sooner, we will suppose before the death of Abel, though they might have been spared that bitter sorrow, still darkness, and fear for themselves, and doubt as to the ways and attributes of the Eternal, must have crowded round them, and filled them with despair as to the probable effects of their sin on their offspring, and their offspring’s seed. Long life, through the infinite mercy of the Eternal, removed these evils.
While they felt, in all the bitterness of remorse, all the evil they had wrought, they were yet comforted by the revelation of immortality and the consequent incentive for the struggling after righteousness, which without such blessed incentive man could never have achieved. They beheld, that though the likeness of God within them had been dulled in all, and in some would be almost entirely effaced, it might in heaven be regained, if while on earth it was sought with faith and works.
They learned, that though discord and strife and oppression and labour and care would reign tumultuously on earth, to the extinction, in appearance, of all that was spiritual and good, there was yet in heaven an omnipresent and ever-acting love, which would so over-rule the world, that even from ‘transitory evil’ would spring forth ‘universal good,’ and every seemingly dark and contradictory event below, tend to the glory, the extension, and the perfection of the divine economy above.
To obtain this knowledge, our first parents were spared, and not cut off in their sin; and can we, their offspring, even at this length of time, peruse their eventful history without feeling our hearts glow with grateful adoration of the love which guided and hallowed them throughout? The stream of time which divides us is indeed so wide, that we are apt to feel that events so far distant can concern us little. Yet while we trace in our mortal frame, and painful infirmities, the effects of their disobedience, shall we not acknowledge, with grateful and adoring faith, that the same love which guided, blessed, and pardoned them, is still extended unto us?
To dwell in paradise, to be blessed with direct communings with the Eternal and His heavenly messengers, are indeed not ours; but many a home – ay, many a lot – is a sinless paradise to a young and gentle girl; and loving parents will so throng her path with care and blessings that of evil she knows little, and temptation is afar off.
And often, too often, like Eve, these blessings are undervalued and sacrificed, not through her sin and disobedience, but from woman’s unfortunate desire to grasp something more than is her allotted portion; - her discontent with the lowlier station, which her weaker frame and less powerful mind mark imperatively as her own – her mistaken notion, that humility is degradation; and unless she compels man to concede to her her rights, they will be trampled on and never acknowledged – her curiosity leading her too often to covet knowledge which she needs not for the continuance of her happiness. O let not woman deny that such too often are her characteristics, and exclaim with scorn of Eve’s weakness, that had she been in Eve's place, surrounded with felicity as she was, the forbidden tree might have remained for ever ere she would have touched it.
She who thus thinks, commits unconsciously Eve’s first sin, trusting too much in her own strength; and, in consequence, is just as likely to fall beneath the very first temptation which assails her.
Let her not quiet such fears by the thought that Eve’s particular temptation cannot be hers. No; but snares innumerable, and equally fearful, surround us. Each day brings its own temptations, each day calls upon us to pray against them; for we know not how, or in what shape, they may arise, and how soon, if we trust in our own strength, they may triumph and lead us to perdition.
Had Eve been truly humble she had not sinned. And if in Eden HUMILITY was needed, if even there, without such panoply of proof, woman fell, how much more should we encourage it now! Humility is to woman her truest safeguard, her loveliest ornament, her noblest influence, her greatest strength. Teaching her her true station in regard to man, it leads her ever to the footstool of her God, thence to derive firmness, devotedness, fortitude, consolation, hope, all that she needs.
While such privilege is hers, let her not repine [grieve] that God lowered Eve and made her less than man; let her not look back with anger that the sin of one woman should thus punish her descendants. From the very first she was endowed differently to man; had she not been the weaker, the serpent had not marked her as his easier prey. And as our own nature is even now as Eve’s, let us rather thank God that His Love has granted us that lowly station where our natural qualities may best be proved, and our weaknesses and our failings have less power to work us harm.
Let us cultivate, with all our heart and soul and might, the lovely flower of humility, which, by teaching us to think lowlily of ourselves, will render us contented and thankful for the blessings around us, the gifts bestowed upon us, instead of urging us to covet more; - the sweet flower on whose breath our souls are enabled more continually to ascend to God, and whose petals, seemingly so frail and tender, have yet more power to guard us from temptation and presumption than an unsheathed sword. Let us not pause till it is found and worn; and if it make us invisible as itself, save to those who seek and value us, it will shed around us an atmosphere of love and peace and joy, with which no other flower can vie; and in death, as in life, we shall bless God for its possession, as for the dearest gift He has vouchsafed.
Would I, then, some may exclaim, deny all privileges to women – refuse to acknowledge their equality with man – degrade them as the Jewish religion is falsely accused of doing?
No! for in the sight of God, in their spiritual privileges, in their peculiar gifts and endowments, the power of performing their duties in their own sphere, in their responsibility, they are on a perfect equality with man.
But I would conjure them to seek humility, simply from its magic power of keeping woman in her own beautiful sphere, without one wish, one ambitious whisper, to exchange it for another. While there, while satisfied and rejoicing in the infinite love and wisdom which placed us there, we are not only in the privileges enumerated above man’s equal, but, - however, in strength of frame, immense capability of physical and mental exertion, in might and grasp of intellect, his inferior – yet in the depth and faithfulness of love, in the capability of feeling and enduring, in devotedness and fortitude - alike in bodily and mental trial – we are unanswerably his superior.
Then has not woman enough to call for gratitude? Endowed with influence over the heart of man, O let her remember for what fearful end Eve used that influence, and keep a constant guard of watchfulness and prayer over her heart to preserve her from its similar abuse. Let her remember the employments of Eve in Eden, and so cultivate her intellectual faculties in the study of God and nature, both animate and inanimate, that her mind may be strengthened, and in the contemplation of the beauties of creation, she may learn the true value of the beauty which may be hers. How small is its relative proportion, and yet how blessedly it may be used, even, as the beauty of creation, for the glory of God, in its mild, soothing, and benignant influence upon His creatures.
Above all, let the history of Eve impress this truth upon the hearts of her young descendants – that however weak and faulty and abased, however sorrowing and bereaved, however reaping in tears the effects of indiscretion or graver error, - yet still the compassion, the long-suffering, the exhaustless love of their Father in heaven is theirs; that no circumstance in life can deprive them of that love, can throw a barrier between woman’s yearning heart and the healing compassion of her God.
No; not even departure from Him, neglect, or forgetfulness, will make Him forget or cease to compassionate, if she will but return in true repentance and clinging faithfulness to His deep love once more. We cannot measure that exhaustless fount – for as high as the heaven is above the earth, so great is its extent. We cannot weary that never-ceasing Mercy – for as far as the East is from the West, so far, when we return to Him, doth He remove our transgressions from us.
And will woman – whose whole existence still is love – neglect or despise these thrice-blessed privileges? will the exile, the despised, the persecuted – for such has been, and is, the woman of Israel – will she not receive with grateful adoration the love vouchsafed, and come and make manifest the Sustainer, the Comforter, the Mainspring of her being?
To woman of every creed, of every race, of every rank – life, though it may seem blessed, is a fearful desert without God. What then, without Him, is it to the woman of Israel, the exile and the mourner, who hath no land, no hope, no comforter but Him?
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