“During this extraordinary interview, it is evident that Eve felt a full impression of the divine command, which she repeated to the tempter at the time of his solicitations. She told him they were not to eat of that Tree.—But the Serpent opposed her arguments with sophistry and promises. He said unto the Woman, ye shall not surely die—but shall be as Gods. What an idea to a mortal!—Such an image astonished her!—It was not the gross impulses of greedy appetite that urged her, but a nobler motive that induced her to examine the consequences of the act.—She was to be better and happier;—to exchange a mortal for an angelic nature. Her motive was great,—virtuous,—irresistible. Might she not have felt herself awed and inspired with a belief of a divine order?—Upon examination she found it was to produce a greater good than as mortals they could enjoy; this impression excited a desire to possess that good; and that desire determined her will and the future destiny of a World!”
It must be allowed that this Lady Authoress has succeeded in what might have been supposed the most difficult of all attempts, that of starting a new heresy,—her followers in which may aptly be denominated Eveites.
The novelty consists not in excusing the mother of mankind, but in representing her transgression as a great and meritorious act. An excuse has been advanced for her in Lodovico Domenichi's Dialogue upon the nobleness of Women. It is there pleaded that the fruit of the fatal tree had not been forbidden to Eve, because she was not created when the prohibition was laid on. Adam it was who sinned in eating it, not Eve, and it is in Adam that we have all sinned, and all die. Her offence was in tempting him to eat, et questo anchora senza intention cattiva, essendo stata tentata dal Diavolo. L'huomo adunque peccò per certa scientia, et la Donna ignorantemente, et ingannata.
I know not whether this special pleading be Domenichi's own; but he must have been conscious that there is a flaw in it, and could not have been in earnest, as Miss Hatfield is. The Veronese lady Isotta Nogarola thought differently; essendo studiosa molto di Theologia et di Philosophia, she composed a Dialogue wherein the question whether Adam or Eve in the primal transgression had committed the greater sin. How she determined it I cannot say, never having seen her works.
Domenichi makes another assertion in honour of womankind which Miss Hatfield would undoubtedly consider it an honour for herself to have disproved in her own person,—that no heresy, or error in the faith ever originated with a woman.
Had this Lady, most ambitious of Eve's daughters, been contemporary with Doctor Dove, how pleasant it would have been to have witnessed a debate between them upon the subject! He would have wound her up to the highest pitch of indignation, and she would have opened the flood-gates of female oratory upon his head.
CHAPTER CCVI.
THE SUBJECT CONTINUED.—OPINIONS OF THE RABBIS.—ANECDOTE OF LADY JEKYLL AND A TART REPLY OF WILLIAM WHISTON'S.—JEAN D'ESPAGNE.—QUEEN ELIZABETH OF THE QUORUM QUARUM QUORUM GENDER.—THE SOCIETY OF GENTLEMEN AGREE WITH MAHOMET IN SUPPOSING THAT WOMEN HAVE NO SOULS, BUT ARE OF OPINION THAT THE DEVIL IS AN HERMAPHRODITE.