The rattling of
the chains at intervals only aggravates the feeling of confinement
that belongs to human nature; the gulf of alienation between man
and God is not to be bridged over. Jehovah does not stand high
enough, does not feel Himself secure enough, to allow the
earth-dwellers to come very near Him; there is almost a suggestion
of the notion of the jealousy of the gods. This mood, though in
many ways softened, is yet recognisable enough in Genesis ii. iii.,
in vi. 1-4, and xi. 1-9. In the Priestly Code it has entirely
disappeared; here man no longer feels himself under a secret curse,
but allied to God and free, as lord of nature. True, the Priestly
Code also recognises in its own fashion the power of sin--this we
saw in the chapter on sacrifice; but sin as the root of ruin,
explaining it and capable of being got rid of, is the very opposite
of blind, not-to-be-averted fate. The slavery of sin and the
freedom of the children of God are in the Gospel correlated. The
mythical mode of view is destroyed by the autonomy of morality;
and closely connected with this is the rational way of looking at
nature, of which we find the beginnings in the Priestly Code.
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