THE CREATION AND FALL OF MAN.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Doane, T. W. (Thomas William)
The Persians supposed that a region of bliss and delight called Heden, more beautiful than all the rest of the world, traversed by a mighty river, was the original abode of the first men, before they were tempted by the evil spirit in the form of a serpent, to partake of the fruit of the forbidden tree Hôm.[11:3]
Dr. Delitzsch, writing of the Persian legend, observes:
"Innumerable attendants of the Holy One keep watch against the attempts of Ahriman, over the tree Hôm, which contains in itself the power of the resurrection."[11:4]
The ancient Greeks had a tradition concerning the "Islands of the Blessed," the "Elysium," on the borders of the earth, abounding in every charm of life, and the "Garden of the Hesperides," the Paradise, in which grew a tree bearing the golden apples of Immortality. It was guarded by three nymphs, and a Serpent, or Dragon, the ever-watchful Ladon. It was one of the labors of Hercules to gather some of these apples of life. When he arrived there he found the garden protected by a Dragon. Ancient medallions represent a tree with a serpent twined around it. Hercules has gathered an apple, and near him stand the three nymphs, called Hesperides.[11:5] This is simply a parallel of the Eden myth.
The Rev. Mr. Faber, speaking of Hercules, says:
"On the Sphere he is represented in the act of contending with the Serpent, the head of which is placed under his foot; and this Serpent, we are told, is that which guarded the tree with golden fruit in the midst of the garden of the Hesperides. But the garden of the Hesperides was none other than the garden of Paradise; consequently the serpent of that garden, the head of which is crushed beneath the heel of Hercules, and which itself is described as encircling with its folds the trunk of the mysterious tree, must necessarily be a transcript of that Serpent whose form was assumed by the tempter of our first parents. We may observe the same ancient tradition in the Phœnician fable representing Ophion or Ophioneus."[12:1]
And Professor Fergusson says:
"Hercules' adventures in the garden of the Hesperides, is the Pagan form of the myth that most resembles the precious Serpent-guarded fruit of the Garden of Eden, though the moral of the fable is so widely different."[12:2]
The ancient Egyptians also had the legend of the "Tree of Life." It is mentioned in their sacred books that Osiris ordered the names of some souls to be written on this "Tree of Life," the fruit of which made those who ate it to become as gods.[12:3]
Among the most ancient traditions of the Hindoos, is that of the "Tree of Life"—called Sôma in Sanskrit—the juice of which imparted immortality. This most wonderful tree was guarded by spirits.[12:4]
Still more striking is the Hindoo legend of the "Elysium" or "Paradise," which is as follows:
"In the sacred mountain Meru, which is perpetually clothed in the golden rays of the Sun, and whose lofty summit reaches into heaven, no sinful man can exist. It is guarded by a dreadful dragon. It is adorned with many celestial plants and trees, and is watered by four rivers, which thence separate and flow to the four chief directions."[12:5]
The Hindoos, like the philosophers of the Ionic school (Thales, for instance), held water to be the first existing and all-pervading principle, at the same time allowing the co-operation and influence of an immaterial intelligence in the work of creation.[12:6] A Vedic poet, meditating on the Creation, uses the following expressions:
"Nothing that is was then, even what is not, did not exist then." "There was no space, no life, and lastly there was no time, no difference between day and night, no solar torch by which morning might have been told from evening." "Darkness there was, and all at first was veiled in gloom profound, as ocean without light."[12:7]
The Hindoo legend approaches very nearly to that preserved in the Hebrew Scriptures. Thus, it is said that Siva, as the Supreme Being, desired to tempt Brahmá (who had taken human form, and was called Swayambhura—son of the self-existent), and for this object he dropped from heaven a blossom of the sacred fig tree.
Swayambhura, instigated by his wife, Satarupa, endeavors to obtain this blossom, thinking its possession will render him immortal and divine; but when he has succeeded in doing so, he is cursed by Siva, and doomed to misery and degradation.[13:1] The sacred Indian fig is endowed by the Brahmins and the Buddhists with mysterious significance, as the "Tree of Knowledge" or "Intelligence."[13:2]
There is no Hindoo legend of the Creation similar to the Persian and Hebrew accounts, and Ceylon was never believed to have been the Paradise or home of our first parents, although such stories are in circulation.[13:3] The Hindoo religion states—as we have already seen—Mount Meru to be the Paradise, out of which went four rivers.
We have noticed that the "Gardens of Paradise" are said to have been guarded by Dragons, and that, according to the Genesis account, it was Cherubim that protected Eden. This apparent difference in the legends is owing to the fact that we have come in our modern times to speak of Cherub as though it were an other name for an Angel. But the Cherub of the writer of Genesis, the Cherub of Assyria, the Cherub of Babylon, the Cherub of the entire Orient, at the time the Eden story was written, was not at all an Angel, but an animal, and a mythological one at that. The Cherub had, in some cases, the body of a lion, with the head of an other animal, or a man, and the wings of a bird. In Ezekiel they have the body of a man, whose head, besides a human countenance, has also that of a Lion, an Ox and an Eagle. They are provided with four wings, and the whole body is spangled with innumerable eyes. In Assyria and Babylon they appear as winged bulls with human faces, and are placed at the gateways of palaces and temples as guardian genii who watch over the dwelling, as the Cherubim in Genesis watch the "Tree of Life."
Most Jewish writers and Christian Fathers conceived the Cherubim as Angels. Most theologians also considered them as Angels, until Michaelis showed them to be a mythological animal, a poetical creation.[13:4]
We see then, that our Cherub is simply a Dragon.
To continue our inquiry regarding the prevalence of the Eden-myth among nations of antiquity.
The Chinese have their Age of Virtue, when nature furnished abundant food, and man lived peacefully, surrounded by all the beasts. In their sacred books there is a story concerning a mysterious garden, where grew a tree bearing "apples of immortality," guarded by a winged serpent, called a Dragon. They describe a primitive age of the world, when the earth yielded abundance of delicious fruits without cultivation, and the seasons were untroubled by wind and storms. There was no calamity, sickness, or death. Men were then good without effort; for the human heart was in harmony with the peacefulness and beauty of nature.
The "Golden Age" of the past is much dwelt upon by their ancient commentators. One of them says:
"All places were then equally the native county of every man. Flocks wandered in the fields without any guide; birds filled the air with their melodious voices; and the fruits grew of their own accord. Men lived pleasantly with the animals, and all creatures were members of the same family. Ignorant of evil, man lived in simplicity and perfect innocence."
Another commentator says:
"In the first age of perfect purity, all was in harmony, and the passions did not occasion the slightest murmur. Man, united to sovereign reason within, conformed his outward actions to sovereign justice. Far from all duplicity and falsehood, his soul received marvelous felicity from heaven, and the purest delights from earth."
Another says:
"A delicious garden refreshed with zephyrs, and planted with odoriferous trees, was situated in the middle of a mountain, which was the avenue of heaven. The waters that moistened it flowed from a source called the 'Fountain of Immortality'. He who drinks of it never dies. Thence flowed four rivers. A Golden River, betwixt the South and East, a Red River, between the North and East, the River of the Lamb between the North and West."
The animal Kaiming guards the entrance.
Partly by an undue thirst for knowledge, and partly by increasing sensuality, and the seduction of woman, man fell. Then passion and lust ruled in the human mind, and war with the animals began. In one of the Chinese sacred volumes, called the Chi-King, it is said that:
"All was subject to man at first, but a woman threw us into slavery. The wise husband raised up a bulwark of walls, but the woman, by an ambitious desire of knowledge, demolished them. Our misery did not come from heaven, but from a woman. She lost the human race. Ah, unhappy Poo See! thou kindled the fire that consumes us, and which is every day augmenting. Our misery has lasted many ages. The world is lost. Vice overflows all things like a mortal poison."[15:1]
Thus we see that the Chinese are no strangers to the doctrine of original sin. It is their invariable belief that man is a fallen being; admitted by them from time immemorial.
The inhabitants of Madagascar had a legend similar to the Eden story, which is related as follows:
"The first man was created of the dust of the earth, and was placed in a garden, where he was subject to none of the ills which now affect mortality; he was also free from all bodily appetites, and though surrounded by delicious fruit and limpid streams yet felt no desire to taste of the fruit or to quaff the water. The Creator had, moreover, strictly forbid him either to eat or to drink. The great enemy, however, came to him, and painted to him, in glowing colors, the sweetness of the apple, and the lusciousness of the date, and the succulence of the orange."
After resisting the temptations for a while, he at last ate of the fruit, and consequently fell.[15:2]
A legend of the Creation, similar to the Hebrew, was found by Mr. Ellis among the Tahitians, and appeared in his "Polynesian Researches." It is as follows:
After Taarao had formed the world, he created man out of aræa, red earth, which was also the food of man until bread was made. Taarao one day called for the man by name. When he came, he caused him to fall asleep, and while he slept, he took out one of his ivi, or bones, and with it made a woman, whom he gave to the man as his wife, and they became the progenitors of mankind. The woman's name was Ivi, which signifies a bone.[15:3]
The prose Edda, of the ancient Scandinavians, speaks of the "Golden Age" when all was pure and harmonious. This age lasted until the arrival of woman out of Jotunheim—the region of the giants, a sort of "land of Nod"—who corrupted it.[15:4]
In the annals of the Mexicans, the first woman, whose name was translated by the old Spanish writers, "the woman of our flesh," is always represented as accompanied by a great male serpent, who seems to be talking to her. Some writers believe this to be the tempter speaking to the primeval mother, and others that it is intended to represent the father of the human race. This Mexican Eve is represented on their monuments as the mother of twins.[15:5]
Mr. Franklin, in his "Buddhists and Jeynes," says: