Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions Part 2

"She brought with her a vase, the lid of which was (by the command of G.o.d), to remain closed. The curiosity of her husband, however, tempted him to open it, and suddenly there escaped from it troubles, weariness and illness from which mankind was never afterwards free. All that remained was _hope_."[10:1]

Among the _Thibetans_, the paradisiacal condition was more complete and spiritual. The desire to eat of a certain sweet herb deprived men of their spiritual life. There arose a sense of shame, and the need to clothe themselves. Necessity compelled them to agriculture; the virtues disappeared, and murder, adultery and other vices, stepped into their place.[10:2]

The idea that the Fall of the human race is connected with _agriculture_ is found to be also often represented in the legends of the East African negroes, especially in the Calabar legend of the Creation, which presents many interesting points of comparison with the biblical story of the Fall. The first human pair are called by a bell at meal-times to Abasi (the Calabar G.o.d), in heaven; and in place of the forbidden tree of Genesis are put _agriculture_ and _propagation_, which Abasi strictly denies to the first pair. The Fall is denoted by the transgression of both these commands, especially through the use of implements of tillage, to which the _woman_ is tempted by a female friend who is given to her. From that moment man fell _and became mortal_, so that, as the Bible story has it, he can eat bread only in the sweat of his face. There agriculture is a curse, a fall from a more perfect stage to a lower and imperfect one.[11:1]

Dr. Kalisch, writing of the Garden of Eden, says:

"The _Paradise_ is no exclusive feature of the early history of the Hebrews. _Most of the ancient nations have similar narratives about a happy abode, which care does not approach, and which re-echoes with the sounds of the purest bliss._"[11:2]

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 _Hom_.[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 _Hom_, 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 a.s.sumed by the tempter of our first parents. We may observe the same ancient tradition in the Phnician 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 G.o.ds.[12:3]

Among the most ancient traditions of the _Hindoos_, is that of the "Tree of Life"--called _Soma_ 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 Brahma (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 a.s.syria, 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 a.s.syria 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 pa.s.sions 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 pa.s.sion and l.u.s.t 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 appet.i.tes, 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 araea, 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:

"A striking instance is recorded by the very intelligent traveler (Wilson), regarding a representation of the Fall of our first parents, sculptured in the magnificent temple of Ipsambul, in Nubia. He says that a very exact representation of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden is to be seen in that cave, and that the _serpent_ climbing round the tree is especially delineated, and the whole subject of the tempting of our first parents most accurately exhibited."[16:1]

Nearly the same thing was found by Colonel Coombs in the _South of India_. Colonel Tod, in his "Hist. Raj.a.poutana," says:

"A drawing, brought by Colonel Coombs from a sculptured column in a cave-temple in the South of India, represents the first pair at the foot of the ambrosial tree, and a _serpent_ entwined among the heavily-laden boughs, presenting to them some of the fruit from his mouth. The tempter appears to be at that part of his discourse, when

'----his words, replete with guile, Into her heart too easy entrance won: Fixed on the fruit she gazed.'