he becomes conscious of guilt, discord enters his soul, and he
feels as if he had been driven from the presence of God.

This feeling is allegorized in the Paradise legend. The garden of bliss,
half earthly, half heavenly, which is elsewhere called the "mountain of
God,"(660) a place of wondrous trees, beasts, and precious stones, whence
the four great rivers flow, is the abode of divine beings. The first man
and woman could dwell in it only so long as they lived in harmony with God
and His commandments. As soon as the tempter in the shape of the serpent
called forth a discord between the divine will and human desire, man could
no longer enjoy celestial bliss, but must begin the dreary earthly life,
with its burdens and trials.

4. This story of the fall of the first man is an allegorical description
of the state of childlike innocence which man must leave behind in order
to attain true strength of character. It is based upon a view common to
all antiquity of a descent of the race; that is: first came the golden
age, when man led a life of ease and pleasure in company with the gods;
then an age of silver, another of brass, and finally the iron age, with
its toil and bitter woe. Thus did evil deeds and wild passions increase
among men. This view fails utterly to recognize the value of labor as a
civilizing force making for progress, and it contradicts the modern
historical view. The prophets of Israel placed the golden age at the end,
not the beginning of history, so that the purpose of mankind was to
establish a heavenly kingdom upon the earth. In fact, the fall of man is
not referred to anywhere in Scripture and never became a doctrine, or
belief, of Judaism. On the contrary, the Hellenistic expounders of the
Bible take it for granted that the story is an allegory, and the book of
Proverbs understands the tree of life symbolically, in the verse: "She
(the Torah) is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her."(661)

5. Still the rabbis in Talmud and Midrash accepted the legend in good
faith as historical(662) and took it literally as did the great English
poet:

"The fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden."

In fact, they even followed the Persian dualism with its evil principle,
the primeval serpent, or the Babylonian legend of the sea-monster Tiamat,
and regarded the serpent in Paradise as a demon. He was identified w