efore leave it entirely outside the
sphere of our present researches; endeavouring, however, to convey a
warning to such as may be tempted, in dependence on the celebrated
Assyriologist, to make use of it in a Commentary on the Bible.

Thus, then, we have no formal and direct proof that the tradition of the
original transgression, as told in our Holy Scriptures, formed part of
the cycle of the records of Babylon and Chaldea, respecting the origin
of the world and of man. Neither do we find any allusion to the subject
in the fragments of Berosus. But, despite this silence, a similarity
between Chaldean and Hebrew traditions on this point, as upon others,
has so great a probability in its favour as almost to amount to a
certainty. Further on we shall return to certain very valid proofs of
the existence of myths relating to a terrestrial paradise in the sacred
traditions of the lower basin of the Euphrates and Tigris. But it
behoves us to dwell for a few moments on the representations of the
sacred and mysterious plant, guarded by celestial genii, that Assyrian
bas-reliefs so often display. Up to the present time no text has been
found to elucidate the meaning of the symbol, and we have to deplore a
want, that no doubt will one of these days be met by the discovery of
new documents. But the study of these figured monuments alone renders it
impossible to doubt the high importance of this representation of the
sacred plant. Whether it appear alone, or, as sometimes happens,
worshipped by royal figures, or, as I have just said, guarded by genii
in an attitude of adoration, it is incontrovertibly one of the loftiest
of religious emblems; and what places this character beyond doubt is,
that we often see above the plant the symbolic image of the Supreme God,
the winged disc--surmounted or not by a human bust. The cylinders of
Babylonian or Assyrian workmanship present this emblem no less
frequently than the bas-reliefs of Assyrian palaces, and always under
the same conditions, and evidently attributing to it an equal
importance.

It is very difficult to avoid comparing this mysterious plant, in which
everything points out a religious symbol of the first order, with that
famous tree of life and knowledge which plays so prominent a part in the
narrative of the earliest transgression. All paradisiacal traditions
make mention of it; the tradition in Genesis, which sometimes seems to
admit of two trees, one of life and one of knowle