; and this is his
punishment! Such was probably the mental process in the writer. To
seek a profound and true theological dogma in such a statement is
as absurd as to seek it in the classic myth that the lapwing with
his sharp beak chases the swallow because he is the descendant of
the enraged Tereus who pursued poor Progne with a drawn sword. Or,
to cite a more apposite case, as well might we seek a reliable
historical narrative in the following Greek myth. Zeus once gave
man a remedy against old age. He put it on the back of an ass and
followed on foot. It being a hot day, the ass grew thirsty, and
would drink at a fount which a snake guarded. The cunning snake
knew what precious burden the ass bore, and would not, except at
the price of it, let him drink. He obtained the prize; but with
it, as a punishment for his trick, he incessantly suffers the
ass's thirst. Thus the snake, casting his skin, annually renews
his youth, while man is borne down by old age.9 In all these cases
the mental action is of the same kind in motive, method, and
result.

The author of the poem contained in the third chapter of Genesis
does not say that man was made immortal. The implication plainly
is that he was created mortal, taken from the dust and naturally
to return again to the dust. But by the power of God a tree was
provided whose fruit would immortalize its partakers. The penalty
of Adam's sin was directly, not physical death, but being forced
in the sweat of his brow to wring his subsistence from the sterile
ground cursed for his sake; it was indirectly literal death, in
that he was prevented from eating the fruit of the tree of life.
"God sent him out of the garden, lest he eat and live forever." He
was therefore, according to the narrative, made originally subject
to death; but an immortalizing antidote was prepared for him,
which he forfeited by his transgression. That the writer made use
of the trees of life and knowledge as embellishing allegories is
most

9 Alian, no Nat. Animal., lib. vi. cap. 51.

probable. But, if not, he was not the only devout poet who, in the
early times, with sacred reverence believed the wonders the
inspiring muse gave him as from God. It is not clear from the
Biblical record that Adam was imagined the first man. On the
contrary, the statement that Cain was afraid that those who met
him would kill him, also that he went to the land of Nod and took
a wife and builded a city, implies that there w