8. And the Lord God planted a garden, eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

9. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.

Hesiod and others of the poets describe four ages marked with their distinct emblems and characterised by the terms gold, silver, brass, and iron, in a manner which reminds us of the image in the Vision of Nebuchadnezzar. (Dan. II. 31.) The two first ages of Hesiod appear to have preceded the Deluge; and the former of these alone, the golden, referred to the state of man in Paradise. The shorter duration of life in the silver age applies, however, to the period after the flood.

"When gods alike, and mortals rose to birth,
Th' immortals form'd a golden race on earth,
Of many-languag'd men: they liv'd of old,
When Saturn reign'd in heaven-an age of gold.
Like gods they liv'd, with calm untroubled mind,
Free from the toil and anguish of our kind:
Nor e'er decrepid age mis-shap'd their frame,
The hand's, the foot's proportions still the same:
Pleased with earth's unbought feasts, all ills remov'd,
Wealthy in flocks, and of the blest belov'd:
Death, as a slumber, press'd their eye-lids down:
All nature's common blessings were their own.
The life-bestowing tilth its fruitage bore
A full, spontaneous, and ungrudging store.
They, with abundant goods, midst quiet lands,
All willing, shar'd the gatherings of their hands."

HES. Oper. et dier. v. 108.

"The land of Cyclops first, a savage kind,
Nor tamed by manners, nor by lands confined:
Untaught to plant, to turn the glebe and sow;
They all their products to free nature owe.
The soil untill'd a ready harvest yields;
With wheat and barley wave the golden fields;
Spontaneous wines from weighty clusters pour,
And Jove descends in each prolific shower.
By these no statutes and no rights are known,
No council held, no monarch fills the throne,
But high on hills or airy cliffs they dwell,

Or deep in caves whose entrance leads to hell."

"It is said there was once an earth-born race. (ynyevès) tended them, and was their protector.

HOм. Odyss. 1. ix. v. 106.

The Deity himself They had fruit in abundance from oaks and many other trees; not grown by land-tilling, but given spontaneously by the earth. They lived, too, for the most part, naked-upon no strewed couch, and in the open air, for the temperament of the seasons was not painful to them; theirs were soft beds of grass, springing up without grudging from the earth.

The men of that time were ten thousand-fold happier than those of the present."-PLAT. Politic. c. 15-16.

The knotted oak shall show'rs of honey weep,
And through the matted grass the liquid gold shall creep.

VIRG. Ecl. IV. v. 6-24.

"How blest man liv'd in Saturn's golden days,
E'er distant climes were join'd by lengthen'd ways.
Secure the pine upon the mountain grew,
Nor yet o'er billows in the ocean flew ;
Then every clime a wild abundance bore,
And man liv'd happy on his natal shore:
For then no steed to feel the bit was broke,
Then had no steer submitted to the yoke;

No house had gates (blest times!), and, in the grounds,

No scanty land-marks parcell'd out the bounds:

From every oak redundant honey ran,

And ewes spontaneous bore their milk to man:

No deathful arms were forged, no war was waged,

No rapine plunder'd, no ambition raged."-TIBUL. 1. 1. eleg. 3.

The garden of Eden may have given to the poets their idea of the Elysian fields, in which the souls of the just are represented dwelling, after death, in a state of rest and happiness. The poet Musæus thus directs Æneas in his search for Anchises :

And shows them all the shining fields below :

They wind the hill, and through the blissful meadows go."

VIRG. En. 1. vi. v. 673.

"The golden age was first, when man, yet new,
No rule but uncorrupted reason knew ;
And, with a native bent, did good pursue.
Unforc'd by punishment, unaw'd by fear,
His words were simple, and his soul sincere :
Needless was written law, where none oppress'd,
The law of man was written in his breast.

The teeming earth, yet guiltless of the plough,
And unprovok'd did fruitful stores allow :
Content with food, which nature freely bred,
On wildings and on strawberries they fed;
Cornels and bramble-berries gave the rest,
And falling acorns furnished out a feast.
The flow'rs unsown in fields and meadows reign'd;
And western winds immortal spring maintained.
In following years the bearded corn ensued

From earth unask'd, nor was that earth renew'd;
From veins of vallies milk and nectar broke,

And honey sweating through the pores of oak."-Ov. Met. 1. 1. v. 89. "Great King of the ancient world, and of the primitive state of things, under whose rule quiet repose prevailed, and labour was unknown. And the earth yielded its riches without being cloven down to the infernal regions."-MART. 1. XII. Epig. 62.

"The first race of men, free as yet from every depraved passion, lived without guile and crimes, and therefore without chastisements and restraints; nor was there occasion for rewards, when of their own accord they pursued righteousness; and as they courted nothing contrary to justice, they were debarred from nothing by terrors." -TAC. Ann. 1. III. c. 26.

12. There is bdellium and the onyx stone.

"In the vicinity of India is Bactriana, in which region we find bdellium, that is so highly esteemed. This tree is of a black colour, and about the size of the olive; it has leaves like those of the robur, and bears a fruit similar to that of the wild fig, and in nature resembling a kind of gum."-PLIN. Hist. Nat. 1. xII. c. 19.

18. I will make him a help meet for him.

66

Marriage is so ordained by nature as to form not only the most agreeable, but also the most useful companionship of life."-Cic. Econ. ex Xen. 1. 1.

21. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

22. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

Compare with this Gen. I. v. 27., " Male and female created he them.”

"Our nature of old was not the same as it is now. It was then one man-woman; whose form and name partook of, and was common to both the male and the female. Then Jupiter said, I will divide them into two parts."-PLAT. Sympos. c. 14-15

24.

Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh.

"Socrates said that those who love each other, from being two, became, after a manner both one."-ARISTOT. Polit. 1. II. c. 4.

25. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

แ Shame does not pertain to a worthy man, since it is produced by bad conduct. Shame does not pertain to the virtues."-ARISTOT. Eth. 1. IV. c. 9.

GENESIS III.

1. Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

2. And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden :

3. But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

Hesiod in his Theogony mentions the serpent who guards the golden apples; alluding, most probably, to some tradition or representation of the serpent and the forbidden tree in Paradise. The passages quoted seem also to refer to that time when the curse-"Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat," had not yet been pronounced.

"Ceto brought forth

Her youngest-born, the dreadful snake, that, couch'd

In the dark earth's abyss, a wide domain,

Holds o'er the golden apples wakeful guard."-HES. Theog. v. 333.

"Those nurtured by Kronos (Saturn) had the power to converse not only with men but with brutes likewise."-PLAT. Politic. c. XVI.

"The Hesperides and the dragon that guarded the golden apple."-LUCIAN. de Saltat. c. 51.

"Attend to the Syrian poem:The birth of Ophioneus (the serpent-like). and the tree.'"-MAX. TYR. diss. 29.

"Whom had the serpent struck,

Mighty in bulk, and terrible in look,

That, armed with scales, and in a dreadful fold,

Twin'd round the tree and watched the growing gold ?”

LUCRET. de rer. nat. 1. v. v. 33. “What a snaky (i.e. subtle) genius you both have!"-PLAUT. Trucul. Act IV. sc. 3. "Around the trunk of a barren oak a fierce serpent, called in Africa the Jaculus, wreathes itself, and then darts forth."-LUCAN. Phars. 1. Ix. v. 822.

"The Basilisk is produced in the province of Cyrene, being not more than 12 fingers in length. It has a white spot on the head, strongly resembling a sort of diadem. When it hisses all the other serpents fly from it; and it does not advance its body, like the others, by a succession of folds, but moves along upright and erect."-PLIN. Hist. Nat. 1. vIII. c. 33.

8. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day; and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God, amongst the trees of the garden.

"I dare not, shepherd, at the hour of noon,

My pipe to rustic melodies attune;

"Tis Pan we fear."-THEOCR. Idyl. 1.

15. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shall bruise his heel.

Virgil says that subsequently to the Saturnian age

"Jove added venom to the viper's brood."-Georg. 1. 1. v. 129.

Eurydice died, bitten by a serpent on the heel.”—Ov. Metam. 1. x. v. 10.

16. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.

"All other animals give birth to their young without pain; but woman must endure the severest sufferings."-ARISTOT. de Hist. Anim. 1. vII. c. 9.

"Thus, like a sailor by the tempest hurl'd
Ashore, the babe is shipwreck'd on the world:

Naked he lies, and ready to expire,

Helpless of all that human wants require :

Exposed upon inhospitable earth,

From the first moment of his hapless birth;

Straight, with foreboding cries he fills the room,

Too sure presages of his future doom.

But flocks and herds and ev'ry savage beast,

By more indulgent nature are increas'd."-LUCRET. de rer. nat. 1. v. v. 207. "Man alone, at the very moment of his birth, cast naked upon the earth, is abandoned by nature to cries, to lamentations, and, (which is the case with no other animal whatever), to tears: this, too, from the very moment that he enters upon existence."-PLIN. Hist. Nat. 1. vII. c. 1.

17. Cursed is the ground for thy sake. In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.

18.

Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field:

19. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.

Hesiod speaks of woman as the original cause of all man's sufferings and sorrows. His account of Pandora, who was endowed with gifts from the gods to deceive

Epimetheus, though he was warned against the danger, and who deprived mankind of all good, leaving only hope, is supposed by Hales to be an allegorical fiction, built on the circumstances of the fall, which introduced all evil, and left men destitute of everything but the hope of redemption through the seed of the woman,

"At Jove's behest

Famed Vulcan fashion'd from the yielding clay
A bashful virgin's likeness;

Now when his plastic hand instead of good

Had framed this beauteous bane, he led her forth

Where were the other gods and mingled men.

From her the sex of tender woman springs:
Pernicious is the race: the woman tribe

Dwell upon earth, a mighty bane to man."-HES. Theog. 571-592.
"Whilom on earth the sons of men abode

From ills apart, and labour's irksome load,
And sore diseases, bringing age to man :
Now the sad life of mortals is a span.
The woman's hands a mighty casket bear;
She lifts the lid; she scatters griefs in air:
Alone beneath the vessel's rims detain'd,
Hope still within th' unbroken cell remain'd,
Nor fled abroad; so will'd cloud-gatherer Jove:
The woman's hand had dropp'd the lid above.
Issued the rest in quick dispersion hurl'd,

And woes innumerous roam'd the breathing world.

With ills the land is rife, with ills the sea;

Diseases haunt our frail humanity."-IBID. Oper. et dier. v. 90.

"Corrupt the race, with toils and griefs oppress'd,

Nor day nor night can yield a pause of rest :

Still do the gods a weight of care bestow,

Though still some good is mingled with the woe."-IBID. v. 174.

The following, though referred by Aratus to the "Golden Age," applies with more propriety to the period immediately after the fall :

"Then justice ruled supreme, man's only guide:

No fraud-no violence-no strife-no pride.

No sailor ventured then to distant clime,

And brought back foreign wealth and foreign crime.

All tended then the flock or tilled the soil,

And milk and fruit repaid their easy toil."-ARAT. Phænom. v. 105.

Calanus, the sophist, said to Onesicritus

"Formerly there was abundance everywhere of corn and barley as there is now of dust; fountains then flowed with water, milk, honey, wine, and oil; but mankind, by repletion and luxury, became proud and insolent. Jupiter, indignant at this state of things, destroyed all, and appointed for man a life of toil."--STRAB. 1. xv. c. 1.

"Earth corn, and wine, and oil at first did bear,

And tender fruit, without the tiller's care:

She brought forth herbs, which now the feeble soil
Can scarce afford to all our pain and toil :
We labour, sweat, and yet by all this strife,
Can scarce get corn and wine enough for life :
Our men, our oxen groan, and never cease;
So fast our labours grow, our fruits decrease!"

LUCRET. de rer, nat. 1. II. v. 1156.

"The sire of gods and men, with hard decrees,
Forbids our plenty to be bought with ease,