On the sarcophagus of the Capitol the presence in proximity of Prometheus of one of the Parcæ drawing the horoscope of the man whom the Titan is forming, leads us to suspect in these sculptured subjects the influence of the doctrine of those Chaldean astrologists who had spread themselves, during the later centuries before the Christian era, throughout the Greco-Roman world, and had acquired an especial amount of credit in Rome. Nevertheless, the date of these last monuments renders it possible to look upon the representation of the first pair beside the tree of Paradise, of which they are about to eat, as directly borrowed from the Old Testament itself, as well as from the cosmogony of Chaldea or Phenicia. But the existence of this tradition in the cycle of the indigenous legends of the Canaanites seems to me placed beyond doubt by a curious painted vase of Phenician workmanship of the seventh or sixth century B.C., discovered by General di Cesnola, in one of the most ancient sepulchres of Idalia, in the Isle of Cyprus.[70]
There we actually see a leafy tree, from the branches of which hang two large clusters of fruit, while a great serpent is advancing with undulating movements towards the tree, and rearing itself to seize hold of the fruit.[71]
Now, we are justified in doubting that in Chaldea, and still more in Phenicia, a tradition parallel to the Biblical account of the Fall ever assumed a significance as exclusively spiritual as it does in Genesis, or that it contained the moral lesson also to be found in the story as given in the Zoroastrian scriptures. The spirit of grossly materialistic Pantheism in the religion of those lands rendered this impossible. Nevertheless, we may remark that among the Chaldeans, and their disciples the Assyrians, at all events from a given epoch, the notion of the nature of sin and the necessity of repentance was to be found more precisely formed than amongst the majority of ancient peoples, and consequently it is difficult to believe that the Chaldean priesthood did not, in their profound speculations on religious philosophy, seek for some solution of the problem of the origin of evil and sin.
With the foregoing reservation, it is, indeed, probable that the Chaldean and Phenician legend of the fruit of the tree of Paradise was nearly akin in spirit to the cycles of ancient myths common to all the branches of the Aryan race. To the study of these M. Adalbert Kuhn has contributed a book of the highest interest.[72] He deals with such as refer to the invention of fire, and to the beverage of life. These are to be found in their most ancient form in the Vedas, and they then passed over, more or less modified by the course of time, to the Greeks, Romans, Slavs, as well as the Iranians and Indians. The fundamental conception of these myths, which are only to be found complete in their oldest forms, is of the universe as an immense tree, whose roots embrace the earth, and whose branches form the vault of heaven.[73] The fruit of this tree is fire--indispensable to human existence, and the material symbol of intelligence; and the leaves distil the Elixir of Life. The gods had reserved to themselves the possession of fire, which sometimes, indeed, descends on earth in the form of lightning, but which men were not themselves to produce. He who--like the Prometheus of the Greeks--discovers the method of artificially kindling a flame, and communicates this discovery to other men, is impious, has stolen the forbidden fruit from the sacred tree, is accursed, and the wrath of the gods pursues him and his race.