The reference made to the serpent, to the tree of wisdom, and to the bull, in the legend of the “fall,” sufficiently proves its Phallic character, which was, indeed, recognised in the early Christian church.[80] Judging from the facts above referred to, however, we can hardly doubt that the legend was derived from a foreign source. That it could not be original to the Hebrews may, I think, be proved by several considerations. The position occupied in the legend by the serpent is quite inconsistent with the use of this animal symbol by Moses.[81] Like Satan himself even, as the Rev. Dunbar Heath has shown,[82] the serpent had not, indeed, a wholly evil character among the early Hebrews. In the second place, the condemnation of the act of generation was directly contrary to the central idea of patriarchal history. The promise to Abraham was that he should have seed “numerous as the stars of heaven for multitude,” and to support this notion the descent of Abraham is traced up to the first created man, who is commanded to increase and multiply. The legend of the fall is not unknown to Hindu mythology, but here the subject of the temptation is the divine Brahma, who, however, is not only mankind collectively, but a man individually.[83] In human shape he is Sivayambhuva, and to try this progenitor of mankind, Siva, as the Supreme Being, “drops from heaven a blossom of the sacred _vata_, or Indian fig—a tree which has been always venerated by the natives on account of its gigantic size and grateful shadows, and invested alike by Brahman and by Buddhist with mysterious significations, as the tree of knowledge or intelligence (_bodhidruma_).[84] Captivated by the beauty of the blossom, the first man (Brahma) is determined to possess it. He imagines that it will entitle him to occupy the place of the Immortal, and hold converse with the Infinite; and on gathering up the blossom,[85] he at once becomes intoxicated by this fancy, and believes himself immortal and divine. But ere the flush of exultation has subsided, God Himself appears to him in terrible majesty; and the astonished culprit, stricken by the curse of heaven, is banished far from Brahmapattana, and consigned to an abyss of misery and degradation. From this, however, adds the story, an escape is rendered possible on the expiration of some weary term of suffering and of penance. And the parallelism which it presents to sacred history is well-nigh completed when the legend tells us further that woman, his own wife, whose being was derived from his, had instigated the ambitious hopes which led to their expulsion, and entailed so many ills on their posterity.”[86] That parallelism cannot well be the result of mere coincidence, and the reference to the fig-tree in the Hindu legend not only renders it highly probable that this was the tree of knowledge[87] of Hebrew legend, but confirms, by the symbolical ideas connected with it, the explanation of the nature of the “fall” given in