General Forlong thus discourses upon this subject: “Most cosmogonies relate a phallic tale of two individuals Adam and Eve, meeting in a garden of delight (Gan-Eden), and then being seduced by a serpent Ar (Ar-i-man), Hoa, Op, or Orus, to perform the generative act, which it is taught led to sin and trouble, and this long before we hear of a spiritual god or of solar deities. These cosmogonies narrate a contest between man and Nature, in which the former fell, and must ever fall, for the laws of Sol and his seasons none can resist.”... “The Jews learned most of their faith and fables from the great peoples of the East; especially did they get the two cosmogonies, and that solar fable, mixed with truth, of a serpent tempting a woman with the fruit of a tree, of course in the fading or autumnal equinox, when only fruit exists and all creation tries to save itself by shielding all the stores of nature from the fierce onslaughts of angry Typhon when entering on his dreary winter. The Gan-Eden fable was clearly an attempt by Zoroastrians to explain to outsiders the difficult philosophical problem of the origin of man and of good and evil. Mithras, they said—and the Jews followed suit—is the good God, the incarnation of God, who dwells in the beauteous orb of day; to which Christian Jews added that he was born of a virgin in a cave which he illuminated.” “The tree of life mentioned in Gen. 3: 22 certainly appears,” says Mr. Smith (Chal. Acct, p. 88), “to correspond to the sacred grove of Anu, which a later fragment of the creation-tablets states was guarded by a sword turning to all the four points of the compass; and there too we have allusions to a thirst for knowledge, having been the cause of man’s fall; the gods curse the dragon and Adam for the transgression. This Adam was one of the Zalmat-qaqadi, or dark men, created by Hea or Nin-Si-ku, a name pointing to Hea being a Nin or Creator, while Adam is called Adami or Admi, the present Eastern term for man and the lingam, and no proper name.” The impression that I get from the legends of Izdubar, or the Flood, or even the creation-tablets, is simply that these were religious revivals. Nearly every illustration of Mr. Smith’s last volume shows the serpent as an evil influence. Now, if I am right—and all I have read elsewhere tends to the same conclusion—then all the tales as to a temptation by a serpent, a fall, are phallo-pythic transmutations of faith, and have no more connection with the first creation of man upon earth than have the flood, the ark, or mountain-worship of Jews in the desert, or the destruction of Pytho by Apollo in the early days of Delphi, etc.