Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/235

 that the man who was created by him should perish, and why all his posterity should perish. And every person who will stop to think of this contradiction, will obviously wish to read the passage in Holy Scripture, on which it is based. And he who will do so will be terribly surprised at that striking unceremoniousness with which the church commentators treat the texts. It is enough to read carefully the first chapters of Genesis and the church exposition of the fall of man, in order to become convinced that two different stories are told by the Bible and by the Theology.

According to the church interpretation it turns out that Adam was permitted to eat from the tree of life and that the first pair was immortal, but not only is this not said in the Bible, but the very opposite is mentioned in verse 22 of Chapter III., where it says: lest Adam put forth his hand, and eat of the tree of life, and live for ever. According to the church interpretation the serpent is the devil, but nothing of the kind is said in the Bible, nor could anything be said, because no idea about the devil is given in the Book of Genesis, but it says there: the serpent was more subtile than any beast. According to the church interpretation it turns out that the eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a calamity for men; but according to the Bible it was a benefit for men, and thus the whole history of the fall of Adam is an invention of the theologians and nothing like it is mentioned in the Bible.

From the story of the Bible it does not follow that the men ate from the tree of life and were immortal, but the opposite is said in verse 22, nor does it say there that the evil devil tempted man; on the contrary, what is said is that the most subtile of beasts taught him that. Thus the two chief foundations of the whole story about the sinful fall, namely, the immortality of Adam in Paradise and the devil, are invented by the theologians in direct opposition to the text.