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The Tree of Knowledge, in the opinion of some commentators, 

 was so called, not because of any supernatural power it possessed 

 of inspiring those who might eat of it with universal knowledge, as 

 the serpent afterwards suggested, hut because by Adam and Eve 

 abstaining from or eating of it ^fter it was prohibited, God would see 

 whether they would prove good or evil in their state of probation. 



The tradition generally accej)ted as to the fruit which the 

 serpent tempted Eve to eat, fixes it as the Apple, but there is no 

 evidence in the Bible that the Tree of Knowledge was an Apple- 

 tree, unless the remark, " I raised thee up under the Apple-tree," 

 to be found in Canticles viii., 5, be held to apply to our first parents. 

 Eve is stated to have plucked the forbidden fruit because she saw 

 that it was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and that 

 the tree which bore it was " to be desired to make one wise." 



According to an Indian legend, it was the fruit of the Banana 

 tree (Musa paradisiaca or M. sapicntum) that proved so fatal to Adam 

 and Eve. We read in Gerarde's ' Herbal,' that "the Grecians and 

 Christians which inhabit Syria, and the Jewes also, suppose it to be 

 that tree of whose fruit Adam did taste." Gerarde himself calls 

 it " Adam's Apple-tree," and remarks of the fruit, that " if it be 

 cut according to the length oblique, transverse, or any other way 

 whatsoever, may be seen the shape and forme of a crosse, with a 

 man fastened thereto. My selfe have seene the fruit, and cut it in 

 pieces, which was brought me from Aleppo, in pickle ; the crosse, 

 I might perceive, as the forme of a spred-egle in the root of Feme, 

 but the man I leave to be sought for by those which have better 

 eies and judgement than my selfe." Sir John Mandeville gives a 

 similar account of the cross in the Plantain or " Apple of Paradise." 

 In a work by Leon, called ' Africa,' it is stated that the Banana is 

 in that country generally identified with the Tree of Adam. " The 

 Mahometan priests say that this fruit is that which God forbade 

 Adam and Eve to eat ; for immediately they eat they perceived 

 their nakedness, and to cover themselves employed the leaves of 

 this tree, which are more suitable tor the purpose than any other." 

 To this day the Indian Djainas are by their laws forbidden to eat 

 either Bananas or Figs. Vincenzo, a Roman missionary of the 

 seventeenth century, after stating that the Banana fruit in Phcenicia 

 bears the effigy of the Crucifixion, tells us that the Christians of 

 those parts would not on any account cut it with a knife, but always 

 broke it with their hands. This Banana, he adds, grows near 

 Damascus, and they call it there " Adam's P^ig Tree." In the 

 Canaries, at the present time, Banana fruit is never cut across with 

 a knife, because it then exhibits a representation of the Crucifixion. 

 In the island of Ceylon there is a legend that Adam once had a 

 fruit garden in the vicinity of the torrent of Seetagunga, on the 

 way to the Peak. Pridham, in his history of the island, tells us 



