FRUIT OF TREE OF KNOWLEDGE 241 



Besides grapes, figs and pomegranates it is the 

 only fruit mentioned in Scripture, and it is also 

 possible that some found reason for identifying 

 it with the fruit which brought sin into the 

 world in the apparent similarity of the two 

 Latin words, ' malum ' = evil, and * malum ' = 

 an apple. 



And as the fruit varies in the hand of Adam 

 so it varies in the hand of the Infant Christ, 

 the second Adam. Memling and the painters 

 of Cologne depict Him with an apple. II 

 Moretto paints a pear,' Giovanni Bellini a 

 quince," and Botticelli a pomegranate.^ The 

 Eve of Jan van Eyck holds a lemon,* but he 

 keeps to the older convention in the symbols 

 which he places in the hand of the Infant 

 Saviour: the bird, emblem of the human soul, 

 the inscribed scroll or the cross-surmounted 

 orb. 



The apple, when in the hand of Adam, is 

 always the symbol of the Fall ; when in the hand 

 of Christ, it is the symbol of the sin of the world 

 which He took upon Himself. ' For as in Adam 



' Vatican. * Brera, Milan. 



* Uf&zi. . • Museum, Brussels. 



