Fall, the

Fall, the. The first act of disobedience of Adam and Eve whereby humanity lost its primal innocence. According to Gen. 2 f., Eve, tempted by a serpent, ate the forbidden fruit of the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ and induced Adam to do likewise. The punishment was expulsion from the Garden of Eden, the imposition of toilsome work on Adam and the pains of childbirth on Eve, and the decree of perpetual enmity between the serpent and man. The biblical narrative teaches that sin arose by human choice and that all human life has thereby been radically changed for the worse, so that its actual state is different from that purposed for it by the Creator.

Until modern times the common Christian belief regarded the Fall of Adam and Eve as a historical event. The serpent was identified with the Devil, a spiritual being who must have been created good and himself previously fallen, and hence the original Fall was inferred to be that of Satan rather than of Adam and Eve. Since all subsequent humanity was believed to have descended from Adam and Eve, the consequences of the Fall were held to affect all mankind by inheritance. While the Greek Fathers tended to minimize the evil done to man by the sin of Adam and stress the responsibility of each individual, the Latins (especially St Augustine), emphasizing the enormity of Adam's transgression and its consequences for mankind, developed the doctrine of original sin (q.v.). Though in modern times the concept of the Fall has often been held to be inconsistent with the facts of man's development known to science, orthodox theologians still see in the story of Gen. 2 f. a fundamental truth about man in his relation to God, even if the truth is now held to be there conveyed in legendary form.