it, to some extent a phallic symbol.

Every one should know the classic story of the Golden Apple; how the
tree which bore the Golden Apples grew up in the Garden of the
Hesperides in honour of the wedding of Hera, a goddess who more or less
personified the female sex; how the Golden Apples are variously said to
have been dedicated to the Sun (Hellos), to the Sun-God (Dionysos), and
to the Goddess of Love (Aphrodite); how the Sun-God Hercules as one of
the twelve labours which represented the months, slew the Serpent which
guarded the tree, and plucked the fruit; and how the Goddess Eris, who
alone of all the deities was not invited to the nuptials of Peleus and
Thetis, revenged herself by throwing among the guests a Golden Apple
inscribed "To the fairest," and Paris awarded it to the Goddess of
Love, Aphrodite or Venus.

The story of the Garden of the Hesperides is at heart one with that of
the Garden of Eden; for it is obvious that the same phallic meaning
underlies each, and that they are but different versions of the same
allegory.

It may here be called to mind that it has this century been discovered
from the cuneiform inscriptions of Western Asia, that Eden was the name
given by Babylonians in days of old to the plain outside Babylon,
whereupon, according to the legends of that city, the creation of
living beings took place. Also that much evidence has accrued which,
impartially weighed in the balance, leads clearly to the conclusion
that the all-important commencement of Genesis, which forms as it were
the very basis of both the Jewish and the Christian Scriptures, was
borrowed by the Jews from Babylon. And that it was in reality a
_Babylonian_ tradition or series of traditions of far older date than