In the Book of Wisdom II, 23, 24, we read: "God created man incorruptible . . . but by the envy of the devil, death came into the world." And St. Paul, Rom. V:12, speaks most plainly: "through one man sin entered into the world and through sin death, and thus death has passed into all men." That death would follow only as a consequence of sin is evident from the very threat of God to Adam: "In what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death" (Gen. II:17). Even the necessity of wearisome labor for the maintenance of life is a consequence of our first parents' sin.5
Campbell cites parallels to the Genesis episode in the Garden of Eden in Oriental religions, with a view toward showing that there was a factor of concurrent development in the ways primitive cultures sought to explain the presence of death amid life. In the traditional Christian view, however, the ultimate hope for man's fate in such a universe lies in the soul, which will be entitled to salvation as long as man accepts the redemption of mankind by Jesus. It is here
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