Falkner, Thomas, a missionary Jesuit, the son of an eminent surgeon at Manchester, England, was born at Manchester aljout 1710, and was bred to his father's profession. He visited Buenos Ayres, and falling ill there, was nursed by the Jesuits, and un- der the influence of their kindness was led to aban- don the Presbyterian Church in which he had been brouglit up, to enter the Bonian Church, and to join the order of Jesuits. He devoted himself to mission- ary labors, in which his medical skill was of great use. He spent fort}' j-ears in this service in various parts of Sou'th America. After the suppression of the order he returned to England, where he died Januarj' 30, 1784. He wrote a Description of Patagonia (London, 1774, 4to) : — Botanical and other Ohservatinns in A mer- ica (1 vols. fob). — Migne, Did. de Biog. Chrit. s. v.
Fall of Man, a phrase which "does not occur in Scripture, but is proba1)ly taken from the book of Wis- dom, cliap. X, 1. It is a convenient term to express the fact of tlie revolt of our first parents from God, and tiie consequent sin and misery in which they and their posterity were involved."
I. Scriptural Account of the Fall.—(\.) The IMosaic account is (Gen. ii, iii), that a garden having been planted by the Creator for the use of man, he was placed in it to dress it and to keep it ; that in this gar- den two trees were specialh' distinguished, one as the tree of life, the other as the tree of knowledge of good and evil ; that Adam was put under the following pro- bation by his Maker (Gen. ii, 16, 17) : "And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou Miayest freely eat ; but of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it ; for in tlie day tliat thou catest thereof tliou shalt sure- ly die ;" that the serpent, who was more subtil than any beast of the field, tempted the woman to eat, by denying that death would be the consequence, and bj' assuring her that her eyes and those of her husband should be opened, and that they should be "as gods, knowing good and evil ;" that the woman took of the fruit, gave of it to her husband, who also ate ; and that for this act of disobedience they were expelled from the garden, made subject to death, and laid under va- rious maledictions.
(2.) "Whether this account be a literal history or not, has been matter of great discussion, not merely be- tween Christians and unbelievers, but also among Christian interpreters. One theory is that the pas- sage is an allegory, signifying the origin of sin in the abuse of free-will, under which the appetites of man were allowed to obtain supremacy over his liigher powers. Another (later) view makes the narration mythical. The general current of Christian interpre- tation has held the passage to be historical, and has interpreted it literally. Philo Juda>us (f c. 40), speak- ing of the account of Paradise, says : " These accounts seem to me to be symbolical ; not mere fabulous in- ventions like those of the poets and sophists, but rather types shadowing fortli allegorical truth according to some mystical explanation." So he makes the ser- pent the symbol of pleasure, etc. (C»i the Creation of the World, Bohn's translation, London, 1854, p. 46 sq.). Among the early Church writers, Clement considers the narrative of the Fall partly as fact and partly as allegory {St7-om. v, 11, p. C89, 00), and, following Philo, makes the serpent the image of voluptuousness. Ori- gen regards the account as allegorical (^De prime, iv, 16 ; contra Cels. iv, 40 ; comp. also Origen, Fragm. in Gen. ad loc). Irenaeus held the passage to be historical ; so also Tertullian, adv. Judaos, ii, 184 ; De rirg. vel. 11 ; adv. Marc, ii, 2. " He insists upon the literal in- terpretation of the particulars of the narrative, as they succeeued each other in order of time (/>e resurr. cam. 61: Adam ante nomina animalibus enunciavit, quam de arbore decerpsit ; ante etiam prophetavit, quam voravit). The Gnostics made it allegorical or mj'thi- cal. On the Gnostic (Basilidian) doctrine of the Fall (pvy-y^vatQ c'lpxiKii'), compare Clem. Strom, ii, 20, p. 488 ; Gieseler, <§^MfZ. ?/. Kritiken (1830), p. 390. The author of the Clementine Homilies goes so far in idealizing Adam, as to convert the historical person into a purely mythical being (like the Adam-Cadmon of the Cab- balists), while he represents Eve as far inferior to him. Hence Adam could not trespass, but sin makes its first appearance in Cain ; Baur, Gnosis, p. 339" (Hagen- bach, IJistory of Doctrines, § 61). Among the later fa- tliers, and in the scholastic period, the account was generally held to be historical. Augustine i^De Civi- tate Dei, xiii, 21) asserts the historical verity of the narration, but adds that true spiritual and typical mean- ings are contained in it; e. g. Paradise is the Church, the tree of knowledge is the tj'pe of free-will, etc.
The theologians of the Keforniation followed the Scholastics in adhering to the literal interpretation, but differ in the exposition of several parts of the narrative ; e. g. the serpent is held by some to be a natural serpent ; by ethers, Satan in the guise of a serpent, etc. Calvin (Comnuntary on Genesis iii) speaks as follows : "It appears, perhaps, scarcely con- sonant with reason that the serpent only should be here brouglit forward, all mention of Satan being sup- pressed. 1 acknowledge, indeed, tliat from this jilace alo?ie nothing more can be collected tluin that men were deceived by the serpent. But the testmionie^ of Scypture are sufliciently numerous in which it is plainW asserted that the serpent was only the mouth of the devil ; for not the serpent, but the devil, is de- clared to be ' the father of lies,' the fabricator of im- posture, and the author of death. The question, howa