The Original Sin and the fall of Man

 In the beginning there was no world and no universe of sun, moon and the stars, as we know it. There was only a formless and fathomless void, known as chaos, full of a violently whirling mass of matter and gas. It was absolutely dark. On the upper part of it was Heaven, the abode of God, his Son, and His Angels. On the lower end of Chaos, there was Hell, a dark desolate and dreary place, full of burning, sulphurous matter.

God in Heaven declared His Son, Christ, as His Successor. This aroused the envy of Satan or Lucifer, one of the most powerful of the angels. He questioned the right of Christ to the throne. The result was a civil war in Heaven, in which Satan and his companions were defeated and hurled into Hell to suffer eternal damnation and torture there.

Soon after the War in Heaven, God created the ordered Universe or Cosmos, out of Chaos. This was earth, fitted with the sun, the moon and the stars. A part of this newly created earth called the Garden of Eden or paradise, was given to Adam and Eve, the first Man and the first Woman, as their Home. In Paradise, the first ancestors of men were free to enjoy all bliss. There was only once restraint on their freedom. They must not taste the fruit of the Forbidden Tree, the Tree of Knowledge.

Satan in Hell came to know of the Earth, and of the newly created race of man. He decided to have his revenge upon the Almighty by bringing about the fall of man. He appeared to Eve in the guise of a snake and tempted her to taste the Forbidden fruit. Eve, in her turn persuaded Adam to taste the fruit. This was the original Sin committed by Man, and it brought about his downfall. Adam and Eve were turned out of Paradise and mankind became subject to disease, suffering and death. This Original Sin is at the root of all human suffering. Man must suffer and thus atone to God for the sin of his grandparents. Man’s suffering will end only when Christ would be re-born on earth, suffer for the sake of Man, and thus atone to God for his sins.

This Biblical myth of the original sin and the Fall of Man forms the basis of Milton’s Paradise Lost. The possible regeneration of Man through the self-sacrifice of Christ is the theme of his Paradise Regained.