On Paradise 47–65

But from this question another has emerged. For how is it that when Adam was made alone it was not said that it was good that Adam was made, but when the woman too was made from him, then all things were included as good? Although there he praised all creation and the creation of the whole was approved, since in man the common nature was praised, yet it does not seem idle to ask for what reason, where Adam alone was made, not only was no praise of good added to the pleasing work, but it was even said that it is not good for the man to be alone; since we know that before the woman was made Adam did not go wrong, but after the woman was made, she first transgressed the divine command and drew her husband too into error and became his incitement. If, then, the woman is the author of guilt to the man, how does she seem to have been added for good? But if you consider that God's care is for the whole, you will find that what contained the cause of the whole must have pleased the Lord more than what contained the cause of sin must have been condemned. And so, since the propagation of the human race could not come from the man alone, the Lord declared that it is not good for the man to be alone. For God preferred that there be many whom he could save, to whom he could forgive sin, rather than one Adam alone who would be free from guilt. Indeed, since the same one is author of both works, he came into this world to save sinners. Finally, he did not let even Cain, guilty of murdering his brother, perish before he begot sons. So for the generation of human succession the woman had to be added to the man. The words of God themselves declare this when he says that it is not good for the man to be alone. For even if the woman was going to sin first, yet, since she was to give birth to redemption for herself, she ought not to be excluded from the work of God. For although Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and fell into transgression, yet "she will be saved," he says, "through the bearing of children", among whom she bore Christ too.

Nor is it idle that the woman was made not from the same earth from which Adam was formed but from Adam's own rib, so that we might know that the nature of the body in man and woman is one, the source of the human race one. Therefore a man and a woman were not made two from the beginning, nor two men nor two women, but first the man, then the woman from him. For God, wishing to establish one nature of mankind, beginning this creation from one origin, took away the possibility of many and disparate natures. "Let us make," he says, "a helper for him like himself." We understand a help for the generation of the human race, and truly a good help. For if you take "help" as meaning something better, a greater work of the woman is found in the matter of generation, like that of this earth, which, receiving seeds first and keeping them, makes them grow little by little by its warmth and brings them forth into a crop. In this, then, the woman's help is good, although the helper is also said to be inferior, as we find in human usage too, since those superior in rank often take on a helper of lower standing.

Look now at why God further formed from the earth all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the sky and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. For what reason was this done, since God brought only the beasts of the field and the birds of the sky to Adam? For there were also cattle according to their kind. Indeed you have further on that Adam gave names to all the cattle and to all the beasts of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper like him. What, then, is the solution, except that the untamed beasts and the birds of the sky were brought to man by divine power, while man too had power to gather tame cattle? So the one was a work of divine operation, the other of human diligence. At the same time, learn why all were brought to Adam: so that he might see that in all things the substance of nature consists of both sexes, that is, of male and female, and might himself learn by experience and example that the partnership of a woman was necessarily added to him.

"And God," it says, "cast a deep sleep upon Adam, and he slept." What is this sleep, except that, when for a little while we turn our mind to entering marriage, we seem to bend and turn aside our eyes, as it were, from their fixed gaze on the kingdom of God toward a kind of sleep of this world, and for a little while to fall asleep to divine things while we rest in worldly and earthly matters? Then, after he cast a deep sleep upon Adam, it says, and he slept, "the Lord God built the rib which he took from Adam into a woman." Well did it say "built" when speaking of the creation of the woman, because in man and woman together there seems to be a certain full perfection of a house. One who is without a wife is regarded as if he were without a house; for as the man is thought fitter for public duties, so the woman is thought fitter for household tasks. Consider that he took a rib from the body, not a portion from the soul, that is:

not "soul of my soul", but "bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman." So we have recognized the cause of human generation. But since many who look more carefully are troubled at how, if at first it was a great gift of God to men that they were placed in paradise, or afterwards it seems the reward of great merits that each righteous person is caught up to paradise, beasts too, and the cattle of the field and the birds of the sky, are said to have been in paradise: hence many have held that paradise is the soul of man, in which certain seeds of virtues have sprung up; and that the man placed to work and keep paradise is the mind of man, whose virtue seems to cultivate the soul, and not only to cultivate it but, having cultivated it, to keep it. The beasts of the field and the birds of the sky that are brought to Adam are our irrational impulses, since the beasts or cattle are the various passions of the body, whether more turbulent or more sluggish. And what do we take the birds of the sky to be but empty thoughts, which like birds fly around our soul and often carry it off this way and that with varied motion? That is why no helper like our mind was found except sense, that is, αἴσθησις. Our νοῦς could find only this as like itself.

But perhaps you will argue that, because God placed these things too in such a paradise, that is, the passions of the body and a certain vanity of wavering or empty thoughts, he himself was the author of our error. Consider what he says: "Have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky and all creeping things that creep on the earth." You see that he gave you power, so that you should judge of all things and distinguish the kinds of each by the sober definition of your judgment. God called all things to you so that you might know that your mind is above all things. Why did you wish to take to yourself and join to yourself things that you found not at all like you? He certainly gave you sense, by which you might know all things and judge of what you knew; and you were rightly cast out of that fruitful field of paradise, because you could not keep the command. For God knew that you were frail; he knew you could not judge; that is why he said, as to the frailer: "Do not judge, so that you may not be judged." So since he knew that you were weak for judging, he wanted you to obey the command: that is why he laid down a precept. If you had not transgressed, you could not have fallen into the danger of uncertain judgment. And so, since you wished to judge, he added: "Behold, Adam has become like one of us, knowing good and evil." You wished to claim judgment for yourself: you must not refuse the penalty of perverse judgment.

Yet he placed you opposite paradise, so that you could not wipe out its memory. Indeed the righteous are caught up into paradise, as Paul was caught up into paradise and heard unutterable words. And you too, if by the vigour of your mind you are caught up from the first heaven to the second, from the second heaven to the third (that is, since every man is first bodily, second soulish, third spiritual), if you are so caught up to the third heaven as to see the brightness of spiritual grace (for the soulish man does not know the things of the Spirit, and so the ascent to the third heaven is necessary for you to be caught up into paradise), you will now be caught up without danger, so as to be able to judge all things, because the spiritual man judges all things, but he himself is judged by no one; and perhaps, as one still frail, you will hear unutterable words which it is not lawful for a man to speak; and then keep what you have received and guard what you have heard. The apostle Paul guarded it, lest he should slip or certainly make others go astray. Or perhaps Paul said "which it is not lawful for a man to speak" because he was still placed in the body, that is, he saw the passions of this body, he saw the law of his flesh warring against the law of his mind. I prefer that this be understood, lest we seem to be holding out a terror of some danger still to come; let there be security at least on account of this life, so that we may fear no snares of future transgression hereafter. So whoever is in paradise by the ascent of virtue will hear those hidden and secret mysteries of God; he will hear the Lord saying, as to that thief turning from crime to confession and from robbery to faith: "Today you will be with me in paradise."

"Now the serpent was wiser than all the beasts that were on the earth, which the Lord God had made. And the serpent said to the woman: Why did God say, Do not eat of every tree that is in paradise?" When it calls the serpent "wiser", you understand whom it means: that adversary of ours, who has the wisdom of this world. But pleasure and delight too are rightly called wise, since there is also said to be a wisdom of the flesh, as you have that "the wisdom of this flesh is hostile to God", and those who are eager for pleasures are cunning in seeking out kinds of delights. If, then, you understand delight, it is something opposed to the divine command and hostile to our senses; hence holy Paul says: "I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and taking me captive in the law of sin." But if you refer it to the devil, he is the true enemy of the human race. And what is the cause of enmity but envy? As Solomon says: "Through the envy of the devil death entered the world." The cause of the envy was the happiness of man placed in paradise; and so, since the devil himself could not keep the grace he had received, he envied man because, formed from mud, he was chosen to be a dweller in paradise. For the devil considered that he himself, who had been of a higher nature, had fallen into these worldly and earthly things, while man, a creature of lower nature, hoped for eternal things. This, then, is what he envied, saying: "Shall this inferior one obtain what I could not keep? Shall he pass from earth to heaven, when I have fallen from heaven to earth? I have many ways by which I can deceive man. He was made from mud; the earth is his mother; he is wrapped in corruptible things. Even if his soul is of a higher nature, yet it too, placed in the prison of the body, can be liable to a fall, since I could not avoid falling. So the first way is that he be deceived while he desires things greater than his condition; for this is a kind of striving of diligence. Then, it belongs to the flesh to desire what it does not have. Finally, in what do I seem wiser than all, unless I outwit man and contend with cunning and fraud?" So he contrived not to attack Adam first, but to try to outwit Adam through the woman. He did not attack the man who had received the heavenly command in person, but attacked her who had learned from the man and had not received from God what she was to observe. For you do not have that God spoke to the woman, but that he spoke to Adam; and so the woman must be thought to have learned it through Adam.

Recognizing, then, the kind of temptation in this place, you will find very many kinds of temptation in other places too. Some come through the prince of this world, who has vomited certain poisons of wisdom into this world, so that men think true what is false and their affections are captured by a certain appearance. For he does not always come in as an open enemy; there are certain powers that feign love and hold out favour, so as to pour the poison of their wickedness into our thoughts little by little; from them arise those sins that are born either of delight or of a certain ease of mind. There are other powers too that wrestle with us, as it were. Hence the Apostle too says: "For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and the rulers of this world, of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places"; for they want by this struggle to break us and, as it were, to throw down the body of our soul. That is why Paul, like a good athlete, had learned not only to avoid the blows of hostile powers, but also to strike his opponents. Hence he says: "I box, not as one beating the air." And so, like a good athlete, he deserved to reach the crown. The devil's temptations, then, are manifold. And so the serpent is held to be double-tongued and deadly, because the devil's minister speaks one thing with his tongue and plans another in his heart. There are also other ministers who shoot the arrows of their words infected with the poison of both heart and voice, to whom the Lord says: "Brood of vipers, how can you speak good things, when you are evil?"

"And the serpent said to the woman: Why did God say, Do not eat of every tree that is in paradise? And the woman said to the serpent: Of every tree of paradise we shall eat; but of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of paradise God said: You shall not eat of it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die." When you hear that the serpent is wiser than all the beasts, look here for his cunning. He pretends to speak the words of God and weaves in his own tricks. For whereas God had said, "Of every tree that is in paradise you shall eat for food, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat; on the day you eat of it you shall die the death", the serpent, as if questioning the woman, when God had said, "Of every tree that is in paradise you shall eat, but of one tree you shall not eat", inserted a lie, saying, "You shall not eat of every tree", when God had commanded that only the one tree of the knowledge of good and evil was not to be tasted. That he deceived is no wonder, since it is the custom of those who try to outwit someone to deceive. So the serpent's question is not idle. But so that you may know that there could be no fault in the command, the woman answered and said: "Of every tree of paradise we shall eat; but of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of paradise God said: You shall not eat of it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die the death." There is no fault in the command, but in the report of the command. For as far as the present reading teaches, we learn that we must add nothing to a command, even for the sake of caution. For if you add or take away anything, it seems to be a kind of transgression of the command. The pure and simple form of a command must be kept, or the order of a testimony stated. Often a witness, by adding something of his own to the order of events, discolours the whole credibility of his testimony by a lie in one part. So nothing must be added, even what seems good. For what offence does it seem at first sight to give that the woman added, "nor shall you touch any of it"? God had not said "you shall touch", but "you shall not eat"; yet it begins to be the beginning of the fall. For what she added she either added as superfluous, or by adding something of her own she understood God's command to be half complete. So the order of the present reading teaches us that we must neither take away anything from the divine commands nor add anything. For if John says this of his own writings: "If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the book of life", how much more must nothing be taken from the divine commands! Here, then, the first transgression of the command began. Many think that this fault was not the woman's but Adam's: that Adam, wishing to make her more cautious, told the woman that God had commanded, "nor shall you touch any of it." For we have that Adam, not Eve, received the command from God, since the woman had not yet been formed. The reading does not reveal Adam's actual words in which he told the woman the form and order of the command, but we understand that the order of the command passed through the man to the woman. I shall see what others think; but to me it seems that the fault began with the woman, that she began the lie. For even if it seems uncertain which of the two it was, yet the sex shows which could have erred first. Add that she is bound by a presumption, since afterwards too the first error was found to be hers. For the woman was the author of error to the man, not the man to the woman. Hence Paul too says: "Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and fell into transgression."

Now let us see whether, apart from the addition made to the command, what was added seems to have done harm. For truly, if "nor shall you touch it" is good and served caution, why did God not forbid it, indeed seem to have allowed it by not forbidding it? So both must be asked: for what reason he neither allowed nor forbade it. For there are some who say: for what reason did he not command that what he made should be seen and touched? But when you hear that in that tree there was the nature of the knowledge of good and evil, it can be thought that he did not want you to touch evil. For it is enough for us to see Satan falling like lightning from heaven, according to the Lord's word, and giving food not to the sons of light but to the sons of night and darkness, since it is written: "He gave him as food to the peoples of the Ethiopians." This, then, is said about his not commanding that it be touched; but hear what I understand by his not forbidding it. There are many things that harm us if we choose to consume them before we know what they are. This often happens with food and drink: if you know beforehand that something is bitter, you will put on patience; and if you understand that bitter things are beneficial, you will put on endurance, so that sudden bitterness may not offend you and you begin to reject what will benefit you. So it is beneficial to know beforehand, so that from knowing that a thing will benefit you, you will not loathe even bitter things.

But these things can do less harm; notice what can do more harm unless one takes care. Someone is a pagan, he is moving toward the faith; he is a catechumen, he wants to receive a greater fullness of teaching and faith: let him beware lest, while he wants to learn, he learn badly, and learn from Photinus, learn from Arius, learn from Sabellius, and hand himself over to teachers of this kind whose authority draws him, and, led on by a certain presumption of the teachers impressed on his tender mind, he not know how to judge. Let him first, then, look with the eyes of the mind at what he is to follow; let him see where life is; let him, in short, touch the life-giving parts of the divine readings, so that he may not be offended by any perverse interpreter. Sabellius reads to him: "I in the Father and the Father in me", and says that there is one person. Photinus reads that "the mediator between God and men is the man Christ Jesus", and elsewhere: "Why do you seek to kill me, a man?" Arius too reads that he said: "For the Father is greater than I." What is read is plain, but he ought first to consider within himself for what reason it was said, so that he can notice the reason of the sayings. He is led by a certain authority of teachers, and it would have profited him more not to have sought than to have found such a teacher. And if a pagan takes up the Scriptures, he reads: "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth"; he reads too: "If your right hand offends you, cut it off"; he does not understand the sense, he does not notice the hidden meanings of the divine word; he falls worse than if he had not read. And so he taught how they should investigate the word of God: not superficially, not carelessly, but diligently and carefully. "That which was from the beginning," he says, "which we have heard and seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have examined concerning the word of life: we have seen and we testify and announce to you." You see that he first examined the word of God with hands, as it were, and afterwards announced it. And so perhaps the word would not have harmed Adam and Eve at all if they had first touched it with certain hands of the mind, handling it carefully; for the weak, by handling and inquiring more carefully, can investigate the nature of each thing they do not understand. Certainly those weak ones ought first to have examined how they should touch that tree in which they had learned that there was knowledge of evil. For knowledge of evil too can often benefit us. And so we read of the devil's frauds, whether in this reading or in prophecy, so that we may learn how to beware of his arts; for his temptations are to be known not that we may follow them, but that, taught and instructed, we may beware.

There are some who doubt in this place whether God said that one should eat of every tree in such a way that, with every tree, one might also eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, or whether he said that one should eat of every tree, but that of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil alone one should not eat. They do not think it unreasonable that, although the food of this tree was harmful, yet if it were eaten with the others it could not be harmful, since the antidote theriac is said to be usually made from the body of a serpent; the venom and body of the serpent, when taken alone, certainly harm, but when mixed with other things serve health and safety. So too the knowledge of good and evil is not thought useless at all if one has wisdom, if one always attends to life, if one attains the other kinds of virtues. For this reason many had thought that it could also be understood that God forbade the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to be tasted alone, without the others, but did not forbid it with the others. And they think this was said because God says to Adam: "Who told you that you were naked, unless you have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you that of it alone you should not eat?" This would seem to give some room for interpretation, had not the woman, above, when the serpent said, "Why did God say, Do not eat of every tree that is in paradise?", answered: "Of the tree that is in the middle of paradise God said: You shall not eat of it." In this, although the woman, who would transgress, seems the weaker witness, yet I will not strip Adam of all virtues, as though he attained no virtue in paradise, tasted nothing of the other trees, and fell into guilt before obtaining any fruits. I will not strip Adam, then, lest I strip the whole human race, which is innocent before it receives the sense of the knowledge of good and evil. For it was not idly said: "Unless you turn and become like this child, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." For a child, when he is cursed, does not curse back; when he is struck, does not strike back; he does not know the temptations of ambition and robbery.

So I think it truer that he commanded that the tree not be eaten even with the other fruits. For even if knowledge is good for the perfect, it is useless for the imperfect. I would dare to call every man imperfect, since Paul himself, as one imperfect, says: "Not that I have already received or am already perfect, but I follow on, if I may lay hold." And so the Lord says to the imperfect: "Do not judge, so that you may not be judged." So knowledge is useless to the imperfect. Indeed: "I would not have known sin, unless the law had said, You shall not covet"; and further on: "For without the law sin is dead." For what did it profit me to know what I could not avoid? What did it profit me to know what the law of my flesh would attack? Paul is attacked and sees the law of his flesh warring against the law of his mind and himself taken captive in the law of sin; and he does not presume on his own conscience, but trusts through the grace of Christ that he will be freed from the body of death: and do you think that anyone who knows cannot sin? Paul says: "For I do not do the good that I want, but the evil that I do not want, this I do"; and do you think that knowledge benefits a man, when it increases the odium of the offence? Granted that the perfect man cannot sin: God foresaw all men in Adam, and so it did not suit the human race indiscriminately to have the knowledge of good and evil, which through the vices of the flesh it could not exercise as it ought.

Let us learn, then, that the devil's temptations are full of lies; for scarcely one thing seems true of what he promised; the rest he made up falsely. For you have it thus: "And the serpent said to the woman: You shall not die the death." Behold one falsehood; for the man who followed the serpent's promises died the death. Then he added: "For God knew that on whatever day you eat of it your eyes will be opened." This alone is true, since further on you have that both ate and their eyes were opened; but this was a truth that would harm. Indeed it is not useful for all to have their eyes opened, since it is written: "They will see and not see." But at once a lie was stuck on, for he added: "And you will be like gods, knowing good and evil." Here one may notice that the serpent is the author of idolatry, since a certain cunning of the serpent seems to have brought many gods into the error of men. And in this he deceived, that man would be like gods; for not only did men cease to be like gods, but even those who were as gods, to whom it was said, "I said, You are gods", lost their grace.

"And the woman saw that the tree was good for eating, and that it was pleasing to the eyes to see and beautiful to look at." A weak author of judgment, who judged of what she had not tasted. And so it seems that nothing should readily be taken up for any work unless we have handled it more carefully and tested it with inner feeling. "Taking of its fruit," it says, "she ate and gave to her husband with her, and they both ate." Well was it passed over where Adam was deceived, because he fell not by his own fault but by his wife's vice.

"And their eyes were opened," it says, "and they knew that they were naked." Before, indeed, they were naked, but not without the coverings of the virtues. They were naked because of the simplicity of their ways and because nature did not know the cloak of fraud; but now the human mind is veiled with many wrappings of pretence. So after they saw themselves stripped of that sincerity and simplicity of an unblemished and uncorrupted nature, they began to look for worldly and handmade things with which to cover the nakedness of their minds, sewing delights to delights and the shadowy pleasures of this world like leaves to leaves, with which to shade their secret parts of generation. For how could Adam have had the eyes of his body closed, when he so saw all living creatures as to give them names? How they knew, then, means that by an inner and deeper knowledge they knew that they lacked not a tunic, but the coverings of the virtues.

"And they sewed fig leaves," it says, "and made themselves girdles." How we should take the fig in this place the course of the divine readings teaches us, since Scripture has recorded that the saints are those who rest under the vine and the fig tree, and Solomon said: "Who plants a fig tree and does not eat of its fruit?", and the Lord came to the fig tree but was offended because he found no fruit, only leaves. So Adam teaches me what the leaves are: after he sinned, he made himself a girdle of fig leaves, he who should rather have tasted its fruits. The righteous man chooses the fruit, the sinner the leaves. What is the fruit? "The fruit of the Spirit," it says, "is charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, modesty, continence, love." He who had no joy had no fruit; he who had transgressed God's command had no faith; he who had tasted of the forbidden tree had no continence.

So whoever transgresses God's command is stripped and laid bare and becomes shameful to himself. He wants to cover himself with fig leaves, perhaps with empty or shadowy words, which the sinner, sewing composed lies together and building word on word, weaves as a covering for the conscience of his mind and deed, to cover his shame. For he throws leaves over himself who, wishing to veil his fault, either names the devil as the author of his offence, or pleads the enticements of the flesh, or points to someone else as having persuaded him into error. And he often brings out examples from the divine Scriptures by which he claims that righteous men fell into fault, saying, if perhaps he has been caught in sexual immorality: "Abraham too lay with a slave girl, and David loved another man's wife and took her for himself." He sews to himself certain examples from the course of the prophetic Scriptures, but does not think their fruit is to be sought.