On Paradise 66–77

Do not the Jews too seem to you to sew leaves, when they interpret the words of the spiritual law in a bodily way? Their interpretation loses all the fruit of greenness, condemned by the curse of eternal dryness. A good interpretation, then, that is, the spiritual fig tree, is fruitful, and under it the righteous and the saints rest. Whoever plants it in the souls of each, as Paul says, "I planted, Apollos watered", will eat its fruit; but a bad interpretation cannot bear fruit or keep its greenness.

What is graver, then, is that Adam girded himself with this interpretation in the very place where he should rather have girded himself with the fruit of chastity. For in the loins, with which we are girded, certain seeds of generation are said to be; and so Adam was wrongly girded there with useless leaves, where he signified not the coming fruit of future generation but certain sins, which remained until the coming of the Lord and Saviour. But after the Lord came, he found the fig tree uncultivated. Asked not to order it cut down, he allowed it to be cultivated. And so we are now girded not with leaves but with the divine word, since the Lord himself says: "Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning." Hence he also forbids money to be carried in our belts; for our belt should keep not worldly but eternal things.

"And they heard," it says, "the voice of the Lord walking in the evening." What is the walking of God, who is always everywhere? But I think there is a certain walking of God through the course of the divine Scriptures, in which a certain presence of God dwells, when we hear that he himself sees all things and that the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, when we read that Jesus knew their thoughts, when we read: "Why do you think evil in your hearts?" So while we review these things, we recognize God, as it were, walking. The sinner, then, had fled, not where he could hide from the sight of God, but he wished to hide within his own conscience; he did not want his works to be seen in the light. For it belongs to the righteous to see face to face, because the mind of the righteous man is not only present to God but even reasons with God, as it is written: "Judge for the orphan and justify the widow, and come, let us reason together, says the Lord." So when the sinner reads these Scriptures, he hears the voice of God as if walking in the evening. What is "in the evening" but that he recognizes his fault late, and a certain shame for past error comes late, which ought to have forestalled the error? For while the fault burns in the body and the soul is driven by the passions of the body, the mind of one who errs does not think of God, that is, it does not hear God walking in the divine Scriptures, walking in the minds of each. For God says: "For I will dwell in them and walk among them, and I will be their God." So when the fear of divine power has returned to the soul's sense, then we blush, then we long to hide; then, placed in the thoughts of our sins, in the middle of the tree of paradise where we sinned, we are caught wishing to hide and thinking that God does not seek out hidden things. But the searcher of minds and thoughts, who pierces even to the division of the soul, says:

"Adam, where are you?" How does God speak? With a bodily voice? Certainly not; rather, he pours out his oracles by a power more excellent than the voice of the body can be. This voice of his the prophets heard; this voice the faithful hear; the ungodly do not understand. Indeed in the Gospel you have that the evangelist heard the Father saying, "I have glorified it and will glorify it again", but the Jews did not hear; they said, "It thundered." So there, as you have above, God was perceived as walking who was not walking, so God was heard speaking who was not speaking.

But let us consider what he says: "Adam, where are you?" There is still a remedy of health in those who hear God's word. Indeed the Jews, who closed their ears so as not to hear, even today do not deserve to hear. Then, those who hid themselves have a remedy. For one who hides blushes; one who blushes is converted, as it is written: "Let them be put to shame and turned back, all of them, very quickly." Then, the very fact that he calls is a sign that he will heal, since the Lord calls those on whom he has mercy. In saying "Where are you?" he who knows hidden things is not asking about a place; for God did not have his eyes closed, so as not to see the one hiding. Indeed he said, "Adam has become like one of us", because he opened his eyes. And he opened his eyes so as to see his fault, which he could not avoid; for somehow it is more after we have sinned that we recognize our offences, and then we understand to be sin what before we sinned we did not think to be sin, or certainly did not think should be condemned as sin; for if we condemned it, we would not commit it. But God sees the faults of all and knows the offences of all; he has his eyes on the soul of all, on the hidden things of all. Why, then, "Adam, where are you?" That is, not in what place, but in what things are you? So it is not a question but a rebuke. From what goods, he says, from what happiness, from what grace have you fallen into what misery? You have abandoned eternal life and are entombed in death, buried with error. Where is that confidence of yours with its good conscience? This fear confesses guilt, this hiding transgression. Where, then, are you? That is, I ask not in what place, but in what state. To what have your sins brought you, that you flee your God, whom you used to seek? Perhaps it may trouble someone why Adam is rebuked first, when the woman tasted first. But the weaker sex began the transgression, the stronger the shame and the excuse, so that the woman was the cause of the error, the man of the shame.

"And the woman said: The serpent deceived me, and I ate." A pardonable fault, which is followed by the confession of offences. So the woman is not without hope, since she did not keep silent before God but rather confessed her sin, and a sentence that could heal followed. It is good to be condemned in sin and scourged in offence, so as to be scourged with men. Indeed Cain, because he wished to deny his crime, was judged unworthy to be punished in his sin, but was let go without a prescribed penalty, perhaps not so much for the greater crime of murdering his kin (for he committed that against his brother) as for sacrilege, because he thought he should lie to God, saying: "I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?" And so his accusation was reserved for the devil, the accuser, so that he who would not be scourged with men might be scourged with his angels. Indeed of such it is said: "There is no turning aside from their death", and "they will not be scourged with men." The woman's case, then, was different: although she had fallen into the fault of transgression, she still had food of virtue from the trees of paradise, and so she told her sin, and it was reckoned to her for pardon. For "the righteous man is his own accuser at the beginning of his speech"; nor can anyone be justified from sin unless he has first confessed his sin. Hence the Lord says: "Tell your iniquities, so that you may be justified."

So because Eve herself confessed her offence, a milder and beneficial sentence follows, which would condemn the error and not deny pardon: that, turned to her husband, she should serve him; first, so that erring might not easily delight her; then, so that, placed under the stronger vessel, she might not lead her husband astray, but rather be governed herself by her husband's counsel. In this I clearly recognize the mystery of Christ and the church. For the future turning of the church to Christ is signified, and a religious service subject to the word of God, which is much better than the liberty of this world. Indeed it is written: "You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him alone." This service, then, is a gift of God. Indeed the obedience of this service is counted among the blessings; for Isaac too gave it in place of a blessing to his son Esau, that he should serve his brother. In fact, Esau was asking for a blessing; though he knew that one had been taken from him, he still asked for another, saying: "Have you only one blessing, father?" Through this service, then, he who had sold his birthright earlier for gluttony and had lost the grace of the blessing by his zeal for hunting in the fields believed that he would become better if he revered the type of Christ in his brother. For by this service the Christian people is strong, as the Lord too says to his disciples: "Whoever wishes to be first among you, let him be the servant of all." Indeed charity works this service, which is greater than hope and faith. Hence it is written: "Through charity serve one another." This, then, is the mystery which the Apostle speaks of in Christ and in the church. For she was truly in transgression before, but she will be saved through the bearing of children in faith and charity and sanctification with chastity: the human race, which transgressed in the fathers, saved through the sons, so that what had offended in the Jews might be corrected in a Christian posterity.

"The serpent," she says, "persuaded me"; and this seemed pardonable to God, since he knew that the serpent has many ways of deceiving, because he transforms himself into an angel of light, and his ministers are like ministers of righteousness, putting false names on each thing, so as to call rashness virtue and give the name of diligence to avarice. For the serpent deceived the woman; the woman led the man away from the truth into transgression. Bodily delight took the type of the serpent. The woman is a symbol of our sense, the man of the mind. So delight moves sense, and sense passes on to the mind the passion it has received. Delight, then, is the first origin of sin; and so do not wonder why by God's judgment the serpent is condemned first, the woman second, the man third. The order of condemnation followed the order of error; for delight usually takes sense captive, and sense the mind. And so that you may know that the serpent is a type of delight, notice its condemnation.

"On your breast," it says, "and on your belly you shall go." Who are those who go on their belly but those who live for the belly and gluttony, "whose god is the belly and whose glory is in their shame", who mind earthly things and, loaded with food, are bent toward the earth? Well, then, does he say to delight, which, intent on food, seems to eat the earth: "On your breast and on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat earth all the days of your life." Every excuse must be taken away from the devil, lest perhaps he should be able to plead something for his wickedness, saying that his iniquity came to him from the condemnation, and that he therefore strives stubbornly to harm men, because he was condemned in order to harm. This seems close to being the case if we take this sentence as one of condemnation; but God did not condemn the serpent so that it might harm; rather, he showed what would come to be. And indeed we showed above how that temptation is of more benefit to men; yet if we recognize that it is written, God saying, "Those who honour me I will honour, and he who despises me will be deprived of honour", we may gather something from these words. For God works what is good, not what is evil; so let the divine words teach you that he works glory and leaves punishment. "Those who honour me," he says, "I will honour", declaring that the honour of the good is his own work. "And those who despise me": he did not say, "I will deprive of honour", but "they will be deprived of honour", not assigning their disgrace to his own working, but showing what would come to be. So here he did not say, "I make you go on your breast and on your belly and eat earth all the days of your life", but "you will go", he says, "and you will eat", so that he might seem rather to have foretold what would happen to the serpent than to have prescribed what it should do. "Earth," he says, "will be your food, not the soul"; for this too benefits sinners. Hence the Apostle too handed over such a man "for the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit may be saved in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ". He says that the serpent crawls on breast and belly not so much because of the shape of its body as because, through earthly thoughts, it fell from that heavenly blessing; for the breast is often taken as a kind of inner chamber of wisdom. And so the Apostle reclines his head on the breast of Christ; he does not cast it down to the earth. So if the devil's wisdom is compared to the most savage beasts, whose breast is between their feet, if men too who mind earthly things and are not raised to heaven by inner feeling seem to crawl on the earth on their belly, then surely we must not fill the belly of our soul with the corruptible things of this world, but rather satisfy it with the word of God. Well, then, does David, taking the person of Adam, say: "My soul is brought low to the dust; my belly has cleaved to the earth"; for it cleaved while it was being conformed to the serpent, which feeds on earthly iniquity. And so the Apostle says that we must be conformed to Christ, so that the power of Christ may stand forth in us. This sentence is not thought heavy for the serpent, since even Adam, who sinned less gravely, is condemned by such a sentence.

For it is written: "Cursed is the earth in your works; in sorrow you shall eat of it all the days of your life." There certainly seems to be some likeness in the sentence, yet within the likeness a great difference. For it matters whether one eats earth as was said to the serpent, that it will eat earth, or as was said to the man: "In sorrow you shall eat." This addition, "in sorrow", makes the difference; consider what force the difference has. It is good for me to eat earth in sorrow rather than in delight: that is, to seem to be saddened in some act and sense of the body rather than to delight in sin. For many, because of their excessive iniquities, do not take on the awareness of sin. But he who says, "I chastise my body and bring it into subjection", is saddened for the repentance of our sins, since he did not have such great offences of his own as to need to be saddened over them. Indeed he persuades us too that this sorrow is useful, which is according to God, not according to the world. "You must," he says, "be saddened unto repentance according to God; for sorrow according to God works salvation, but the sorrow of the world works death." And learn from the Old Testament too that those came to grace who were saddened in bodily works, but those remained in punishment who delighted in such works. Indeed the Hebrews, who groaned in the labours of Egypt, obtained the grace of the righteous, and because they ate bread in sorrow they were given spiritual food; but the Egyptians, who carried out such works with exultation, serving a detestable king, obtained no pardon.

But there is also this distinction, that it is said to the serpent that it will eat earth, but to Adam, "In sorrow," it says, "you shall eat the grass of the field", so that we may understand a certain progress in these things: when we eat earth, we seem to be in a certain wickedness; when grass, in a certain progress; but when bread, then fortitude has been perfected. So let us too have progress in this life, as Paul had, who says: "I live, yet no longer I" (that is, not I who used to eat earth, not I who ate grass, since all flesh is grass), "but Christ lives in me", that is, there lives that living bread which came down from heaven; there lives wisdom, grace lives, righteousness lives, the resurrection lives.

Next, consider that the man is not cursed, but the serpent is cursed; nor is the earth cursed in itself, but "cursed," it says, "in your works": this was said to the soul. The earth is cursed then, if you have earthly works, that is, worldly works; and cursed not altogether, but so as to bring forth thorns and thistles, unless it is tilled by the effort of human work. But if we till it, we shall eat bread, in labour indeed and sweat, but bread nonetheless. For the law of the flesh fights against the law of the mind, and we must labour and sweat to chastise the body and bring it into subjection and to sow the things that are spiritual. For if we sow fleshly things, we shall reap what is fleshly; but if we sow spiritual things, we shall reap the things that are spiritual.