On Paradise

As we set about speaking of paradise, no small agitation seems to strike us in our desire to investigate and explain what paradise is, where it is, and what it is like; especially since the Apostle does not know whether he was in the body or out of the body, yet says that he was caught up to the third heaven. And again he says: "I know such a man, whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows, that he was caught up into paradise and heard unutterable words, which it is not lawful for a man to speak. On behalf of such a one I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except in my weaknesses. For if I wish to boast, I shall not be a fool, for I speak the truth." If, then, paradise is such that Paul alone, or scarcely someone like Paul, could see it while still living, and yet he cannot remember whether he saw it in the body or out of the body, and heard words that he was forbidden to make known, how then shall we be able to explain where paradise lies, when we could not see it and, had we been able to see it, would still be forbidden to make it known to others? At the same time, since Paul was afraid of being exalted by the height of his revelations, how much more must we take care not to make known too eagerly a thing whose very revelation is exposed to danger! We must not, therefore, think this paradise a cheap thing; and so let us leave it as Paul's secret.

Yet since we read in Genesis that paradise was planted by God toward the east, and that the man whom God had formed was placed there, we can now find the author of this paradise. For who could fashion paradise except almighty God, who spoke and things were made, never needing the things he wished to bring into being? He himself, then, planted paradise, of which Wisdom says: "Every plant which my Father has not planted will be rooted up." Good is the planting of the angels, good that of the saints; for the saints are said to be under the fig tree and the vine in that future time of peace, and in them there is a type of the angels.

So paradise is a place with very many trees, but fruit-bearing trees, trees full of sap and strength, of which it is said: "All the trees of the forests will rejoice"; trees always flourishing with the green of merits, like that tree which is planted by the streams of water, whose leaf will not fall, because all its fruit abounds in it. This, then, is paradise.

The place in which it is planted is called "delight". Hence holy David says: "You will give them drink from the torrent of your delight." For you have read that a spring goes out from Eden which waters paradise. These trees, then, planted in paradise, are watered as if by a flood of the torrent of the Spirit, of which he says elsewhere too: "The rushing of the river gladdens the city of God." That city is the Jerusalem above, which is free, in which the various merits of the saints have sprung up.

In this paradise, then, God placed the man whom he had formed. Understand now that he placed there not the man who is according to the image of God, but the one who is according to the body; for what is incorporeal is not in a place. He placed him in paradise as he placed the sun in heaven, awaiting the kingdom of heaven, just as the creation awaits the revelation of the sons of God.

If, then, paradise is where the shrubs had sprung up, paradise seems to be the soul, which multiplies the seed it has received, in which every virtue is planted, in which was also the tree of life, that is, wisdom, as Solomon said that wisdom did not spring from the earth but from the Father; for she is the radiance of eternal light and the outflow of the glory of the Almighty.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was also in paradise. For you have it thus: that God brought forth a tree beautiful to see and good for food, and the tree of life in paradise, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Later we shall see whether this tree too was beautiful to see and good for food like the rest; that will be discussed more fittingly in the place where we find that the man who tasted of it was deceived. Meanwhile we have nothing that we ought to find fault with now, even if we cannot know the reason. For in this creation of the world, too, if some things seem difficult to understand and beyond the grasp of our minds, we must not condemn them by a rash judgment, such as the creation of serpents and of some venomous animal, since as men we cannot yet understand and know for what reason each thing was made. So too in the divine Scriptures let us not readily find fault with anything we cannot understand; for there are very many things that must not be measured by our minds but judged by the height of the divine plan and word.

Suppose, without prejudice to what I shall argue later, that this tree of the knowledge of good and evil displeases you because, after the men tasted of it, they understood that they were naked. Yet I shall tell you that, for the completion of the divine work, this tree too sprang up in paradise and was permitted by God so that we might know the surpassing excellence of the good. For how, if there were no knowledge of good and evil, should we learn any distinction between good and evil? For we would not judge what was evil to be evil unless there were knowledge of the good (and there could be no knowledge of the good unless there were also the good), nor again would we know that what was good was good unless there were knowledge of evil. Take an example from the very constitution of the human body. It has a certain bitterness of gall, which, if you look at the whole, is found useful for a man's health. So what we think evil is often not evil in every respect but useful to the whole. For as gall is in a part of the body and yet benefits the whole body, so God, knowing that the knowledge of good and evil would benefit all, placed it in a part so that it might benefit the whole.

Finally, you find the serpent in paradise, certainly not brought into being without God's will. In the figure of the serpent is the devil; for that the devil was in paradise the prophet Ezekiel also teaches, who says of the prince of Tyre: "You were made in the delight of paradise"; and we take the prince of Tyre as a figure of the devil. Shall we accuse God on this account too, because we cannot grasp the treasures of his depth and knowledge, hidden and concealed in Christ, except those he has deigned to reveal? Yet he has revealed this, that we may know that even the devil's wickedness is of benefit to men for salvation; not that the devil wishes to benefit them, but that the Lord turns his wickedness, even as he resists, to our salvation. So his wickedness made the virtue and patience of the holy man Job more illustrious. His wickedness exercised Job's righteousness, so that he might contend and conquer and the crown might follow the victory; for no one is crowned except one who has contended lawfully. Joseph's chastity too would never have come to our memory had not his master's wife, stirred by the fiery darts of the devil, tempted his affection, and finally sought his death, so that the chastity of the man who despised death for chastity's sake might be the more illustrious. Do you want to know God's counsel? It is by the devil's prompting, of course, that murders seem to be prepared for righteous men, and the slaughter of sons to be carried out. Yet the Lord tested Abraham also by this means, demanding that the same man sacrifice his son to him. By this test Abraham was proved faithful to the Lord, since not even pity for a beloved son called him back from the obedience of devotion. So too, then, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in paradise, which was beautiful to see and good for food, seemed so in appearance; for it was not good for food in use, since eating of it seems to have harmed men. So there is what harms individuals and benefits the whole: as the devil harmed Judas, but apart from him crowned all the apostles, who overcame the temptations of his wickedness.

So we must neither doubt nor find fault that the devil was in paradise, since he could not close the way to the saints so that none could ascend; nor did he, as an owner, snatch from the righteous the dwelling of their sojourn. Granted that he turned some idle and vicious people away from dwelling in the heavenly possession: it is far more majestic and far more beautiful that he will be shut out by the prayers of the saints, when that is fulfilled: "I saw Satan falling like lightning from heaven." So let us not fear him, who is so weak that he himself will fall to the earth. He received leave to tempt, but he did not receive the power to overthrow, unless a weak disposition, which does not know how to summon help to itself, slips of its own accord. And so we need to learn by what fraud he tempted the first man, what he thought must be tempted in man, in what order and by what art, so that we can be on our guard.

Most people, however, who hold that the devil was not in paradise (though we have read that he stood in heaven with the angels), may take the interpretation of this reading according to their own wish, so as not to seem to be offended in this discourse. For there was one before us who recorded that the transgression was committed by man through pleasure and sense, taking the figure of the serpent as a figure of delight, and placing in the figure of the woman the sense of the soul and mind, which the Greeks call αἴσθησις; and he asserted that, when sense was deceived, the mind, which the Greeks call νοῦς, became, according to the history, a transgressor. So in Greek he rightly took νοῦς as the figure of the man, αἴσθησις of the woman. That is why some have interpreted Adam as the earthly νοῦς. And the Lord in the Gospel set those virgins awaiting the bridegroom's coming with lit or extinguished torches for the senses, either whole, of the wise, or corrupted, of the foolish. For if Eve, that is, the sense of the first woman, had had lit torches, she would never have entangled us in the snares of her transgression, nor would she have fallen from that immortality of virtue.

Paradise, then, is a fertile land, that is, a fruitful soul, planted in Eden, that is, in a certain delight or well-tilled land, in which the soul finds its delight. There is also the mind (νοῦς), as Adam, and there is sense, as Eve. And so that you may have nothing to blame on the weakness of nature or on a condition liable to the dangers it must bear, consider what aids this soul has.

There was a spring that watered paradise. What spring, if not the Lord Jesus Christ, the fount of eternal life, as the Father is? For it is written: "For with you is the fountain of life"; and again: "Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." Both a spring and a river are read of, which waters the fruitful tree of paradise, which bears fruit for eternal life. This, then, is the spring, as you have read (for "a spring," it says, "goes out from Eden", that is, the spring is in your soul; hence Solomon too says, "Drink water from your own vessels and from the springs of your own wells"); this is the spring which goes out from that well-tilled soul full of delight; this is the spring which waters paradise, that is, the virtues of the soul sprouting with the highest merit.

"And the spring," it says, "is divided into four heads. The name of the first is Pishon; this is the one that encircles the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. The gold of that land is good; there is carbuncle and the green stone. And the name of the second is Gihon; this is the one that encircles all Ethiopia. And the third river is the Tigris; this is the one that flows toward the Assyrians. And the fourth river is the Euphrates." These, then, are the four rivers: the Pishon (so called among the Hebrews, but the Ganges among the Greeks), which flows toward India; the Gihon, the Nile, which encircles the land of Egypt or Ethiopia. Mesopotamia is so called because the Tigris and the Euphrates enclose it, since it lies between these two rivers, as the name itself and the common opinion of people even far away have expressed. But how is the wisdom of God called a spring? It is a spring according to the Gospel, which says: "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink"; it is a spring according to the prophet too, who says: "Come and eat of my bread and drink the wine I have mixed for you." As, then, wisdom is the spring of life, the spring of spiritual grace, so it is the spring of the other virtues that direct us on the course of eternal life. From this soul, then, which is cultivated, not from the uncultivated one, this spring goes out to water paradise, that is, certain thickets of various virtues, of which there are four heads into which this wisdom is divided. What are the four heads of the virtues if not one of prudence, another of temperance, the third of fortitude, the fourth of justice? These even the wise men of this world took from our writers and transferred into the writings of their own books. So, as wisdom is the spring, these four rivers are streams of the virtues flowing from that spring.

The Pishon, then, is prudence, and so it has good gold, the shining carbuncle and the green stone. For we often take gold to stand for the discoveries of the prudent; hence the Lord too says through the prophet, "I gave them gold and silver", and David says of the prudent: "If you sleep among the allotted portions, the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her hinder parts with the gleam of gold", because one who has held fast to the Old and New Testaments can advance by the richness of discussion into the very secrets of God's wisdom. This, then, one may call good gold, not the coined gold which is corruptible and earthly. It also has, it says, the shining carbuncle, in which a little spark of our soul lives. And it has the green stone, which seems to display by the look of its colour something green and living. For trees that live are green, whereas whatever dies dries up; the earth is green while it blooms, and the seeds are green as they break forth. And rightly is this river Pishon put in first place, which among the Hebrews is called Pheison, that is, "change of mouth", because it flows around more than one nation and also flows through Lydia. For prudence is not something narrow but rich in benefits, profiting many. That is why it comes first: so that if anyone has gone out of paradise, a river of prudence, as it were, may receive him, so that he may not soon dry up, but by it may easily return to paradise. This river is visited by many men and is said to have the greatest beauty and fertility. And so prudence is understood under its figure, which brought very many fruits at the coming of the saving Lord. And it flows to the ends of the earth, because through wisdom all men were redeemed. Hence it is said: "Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world."

The second river is the Gihon, beside which the law was given to the Israelites while they were settled in Egypt, that they should depart from Egypt and eat the lamb with their loins girded, which is a mark of temperance; for those who celebrate the Lord's Passover must be chaste and sanctified. And so beside this river the observance of the law was first established, because this name signifies a certain chasm of the earth. As, then, a chasm swallows up the earth and whatever refuse or filth is in it, so chastity usually does away with all the passions of the body; and rightly was the first ordinance of observance established there, because through the law the sin of the flesh is swallowed up. Fittingly, then, the Gihon, in which there is a figure of chastity, is said to encircle the land of Ethiopia, so as to wash the lowly body and quench the fire of the vilest flesh; for Ethiopia, in Latin translation, signifies "lowly" and "vile". And what is lowlier than our body, what so like Ethiopia, since it too is black with a certain darkness of sins?

The third river is the Tigris, which flows toward the Assyrians, to whom transgressing Israel was led captive. This river is said to be swifter than all others, and on its banks live the Assyrians, that is, "those who direct"; for this is what the name signifies. So whoever by fortitude of soul takes captive the transgressing vices of the body, directing himself to things above, is reckoned like this river. And so fortitude too flows from that spring which is in paradise. Fortitude pierces through all obstacles with a swift course, and its course does not stick on any barriers of hindrance.

The fourth river is the Euphrates, which in Latin means fruitfulness and abundance of fruits, displaying a mark of justice, which feeds every soul. For no virtue seems to have more abundant fruits than equity and justice, which benefits others more than itself and neglects its own advantages, putting common benefits first. Many think that the Euphrates is named ἀπὸ τοῦ εὐφραίνεσθαι, that is, from "rejoicing", because the human race rejoices in nothing more than in justice and equity. And the reason why the regions through which the other rivers pass are described, but not those through which the Euphrates passes, we take to be this: its water is said to be life-giving, cherishing and increasing; hence the wise men of the Hebrews and Assyrians called it Auxen, whereas the water of the other rivers is said to be the opposite. Then, too, where there is prudence there is also malice, where there is fortitude there is wrath, where there is temperance there is usually intemperance and other vices; but where there is justice, there is the harmony of the other virtues. Therefore it is not known from the places through which it flows, that is, not from a part; for justice is not a part but, as it were, the mother of all. In these four rivers, then, the four principal virtues are expressed, which, so to speak, enclose the ages of this world.

The first age, then, from the beginning of the world until the flood, was that of prudence. In that age are counted the righteous: Abel, so called from the Lord; Enosh, that is, man made in the image of God, who hoped to call on the name of the Lord God; Enoch, whose name in Latin means "grace of God", caught up to heaven; and Noah, who himself was righteous and a kind of guidance of rest.

The second age is that of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the rest of the patriarchs, in whom a chaste and pure temperance of religion shone forth. For spotless Isaac was given to Abraham as a son through the promise, displaying not so much a bodily birth as a gift of divine favour; in him went before the figure of the truly Spotless One, as the Apostle teaches, saying that the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. "He does not say, and to seeds, as of many, but as of one: and to your seed, who is Christ."

The third age is that of the law of Moses and the other prophets. "For time will fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, David and Samuel and the other prophets," of Ananias, Azarias, Misael, Daniel, Elijah, Elisha, "who through faith conquered kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, grew strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, took the camps of foreigners." Not without reason, then, is there in them the form of fortitude. For they were sawn in two, as you have further on, tempted, died by the slaughter of the sword. "They went about in goatskins, in want, distressed and afflicted with sufferings, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering in deserts, in mountains, and in caves and holes of the earth." Rightly, then, we place in them the form of fortitude.

The age according to the Gospel is a fitting figure of justice, because it is a power for salvation to everyone who believes. Indeed the Lord himself says: "Let us fulfil all righteousness." Justice is the fruitful parent of the other virtues; yet in one in whom any one of these virtues we have named is principal, the others too are present, because the virtues are joined and bound together. For certainly Abel was just; Abraham was most brave and most patient; the prophets most prudent; and Moses, learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, "considered the reproach of Christ greater honour than the treasures of Egypt". And who was wiser than Daniel? Solomon too asked for wisdom and obtained it. So much has been said, then, of the four rivers of the virtues, whose drink is beneficial. And since the Pishon was said to have the good gold of the land and the carbuncle and the green stone, let us consider what this too means.

For Enosh seems to us like good gold, who prudently desired to know the name of God. Enoch, who was translated and did not see death, is a carbuncle, a stone of sweet fragrance, which holy Enoch offered to God by his works, breathing a certain grace in his deeds and ways. Noah, like the green stone, displayed the colour of life, since at the time of the flood he alone was kept in that ark as a life-giving seed for the order to come. Rightly, then, paradise, which is watered by many rivers, is toward the east, not opposite the east: that is, toward that East whose name is Dawn, that is, toward Christ, who has poured out a radiance of eternal light; and it is in Eden, that is, in delight.

"And God took the man whom he had made and placed him in paradise to work it and keep it." You see that he who already was is taken; for he was in the earth from which he was formed. So the power of God took him, breathing into him progress and growth in virtue. Then he placed him in paradise, so that you may know that being taken means being breathed upon by divine power. In this place notice that the man was made outside paradise and the woman inside paradise, so that you may notice that each one gains grace for himself not by the nobility of place or of birth, but by virtue. In fact, the man made outside paradise, that is, in a lower place, is found to be better, and she who was made in a better place, that is, in paradise, is found to be inferior; for the woman was deceived first, and she herself deceived the man. That is why the apostle Peter recalled that holy women, subject to the stronger vessel, obeyed their husbands as lords; and Paul says that Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and fell into transgression. Next we must observe that no one should readily presume on himself. For see, she who was made as a help to the man needs the man's protection, because the man is the head of the woman; while he who believed he would have his wife as a help fell through his wife. So no one should readily trust himself to another unless he has proved his virtue, nor claim much for himself if he thinks he has been taken on as a help; rather, if he finds stronger the one whom he thought he was protecting, let him borrow grace from that one, just as the apostle Peter commands husbands to give honour to their wives, saying: "Husbands, likewise, live with them according to knowledge, giving honour to the woman as to the weaker vessel, as fellow heirs of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered."

So the man was placed in paradise, the woman was made in paradise; but even then, before the woman was deceived by the serpent, she had the man's grace, since she was taken from the man (though this is a great mystery, as the Apostle said), and so she drew the source of her life from him. And so Scripture spoke of the man alone, that he placed him in paradise to work it and keep it. Working and keeping are not the same: in work there is a certain progress of virtue, in keeping a certain completion of the work is recognized, since one keeps things as already completed. These two things are required of man: that by works he seek new things and keep what he has gained; this is the general sense. But Philo, since with his Jewish disposition he did not grasp spiritual things, kept within moral matters, saying that these two things are required: work in the field and keeping of the house. And although paradise, he says, needed no farm labour, yet since the first man was to be a law for posterity, he took on even in paradise the form of a lawful labour, so as to bind us to the work and keeping of our due office and to the duty of handing on an inheritance. These two things, then, are required of you, whether morally or spiritually. The prophetic psalm also teaches you this, for it is written: "Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it have laboured in vain; unless the Lord keeps the city, those who keep it have watched in vain." You see that those labour who are in the course of a work and of building, but those watch who have already received the keeping of a finished work. That is why the Lord said to the apostles, as to men already more perfect: "Watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation", teaching that the gift of a perfected nature and the grace of full virtue must be kept, and that no one, even the more perfect, should be secure about himself unless he watches.

"And the Lord God commanded Adam, saying: Of every tree that is in paradise you shall eat for food; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you [plural] shall not eat; on the day you [plural] eat of it you shall die the death." Why, when he commanded that they should eat of every tree, he said in the singular, "you shall eat", but when he spoke of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he said in the plural, "you shall not eat", is no idle question. But if you attend carefully, it can be resolved by the authority of the Scriptures. For what is good is to be done, and what is good and to be done is harmonious and cohering; but what is base is discordant, disordered and divided. And so the Lord, always intending unity, gave his command according to unity. Indeed he works unity who made both one; and not only both, but he made all one; for he commanded us all to be one body and one spirit. And the Firstborn of all, being in unity with the Father, is always most closely joined to the Father, because the Word was with God. So he says: "I and the Father are one", to show that he has unity of majesty and divinity with the Father. But he also commanded us to be one, and poured into us by the adoption of grace the likeness of his nature and unity, saying: "Father, as I and you are one, so may these also be one in us." So when he commands what is good, he commands as if to one, saying, "you shall eat"; for unity cannot transgress. But when he says that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is not to be tasted, he speaks as if to many: "you shall not eat"; for what is prohibitive is commanded as to many. I, however, think otherwise, and I already find in God's very word what was going to happen. He commanded Adam alone to eat of every tree, knowing that he would keep the command; but that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was not to be tasted he says no longer in the singular but in the plural; for he knew that the woman would transgress, and so by the plural he shows that they would not keep it, since the judgment of many is divided.

As far as the version of the Seventy is concerned, the difficulty is resolved. But since Symmachus put both in the singular, we understand that he followed this: that in the law too, when God addresses the people, he speaks in the singular, as you have: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord", and "You shall love the Lord your God." Nor does the interpretation of Symmachus prejudice me, since he could not see the unity of Father and Son, although at times both Aquila and he confessed it in speech. Nor should anyone think it contrary to what we said above that God, in his divine commands, addresses in the singular a people who would transgress; for the people of the Jews violated even precepts given in the singular. For the law is spiritual, and so God, by the divine oracle, addressed the people in one way in speech, in another in predestination. Indeed he says: "You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk."

From here the series of heavenly commands would seem easy, were it not that very many raise a question which we must answer, lest they lead simple minds astray by malicious interpretation. For many, whose source is Apelles, as you have in the thirty-eighth book of his work, put these questions: How does the tree of life seem to do more for life than the breathing of God? Then: If God did not make man perfect, but each person by his own effort acquires for himself the perfection of virtue, does not man seem to gain more for himself than God gave him? Third, they object: if man had not tasted death, he certainly could not know what he had not tasted. So if he had not tasted it, he did not know it; if he did not know it, he could not fear it.

"In vain, then, did God hold out death as a terror, which men did not fear." Let us learn, then, that where God brought forth the tree of life, there too he brought forth the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For you have it that he brought forth the tree of life ἐν μέσῳ τοῦ παραδείσου, that is, in the middle of paradise ... For it is understood that he brought it forth in the middle. So in the middle of paradise were both life and the cause of death. Understand that man did not make life, but could find it either by working or by keeping the commands of God. And life, as the Apostle said, was hidden with Christ in God. Man, then, was either in the shadow of life, because of the figure (for this life of ours now on earth is a shadow), or in a kind of pledge of life, because he had the breathing of God; so he had a pledge of immortality. But placed in the shadow of life, he could not by ordinary touch and sight see and grasp the life hidden with Christ in God; though not yet a sinner, he was still not of an incorrupt and inviolable nature, being one who afterwards fell into sin, but by no means yet a sinner. So he was in the shadow of life; but those who are sinners are in the shadow of death. For the people of sinners, as Isaiah teaches, sat in the shadow of death, and light arose for them through God's grace, not through the merit of their own virtue. So there is no difference between the breathing of God and the food of the tree of life, nor can man say that he can gain more for himself than has been conferred on him by divine generosity. Would that we could keep what we received! For our labour avails only to recover what was given. The third objection, that one who had not tasted death could not fear it, is easily answered from the common experience of nature. For it is implanted by nature in all living creatures that they dread as harmful even things they have not yet found harmful to themselves. Why else are doves, at their very birth, terrified at the sight of a hawk? Why are wolves dreaded by sheep, kites by chicks? If, then, in irrational animals there is a natural terror of a hostile kind of animal, so that even irrational creatures have a sense of fleeing death, how much more must there have been in the first man, certainly most full of reason, a natural notion that death is to be avoided!

Again they raise other questions in this way: It is not always evil to disobey a command. If the command is good, obedience is honourable; but if the command is wicked, it is useful not to obey. So it is not always evil to disobey a command, but to disobey a good command is wicked. And the tree that produces knowledge of good and evil is good, since God too knows good and evil. Indeed he says: "Behold, Adam has become like one of us." If, then, it is good to have the knowledge of good and evil, and that is good which God too has, he who forbids it to men seems to forbid it wrongly; and this is what they propose. But if they understood what "to know" is, what force this word has, if they understood it as they should (for "the Lord knows those who are his": he knows, of course, those who from many have been made one, in whom he dwells and among whom he walks), "to know" would surely consist not in mere superficial knowledge, but in doing what ought to be done. Man ought to have obeyed the command, and by not obeying he transgressed. So he who did not obey went wrong, because transgression is sin. But even if they wish to weaken the force of "knowing", so as to think that a superficial knowledge of good and evil was forbidden, there too the fault of transgression lies in not obeying the command, since the Lord God judged that even a hasty knowledge of good and evil was to be forbidden.

Another question: one who does not know good and evil differs in no way from a little child, and little children are not guilty before a just judge. The just maker of the world would never have charged a little child with guilt for not knowing good and evil, since a little child is without any charge of transgression and guilt. But since we said above that knowledge of good and evil is understood in two ways, if we take it as superficial knowledge, it is certainly false that one who did not know good and evil differs in no way from a little child. And if it is false that he differs in no way from a little child, then Adam was not a little child. If not a little child, sin is certainly ascribed to him as not a little child. If sin is ascribed, punishment follows sin, since he is found worthy of punishment who failed to avoid sin. It can also happen that one who does not have the knowledge of good and evil is not a little child, since "before the boy knew good or evil, he did not trust in wickedness". And again you have: "Before the boy knows how to call father and mother, he will receive the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria." So one who does good is perfect even if he has not acquired the knowledge of good and evil, as many, before they know the law, are a law to themselves. What of the fact that the Apostle, before he learned, "You shall not covet", did not know that covetousness was evil? He himself says: "I did not know sin except through the law; for I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, You shall not covet." In this respect even a boy can be perfect by the law of nature, before he knows that covetousness is a crime or commits the crime of covetousness. So God wished man to know what is evil according to superficial knowledge, lest, as one imperfect, he should be unable to avoid it. And by not obeying the command we incur guilt; so we admit guilt. But again, if we speak of a high and deep knowledge of good and evil, which deep knowledge does make one perfect ... yet one who could not reach that high and deep knowledge is not at once a little child, so he is rightly condemned as not a little child.

Again they sow questions. One who does not know good and evil, it says, does not know even that it is evil not to keep a command, nor does he know the good itself, which is to obey a command. And so, since he did not know, it says, he who did not obey deserved pardon, not condemnation. This question too is resolved by what we said before. For man could have considered, from what God had already given him (that he had received the breath of God, that he had been placed in a paradise of delight), that the highest obedience was owed to his maker. And so, even if he did not know the force of good and evil, yet since the maker of such great things had said that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was not to be tasted, he ought to have kept faith with the one who commanded; for what was required of him was not expertise but faith. He certainly understood that God surpasses all things; so he ought to have looked to the person of the one commanding. Even if he did not understand the force and nature of the commands, he knew that reverence was owed to the one who gave them. He had this notion by nature, even if he did not have judgment of good and evil. Indeed the woman too says 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." So she knew that the command was to be obeyed, saying, "We shall eat of every fruit", as the Lord had commanded, and she says that God commanded that the tree in the middle of paradise was not to be tasted, lest they die. So she who knew that the command was to be honoured certainly knew that it was evil to transgress, and therefore, having transgressed, she is justly condemned.

Take another point: if eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was so effective that both good and evil were known, as Scripture seems to show when it says that, when both had eaten, their eyes were opened and they knew that they were naked (that is, the eyes of the heart were opened and they knew that it was shameful to live naked), then without doubt, when the woman tasted of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, she sinned and knew that she had sinned. She, then, who knew that she had sinned should at least not have invited her husband to share the sin. But by enticing her husband and giving him what she herself had tasted, she did not avoid sin but repeated it. For surely, if you look at reason truly, she ought not to have drawn the one she loved into a share of the punishment, but rather to have called him back, even if unaware, from what she herself knew to be sin; although this woman, knowing that after her fault she could not remain in paradise, seems to have feared being cast out of paradise alone. Indeed both hid themselves after their fault.

Knowing, then, that she was to be shut out, she did not want to be deprived of the company of the husband she loved. Take this again: the knowledge of evil is not evil, but evil comes when the act fulfils the wickedness. For one who knows evil does not at once do what is evil; rather it is one who does what he knows to be evil. The usual incentive to doing evil is either anger or desire. Nor is it necessary that one who has knowledge of evil should do what he knows to be wicked, unless he is overcome by anger or desire. So the incentive to sin, as we said, is either anger or desire, or often fear, though desire arises from fear when each one wants to escape what he fears. And so we rightly set down anger and desire as the two incentives of the other vices. Let us consider, then, whether Eve was driven to vice by these goads. But she was neither angry with her husband nor overcome by desire; only in the second act did she go wrong, by giving her husband to eat what she had already tasted. At first, desire had been the author of her error, so that she ate, and the cause of the sin that followed. For what she had already tasted she could not desire, and by tasting she had gained knowledge of evil. So she should not have passed on to her husband the evil she had perceived, nor made her own husband a transgressor of the divine command. So she sinned knowingly and wittingly; knowingly she drew her husband into her error; otherwise the statement about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil will be found false, if even after eating of that tree she could not have knowledge of evil. But if the statement is true, she certainly could not have had desire as a cause, although many think she should be excused in this way: that, loving her husband, she feared to be separated from him, and they put forward as the cause of her desire that she wanted to be with her husband.

Again another question steals in: whence did death come to Adam, from the nature of that kind of tree or from God? If we ascribe it to the nature of the tree, the fruit of this tree seems to surpass the life-giving breath of God, since the fruit of this tree drew to death the one whom the breath had given life. Or if we say that God was the worker of death, they say that we accuse him on two counts: either he was so harsh that he would not pardon when he could, or, if he could not pardon, he seems weak. Let us see, then, how this is to be refuted. Unless I am mistaken, the cause of death was disobedience, and so man himself is the cause of his death, not having God as the author of his death. For if a physician prescribes to a sick man what he should avoid, and the man thinks he need not abstain from what is forbidden, the physician is not the cause of his death; he himself is surely guilty of his own death. So God, like a good physician, forbade Adam to taste what would harm him.

Take this again: to know good is better than not to know it, and for one who knows good it is a fine thing to know what is evil, so that he may know how to beware of evil and prudently undertake the care of watchfulness. But again it is not enough to know only what is evil, lest, knowing evil, you begin to be deprived of the knowledge of good. It is finer, then, that we know both, so that because we know the good we flee what is evil, and because we know evil we prefer the grace of the good. But you must know both in such a way that you know deeply and carry out what you know, and that your actions agree with your knowledge. Otherwise Scripture shows that one who knows neither is more tolerable than one who knows both superficially. For it is a burden to know what you cannot carry out or avoid; it is a burden to know without the use and work of deep knowledge. It harms a physician's reputation to know what helps and what harms a sick man unless he uses that knowledge as he should; and so knowledge is not good unless you use it as you should.

Take this too: not in vain was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil brought forth in the middle of paradise; and if it had been brought forth for every man, the prohibition would have been superfluous. But it was neither made in vain nor made for anyone but the man who received the command to use it not alone but with the others. For if you examine many things, you will find very many, indeed countless, that can harm one who does not know how to use them. You will not find riches themselves profitable if a rich man, having the means for generosity, refuses food to the poor, shuts out the needy man left without help, and extorts what belongs to others because he is stronger in power. Beauty itself and a more attractive form of body more often draw one into vice than ugliness does. Does anyone, then, desire to have uglier rather than more beautiful sons, and wish his children to be poor rather than rich? There are many things of this kind that must be ascribed not to the imprudence of the giver but to the error of the one who uses them badly. And so the user is to be blamed rather than the giver.

Again a question: did God know that Adam would transgress his commands or did he not know? If he did not know, this is no assertion of divine power; but if he knew and nevertheless, knowing, gave commands that would be neglected, it is not God's way to command anything superfluous. Yet he commanded something superfluous to the first-formed Adam, whom he knew would not keep it at all. But God does nothing superfluously; therefore the Scripture is not from God. This is the objection of those who do not accept the Old Testament and who insert these questions. But they must be defeated by their own view and opinion. For since they do not reject faith in the New Testament, they must be refuted by an example, so that they may believe the Old, since when the divine precepts and deeds agree, it is plain that both Testaments must be believed to be of one author. Let them learn, then, that a command was given neither superfluously nor unjustly even to one who would transgress. For the Lord Jesus himself chose Judas, whom he knew to be a traitor. If they think he was chosen through imprudence, they detract from divine power. But they cannot think this, since Scripture says that Jesus knew who would betray him. So let these opponents of the Old Testament be silent.

But since an answer seems due to the pagans too, if they should raise this objection (they do not accept an example but demand a reason), let them too hear for what reason the Son of God both gave a command to one who would transgress and chose one who would betray. The Lord Jesus had come to save all sinners; he had to show his will even toward the ungodly. And so he could not pass over even the one who would betray him, so that all might notice that in choosing even his own betrayer he displayed a sign of his will to save all. Nor was either Adam wronged by receiving the command, or Judas by being chosen. For God imposed no necessity of transgression on the one or of betrayal on the other, since each, had he kept what he had received, could have abstained from sin. Indeed he knew that not all the Jews would believe, and yet he says: "I came only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." So the fault is not in the one who commands, but the sin is in the one who transgresses; and what was in God showed all that he wished to free all. Yet I do not say that he did not know the transgression would come; rather I assert that he did know; but he did not therefore have to draw upon himself the odium of the traitor who perished, so that the fall of each should be ascribed to God. As it is, each is refuted and convicted, since the one received a command so that he would not fall, and the other was even taken up into the office of apostle, so that he might be called back from the intention of betrayal by kindness, and at the same time, while others are convicted, he might benefit all. For sin would not exist if there had been no prohibition; and if sin did not exist, perhaps not only wickedness but also virtue would not exist, which could neither subsist nor stand out unless there were some seeds of wickedness. For what is sin but transgression of the divine law and disobedience to heavenly precepts? We do not judge heavenly commands with the ears of the body; but since there was the word of God, certain notions of good and evil sprang up in us, as we understand by nature that what is evil must be avoided and understand by nature that what is good is commanded us. In this, then, we seem to hear the voice of the Lord, that it forbids some things and commands others. If anyone does not obey what we believe to have been once commanded by God, he is reckoned liable to punishment. And we read God's command not as written with ink on tablets of stone, but we hold it impressed on our hearts by the Spirit of the living God. So our own notion makes a law for itself. "For if the Gentiles who do not have the law do by nature what the law requires, they, not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written on their hearts." So human notion is to itself, as it were, the law of God.

Again they raise from this another question, so that instead of the command, which we said consists in man's notion, they accuse this very notion, impressed on us by God as a prescription of divine law. Did he who created man, it says, and impressed on him these notions of good and evil, know that man would sin, or did he not know? So that, if you say that he did not know, you think something unworthy of God's majesty; but if you say that God, knowing that man would sin, nevertheless impressed on him common notions of good and evil, so that because of the admixture of evils he could not keep his life for ever, you seem to make God, as in the first case not foreknowing the future, so in this case not good. And from this they argue that the creation of man was not made by God. For as we showed above that they say the command is not God's, so here too they say: so the creation of man is not from God, because God did not make evil, but man received a notion of evil when he was commanded to abstain from evil things. In this way they try to assert one good God and another who made man. They must be answered at once according to their own opinion. If they will not have man made by God because man is a sinner, and they shrink from this lest the good God seem to have made a sinner (since they do not think him good who made a sinner), let them say whether they think the maker of man was made by God. For if, as they say, the maker of man was made by God, how did the good God make a maker of evil? Surely he would not be good. For if he who made a sinner is not good, take care that it be not worse to have made the maker of a sinner; for the good God ought to have prevented the birth of one who would bring in the substance of sin. But if they say that the maker was not begotten, it must be asked whether the good God could in some way have checked wickedness as it began, or could not. If he could not, he is weak; if he could and did not, he is not good. So if these things do not agree among themselves and the heretics' opinions are not consistent with each other, let us inquire whether there may not have been a reason why God allowed wickedness to enter this world, whether that maker was begotten or not, when he could have prevented it.

So, holding one and the same God to be good and maker, let us establish, if we can, what befits the grace of both, and let us not avoid the odium of the charge of those who say: How is God good, who not only allowed wickedness to enter this world, but even permitted it to come into such confusion? This charge would indeed have a place if wickedness so infected the power of the soul and the secret places of the inmost mind that it could in no way be done away with, and the poison of incurable wounds settled in our mind and soul; there would then be more room for this complaint, that though God can do all things, he yet allowed man to perish. But since God in his mercy toward us has kept remedies for casting out error, and has not taken away the possibility of doing away with all contagion, how is it irrational or unjust if he allowed our material nature to be tempted by a certain trembling of human frailty, so that grace might afterwards return with richer interest to man's disposition through repentance for sins; and that man, aware of his frailty, since he trembled in so easily straying from the course of the divine commands, might fear to lose the heavenly commands as the helm of a tossing soul, giving more to the divine mercy because he received back what he had lost, and claiming for himself something of grace because he returned?

Now let us consider what that reason is: why, when he gave man a command, prescribing concerning that wonderful and blessed life, lest by acting contrary he should die the death, he thought the command should be about eating and not eating. For there are some who think that such a command in no way befits the creator of heaven and earth and all things, and is in no way worthy of the dwellers of paradise, since that life is like that of the angels. And so we cannot suppose that this earthly and corruptible food was for eating, since those who neither drink nor eat will be like the angels in heaven. Since, then, there is neither reward in food, because food does not commend us to God, nor great danger, because not what enters the mouth defiles a man but what comes out of the mouth, the command would seem without doubt ... of so great an author, unless you refer this food to that prophetic food, since the Lord promises it to his saints as a great reward: "Behold, those who serve me will eat, but you will be hungry." For this is the food by which eternal life is defined, and anyone deprived of it will die the death, since the Lord himself is the living and heavenly bread who gives life to this world. Hence he himself says: "Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will not have eternal life." There was, then, some bread of which he had prescribed that the dwellers of paradise should eat. What bread? Hear whom he means: "Man ate the bread of angels"; for it is good bread, if you do the will of God. Do you want to know how good the bread is? The Son himself eats this bread, of which he says: "My food is to do the will of my Father who is in heaven."

Again let us see for what reason the Lord God said to Adam, "You shall die the death", and what difference it makes whether one says "you shall die" or adds "you shall die the death"; for we must show that there is nothing superfluous in God's command. So I think this. Since death and life are contrary to each other, in simple speech we say "to live" from life and "to die" from death. But if you wish to double each, since life makes life, it is said "he lives by life", as you have in the law; and since death makes death, it is said "he shall die the death". This doubling is not superfluous; for there is a life unto death and a death unto life, since whoever lives, while he lives, dies, and while he dies, lives. So there are four distinctions: to live by life, to die by death, to die by life, to live by death. Since this is so, we must exclude the prejudgment of usage and custom, since usage has it that both one who lives by life and one who lives by death are said in common to live, and that both one who dies by death and one who dies by life are said in common to die. So of those four it expresses two, saying that the living lives, without distinguishing better from worse, and saying that the dying dies, with no seeming distinction between a bad and a good death. For an undistinguished life is signified, such as that of irrational creatures or of little children, and likewise an undistinguished death.

Setting aside common usage, then, let us consider what it is to live by life, what it is to die by death, and what it is to live by death and to die by life. I think, according to the Scriptures, that to live by life signifies that wonderful and blessed life, and seems to show this practice of living and gift of breathing as joined, so to speak, with the grace of the blessed life and mixed with it by a certain participation. For this is to live by life: to live by virtue, to have the acts of the blessed life in the life of this body. On the other hand, what is it to die by death but to signify, along with the death of the body, the deformity of one who dies, whose flesh is deprived of the common gift of living and whose soul cannot have the enjoyment of eternal life? There is also one who dies by life, as one who lives in the body but dies by his own conduct, such as those who, as the prophet says, "go down alive into hell", and the woman of whom the Apostle says that "living, she is dead". The fourth remains: those who live even by death, like the holy martyrs, who certainly die so that they may live. The flesh dies, but the grace of the dead lives. So far be it from us that we should live as sharers in death; rather, as sharers in life, let us die. For the saint does not even wish to be a sharer in this life, as he says: "to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better"; and another: "Woe is me, that my sojourning is prolonged!", grieving, of course, that while he hopes for the fellowship of eternal life he is held by the frailty of this life. And so I can say, on the contrary, that although to live by life is good, to live for life is ambiguous. For one can be said to live for life, that is, to serve eternal life in this life of the body; one can also be said to live for life, that is, to have, whoever he is, even a saint, a desire for this bodily life, as, for example, if someone thinks he must live honourably so as to obtain long life by good acts, as are many weaker people whom this life delights.

As, then, we have learned what it is to live for life, let us learn what it is to die to death or to live to death. For there can be those who die to death and those who live to life. One who does not live so as to live according to the death of his soul dies to death. Because he is not liable to death, that is, the bond of grievous death has let him go, he is not bound by the chains of eternal death. He has died to death, that is, he has died to sin, he has died to punishment. The opposite of this is to live to punishment, that is, when one who lives for punishment lives for death. And one who dies for punishment dies for death. There is also one who, placed in this life, dies to life, like him who said: "I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me"; for he died to sin and lives to God, that is, death in him is dead, but life lives, which is the Lord Jesus. So the life of those who live to God is good, the life of those who live to sin is bad. There is also a middle life, like that of the other animals, as you have written: "Let the earth bring forth the living soul according to its kind." There is also a life of the dead, as "the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob", because he is not the God of the dead but of the living. There are also those who have a certain sharing of death and life, of whom the Apostle says: "If you have died with him, you will also live with him." "For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in that of his resurrection, knowing that our old man was crucified with him, so that the body of sin might be destroyed, that we should no longer serve sin; for he who has died is justified from sin." As we have spoken of many forms of life, so we shall find many of death. For death is called bad, according to the saying: "The soul that sins, it shall die." Death is called in the common sense, as you have, for example, that he lived so many years, and died, and was gathered to his fathers. Death is also spoken of through the sacrament of baptism, as you have: "For we were buried with him by baptism into death"; and elsewhere: "But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him." You see that it is called death by name, but this is our life.

Again another question: the Lord said that it is not good for the man to be alone. First of all, know that earlier, where God formed man from the mud of the earth, he did not add, "God saw that it was good", as he did for each of his works. For if he had said there that it was good that man was made, it would be found contradictory that here he said it was not good, when earlier he had said it was good. But know this to be the case there where he made Adam alone. Where, however, he includes in common the making of the man and the woman, although even there he did not say it specifically, yet since afterwards there is: "God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good", it is clearly declared that it is good that both the man and the woman were made.

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.

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.