Chapter XXV.—God Was Justified in Forbidding Man to Eat of the Tree of Knowledge.

The tree of knowledge itself was good, and its fruit was good. For it was not the tree, as some think, but the disobedience, which had death in it. For there was nothing else in the fruit than only knowledge; but knowledge is good when one uses it discreetly.77    [“Pulchra, si quis ea recte utatur,” is the rendering of the Paris translators. A noble motto for a college.] But Adam, being yet an infant in age, was on this account as yet unable to receive knowledge worthily. For now, also, when a child is born it is not at once able to eat bread, but is nourished first with milk, and then, with the increment of years, it advances to solid food. Thus, too, would it have been with Adam; for not as one who grudged him, as some suppose, did God command him not to eat of knowledge. But He wished also to make proof of him, whether he was submissive to His commandment. And at the same time He wished man, infant as he was,78    [No need of a long argument here, to show, as some editors have done, that our author calls Adam an infant, only with reference to time, not physical development. He was but a few days old.] to remain for some time longer simple and sincere. For this is holy, not only with God, but also with men, that in simplicity and guilelessness subjection be yielded to parents. But if it is right that children be subject to parents, how much more to the God and Father of all things? Besides, it is unseemly that children in infancy be wise beyond their years; for as in stature one increases in an orderly progress, so also in wisdom. But as when a law has commanded abstinence from anything, and some one has not obeyed, it is obviously not the law which causes punishment, but the disobedience and transgression;—for a father sometimes enjoins on his own child abstinence from certain things, and when he does not obey the paternal order, he is flogged and punished on account of the disobedience; and in this case the actions themselves are not the [cause of] stripes, but the disobedience procures punishment for him who disobeys;—so also for the first man, disobedience procured his expulsion from Paradise. Not, therefore, as if there were any evil in the tree of knowledge; but from his disobedience did man draw, as from a fountain, labour, pain, grief, and at last fall a prey to death.

Τὸ μὲν ξύλον τὸ τῆς γνώσεως αὐτὸ μὲν καλὸν καὶ ὁ καρπὸς αὐτοῦ καλός. οὐ γάρ, ὡς οἴονταί τινες, θάνατον εἶχεν τὸ ξύλον, ἀλλ' ἡ παρακοή. οὐ γάρ τι ἕτερον ἦν ἐν τῷ καρπῷ ἢ μόνον γνῶσις. ἡ δὲ γνῶσις καλή, ἐπὰν αὐτῇ οἰκείως τις χρήσηται. τῇ δὲ οὔσῃ ἡλικίᾳ ὅδε Ἀδὰμ ἔτη νήπιος ἦν· διὸ οὔπω ἠδύνατο τὴν γνῶσιν κατ' ἀξίαν χωρεῖν. καὶ γὰρ νῦν ἐπὰν γενηθῇ παιδίον, οὐκ ἤδη δύναται ἄρτον ἐσθίειν, ἀλλὰ πρῶτον γάλακτι ἀνατρέφεται, ἔπειτα κατὰ πρόσβασιν τῆς ἡλικίας καὶ ἐπὶ τὴν στερεὰν τροφὴν ἔρχεται. οὕτως ἂν γεγόνει καὶ τῷ Ἀδάμ. διὸ οὐχ ὡς φθονῶν αὐτῷ ὁ θεός, ὡς οἴονταί τινες, ἐκέλευσεν μὴ ἐσθίειν ἀπὸ τῆς γνώσεως. ἔτι μὴν καὶ ἐβούλετο δοκιμάσαι αὐτόν, εἰ ὑπήκοος γίνεται τῇ ἐντολῇ αὐτοῦ. ἅμα δὲ καὶ ἐπὶ πλείονα χρόνον ἐβούλετο ἁπλοῦν καὶ ἀκέραιον διαμεῖναι τὸν ἄνθρωπον νηπιάζοντα. τοῦτο γὰρ ὅσιόν ἐστιν, οὐ μόνον παρὰ θεῷ ἀλλὰ καὶ παρὰ ἀνθρώποις, τὸ ἐν ἁπλότητι καὶ ἀκακίᾳ ὑποτάσσεσθαι τοῖς γονεῦσιν. εἰ δὲ χρὴ τὰ τέκνα τοῖς γονεῦσιν ὑποτάσσεσθαι, πόσῳ μᾶλλον τῷ θεῷ καὶ πατρὶ τῶν ὅλων; ἔτι μὴν καὶ ἄσχημόν ἐστιν τὰ παιδία τὰ νήπια ὑπὲρ ἡλικίαν φρονεῖν. καθάπερ γὰρ τῇ ἡλικίᾳ τις πρὸς τάξιν αὔξει, οὕτως καὶ ἐν τῷ φρονεῖν. ἄλλως τε ἐπὰν νόμος κελεύσῃ ἀπέχεσθαι ἀπό τινος καὶ μὴ ὑπακούῃ τις, δῆλον ὅτι οὐχ ὁ νόμος κόλασιν παρέχει, ἀλλὰ ἡ ἀπείθεια καὶ ἡ παρακοή. καὶ γὰρ πατὴρ ἰδίῳ τέκνῳ ἐνίοτε προστάσσει ἀπέχεσθαί τινων, καὶ ἐπὰν οὐχ ὑπακούῃ τῇ πατρικῇ ἐντολῇ, δέρεται καὶ ἐπιτιμίας τυγχάνει διὰ τὴν παρακοήν· καὶ οὐκ ἤδη αὐτὰ τὰ πράγματα πληγαί εἰσιν, ἀλλ' ἡ παρακοὴ τῷ ἀπειθοῦντι ὕβρεις περιποιεῖται. Oὕτως καὶ τῷ πρωτοπλάστῳ ἡ παρακοὴ περιεποιήσατο ἐκβληθῆναι αὐτὸν ἐκ τοῦ παραδείσου· οὐ μέντοι γε ὡς κακοῦ τι ἔχοντος τοῦ ξύλου τῆς γνώσεως, διὰ δὲ τῆς παρακοῆς ὁ ἄνθρωπος ἐξήντλησεν πόνον, ὀδύνην, λύπην, καὶ τὸ τέλος ὑπὸ θάνατον ἔπεσεν.