Chapter 35 [XXI.]—Adam and Eve; Obedience Most Strongly Enjoined by God on Man.

When the first human beings—the one man Adam, and his wife Eve who came out of him—willed not to obey the commandment which they had received from God, a just and deserved punishment overtook them. The Lord had threatened that, on the day they ate the forbidden fruit, they should surely die.380    Gen. ii. 17. Now, inasmuch as they had received the permission of using for food every tree that grew in Paradise, among which God had planted the tree of life, but had been forbidden to partake of one only tree, which He called the tree of knowledge of good and evil, to signify by this name the consequence of their discovering whether what good they would experience if they kept the prohibition, or what evil if they transgressed it: they are no doubt rightly considered to have abstained from the forbidden food previous to the malignant persuasion of the devil, and to have used all which had been allowed them, and therefore, among all the others, and before all the others, the tree of life. For what could be more absurd than to suppose that they partook of the fruit of other trees, but not of that which had been equally with others granted to them, and which, by its especial virtue, prevented even their animal bodies from undergoing change through the decay of age, and from aging into death, applying this benefit from its own body to the man’s body, and in a mystery demonstrating what is conferred by wisdom (which it symbolized) on the rational soul, even that, quickened by its fruit, it should not be changed into the decay and death of iniquity? For of her it is rightly said, “She is a tree of life to them that lay hold of her.”381    Prov. iii. 18. Just as the one tree was for the bodily Paradise, the other is for the spiritual; the one affording a vigour to the senses of the outward man, the other to those of the inner man, such as will abide without any change for the worse through time. They therefore served God, since that dutiful obedience was committed to them, by which alone God can be worshipped. And it was not possible more suitably to intimate the inherent importance of obedience, or its sole sufficiency securely to keep the rational creature under the Creator, than by forbidding a tree which was not in itself evil. For God forbid that the Creator of good things, who made all things, “and behold they were very good,”382    Gen. i. 31. should plant anything evil amidst the fertility of even that material Paradise. Still, however, in order that he might show man, to whom submission to such a Master would be very useful, how much good belonged simply to obedience (and this was all that He had demanded of His servant, and this would be of advantage not so much for the lordship of the Master as for the profit of the servant), they were forbidden the use of a tree, which, if it had not been for the prohibition, they might have used without suffering any evil result whatever; and from this circumstance it may be clearly understood, that whatever evil they brought on themselves because they made use of it in spite of the prohibition, the tree did not produce from any noxious or pernicious quality in its fruit, but entirely on account of their violated obedience.

CAPUT XXI.

35. Adam et Eva: obedientia homini vehementer commendata a Deo. Posteaquam illi primi homines, vir unus Adam, et ex illo Eva uxor ejus, accepto Dei praecepto servare obedientiam noluerunt, justa eos poena ac debita consecuta est. Sic enim comminatus fuerat Dominus, quod ea die qua vetitum cibum ederent, morte morerentur. 0172 Proinde quia utendi ad escam omni ligno quod in paradiso erat, acceperant potestatem, in quo etiam lignum vitae plantaverat Deus; ab illo autem solo eos prohibuerat, quod appellavit scientiae boni et mali (Gen. II, 9, 16, 17), quo nomine significaretur experientiae consequentia, et quid boni custodita, et quid mali essent transgressa prohibitione sensuri: recte profecto intelliguntur ante malignam diaboli persuasionem abstinuisse cibo vetito, atque usi fuisse concessis, ac per hoc et caeteris, et praecipue ligno vitae. Quid enim absurdius, quam ut credantur ex aliis arboribus alimenta sumpsisse, non autem etiam ex illo quod et similiter permissum fuerat, et utilitate praecipua per aetatum labem mutari , quamvis animalia corpora, atque in mortem veterascere non sinebat, tribuens hoc corpori humano de suo corpore beneficium, et mystica significatione demonstrans quid per sapientiam, cujus figuram gestabat, conferretur animae rationali, ut alimento ejus vivificata nequaquam in labem mortemque nequitiae verteretur? Merito enim de illa dicitur, Lignum vitae est amplectentibus eam (Prov. III, 18). Sicut haec arbor in corporali, sic illa in spirituali paradiso: ista exterioris, illa interioris hominis sensibus praebens vigorem, sine ulla in deterius temporis commutatione vitalem. Serviebant igitur Deo, vehementer sibi commendata pietate obedientiae, qua una colitur Deus. Quae per se ipsa quanta sit, quamque sola sufficiat ad tuendam rationalem sub Creatore creaturam, non potuit excellentius intimari, quam ut a ligno prohiberentur non malo. Absit enim ut bonorum Creator qui fecit omnia, et ecce bona valde (Gen. I, 31), mali aliquid in illius etiam corporalis paradisi fertilitate plantaret. Sed ut ostenderetur homini, cui esset sub tali Domino utilissima servitus, quantum esset solius obedientiae bonum, quam solam de famulo exegerat, cui obedire non propter ipsius dominatum, sed propter servientis utilitatem potius expediret; ab eo ligno sunt prohibiti, quo si uterentur non prohibiti, nihil mali omnino paterentur: ut quod illo post prohibitionem utentes passi sunt, satis intelligeretur quod eis hoc non intulerit arbor cibo noxio perniciosa, sed tantum obedientia violata.