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| What was the life in Paradise, and what was the forbidden tree?
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XX.
What was the life in Paradise, and what was the forbidden tree1677
| 1677 Otherwise Chap. xxi. The Bodleian ms. of
the Latin version gives as the title:—“Why Scripture calls
the tree, ‘the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil.’” | ?
1. What then is that which
includes the knowledge of good and evil blended together, and is decked
with the pleasures of sense? I think I am not aiming wide of the mark
in employing, as a starting-point for my speculation, the sense of
“knowable1678
| 1678 The
reference is to Gen. ii. 9
(in LXX.), where the tree is called, τὸ ξύλον
τοῦ εἰδέναι
γνωστὸν
καλοῦ καὶ
πονηροῦ. S.
Gregory proceeds to ascertain the exact meaning of the word
γνωστὸν in the text; the eating is the “knowing,” but what is
“knowing”? He answers, “desiring.” | .” It is not,
I think, “science” which the Scripture here means by
“knowledge”; but I find a certain distinction, according to
Scriptural use, between “knowledge” and
“discernment”: for to “discern” skilfully the good
from the evil, the Apostle says is a mark of a more perfect condition
and of “exercised senses1679
,” for which
reason also he bids us “prove all things1680
,” and says that
“discernment” belongs to the spiritual man1681
: but “knowledge” is not always
to be understood of skill and acquaintance with anything, but of the
disposition towards what is agreeable,—as “the Lord knoweth
them that are His1682
”; and He says
to Moses, “I knew thee above all1683
”; while of those condemned in their
wickedness He Who knows all things says, “I never knew you1684
.”
2. The tree, then, from which
comes this fruit of mixed knowledge, is among those things which are
forbidden; and that fruit is combined of opposite qualities, which has
the serpent to commend it, it may be for this reason, that the evil is
not exposed in its nakedness, itself appearing in its own proper
nature—for wickedness would surely fail of its effect were it not
decked with some fair colour to entice to the desire of it him whom it
deceives—but now the nature of evil is in a manner mixed, keeping
destruction like some snare concealed in its depths, and displaying
some phantom of good in the deceitfulness of its exterior. The beauty
of the substance seems good to those who love money: yet “the
love of money is a root of all evil1685
”: and
who would plunge into the unsavoury mud of wantonness, were it not that
he whom this bait hurries into passion thinks pleasure a thing fair and
acceptable? so, too, the other sins keep their destruction hidden, and
seem at first sight acceptable, and some deceit makes them earnestly
sought after by unwary men instead of what is good.
3. Now since the majority of men
judge the good to lie in that which gratifies the senses, and there is
a certain identity of name between that which is, and that which
appears to be “good,”—for this reason that desire
which arises towards what is evil, as though towards good, is called by
Scripture “the knowledge of good and evil;”
“knowledge,” as we have said, expressing a certain mixed
disposition. It speaks of the fruit of the forbidden tree not as a
thing absolutely evil (because it is decked with good), nor as a thing
purely good (because evil is latent in it), but as compounded of both,
and declares that the tasting of it brings to death those who touch it;
almost proclaiming aloud the doctrine that the very actual good is in
its nature simple and uniform, alien from all duplicity or conjunction
with its opposite, while evil is many-coloured and fairly adorned,
being esteemed to be one thing and revealed by experience as another,
the knowledge of which (that is, its reception by experience) is the
beginning and antecedent of death and destruction.
4. It was because he saw this
that the serpent points out the evil fruit of sin, not showing the evil
manifestly in its own nature (for man would not have been deceived by
manifest evil), but giving to what the woman beheld the glamour of a
certain beauty, and conjuring into its taste the spell of a sensual
pleasure, he appeared to her to speak convincingly: “and the
woman saw,” it says, “that the tree was good for food, and
that it was pleasant to the eyes to behold, and fair to see; and she
took of the fruit thereof and did eat1686
,” and that eating became the mother of
death to men. This, then, is that fruit-bearing of mixed character,
where the passage clearly expresses the sense in which the tree was
called “capable of the knowledge of good and evil,”
because, like the evil nature of poisons that are prepared with honey,
it appears to be good in so far as it affects the senses with
sweetness: but in so far as it destroys him who touches it, it is the
worst of all evil. Thus when the evil poison worked its effect against
man’s life, then man, that noble thing and name, the image of
God’s nature, was made, as the prophet says, “like unto
vanity1687
.”
5. The image, therefore,
properly belongs to the better part of our attributes; but all in our
life that is painful and miserable is far removed from the likeness to
the Divine. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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