Homilies on Genesis 6

Concerning the tree—whether it was from it that the knowledge of good and evil came to Adam, or whether he possessed this discernment even before eating of it;

wherein also there is discourse concerning fasting, and concerning the duty of meditating at home upon the things spoken in church.

I love fasting, because it is the mother of temperance and the fountain of all wisdom;

and I love it also for your sake, and for your love, because it has gathered together for me this holy and honoured assembly of yours, and grants me once more to behold the faces I have longed for, and enables me to delight without fear in this beautiful festival and feast.

For one would not err in calling your assembly a festival and a feast and a thousand good things.

For if one who has entered the marketplace and met with a single friend often lays aside all despondency,

we, meeting not in the marketplace but in the church, and encountering not a single friend but so many and such brethren and fathers assembled together, how shall we not lay aside all despondency? How shall we not reap every joy? For this assembly is superior to the gatherings in the marketplaces not only in its multitude, but also in the very nature of its discourse.

For those who sit together in the marketplaces and gather round one another in a circle often converse about unprofitable matters, and bring in cold and idle talk, and speak of things that in no way concern them.

For we are wont, more often than not, to busy ourselves with greater eagerness about the affairs of others, and to meddle in them with idle curiosity.

That it is perilous and fraught with danger to let such words come forth and to listen to things of that sort, and to be carried away by them; and that from such gatherings many a storm has often been raised to hover over households—this I pass by for now.

But that all such conversation is unprofitable, cold, and worldly, and that a spiritual word could never quickly find entrance into such an assembly—no one would gainsay this.

But here it is not so; rather, quite the contrary.

For here every unprofitable discourse has been driven out, and every spiritual teaching has been brought in.

For we discourse concerning our soul and the good things that belong to the soul, concerning the crowns laid up in the heavens, concerning lives of splendor, concerning the loving-kindness of God, concerning the providence that governs all things, and concerning all else that most nearly concerns us—both why we came into being, and what portion shall meet us after our departure hence, and in what state our affairs shall then be.

And of this assembly not we alone are partakers, but also the prophets and the apostles;

and, what is greatest of all, the very Master of all things Himself, Jesus, stands in our midst.

For He Himself says, 'Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.'

But if, where two or three are gathered together, He is in their midst, how much more where so many men, so many women, so many fathers, and both apostles and prophets are present in the midst!

Wherefore we too speak with greater readiness, enjoying the impulse that comes from thence, and now render to you our promise.

For we promised to speak first concerning the tree, whether it was from that tree that the knowledge of good and evil came to Adam, or whether even before the eating he possessed this discernment.

With confidence, then, we would now affirm that even before the eating he possessed this discernment.

For if he did not know what was good and what was evil, then he would have been more irrational than the very irrational beasts, and the master more senseless than his servants.

For how would it not be absurd, that goats and sheep should know which pasture

is beneficial to them and which is deadly, and do not approach everything simply by its appearance, but possess discernment and know clearly what is harmful to them and what is profitable;

yet that man should be deprived of so great a safeguard? For if he had not this, he was worth nothing, but was even more worthless than all.

For it would have been far more desirable for him to pass his life in darkness, and to have his eyes gouged out, and to be deprived of the light, than not to know what is good and what is evil.

For if you take this away from our life, you have taken away our whole life, and have filled all things with great confusion.

For this is that wherein we differ from the irrational beasts, and wherein we are better than the wild animals: in knowing vice and virtue, in recognizing what is evil, and in not being ignorant of what is good.

But if we know this now—and not we alone, but even Scythians and barbarians—much more did that man of old know it, before the sin;

and he who had been honored with so many honors—such as being made after the image, after the likeness, and with the rest of the blessings—would not have remained destitute of the very chief of all good things.

For those alone are ignorant of good and evil who have been deprived of their natural faculties of mind;

but Adam was filled with much wisdom, and was able to discern both of these.

And that he was filled with spiritual wisdom, hear the proof of it.

'God brought the beasts to him,' it says, 'to see what he would call them;

and whatsoever Adam called them, that was their name.'

Consider, then, with how much wisdom he was filled, being able to impose names—and all of them fitting—upon so many kinds, so varied and of every sort: those of the cattle, those of the creeping things, those of the birds.

For God so approved this bestowal of the names that He never again altered those appellations, nor, even after the man had sinned, did He will to abolish the names he had given them.

'For everything,' it says, 'whatsoever Adam called it, that is its name.'

This man, then, was he ignorant of what is good and what is evil? And how could that stand to reason? Again He brought the woman to him, and when he saw her he immediately recognized the partner of his nature.

And what does he say? 'This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.'

For since a little before God had brought all the living creatures to him, Adam, wishing to show that this creature is not one of those living creatures, said:

'This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.'

But some say that he hints not at this only, but also at the manner of the creation, and that the mode of generation shall not again be such for the woman; and for this reason he said:

which indeed another translator, rendering it more precisely, put thus: 'This once'—as if he were saying, 'Now only has woman come into being from man alone;

but after this it shall no longer be so, but from both.'

'Bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.'

For God, taking a portion from the whole lump, thus fashioned the woman, that she might share with the man in all things.

'She,' he says, 'shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.'

You see how for this reason he imposes the very name also, so that the name may teach the fellowship of nature, and the teaching may be that of the fellowship according to nature, and the mode of the creation may be the ground of perpetual love and the bond of concord? Then what does he say? 'For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall be joined to his wife.'

He did not simply say 'shall be united,' but 'shall be joined,' thereby indicating the exact and intimate conjunction;

'and the two shall be one flesh.'

He, then, who knew so much—tell me—did he not know what is good and what is evil? And how could that stand to reason? For if he did not know what is good and what is evil before he ate of the tree, but learned it after the eating, then sin became for him a teacher of wisdom, and the serpent was no longer

a deceiver, but was constituted a counselor of what is profitable, having made him a man out of a beast.

These things are not so, they are not so.

For if he did not know what is good and what is evil, how did he even receive the commandment? For no one gives a law to one who does not know that transgression is an evil;

but God both gave it and punished him when he transgressed—and He would not have done both these things, unless He had made him from the beginning capable of knowing virtue and vice.

You see how it has been demonstrated to us from every side, that it was not after eating of the tree that he knew good and evil, but that he understood it even before this? All these things, then, beloved, let us hold fast, and when we have withdrawn to our homes, let us set out a twofold table—that of food and that of hearing; and let the husband speak the things that have been said, and let the wife learn, and let the children also hear, and let not even the servants be deprived of this hearing.

Make your house a church;

for you are indeed answerable both for the salvation of the children and for that of the servants;

and just as we are required to give an account on your behalf,

so also each of you is required to render account on behalf of servant, and wife, and child.

From such narratives, then, dreams will most sweetly succeed us, freed from every phantasm;

for whatever the soul is wont to meditate upon by day, such things also does it imagine in its sleep.

And if we keep watch over the things said each day, we shall not need much toil;

for the discourse that follows hereafter will be clearer to you, and the teaching more ready for us.

In order, then, that there may come some greater gain both to us and to you—to us from the teaching, and to you from the hearing—let the spiritual table also be set before you along with the bodily table.

For those things will become to you both a safeguard and an adornment, and God will direct the affairs of the present life toward what is profitable, and all things will be for you most easy and free of trouble.

'For seek ye first,' He says, 'the kingdom of the heavens, and all these things shall be added unto you.'

Let us seek this, then, beloved, that we may attain both the good things here and those there, by the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom and with whom be glory to the Father and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of the ages. Amen.