Commentary on Genesis 1 part 5/15

'For man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.' And God has given yet another kind of nourishment, set above the earth:

For having created the good concepts in [our] reason from the beginning, he implanted them; and he who preserves them, ever keeping this life-giving nourishment, will have his abiding in virtue, not burying the good things given to us by God from the beginning within our understanding.

And God has given 'every fruitful tree bearing fruit,' from which again a certain nourishment is given:

For the more perfect, those who minister to the salvation of men — these would be the 'trees' according to what is said:

'And all the trees of the field shall clap with their branches' — these are those who rejoice at the salvation of the penitent, being like the one called blessed in the first Psalm, whom the text likens to a tree planted by the streams of waters, which is ever watered by meditation on divine things and in due season yields its fruit.

'To you it is given for food, and to all the beasts and to all the birds of the heaven and to every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth' — this might be understood thus:

The Lord, who cares for the salvation of all, has given diverse remedies for the varied wounds, so that everyone whosoever may be without excuse, unable to say... that he did not have the resources of the word.

Thus too his ministers, fitting themselves to each, speak just as Paul does: 'To all I have become all things, that I might by all means save some' — fitting himself suitably and fittingly to each, and not casting the holy things to the dogs nor the pearls before the swine, but rather leading even these away from the traits which they had adopted by their own inclination, through a word suited to them, unto instruction.

Though someone be a 'creeping thing' and on this account come into the depth of evils, he is not deprived of the knowledge of the good — that nourishment which God has given above the earth to the soul from the beginning, implanting the good concepts, which he who purifies them will have as life-giving food.

'all that he had made, and behold, it was all very good.'

For as among sensible things it was said that the harmony of each to each displays the heightened good, so also, among the things pertaining to virtue, this having its proportion to that, and having its reference to the end that is over all, shows that what is spoken of is exceedingly praiseworthy.

'And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.' What was said concerning the sixth number must be applied now too, and much more so, inasmuch as the things now praised are superior to the sensible ones.

For concerning those [sensible things] it was said that it was fitting for this world to come to be in this number — which is perfect and is completed out of its own parts — the world having something passive and something active.

For within it many things both act and are acted upon, though not simultaneously — which those who give a natural account of these matters say holds symbolically in the number as well.

And according to the anagogical sense too, the perfect number may fittingly have been employed:

For virtue is truly perfect, not deficient, and most complete, inasmuch as it is God's most perfect gift.

Having reached all the things that came to be in the six days which have been explained, we will bring this discourse to a close, praying that the God of all and Creator of the perfect and most complete world may grant, in what follows as well, a perfect understanding of the things spoken.

'And the heaven and the earth were completed, and all their array; and God completed on the sixth day his works which he had made, and rested on the seventh day from all his works which he had made.'

'And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on it he rested from all his works which God had begun to make.'

The word 'was completed' at times signifies destruction (consummation), and at other times existence (coming to be).

So when the disciples ask the Savior:

'When shall these things be, and what is the sign of your coming and of the consummation of the age?' — the meaning of 'consummation' there concerns the end, which is customarily taken instead for the destruction of the world.

But here 'was completed' stands for 'was brought to fullness.'

For it is not their existence that has been consummated, but their making — just as we say also of the productive arts, which bring their completion after their operations, that, for instance, 'the ship' or 'the house' 'has been completed.'

The heaven, then, has been completed, having received its own harmony, which received its fulfillment from the firmament, the luminaries, and moreover the stars; and the earth, from the animals and the various plants.

And while each of them was still coming into being, [the word] 'was completed' was not fitting; but now, all having received their common concord and harmony, there is consequently added: 'The heaven and the earth were completed, and all their array.'

And the 'array (adornment)' of the earth is also called its 'fullness,' according to what is said:

'The earth is the Lord's, and its fullness.' That the variegation of the heaven too is called 'array,' Moses himself says in these very words:

'Lest, looking up to the heaven and seeing the sun and the moon and the stars, all the array of the heaven, you be led astray and worship them' — which, by the position in which they were set by God, display their beauty in this: that some of them move in these particular circular orbits, while others are placed together with these; and some make their motion in a straight line, others obliquely.

The 'host of heaven,' then, is so called on account of its orderliness, according to what is said:

'Whose hands created all the host of heaven.' Concerning which those who did not attend rightly went astray, introducing fate and placing all things under necessity, defining the stars to be productive of the life of men and of the other things that happen — [the stars] which have been appointed for a sign, but not for causing, just as also...

...in expounding the things that came to be on the [fourth] day, we set forth [the words] 'Let them be for signs and for seasons and months and years,' showing by comparison that human life is not made subject to necessity by the stars.

For those who depart this life in war and in general catastrophes are not [all born] under a single [astral] configuration.

And still more is the doctrine of fate overturned from [the case of] the laws:

All Jews, being on the eighth day from birth, are circumcised and experience the iron [knife] while still in swaddling clothes; and surely no one could claim that they are all born together under one and the same hour, seeing that Jews are born almost everywhere on earth and every single day.

But they say also that among certain of the Ethiopians the caps (hollows) of the knees are removed as soon as they are born, and these too do not all have their birth at one and the same time.

And, in a word, the diverse customs and legal ordinances among the various nations do away with fate.

But if this does not admit of being governed by fate, still less do matters of free choice.

For if fate brings about what happens by necessity, while choice concerns things that may or may not be, then there will be no fate governing these latter things.

For virtue and vice—the one benefits its possessor, the other harms him; and each of those who act is either punished on account of base pursuits, or praised when he does what is right.

But things that come about by necessity [ ... ].

The one who acts under necessity no one either approves or blames.

Besides, if the laws are from fate, and those who do not obey them are so from fate, then fate, as it seems, abolishes and overturns itself.

The stars, then, are indicative, not productive—signifying either seasonal changes, or pestilential conditions, or something else that seems good to the One who exercises providence; and let this suffice concerning this matter.

But let us return to what was set forth from the beginning.

'And God finished on the sixth day His works which He had made.' This shows that the completion pertains only to the things He had made.

For there are also works that have not yet come to be, but were foretold as things that shall be—such as the resurrection of the dead, and generally all the things destined to come about according to providence, which...

come about from God in due sequence.

Well, then, is the addition 'of the works which He had made' set down.

But this too must be considered: that God rested on the seventh day, not having done any work—for by then all things had been completed—but He blessed only the seventh day and sanctified it; and to these words the oracle adds, saying:

'Because on it He rested from all His works which God had begun to make.' 'Which He had begun'—

for not of all works did the beginning come about within one of the six days.

Angels and archangels and the whole intelligible order of being received no beginning [within those days].

And that this is so, God Himself says in the book of Job:

'When the stars came into being, all My angels praised Me with a loud voice.'

For this reason the oracle takes precaution beforehand, saying:

'If the spirit of one that has authority rises up against you, do not leave your place.' For this pretext becomes the cause of many evils, since the devil suggests still greater things—which even now he works, introducing God as envious, as though it were not for the sake of their not being harmed that God had commanded them not to partake of the tree that alone gives knowledge of good and evil, but rather so that they might not become gods, on the ground that they were about to become clear-sighted.

In any case, out of this misinterpretation a whole sect came together, the one called the Ophite, which, as it supposes, magnifies the serpent with great claims about him, saying:

in these things they say that it was by God's own will that man should be, as it were, in an evil plight—calling it an evil plight that man did not know good and evil; and thus craftily do they say this:

'He Himself,' they say, 'made man in good things.'

And they invent other myths about the serpent, speaking evil of the very one whom they have fashioned for themselves as a god.

'I wish you to be wise unto that which is good, but innocent unto that which is evil.' But the serpent, wishing them to be wise unto evil, wanted to open those eyes that incline toward it—eyes which, while virtue is at work, are not opened but happen to remain shut, undergoing a beneficial blindness, which Jesus says He effects in the Gospel, saying:

'I came that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.' Yet Jesus, in the literal history, made no one blind, but rather bestowed sight upon the blind.

It is clear, then, that He blinds those who see amiss, and makes them see again with beneficial eyes—eyes which, belonging to the inner man, preserving pure vision not by the senses but by the intellect, before knowing and applying reason even to sense-perception, keep it hidden, according to what is said:

'The wise will conceal sense-perception.' And that what is said may become plain through an example: sense-perception, namely touch, is receptive of hot and cold things, hard and soft, rough and smooth; and even to an irrational creature and to a child these things are evident by touch.

But when, for instance, the physician touches a swelling, he conceals mere sense-perception, applying reason to the movement of the pulses.

So too with images: the untrained view them by sense alone, but the painters view them by reason.

Man, then, before the transgression, had eyes that looked upon things—that is, an understanding that applied itself to matters scientifically, as one ought.

So long, then, as he had these eyes, directing them toward the appropriate objects of contemplation, he did not know evil; instead of making trial of it, he did not admit it.

But when these eyes were stopped up, and those that incline toward evil were opened, then also they became outcasts.

Having his will set upon these things, the devil outwits the woman, leads her to conceive of envy in God, and promises great things, so that by these too he might entice her, saying:

'You shall be as gods, knowing good and evil'—adding besides the suggestion of a notion of a plurality of gods, though the idolatry through images had not yet [taken shape], hinting at the angels who had rebelled together with him.

'And she saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasing to the eyes and beautiful to contemplate; and taking of its fruit she ate, and gave also to her husband with her, and they ate; and the eyes of the two were opened, and they knew that they were naked.'

The things of the serpent's deception, having prevailed, wrought in her a judgment that was the reverse [of the truth].

For what is set forth as food is not judged by sight; rather, once the deception has begun, it first works a certain delight and pleasure, and thus in this way it rouses the deceived person to the deed.

After being persuaded by the things spoken by the serpent, she took, by way of assent, and ate, bringing the deed to completion; and she receives her husband too as a partner, herself doing and serving up the things that lead to deception.

For such is sense-perception, which we said holds the place of the woman.

'And when their eyes were opened, they knew that they were naked.'

For this is wont to happen to those who are deceived.

For after the act, the shamefulness of their vice is made manifest, since they come to recognize that they have been stripped of virtue—this too being a gift of the compassionate God, so that the one who works vice, remaining altogether insensible, might not continue wholly outside of virtue.

This, then, is the devil's deception: that the things beheld according to the true reason by the pure eye of the soul, he should make to be seen in reverse—putting forward the pleasant in place of the good, and displaying the good as toilsome.

In this way, then, the eyes that of old had been beneficially shut are also opened.

...for sense-perception and the mind to undergo harm.

For when sense-perception suffers distortion, then also the choices of the mind become distorted.

It has been said concerning those who make unnatural use of things:

'Woe to those who call the evil good and the good evil.' They were led astray, then, by pleasure, the cause of their errors.

For according to this, they say, are also those who, in wisdom, prefer pleasant things:

For the many prefer ease to virtue, not accepting strenuous effort—those who are also stripped naked by that very ease.

One must therefore despise pleasant things, which become the occasion of sins.

There are some who say that Adam's eating 'with her' indicates his condescension, so that she might not utterly perish—making use of what was said by Paul:

'Adam was not deceived, but the woman, being deceived, fell into transgression'—as being competent, even through himself, to draw her away from vice.

'And they sewed fig leaves and made for themselves loincloths.'

'And they heard the voice of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and both Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of God in the midst of the tree of the garden.'

The things previously contemplated concerning the garden and Adam and the woman remaining in force, we join these to them as well.

When they knew that they were naked, having sewn fig leaves they made for themselves loincloths; and having heard the voice of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day, they hid themselves from the face of God in the midst of the tree of the garden.

For it is worthwhile—without speaking ill of those who follow the literal history—to ask how they sewed together loincloths for themselves out of fig leaves; how those who had done things unworthy of it could hear the voice of the Lord walking; and why He walks in the cool of the day; and further, how they hid themselves, and what notion they entertained about God, hiding under a tree.

For I think that, in respect to all these points, they are unable to preserve the coherence of the narrative in a manner worthy of an exposition that comes from the Holy Spirit.

We, therefore, just as we have done in the preceding passages, let us also in these matters consider the divine meaning of what is written.

The text introduces two conditions of nakedness: the one before the transgression, the other after it; and the former without shame, the latter recognized and productive of shame.

It was said, indeed, even in what was previously stated, that doing nothing worthy of shame but being freed from every stain, they had toward God a mind full of confident freedom; for such is virtue.

But when they became transgressors of God's commandment, then, being stripped of the beauty of virtue and remaining naked of it, they were ashamed, reckoning from what good things into what evils they had fallen; and, sense-perception still lying exposed, they consequently hide themselves too from the God of all who was walking.

For the one who sins and has not yet had his sense-perception cut off, but still cherishes the sin, is indeed convicted by the common notions sown within by God—the Maker ever crying out through them—yet, because he is still entangled in the deception of his fault, he often stitches together excuses for his sins.

Or is this not evident in many cases? For often the one who is subject to wrath furnishes plausible excuses, by which he will forsooth present his anger as reasonable, sometimes even making use of proof from the Scriptures to establish his own will—which is the act of one who stitches together, out of leaves and not out of fruit, a certain covering that is not complete.

For this is what the loincloth represents.

God, through His own, exhorts that the one who prays should, as is fitting, lift up holy hands without wrath and disputings.

From the virtue of the saints, then, the makers of excuses—those who wish also to hide their own faults—stitching together leaves, suppose that they are making, forsooth, a defense of their own affairs; which very thing came to pass also in the case of the first-formed ones.

Those who employ such a disposition the Lord in the Gospels symbolically rebukes by means of the fig tree, when He came to it and found nothing but leaves only, saying: 'May no fruit ever come from you forever.'

And by no means do we say that the rebuke was directed at that fig-tree itself;

for it was not through any fault of its own that the perceptible fig-tree bore no fruit.

But it was also said when Israel had fallen into impiety:

'There is no grape-cluster on the vines, nor figs on the fig-trees.' They therefore stitched together fig-leaves, procuring, as has been said before, a plausible defence; and the discourse follows the outward form of the narrative.

For since a paradise was introduced, and nakedness, and after the transgression a recognition of this nakedness, the discourse says that the covering was made from leaves, employing what is proper to the narrative according to the customary manner of the God-inspired Scripture.

For often in the divine teaching the soul is called now a vine, now a sheep, now a bride; and to each the discourse consistently adds what follows.

For when it supposes her to be a vine, saying:

'Israel is a vine with fair branches,' then it calls the teachers husbandmen and those who plot against her foxes:

'For catch us the little foxes that destroy the vineyards.'

But when it names her a sheep, it calls the teachers shepherds, and those who lead astray wolves and lions:

'Israel is a straying sheep; lions have driven him out.'

But also whenever it calls her a bride, it names the one who leads her into the truth a bridegroom, and the one who harms her an adulterer;

and all these, though they are different names, yet being referred to the soul, receive an interpretation that is proper and fitting to the divine Spirit—not that she is either a sheep or a bride or a vine.

Consistently then, when mention had been made of paradise, on account of the form of the expression it made mention of leaves, which those who had fallen from virtue stitched together, according to the meaning that has been stated.

And these same ones also heard the Lord God walking in the paradise in the evening.

And before the transgression he did not walk about among them as being outside them, but he was with them.

For this is proper to the one who keeps virtue and is within it, so as to say:

'I foresaw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken'; and: 'I too am with you always.' And when man is with God, God also is with him:

'Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.'

But whenever certain ones depart from him, they hear:

'They walked crookedly toward me, and I too will walk toward them in crooked wrath.' And just as one who abandons the sun and shuts his eyes causes no diminution to the sun—for it remains giving light just as it was—so the one who abandons God works harm to himself; and he abandons him not as though in a place, but by turning away from virtue, like those concerning whom it is said:

'God will thrust them away, because they did not hearken to him, and they shall be wanderers among the nations.'

For since they themselves did not hear, he thrust them away.

Since therefore these too departed from him through the transgression, he for his part has withdrawn far from them; yet on account of his own goodness he walks about, providing perception, as has been said, according to the common notions, so that they may turn back.

And this happens in the evening, correspondingly to those who have transgressed.

For to the one who is in virtue the light of truth is at its height, since he is never in a state of darkness—one may indeed hear the holy one saying:

...driving away, when someone sets himself outside the light, coming to be in ignorance and wickedness, so that God says to the sinning soul:

'I have likened your mother to night.'

And certain ones become sons of night and of darkness, so that to the sinner there is present the darkness that comes from ignorance and impiety and wickedness.

And it is shown that the light did not forsake them all at once, in that it is said that in the evening they heard God walking about.

For those who still have a faint breeze of perception receive a dim state, not yet having come into complete ignorance, but being roused by God's love for mankind, while he still cries out to them in what is hidden, so that from this they may come to repentance, so as to learn that 'weeping shall lodge in the evening, and in the morning gladness'; that thus it may also be said concerning such persons, as concerning one who perceives what evils she is in:

for from this it will come about that those who repent come to the light, so as to say:

'This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.' Having then heard the voice of the Lord walking about, as has been said, they hid themselves from the face of the Lord God.

But the 'face' of the Lord God is not spoken of as of one having human form;

for a spirit is not composed of parts, so that some part of them should be called a face or any other of the human members.

For it is not fitting to understand the utterances concerning God in a human manner, since they are spoken thus for our benefit.

And it is no wonder if these things are said concerning God, since even concerning perceptible things we are taught in this way.

In Proverbs, at any rate, it is written:

'Death and life are in the hand of the tongue'; and we do not understand this as though the tongue had a hand, but an activity, which is called its hand;

'By one's own words is one justified, and by one's words is one condemned'; for this reason it says that as in the hand of the tongue—that is, in the word—there is death and life, according as one uses it well or ill.

They hid themselves then from the face of God, having departed from the pure conception concerning God—not like Cain;

for that one went out from the face of God, having rendered himself devoid of any conception of him, after the manner of that one concerning whom it is said:

'The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God."'

and all who introduce the notion of a lack of providence belong to this same conception.

But those who hide themselves are not indeed without any conception of the divine oversight, but on account of the filthiness of sin they do not have boldness, being certain despisers; whereas the saints, having a free conscience, are in the presence of the Lord, so as to say:

'The Lord lives, before whom I have stood in his presence';

but concerning those who sin it is said:

'They turned their backs to me and not their faces'—whereas it ought to have been that they should stand by as priests and, like angels continually beholding the face of the Father who is in heaven.

But the words 'And they hid themselves from the face of God' may also be understood according to another sense, when we understand the 'face' to be his only-begotten Son, who is his image and the impress of his substance.

For the one who has seen him has seen the Father.

It was fitting therefore that they should do all things toward keeping that which is according to the image, in accordance with which they had also come into being.

But having chosen to be transgressors of the commandment, they departed from being illumined by the image of God.

And reasonably they flee beneath the tree that is in the midst of the paradise, which was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

For the one who hides the face of God, so as not to practise virtue but to feign it, hides himself beneath hypocrisy.

For the one who knows good and evil, so as not to distinguish and to choose the good, but having by his cleverness a mere conceit of it, hides from God, feigning virtue.

And the Lord God called Adam and said to him:

'I heard your voice as you walked in the paradise, and I was afraid because I am naked, and I hid myself.'

'I commanded you not to eat of this one alone; from it you have eaten.'

'The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.'

Being a fountain of goodness, God calls us again even after our failings, not wiping out from our reasoning the complete knowledge of the good, even if we, on account of sin, turn away from virtue.

This too God does to Adam in the present case, calling him as he hides, and saying to him:

'Where are you?' For he had been appointed by God to till and to guard the paradise, having received this from him as his proper place;

but having departed from this on account of his disobedience, he consequently hears from God:

'Where are you?' That an order which someone is entrusted with is called a 'place' one may learn from the Acts of the Apostles, when the apostles, wishing to appoint a disciple in place of Judas who had betrayed Jesus, offering up a prayer to God, said:

'You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one is to take the place of this ministry.'

And there followed upon Adam, who had transgressed the divine order, also this: that he fell from the place corresponding to that order;

for he was cast out of the paradise.

The 'Where are you?' would also be a rebuke that makes one ashamed:

'For I placed you in virtue, but now where are you? Consider, and be ashamed.'

And there are those who understand the incorporeal substance according to the primary subject of the soul, and for this reason reckon that it is fitting for her to be outside every place; but that, when she has for her own part experienced body, she hears in a manner that makes her ashamed:

Where art thou? Art thou now in a place — thou soul that wast free from every place because thou art incorporeal, which freedom thou didst not keep but, being joined to a body, hast come to be in a place? Yet even he whose citizenship is in heaven, and who has his heart in heaven because he has laid up his treasure there and is there, is not in a place, having become one who transcends the world.

Since, then, Adam too was in this condition but transgressed, he thus hears the words: 'Where art thou?'

But note also that here the title 'Lord' is added to 'God.'

For when the matter concerned creation, it stood thus:

'In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth';