創世記註釋 第 1 章 第 6/15 段

but when transgression followed, then the name of 'the Lord' is added as well;

for it belongs to the Lord to proceed against those who neglect His ordinances.

For there was need also of rebuke — a rebuke that fittingly proceeds from a Master, who tempers His reproof with goodness.

'And the Lord God called.'

This David too sings, saying:

'Mercy and judgement will I sing unto Thee, O Lord';

for by joining judgement together with mercy he sets forth a token of loving-kindness.

For God brings on His chastisements for our benefit.

But let us also look at the answer:

'I heard the sound of Thee as Thou wast walking in the garden.'

For whenever a man who has fallen into sin needs but a slight perception — the mere perception of receiving a thought of God through the creation in which He walks, providing for the order of all things and assigning to each of the things that are its place — then he both turns back and comes to know that God oversees and governs all things; and thus he comes to be beyond contempt.

For whenever he beholds the appointed course of the sun, the movement of the heavens, the changes of the moon, and the seasonable risings of the stars, and reasons that He who is the charioteer and marshal of this whole is the Creator of all, then, walking amid all these things, he hears the voice of God — a voice not uttered in an audible manner, but impressed upon the mind: that nothing escapes God, but that all things are under His dispensation.

And thus, being ashamed, he hides himself;

for he who sins, sins because he does not have God before his eyes.

And it belongs to perception also to say:

'I heard the sound of Thee as Thou wast walking in the garden, and I was afraid, because I am naked.' For this very fear belongs to one who still retains the discernment that wickedness is shameful and to be chastised.

And he says that the cause of the fear was his nakedness, which came about from his having lost virtue, which had been his covering;

for virtue is a divine garment.

So too Paul exhorts:

'Put ye on Christ Jesus,' and 'Put on bowels of compassion,' which is to say:

'Be adorned with a merciful disposition and with the manner of life that is according to Christ'; and again:

'Let us put on the armour of light,' so as to prepare ourselves to make war against the adversaries.

Since, then, he had been stripped of these garments through the transgression, and was convicted by his conscience, he had no boldness to gaze toward God;

'I was afraid, because I am naked';

for just as one who has done shameful deeds, if he be sought out, hides himself from fear of the ruler because of what he has done, so also did Adam, whereas he who is conscious of no sin within himself keeps his boldness.

To these things the Master of the universe, again with a view to correction, stirring up his understanding, says:

'Who told thee that thou art naked, unless of the tree of which alone I commanded thee not to eat, thou hast eaten of it?' The saying is full of loving-kindness;

for again God takes hold of the one who has sinned, pointing out the reasoning behind the commandment.

For he ought to have partaken, together with all the rest, also of the knowledge of good and evil, and not of it alone.

For, as has been said before, human cleverness apart from the working of virtue is most harmful, but together with all the rest it is beneficial;

which very thing God also enjoined, after the manner of a good physician, providing a most useful preventive draught for health — a draught that, when compounded, profits, but when taken apart, harms — just as has been said before concerning what is called theriac.

Such a thing the Lord teaches in the Gospels, saying:

'Be ye wise as the serpents and harmless as the doves.' But to these things Adam, accusing the woman, says:

'The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.' Wickedness is fond of blaming others, and it is proper to those who sin not to confess the sin readily, but to fabricate causes for their fault.

For some men, ascribing life to fate, suppose that by it they are constrained even into sin; while others, saying that all things come to be at random and by chance, likewise reckon these things to happen so;

but the first-formed man, having disobeyed the commandment, says:

'The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me.' Yet he ought to have considered that, first, having received her from God, he received her fittingly and for his benefit; and next, that he took her not as a teacher, but as one who should follow.

And this we have already noted in what preceded, from the answer of Eve to the serpent, when she said to him:

'Of the fruit of the tree of the garden we shall eat, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden God said:

Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.' For God had given no commandment concerning touching; but this, as having learned it from Adam — who was teaching her, since she was weak, to be the more cautious — she had heard from him: that she should not even touch it.

How then was the teacher and instructor led into deception by the one being taught? But there are some who make a defence on Adam's behalf, drawing on what was said by him:

for he says, 'The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me';

for since he said 'Thou gavest her to be with me,' knowing that she would be cast out on account of the disobedience, he accompanied her — they say — not by way of transgression, but for her benefit;

for teachers often condescend to those who are weaker, in order that thereby they may bring about their return.

And they confirm these things from the words spoken by Paul, which he referred to Christ and to the Church:

'And Adam was not deceived, but the woman, being deceived, came to be in transgression.' And it belongs to a discerning man, when the woman is referred to the Church and Adam to Christ, to preserve the connexion of the allegory, and to consider together whether perhaps the race of men — out of which the Church is filled up — having made use of the transgression, became the cause of the descent of the Saviour, that He might make use of the dispensation for the sake of which He became a curse and sin, though not being these things, but taking them upon Himself for our sakes.

'And the Lord God said to the woman:

What is this thou hast done? And the woman said:

The serpent deceived me, and I did eat.'

Three persons are here brought under blame:

And the man was able to make his defence, that the woman had become for him the joint cause of eating of the forbidden tree, from which he came to know that he was naked; and the woman lays blame on the serpent, saying:

'The serpent deceived me, and I did eat';

for God also demanded of them the cause of the fault;

but no such question is brought to the serpent.

For it could not refer the cause of the wickedness onto another, being itself the begetter of it.

For this very thing the Lord also teaches in the Gospels, saying concerning him:

'When he speaketh the lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar and the father of it,' which is to say, the father of the lie;

for the devil does not have a father, as those have supposed who thought in the manner of myths.

But all who make use of wickedness, save him alone, come to it not of their own, but from his malignant craft, since he hears from the Word:

'But thou saidst in thy mind:

I will ascend into heaven,' and what follows.

For no other suggested to him the pride, but he himself to himself;

wherefore not even a word of defence is granted to him.

'What, then,' He says, 'is this thou hast done? Wast thou set here for this, to become for the man the cause of his fault?' And she said:

For when she had brought forward the terms of the commandment, he in turn used the injunction in the reverse way, together with promising them something boastful and able to entice.

'For God knew,' he says, 'that in whatever day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be as gods, knowing good and evil.' And now she quite naturally acknowledges the deception;

for having become aware of God, she recognizes what has happened.

For this is the way with those who are deceived: only after the outcome do they perceive the evil;

for at the beginning, since the pleasure conceals the perception, no recognition takes place.

As for the words 'he said,' it must again be explained thus: that a converse with God took place in the mind of the woman, and this is not obscure;

for whenever, as we sin, a reasoning arises that overturns the sin, we must regard God as being present in the mind and speaking.

There too we allegorize the sequence in accordance with what has gone before;

for pleasure, which is the serpent, first arises in the perception, which we called the woman, and then in this way she ministers to the intellect, which has been called the man.

And the Lord God said to the serpent:

'Because you have done this, you are cursed above all the cattle and above all the beasts that are upon the earth;

upon your breast and belly you shall go, and you shall eat earth all the days of your life.'

This is what God said to both Adam and Eve, saying to each of them:

'Why have you done this?' From their answers he also heard who was the author of the wickedness—Adam blaming the woman, and the woman the serpent—so that to the serpent he no longer said this;

for this one was the beginner of evil and had no one else to whom he could refer the blame.

For this reason, straightway, instead of 'Why have you done this?' he brings on the sentence of punishment, saying:

'Because you have done this, you are cursed above all the cattle and above all the beasts that are upon the earth.' And it is clear that God does not apply this punishment to this reptile;

for it does not have a nature capable of putting forward a word of deception, on account of which it would provoke God to enact a punishment against itself.

Paul, at any rate, writing to the Corinthians, knowing that the one about whom he wrote was not an irrational animal, says:

'I am afraid lest, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity.'

For he does not say 'serpent' in a general sense, as was also said concerning those men:

'Serpents, brood of vipers!'—but rather 'the serpent,' which indicates the devil himself, who, moreover, became the author of wickedness for others;

for he works in the sons of disobedience, and works his own things by producing them in those men through a sophistical deception.

For this reason he also receives an exceeding punishment:

'For you are cursed,' he says, 'above all the beasts that are upon the earth.'

For as the author of wickedness, he is fittingly subjected to punishment above all those who, deriving from him, have come to be serpents, and cattle in their manner, and beasts of the earth—over which the Savior gives authority to his own disciples, saying:

'Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy.' And to the one who dwells in the help of the Most High it is added:

'You shall tread upon the asp and the basilisk, and you shall trample the lion and the dragon.' All these having the ferocity of wickedness, the devil—called a serpent as surpassing them all—is consequently condemned above them all.

There is added to the punishment also this: 'Upon your breast and your belly you shall go;'

for since he deceived by seeming to possess an exalted understanding and by pretending to have great nourishment, the text explains his fall by declaring that his food shall be earthly, having nothing divine or lofty, but crawling about earthly things—his ruling faculty having fallen away, which the breast signifies—no longer bringing forth anything divine or heavenly, because his generative power, which is signified by the belly, has its zeal about matter and earthly things.

That the belly is understood in this way may be learned from the opposite, when the blessed David sings:

'And your law is in the midst of my belly'—which signifies not the sensible member but a power of the soul.

Indeed, at any rate, men who have come to repentance, recognizing that their understanding, which ought to partake of heavenly foods, has been cast down to earth, say:

'Our belly has cleaved to the earth,' having become wholly earthly by being nourished with earthly things and by giving birth to earthly things.

For as the belly is a receptacle of foods, so also it is a workshop of the things that are formed.

Those, therefore, who beget base things go their way creeping upon the earth, while those who bring forth divine things say:

'From fear of you we conceived in the womb, and were in travail, and gave birth;'

and this same thing is both an offspring of the mind and a nursling.

Well too is added:

'And you shall eat earth all the days of your life;'

for he did not say 'of life' simply, but 'of your life,' which you chose from your own inclination—as if one were to say even to the one who does not live as he ought:

'All the days of the life you chose to have you shall be base; sins shall be your food in all those base days that you preferred.'

For each thing, according to its own manner, having departed from the life that is proper, procures for itself a life of its own.

Similar to this is also what was said to the rich man:

'You received your good things in your life, and likewise Lazarus the evil things.' And observe that of the base man he called the things indifferent 'good things;'

since he himself reckoned them as good and set his hope in them, for this reason too he said 'your good things;'

but in the case of Lazarus it was not said 'his own evil things;'

for he did not suffer from his own purpose, even though he bore it nobly.

And Job too, when deprived of pleasant things, since he did not reckon them as his own good things, but knowing their nature, that they had been given by God, made use of them—did not say:

'If we have received our good things,' but 'If we have received good things from the hand of the Lord.'

For the good things which he himself chose were the virtues, while the things that follow upon them—indifferent by the judgment of God—he used as was fitting, supplying those in need:

'And my door was open to everyone who came.'

'And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed;

he shall watch your head, and you shall watch his heel.'

When the more guileless person consorts with an evil one, he sustains no small harm;

the evil one approaches and insinuates things of harm, and the more guileless soul receives them as beneficial.

There must therefore come about a separation of these, and a coming into enmity and into a state of no fellowship, so that the more guileless person, having become prudent according to the saving command, may say concerning the devil:

'For we are not ignorant of his devices.' Often indeed, when we see a woman's friendship toward a man arising with simplicity, from which deception it follows that such persons commit shameful deeds, we take pains—not out of hatred of peace, which is a fruit of the Spirit, but out of a turning away from a peace against which the Savior comes to bring a sword, saying:

'I came not to bring peace, but a sword'—one that separates and cuts apart those who long to be benefited from those who attempt to do harm.

Being good, therefore, God plants enmity in those for whom peace and union are hostile.

For whenever someone, falling into an evil through ignorance of it, learns that it is destructive and harmful, he reaps no small benefit.

Consequently he also makes the seed hostile to the seed, and it itself hostile to her.

And since what is said is not about a sensible serpent, neither is its seed to be understood as sensible, but rather those who are stamped and formed and begotten according to him, or the reasonings that distort men from the truth and teachings alien to it; while the seed of the woman is likewise those virtuous ones who derive from her—for she holds the type of the Church—or the teachings of the divine instruction, against which the malignity of the adversary makes its assaults.

A distinction between seed and child has also been stated in the Gospels, the Jews saying:

'We are Abraham's seed;' and the Savior conceding this to them, but denying that they were children of Abraham, in saying:

'If you were children of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham.' For the one who is a child is also seed, though the seed does not always become also a child, by being aborted and not brought to completion.

This too may follow according to the higher, anagogical sense.

For many, having begun, like Hymenaeus and Alexander, and having made shipwreck concerning the faith, were not brought to completion as children.

And everything, even in its manner of expression, is arranged in order.

For the serpent is not set against the seed, but against her; nor is the serpent's seed set against her, but her seed.

For things that are extremely evil have their conflict against things that are surpassingly good, and lesser things against things of equal weight.

For God grants also the way out, enabling one to endure, not permitting the temptation against anyone to become immoderate.

Had not the Lord been among us, then they would have swallowed us up. And since the Lord of all is good, He both discloses the schemes of the adversary and teaches plainly the assaults directed against him: the devil, for his part, lying in wait for man's advances and passages over unto virtue—which are signified by the heel—while man, for his part, watches for the very head of wickedness;

for when this is destroyed, the whole is destroyed together with it.

But note how the discourse passes over from one subject to another different one;

for whereas all those things were spoken with reference to the woman,

namely, 'I will put enmity between you and the woman,' and what follows, yet now He says:

'He shall watch your head, and you his heel.' For it was fitting that, concerning the weaker one, it should be said 'I will put enmity,' so that the unmingled state should be preserved and no room be given for deception; but concerning the man—inasmuch as he was not deceived, according to the apostolic saying—it should be said:

'He shall watch your head.' For being strong, he is the more suited both to make war and to guard against the assaults of the adversary, not conceding to him the chance to bring in the beginning of deception, as he did to Eve—whom, as we have said before, he followed, since he himself also said:

'The woman whom You gave to be with me'—whom indeed he did not put away, because of her usefulness to him.

the three youths in the furnace.

The word spoken to the serpent, then, 'He shall watch your head,' would make plain that, even though you deceived the woman as the weaker one, yet the man will war against you, watching for the very head of your wickedness—which is impiety, the thing that the wise man casts out—so that the devil does not reach the head of the wise man, but at most his heel, which would be the outermost things among those that contribute unto virtue.

For often, being unable to war against any of the more principal things, he lies in ambush around man's necessities, that through these he may trip him up.

This very thing is also said in the Psalms:

'They will watch my heel;'

and here this 'to watch' signifies the same as 'to keep watch' in the present passage;

for it denotes 'to keep close watch,' though we are not unaware that the words are also used for 'to preserve' and 'to shelter,' as in 'You, O Lord, will guard us and preserve us,' and in 'Holy Father, keep them.'

'Multiplying I will multiply your pains and your groaning;'

'in pains you shall bear children, and your turning shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you.'

'Because you heard the voice of your wife, and ate of the tree, of which alone I commanded you not to eat—from that you ate—cursed is the ground in your labors;'

'in pains you shall eat of it all the days of your life.'

'Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you, and you shall eat the herb of the field.'

'In the sweat of your face you shall eat your bread, until you return to the earth from which you were taken; for you are earth, and to earth you shall return.'

It is not improbable also to take the literal narratives in accordance with these words.

For it does indeed appear that the woman is pressed by frequent and continual pains and groanings, undergoing no small toil both in conceptions and in deliveries, and further in the rearing of children—even as the wife of the blessed Job says, 'Your memorial is vanished from the earth, sons and daughters, the pangs and pains of my womb, which I labored for in vain with hardships'—and that she referred all things to her husband as to a master stronger than herself, awaiting the commands that come from him; while the man, worn down by labors and cares, passes his whole life in toils and sweats.

For neither is he without share in the things that grieve the woman, and he himself in particular is beset by toils throughout all his life, laboring and growing weary at one thing after another, in body and in soul;

for the affairs of his household are not free from care to him—the rearing of children, and often the varied griefs over these, whether they are afflicted by diseases or carried off beforehand by death; from all which come excessive anguish and quite sufficient toil; and there would be many things to tell, which to all are most manifest.

But let us look also at each one of the things that have been said.

'Cursed are you'—but to Adam it is not so; rather, 'Cursed is the ground in your labors,' and this reasonably;

for he did not transgress by being overcome by sin, but by following the woman, according to what we set forth earlier upon the phrase 'The woman whom You gave to be with me,' when we cited the apostolic saying:

'For Adam was not deceived, but the woman, having been deceived, came into transgression.' Yet to the woman also the threats are given personally:

'Multiplying I will multiply your pains.'

And by adding also the 'You are earth, and to earth you shall return,' He points out what is proper to the bodily substance;

for the soul does not have its origin from earth, so as also to be dissolved back into it, according to those who introduce the notion that it is perishable.

And since in the foregoing the paradise was understood by us allegorically to be a place, a divine dwelling of blessed powers, correspondingly the things concerning the man and the woman are also to be taken.

We have, then, from the blessed Paul, starting-points leading to the higher interpretation, when he says: 'This mystery is great, but I speak concerning Christ and concerning the Church.' The Church, then, bears children in pains, for toil goes before virtue, and it works, through grief, a repentance unto salvation not to be repented of;

for toil attends virtue, but ease attends pleasure.

This the Savior teaches, saying:

'How narrow is the gate and strait the way that leads to life, but broad and spacious is the way that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter through it.' And the groaning too has its praise, when it comes to be for virtue's sake;

But she also has her turning toward the man, Christ, being ruled by Him, so that according to His counsels the offspring of virtue born from her may have their perfecting from Him;

'For I betrothed you,' says Paul, 'to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.' For blessed is the Church when it is embraced by Christ; and each woman too is blessed when she is under one who is perfect and earnest and preserves what is fitting in ruling.

Let no one, adducing perverted forms of cohabitation, attempt to falsify the saying;

for it is not about such things that the divine word has concerned itself; and Paul, teaching this, exhorts, saying:

'just as Christ also loved the Church,' which is to say, passionlessly.

As for the things concerning the commandment, which enjoins that one must not eat of that alone which is forbidden, having been sufficiently made clear in what precedes this, they may now be passed over; noting now only this: that Adam, having heard the voice of the woman, did not sin as a leader, but followed her, on whose account he also undergoes the things that have been spoken;

'For cursed,' He says, 'is the ground in your labors. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you.'

For what, arising from the body's train, is not painful, since pleasures and cares grow up out of it? For the Savior interpreted these to be the thorns which choke the seed cast by Jesus, if the one who receives it does not welcome it into depth; and, moreover, that which is said—that the earth, which drinks the rain that comes often upon it and brings forth vegetation fit for those for whose sake it is also tilled, partakes of blessing from God—

but bringing forth thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to a curse, whose end is for burning. If therefore anyone, through diligence, does not allow these to sprout up, he will have herbage, that is, something nourishing;

for first the thing that grows will be grassy, as the Savior also says:

This spiritual herbage, then, the earnest man will not find without practice nor without toil.

For since the heart of men is diligently disposed toward evils, virtue is hard to hunt down and is grasped only with labor;

'For through many tribulations,' it says, 'must you enter into the kingdom of the heavens.' And it is a mark of what is good, first for a while to eat the introductory herbage of virtue's beginnings, then the ear of grain, when one lays hold of great introductory lessons of perfection, so as to hear:

'Solid food is for the perfect, for those who by reason of habit have their faculties trained for the discernment of good and evil.' Toilsome, therefore, is virtue, seeing that the heart of men lies diligently inclined toward evil;

on this account He says, 'all the days of your life in sweat you shall eat your bread,' which could not be said to angels;

for among them the things of virtue are worked out more easily.

And in keeping with the allegory, the phrase 'until you return to the earth from which you were taken' is also to be understood.

For having risen in a spiritual body, you shall have a heavenly citizenship, coming to be in the land of the meek;

'For blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,' even though in exchange for this earth man, on account of his own faults, bartered away the barren ground.

For by our own doing we are either earth or become heaven; this the wise Paul teaches, saying:

'And just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly'—which the disciples are enjoined to say in the prayer:

that, walking in heaven, they may have their commonwealth there.

And this is to be noted: that it is not the case that, if something is allegorized, one must by all means make the whole of it smooth and consistent;

for the literal expression has been adopted because of that in it which is suitable for allegory; and once this is understood, there is no necessity to receive all its parts for the higher interpretation—as, for example, in the case of 'You shall not muzzle the ox that treads out the grain,' which was said because it is fitting to acknowledge the teacher and the toils he undergoes on behalf of those being taught;

but there is no necessity to say whether the ox is two-horned, and to what these things are to be referred;

for it was not on this account that the passage was adopted.

These things have been said so that no one, when Adam is referred up to Christ, should demand concerning Christ all the details, wholly and in their entirety, that belong to Adam.

For He Himself also became a curse on behalf of humanity—of which the Church, which was the woman, holds the symbol—that through His toil and His self-emptying life might come to those who had fallen away;

'For Him who knew no sin He made to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.' And sin is not so once for all, for otherwise it would not be productive of righteousness.

For He also became a curse, that we might obtain a blessing;

and just as it was not Adam who was deceived, but he followed the woman when she had been deceived, so, when humanity had fallen, He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant.

For if the race had not chanced to transgress, neither would they have needed one to heal them, no wound having come to be—the wound which summoned forth the sojourn among men.

And Adam called the name of his wife Life (Zoe), because she is the mother of all the living.

Moved by a most provident understanding, Adam—knowing that on account of the transgression they would be outside paradise—foretells what is to come by calling his wife Life, since she would be the mother of all the living.

For from her came the whole line of succession; but one must not further understand this to include also the irrational animals.

For it is not fitting, whenever something is stated universally, to take in as well those things whose nature does not admit of it.

For it is not the case that, if the oracle should say:

'I will pour out from my Spirit upon all flesh,' one must consequently include also the flesh of the irrational animals;

And 'all flesh shall see the salvation of our God'—it is not fitting to understand this too as applying to the flesh of the irrational animals.

So also now Eve is the mother of all the living—that is, she is the mother of those human beings whose nature it is to have her as mother.