On Paradise 29–46

"In vain, then, did God hold out death as a terror, which men did not fear." Let us learn, then, that where God brought forth the tree of life, there too he brought forth the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For you have it that he brought forth the tree of life ἐν μέσῳ τοῦ παραδείσου, that is, in the middle of paradise ... For it is understood that he brought it forth in the middle. So in the middle of paradise were both life and the cause of death. Understand that man did not make life, but could find it either by working or by keeping the commands of God. And life, as the Apostle said, was hidden with Christ in God. Man, then, was either in the shadow of life, because of the figure (for this life of ours now on earth is a shadow), or in a kind of pledge of life, because he had the breathing of God; so he had a pledge of immortality. But placed in the shadow of life, he could not by ordinary touch and sight see and grasp the life hidden with Christ in God; though not yet a sinner, he was still not of an incorrupt and inviolable nature, being one who afterwards fell into sin, but by no means yet a sinner. So he was in the shadow of life; but those who are sinners are in the shadow of death. For the people of sinners, as Isaiah teaches, sat in the shadow of death, and light arose for them through God's grace, not through the merit of their own virtue. So there is no difference between the breathing of God and the food of the tree of life, nor can man say that he can gain more for himself than has been conferred on him by divine generosity. Would that we could keep what we received! For our labour avails only to recover what was given. The third objection, that one who had not tasted death could not fear it, is easily answered from the common experience of nature. For it is implanted by nature in all living creatures that they dread as harmful even things they have not yet found harmful to themselves. Why else are doves, at their very birth, terrified at the sight of a hawk? Why are wolves dreaded by sheep, kites by chicks? If, then, in irrational animals there is a natural terror of a hostile kind of animal, so that even irrational creatures have a sense of fleeing death, how much more must there have been in the first man, certainly most full of reason, a natural notion that death is to be avoided!

Again they raise other questions in this way: It is not always evil to disobey a command. If the command is good, obedience is honourable; but if the command is wicked, it is useful not to obey. So it is not always evil to disobey a command, but to disobey a good command is wicked. And the tree that produces knowledge of good and evil is good, since God too knows good and evil. Indeed he says: "Behold, Adam has become like one of us." If, then, it is good to have the knowledge of good and evil, and that is good which God too has, he who forbids it to men seems to forbid it wrongly; and this is what they propose. But if they understood what "to know" is, what force this word has, if they understood it as they should (for "the Lord knows those who are his": he knows, of course, those who from many have been made one, in whom he dwells and among whom he walks), "to know" would surely consist not in mere superficial knowledge, but in doing what ought to be done. Man ought to have obeyed the command, and by not obeying he transgressed. So he who did not obey went wrong, because transgression is sin. But even if they wish to weaken the force of "knowing", so as to think that a superficial knowledge of good and evil was forbidden, there too the fault of transgression lies in not obeying the command, since the Lord God judged that even a hasty knowledge of good and evil was to be forbidden.

Another question: one who does not know good and evil differs in no way from a little child, and little children are not guilty before a just judge. The just maker of the world would never have charged a little child with guilt for not knowing good and evil, since a little child is without any charge of transgression and guilt. But since we said above that knowledge of good and evil is understood in two ways, if we take it as superficial knowledge, it is certainly false that one who did not know good and evil differs in no way from a little child. And if it is false that he differs in no way from a little child, then Adam was not a little child. If not a little child, sin is certainly ascribed to him as not a little child. If sin is ascribed, punishment follows sin, since he is found worthy of punishment who failed to avoid sin. It can also happen that one who does not have the knowledge of good and evil is not a little child, since "before the boy knew good or evil, he did not trust in wickedness". And again you have: "Before the boy knows how to call father and mother, he will receive the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria." So one who does good is perfect even if he has not acquired the knowledge of good and evil, as many, before they know the law, are a law to themselves. What of the fact that the Apostle, before he learned, "You shall not covet", did not know that covetousness was evil? He himself says: "I did not know sin except through the law; for I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, You shall not covet." In this respect even a boy can be perfect by the law of nature, before he knows that covetousness is a crime or commits the crime of covetousness. So God wished man to know what is evil according to superficial knowledge, lest, as one imperfect, he should be unable to avoid it. And by not obeying the command we incur guilt; so we admit guilt. But again, if we speak of a high and deep knowledge of good and evil, which deep knowledge does make one perfect ... yet one who could not reach that high and deep knowledge is not at once a little child, so he is rightly condemned as not a little child.

Again they sow questions. One who does not know good and evil, it says, does not know even that it is evil not to keep a command, nor does he know the good itself, which is to obey a command. And so, since he did not know, it says, he who did not obey deserved pardon, not condemnation. This question too is resolved by what we said before. For man could have considered, from what God had already given him (that he had received the breath of God, that he had been placed in a paradise of delight), that the highest obedience was owed to his maker. And so, even if he did not know the force of good and evil, yet since the maker of such great things had said that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was not to be tasted, he ought to have kept faith with the one who commanded; for what was required of him was not expertise but faith. He certainly understood that God surpasses all things; so he ought to have looked to the person of the one commanding. Even if he did not understand the force and nature of the commands, he knew that reverence was owed to the one who gave them. He had this notion by nature, even if he did not have judgment of good and evil. Indeed the woman too says to the serpent: "Of every tree of paradise we shall eat, but of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of paradise God said: You shall not eat of it." So she knew that the command was to be obeyed, saying, "We shall eat of every fruit", as the Lord had commanded, and she says that God commanded that the tree in the middle of paradise was not to be tasted, lest they die. So she who knew that the command was to be honoured certainly knew that it was evil to transgress, and therefore, having transgressed, she is justly condemned.

Take another point: if eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was so effective that both good and evil were known, as Scripture seems to show when it says that, when both had eaten, their eyes were opened and they knew that they were naked (that is, the eyes of the heart were opened and they knew that it was shameful to live naked), then without doubt, when the woman tasted of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, she sinned and knew that she had sinned. She, then, who knew that she had sinned should at least not have invited her husband to share the sin. But by enticing her husband and giving him what she herself had tasted, she did not avoid sin but repeated it. For surely, if you look at reason truly, she ought not to have drawn the one she loved into a share of the punishment, but rather to have called him back, even if unaware, from what she herself knew to be sin; although this woman, knowing that after her fault she could not remain in paradise, seems to have feared being cast out of paradise alone. Indeed both hid themselves after their fault.

Knowing, then, that she was to be shut out, she did not want to be deprived of the company of the husband she loved. Take this again: the knowledge of evil is not evil, but evil comes when the act fulfils the wickedness. For one who knows evil does not at once do what is evil; rather it is one who does what he knows to be evil. The usual incentive to doing evil is either anger or desire. Nor is it necessary that one who has knowledge of evil should do what he knows to be wicked, unless he is overcome by anger or desire. So the incentive to sin, as we said, is either anger or desire, or often fear, though desire arises from fear when each one wants to escape what he fears. And so we rightly set down anger and desire as the two incentives of the other vices. Let us consider, then, whether Eve was driven to vice by these goads. But she was neither angry with her husband nor overcome by desire; only in the second act did she go wrong, by giving her husband to eat what she had already tasted. At first, desire had been the author of her error, so that she ate, and the cause of the sin that followed. For what she had already tasted she could not desire, and by tasting she had gained knowledge of evil. So she should not have passed on to her husband the evil she had perceived, nor made her own husband a transgressor of the divine command. So she sinned knowingly and wittingly; knowingly she drew her husband into her error; otherwise the statement about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil will be found false, if even after eating of that tree she could not have knowledge of evil. But if the statement is true, she certainly could not have had desire as a cause, although many think she should be excused in this way: that, loving her husband, she feared to be separated from him, and they put forward as the cause of her desire that she wanted to be with her husband.

Again another question steals in: whence did death come to Adam, from the nature of that kind of tree or from God? If we ascribe it to the nature of the tree, the fruit of this tree seems to surpass the life-giving breath of God, since the fruit of this tree drew to death the one whom the breath had given life. Or if we say that God was the worker of death, they say that we accuse him on two counts: either he was so harsh that he would not pardon when he could, or, if he could not pardon, he seems weak. Let us see, then, how this is to be refuted. Unless I am mistaken, the cause of death was disobedience, and so man himself is the cause of his death, not having God as the author of his death. For if a physician prescribes to a sick man what he should avoid, and the man thinks he need not abstain from what is forbidden, the physician is not the cause of his death; he himself is surely guilty of his own death. So God, like a good physician, forbade Adam to taste what would harm him.

Take this again: to know good is better than not to know it, and for one who knows good it is a fine thing to know what is evil, so that he may know how to beware of evil and prudently undertake the care of watchfulness. But again it is not enough to know only what is evil, lest, knowing evil, you begin to be deprived of the knowledge of good. It is finer, then, that we know both, so that because we know the good we flee what is evil, and because we know evil we prefer the grace of the good. But you must know both in such a way that you know deeply and carry out what you know, and that your actions agree with your knowledge. Otherwise Scripture shows that one who knows neither is more tolerable than one who knows both superficially. For it is a burden to know what you cannot carry out or avoid; it is a burden to know without the use and work of deep knowledge. It harms a physician's reputation to know what helps and what harms a sick man unless he uses that knowledge as he should; and so knowledge is not good unless you use it as you should.

Take this too: not in vain was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil brought forth in the middle of paradise; and if it had been brought forth for every man, the prohibition would have been superfluous. But it was neither made in vain nor made for anyone but the man who received the command to use it not alone but with the others. For if you examine many things, you will find very many, indeed countless, that can harm one who does not know how to use them. You will not find riches themselves profitable if a rich man, having the means for generosity, refuses food to the poor, shuts out the needy man left without help, and extorts what belongs to others because he is stronger in power. Beauty itself and a more attractive form of body more often draw one into vice than ugliness does. Does anyone, then, desire to have uglier rather than more beautiful sons, and wish his children to be poor rather than rich? There are many things of this kind that must be ascribed not to the imprudence of the giver but to the error of the one who uses them badly. And so the user is to be blamed rather than the giver.

Again a question: did God know that Adam would transgress his commands or did he not know? If he did not know, this is no assertion of divine power; but if he knew and nevertheless, knowing, gave commands that would be neglected, it is not God's way to command anything superfluous. Yet he commanded something superfluous to the first-formed Adam, whom he knew would not keep it at all. But God does nothing superfluously; therefore the Scripture is not from God. This is the objection of those who do not accept the Old Testament and who insert these questions. But they must be defeated by their own view and opinion. For since they do not reject faith in the New Testament, they must be refuted by an example, so that they may believe the Old, since when the divine precepts and deeds agree, it is plain that both Testaments must be believed to be of one author. Let them learn, then, that a command was given neither superfluously nor unjustly even to one who would transgress. For the Lord Jesus himself chose Judas, whom he knew to be a traitor. If they think he was chosen through imprudence, they detract from divine power. But they cannot think this, since Scripture says that Jesus knew who would betray him. So let these opponents of the Old Testament be silent.

But since an answer seems due to the pagans too, if they should raise this objection (they do not accept an example but demand a reason), let them too hear for what reason the Son of God both gave a command to one who would transgress and chose one who would betray. The Lord Jesus had come to save all sinners; he had to show his will even toward the ungodly. And so he could not pass over even the one who would betray him, so that all might notice that in choosing even his own betrayer he displayed a sign of his will to save all. Nor was either Adam wronged by receiving the command, or Judas by being chosen. For God imposed no necessity of transgression on the one or of betrayal on the other, since each, had he kept what he had received, could have abstained from sin. Indeed he knew that not all the Jews would believe, and yet he says: "I came only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." So the fault is not in the one who commands, but the sin is in the one who transgresses; and what was in God showed all that he wished to free all. Yet I do not say that he did not know the transgression would come; rather I assert that he did know; but he did not therefore have to draw upon himself the odium of the traitor who perished, so that the fall of each should be ascribed to God. As it is, each is refuted and convicted, since the one received a command so that he would not fall, and the other was even taken up into the office of apostle, so that he might be called back from the intention of betrayal by kindness, and at the same time, while others are convicted, he might benefit all. For sin would not exist if there had been no prohibition; and if sin did not exist, perhaps not only wickedness but also virtue would not exist, which could neither subsist nor stand out unless there were some seeds of wickedness. For what is sin but transgression of the divine law and disobedience to heavenly precepts? We do not judge heavenly commands with the ears of the body; but since there was the word of God, certain notions of good and evil sprang up in us, as we understand by nature that what is evil must be avoided and understand by nature that what is good is commanded us. In this, then, we seem to hear the voice of the Lord, that it forbids some things and commands others. If anyone does not obey what we believe to have been once commanded by God, he is reckoned liable to punishment. And we read God's command not as written with ink on tablets of stone, but we hold it impressed on our hearts by the Spirit of the living God. So our own notion makes a law for itself. "For if the Gentiles who do not have the law do by nature what the law requires, they, not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written on their hearts." So human notion is to itself, as it were, the law of God.

Again they raise from this another question, so that instead of the command, which we said consists in man's notion, they accuse this very notion, impressed on us by God as a prescription of divine law. Did he who created man, it says, and impressed on him these notions of good and evil, know that man would sin, or did he not know? So that, if you say that he did not know, you think something unworthy of God's majesty; but if you say that God, knowing that man would sin, nevertheless impressed on him common notions of good and evil, so that because of the admixture of evils he could not keep his life for ever, you seem to make God, as in the first case not foreknowing the future, so in this case not good. And from this they argue that the creation of man was not made by God. For as we showed above that they say the command is not God's, so here too they say: so the creation of man is not from God, because God did not make evil, but man received a notion of evil when he was commanded to abstain from evil things. In this way they try to assert one good God and another who made man. They must be answered at once according to their own opinion. If they will not have man made by God because man is a sinner, and they shrink from this lest the good God seem to have made a sinner (since they do not think him good who made a sinner), let them say whether they think the maker of man was made by God. For if, as they say, the maker of man was made by God, how did the good God make a maker of evil? Surely he would not be good. For if he who made a sinner is not good, take care that it be not worse to have made the maker of a sinner; for the good God ought to have prevented the birth of one who would bring in the substance of sin. But if they say that the maker was not begotten, it must be asked whether the good God could in some way have checked wickedness as it began, or could not. If he could not, he is weak; if he could and did not, he is not good. So if these things do not agree among themselves and the heretics' opinions are not consistent with each other, let us inquire whether there may not have been a reason why God allowed wickedness to enter this world, whether that maker was begotten or not, when he could have prevented it.

So, holding one and the same God to be good and maker, let us establish, if we can, what befits the grace of both, and let us not avoid the odium of the charge of those who say: How is God good, who not only allowed wickedness to enter this world, but even permitted it to come into such confusion? This charge would indeed have a place if wickedness so infected the power of the soul and the secret places of the inmost mind that it could in no way be done away with, and the poison of incurable wounds settled in our mind and soul; there would then be more room for this complaint, that though God can do all things, he yet allowed man to perish. But since God in his mercy toward us has kept remedies for casting out error, and has not taken away the possibility of doing away with all contagion, how is it irrational or unjust if he allowed our material nature to be tempted by a certain trembling of human frailty, so that grace might afterwards return with richer interest to man's disposition through repentance for sins; and that man, aware of his frailty, since he trembled in so easily straying from the course of the divine commands, might fear to lose the heavenly commands as the helm of a tossing soul, giving more to the divine mercy because he received back what he had lost, and claiming for himself something of grace because he returned?

Now let us consider what that reason is: why, when he gave man a command, prescribing concerning that wonderful and blessed life, lest by acting contrary he should die the death, he thought the command should be about eating and not eating. For there are some who think that such a command in no way befits the creator of heaven and earth and all things, and is in no way worthy of the dwellers of paradise, since that life is like that of the angels. And so we cannot suppose that this earthly and corruptible food was for eating, since those who neither drink nor eat will be like the angels in heaven. Since, then, there is neither reward in food, because food does not commend us to God, nor great danger, because not what enters the mouth defiles a man but what comes out of the mouth, the command would seem without doubt ... of so great an author, unless you refer this food to that prophetic food, since the Lord promises it to his saints as a great reward: "Behold, those who serve me will eat, but you will be hungry." For this is the food by which eternal life is defined, and anyone deprived of it will die the death, since the Lord himself is the living and heavenly bread who gives life to this world. Hence he himself says: "Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will not have eternal life." There was, then, some bread of which he had prescribed that the dwellers of paradise should eat. What bread? Hear whom he means: "Man ate the bread of angels"; for it is good bread, if you do the will of God. Do you want to know how good the bread is? The Son himself eats this bread, of which he says: "My food is to do the will of my Father who is in heaven."

Again let us see for what reason the Lord God said to Adam, "You shall die the death", and what difference it makes whether one says "you shall die" or adds "you shall die the death"; for we must show that there is nothing superfluous in God's command. So I think this. Since death and life are contrary to each other, in simple speech we say "to live" from life and "to die" from death. But if you wish to double each, since life makes life, it is said "he lives by life", as you have in the law; and since death makes death, it is said "he shall die the death". This doubling is not superfluous; for there is a life unto death and a death unto life, since whoever lives, while he lives, dies, and while he dies, lives. So there are four distinctions: to live by life, to die by death, to die by life, to live by death. Since this is so, we must exclude the prejudgment of usage and custom, since usage has it that both one who lives by life and one who lives by death are said in common to live, and that both one who dies by death and one who dies by life are said in common to die. So of those four it expresses two, saying that the living lives, without distinguishing better from worse, and saying that the dying dies, with no seeming distinction between a bad and a good death. For an undistinguished life is signified, such as that of irrational creatures or of little children, and likewise an undistinguished death.

Setting aside common usage, then, let us consider what it is to live by life, what it is to die by death, and what it is to live by death and to die by life. I think, according to the Scriptures, that to live by life signifies that wonderful and blessed life, and seems to show this practice of living and gift of breathing as joined, so to speak, with the grace of the blessed life and mixed with it by a certain participation. For this is to live by life: to live by virtue, to have the acts of the blessed life in the life of this body. On the other hand, what is it to die by death but to signify, along with the death of the body, the deformity of one who dies, whose flesh is deprived of the common gift of living and whose soul cannot have the enjoyment of eternal life? There is also one who dies by life, as one who lives in the body but dies by his own conduct, such as those who, as the prophet says, "go down alive into hell", and the woman of whom the Apostle says that "living, she is dead". The fourth remains: those who live even by death, like the holy martyrs, who certainly die so that they may live. The flesh dies, but the grace of the dead lives. So far be it from us that we should live as sharers in death; rather, as sharers in life, let us die. For the saint does not even wish to be a sharer in this life, as he says: "to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better"; and another: "Woe is me, that my sojourning is prolonged!", grieving, of course, that while he hopes for the fellowship of eternal life he is held by the frailty of this life. And so I can say, on the contrary, that although to live by life is good, to live for life is ambiguous. For one can be said to live for life, that is, to serve eternal life in this life of the body; one can also be said to live for life, that is, to have, whoever he is, even a saint, a desire for this bodily life, as, for example, if someone thinks he must live honourably so as to obtain long life by good acts, as are many weaker people whom this life delights.

As, then, we have learned what it is to live for life, let us learn what it is to die to death or to live to death. For there can be those who die to death and those who live to life. One who does not live so as to live according to the death of his soul dies to death. Because he is not liable to death, that is, the bond of grievous death has let him go, he is not bound by the chains of eternal death. He has died to death, that is, he has died to sin, he has died to punishment. The opposite of this is to live to punishment, that is, when one who lives for punishment lives for death. And one who dies for punishment dies for death. There is also one who, placed in this life, dies to life, like him who said: "I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me"; for he died to sin and lives to God, that is, death in him is dead, but life lives, which is the Lord Jesus. So the life of those who live to God is good, the life of those who live to sin is bad. There is also a middle life, like that of the other animals, as you have written: "Let the earth bring forth the living soul according to its kind." There is also a life of the dead, as "the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob", because he is not the God of the dead but of the living. There are also those who have a certain sharing of death and life, of whom the Apostle says: "If you have died with him, you will also live with him." "For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in that of his resurrection, knowing that our old man was crucified with him, so that the body of sin might be destroyed, that we should no longer serve sin; for he who has died is justified from sin." As we have spoken of many forms of life, so we shall find many of death. For death is called bad, according to the saying: "The soul that sins, it shall die." Death is called in the common sense, as you have, for example, that he lived so many years, and died, and was gathered to his fathers. Death is also spoken of through the sacrament of baptism, as you have: "For we were buried with him by baptism into death"; and elsewhere: "But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him." You see that it is called death by name, but this is our life.

Again another question: the Lord said that it is not good for the man to be alone. First of all, know that earlier, where God formed man from the mud of the earth, he did not add, "God saw that it was good", as he did for each of his works. For if he had said there that it was good that man was made, it would be found contradictory that here he said it was not good, when earlier he had said it was good. But know this to be the case there where he made Adam alone. Where, however, he includes in common the making of the man and the woman, although even there he did not say it specifically, yet since afterwards there is: "God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good", it is clearly declared that it is good that both the man and the woman were made.