To Autolycus 2.25

The tree of knowledge was itself good, and its fruit was good. For it was not the tree, as some think, that held death, but the disobedience. There was nothing else in the fruit but knowledge; and knowledge is good when one uses it properly. But Adam, at the age he then was, was still an infant; so he could not yet take in knowledge worthily. Even now, when a child is born, it cannot yet eat bread; it is first nourished with milk, and then, as it grows older, it comes to solid food. So it would have been with Adam. God did not forbid him to eat of knowledge, then, out of envy, as some think. He also wished to test him, to see whether he would obey his command. And at the same time he wished the human being to remain simple and innocent for a longer time, while he was still a child. For it is a holy thing, not only before God but also before human beings, to be subject to one's parents in simplicity and innocence. And if children must be subject to their parents, how much more to the God and Father of all? Besides, it is unseemly for little children to think thoughts beyond their age; as one grows in years in due order, so one grows in understanding. Again, when a law commands someone to abstain from something and he does not obey, clearly it is not the law that brings the punishment, but the disobedience and the transgression. A father sometimes commands his own child to keep away from certain things, and when the child does not obey his father's command, he is beaten and punished because of his disobedience; it is not the things themselves that are the blows, but the disobedience that brings disgrace on the one who disobeys. So too for the first-formed man, it was his disobedience that brought about his expulsion from the garden; not that there was anything evil in the tree of knowledge, but through disobedience the human being drew upon himself toil, pain, and grief, and in the end fell under death.