But if you wish to double each, since life produces life, it is said 'life lives,' as you have in the Law; and since death produces death, it is said 'he shall die the death.' Yet this doubling is not superfluous; for there is a life unto death, and there is a death unto life, since whoever lives, while he lives, dies, and while he dies, lives. There arise, then, four distinctions: to live by life, to die by death, to die by life, to live by death. Since, then, these things are so, we ought to set aside the prejudgment of use and custom, because usage holds this: that it is commonly said 'to live' both of him who lives by life and of him who lives by death, and commonly said 'to die' both of him who dies by death and of him who dies by life.
And so, out of those four, it signifies two, so that it speaks of the living as living, distinguishing nothing better or worse, and speaks of the dying as dying, with no discrimination apparent between an evil and a good death. For a certain undistinguished life is signified, such as that of irrational creatures or even of little children, and an undistinguished death likewise. Setting aside, then, the common usage, let us consider what it is to live by life, what it is to die by death, what it is to live by death, and to die by life. For I think, according to the Scriptures, that 'to live by life' signifies that admirable and blessed life, and seems to show this use of living and gift of breathing as joined, as it were, with the grace of the blessed life and mingled 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 'to die by death' but to signify, together with the death of the body, the deformity of one who is dying, whose flesh is both defrauded of the common gift of living, and whose soul cannot have the use of eternal life? There is also one who dies by life, namely one who lives in body but dies by his own deed—such are those who, as the prophet says, go down alive into hell; and that woman of whom the apostle says that, while living, she is dead. The fourth remains: that there are those who even live by death, like the holy martyrs, who indeed die that they may live. The flesh dies, but the grace of the dead lives.
Therefore far be it from us that we should live as partakers of death; rather let us die as partakers of life. For the holy man does not even wish to be a partaker of this present life, as he says: To be dissolved and to be with Christ. For it is much better; and another also says: Woe is me, that my sojourning is prolonged—grieving, of course, that, while he hopes for the fellowship of eternal life, he is held back by the frailty of this life. And therefore, on the contrary, I can say that, although to live by life is good, yet to live for this life is doubtful.
For one can be said 'to live for life,' that is, to be a soldier of eternal life by means of this life of the body; one can also be said 'to live for life' in the sense of having any desire whatever—whether ordinary or holy—of this bodily life: as, for example, if someone thinks he ought to live honourably for the purpose of attaining length of life by good deeds, such as are most of the weaker sort whom this life delights. Therefore, just as we have received what it is 'to live for life,' let us receive what it is 'to die for death,' or 'to live for death.' For there can be those who die for death and those who live for life. For he who does not so live as to live according to the death of his own soul—he dies for death.
Because he is not liable to death, that is, the bond of wretched death has released him, he is not constrained by the chains of eternal death. He is dead to death, that is, he is dead to sin, he is dead to punishment. The contrary of this is 'to live for punishment,' that is, when he who lives, lives for punishment unto death. But he who dies for punishment dies unto death. There is also one who, placed in this life, dies unto life, as he who says: I live, yet now not I, but Christ lives in me; for he is dead to sin, he lives to God—that is, death in him has died, but life lives, which is the Lord Jesus. Therefore good is the life of those who live to God, evil the life of those who live to sin. There is also a middle life, like that of other living creatures, as you have it written:
Let the earth bring forth the living soul after 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,' for He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. There are also those for whom there is a certain fellowship of death and life, of whom the apostle speaks, saying: If we have died together, we shall also live together. For if, he says, we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection; knowing that our old man is crucified together with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin; for he that is dead is justified from sin. And as we have spoken of many figures of life, so also shall we find of death. For an evil death is spoken of, according to this: The soul that sins, the same shall die.
Death is spoken of commonly, as you have for example: 'Adam 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 are buried together with Him through baptism into death; and elsewhere: But if we are dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live together with Him. You see that, though it be called by the name of death, yet this is our life. Again another question, because the Lord said that it was not good for man to be alone. First of all, recognize that in the foregoing, where God formed man of the clay of the earth, He did not add: 'God saw that it was good,' as in His individual works.
For if He had there said that it was good that man was made, it would be found to be contradictory that He should here say it is not good, when in the foregoing He had said it was good. But recognize this there, where He made Adam alone. But where He comprehended together that man and woman were made—although not even there did He say it specifically—yet because afterward He has: God saw all the things which He had made, and behold, they were very good, it is plainly declared to be good that both man was made and woman. But out of this question another question again has emerged. For how is it that, when Adam alone was made, it was not said that Adam was made good, but when the woman also was made from him, then it was comprehended that all things were good?
Although there He praised all creation, and the creation of the universe was approved—since in man the community of nature was proclaimed—yet it does not seem idle to ask for what reason, where Adam alone was made, not only was no proclamation of good in any way added to the well-pleasing work, but it was even said that man alone is not good; since we know that, before the woman was made, Adam did not err, but after the woman was made, she, having first transgressed the divine command, drew also her own husband into error and became the incentive to him. If, then, the woman is the author of fault to the man, how does she seem to have been added for good?
But if you consider that God's care is for the universe, you will find that that ought to have pleased the Lord more, in which lay the cause of the universe, than that ought to have been condemned, in which lay the cause of sin. And therefore, because from man alone the propagation of the human race could not come, the Lord pronounced that it was not good for man to be alone. For God preferred that there should be many whom He could save, to whom He might grant pardon of sin, rather than one Adam alone, who would be free from fault. In short, because the same is the Author of both works, He came into this world to save sinners. Finally, He did not suffer even Cain, guilty of parricide, to perish before he had begotten sons. Therefore, for the sake of the begetting of the human succession, the woman had to be added to the man.
Finally, the very words of God declare this, saying that it is not good for man to be alone. For though the woman would be the first to sin, yet, since she would bring forth redemption for herself, she ought not to have been excluded from the use of the divine working. For although Adam was not deceived, but the woman, being deceived, fell into transgression, yet she shall be saved, he says, through the bearing of children—among whom she bore also Christ. Nor is that idle, that the woman was made not from the same earth from which Adam was fashioned, but from the very rib of Adam, so that we might know that there is one nature of body in man and woman, one fountain of the human race. Therefore not two were made from the beginning, man and woman, nor two men, nor two women, but first the man, then from him the woman.
For God, willing to constitute one nature of men, beginning from one origin of this creation, took away the possibility of many and disparate natures. Let us make for him, He says, a help like to himself. We understand a help for the begetting and constitution of the human race—and truly a good help. For if you take 'help' in the better sense, a certain greater operation of the woman is found in the cause of generation, like that of this earth, which, having first received the seeds, by checking and gradually fostering them with its warmth, makes them grow and brings them forth into a harvest. In this, then, is the good help of the woman, although she is also called the lesser helper—as we find also in human usage, since those of higher dignity for the most part take a helper of lesser mind.
Consider now why God further formed from the earth all the beasts of the field and all the birds of heaven, and brought them to Adam, that he might see what he would call them. For what reason was this done, since God brought to Adam only the beasts of the field and the birds of heaven? For there were cattle after their own kind. Indeed, you have below that Adam imposed names on all the cattle and all the beasts of the field; but for Adam there was not found a helper like to him. What, then, is the resolution, except that the untamed beasts and the birds of heaven are led to man by the divine power, while over the gathering of the tame cattle man too had power? And so the former would be of the divine operation, the latter of human diligence.
At the same time receive for what cause all things were brought to Adam: that in all of them he might see the substance of nature consist of both sexes, that is, of male and female, and that he himself might recognize, by use and example, that the partnership of woman was a necessary addition for him. And God, it says, sent a deep sleep upon Adam, and he slept. What is this sleep, except that for a little while, when we bend our mind to the joining of marriage, we seem, as it were, to incline and bend our eyes—once intent upon the kingdom of God—toward a certain slumber of this world, and to fall asleep for a little while to divine things, while we take our rest in secular and worldly matters? Finally, after, it says, He had sent a deep sleep upon Adam and he slept, then the Lord God built the rib, which He took from Adam, into a woman.
He said 'He built' well, when He was speaking of the creation of the woman, because in man and woman there seems to be a certain full perfection of a household. He who is without a wife is reckoned as if he were without a home; for as the man is judged fitter for public offices, so the woman for domestic services. Consider that He took a rib from the body, not a portion from the soul—that is, not soul from soul, but bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh: this shall be called woman. Therefore we have recognized the cause of human generation. But because it moves very many
those who look more carefully—how it is that, whether it was first a great gift of God toward men that men should be placed in paradise, or later it should seem to be the reward of great merits, that each righteous man is caught up to paradise—the beasts also and the cattle of the field and the birds of heaven are said to have been in paradise. Whence very many have held that paradise is the soul of man, in which certain seeds of the virtues sprouted up, and that man was placed both to work and to keep paradise—that is, the mind of man, whose virtue seems to cultivate the soul; and not only to cultivate, but, when he has cultivated, also to keep it.
But the beasts of the field and the birds of heaven, which are brought to Adam, are our irrational motions, inasmuch as the beasts or certain cattle are the diverse passions of the body, whether the more turbulent or even the more languid. And what else do we judge the birds of heaven to be, but empty thoughts, which, after the manner of birds, fly about our soul and often carry it hither and thither with varied motion? For this reason no helper like to our mind was found except sense—that is, αἴσθησις (perception). Our mind alone was able to find one like to itself.
But perhaps you object that God placed these too in such a paradise—that is, the passions of the body and a certain vanity of wavering or empty thoughts—so that He Himself was the author of our error. Consider what He says. Have, He says, power over the fish of the sea and the birds of heaven and all creeping things that creep upon the earth. You see that He has granted you power, so that you ought to judge concerning all things, to discern the kinds of each by the sober determination of your judgment. God called all things to you, that you might recognize your mind to be above all things. Why did you wish to take to yourself and to join to yourself those things which you found in no way like to you?
He certainly gave you sense, by which you might know all things and judge concerning the things known; and deservedly you were cast out from that fruitful field of paradise, because you could not keep the commandment. For God knew you to be frail, He knew you could not judge: therefore He said, as if to the frailer sort, Judge not, that ye be not judged. Therefore, because He knew you weak for judging, He willed you to be obedient to the commandment: therefore He set down the precept. And had you not transgressed, you would not have been able to fall into the danger of an uncertain judgment. And so, because you wished to judge, He therefore added: Behold, Adam is become as one of us, to know good and evil. You wished to arrogate to yourself judgment: you ought not to refuse the penalty of a wrong judgment.
Yet He placed you over against paradise, that you might not be able to abolish the memory of it. Finally, the righteous are caught up into paradise, as Paul was caught up into paradise and heard unspeakable words.
And you too, if by the vigour of your mind you are caught up from the first heaven to the second, from the second heaven to the third—that is, because first every man is corporeal, secondly animal, thirdly spiritual—if you are thus caught up to the third heaven, so that you may see the splendour of spiritual grace (for the natural man does not know the things that are of the Spirit, and therefore the ascent to the third heaven is necessary for you, that you may be caught up into paradise), you will be caught up now without danger, so that you can discern all things, because the spiritual man discerns all things, while he himself is discerned by no one; and perhaps, as still frail, you will hear unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter; and then keep in reserve what you have received, and guard what you have heard.
Paul the apostle kept guard, lest he should fall, or at least cause others to err. Or perhaps Paul said for this reason, Which it is not lawful for a man to utter, because he was still set in the body—that is, he saw the passions of this body, he saw the law of his flesh warring against the law of his mind. For I prefer it to be understood in this bad sense, lest we should seem to brandish a certain terror of danger yet to come; for let there be security, even for the sake of this life, so that we may dread no snares of any transgression to come hereafter. Therefore whoever shall have been in paradise by the ascent of virtue shall hear those hidden and secret mysteries of God; he shall hear the Lord saying, as to that robber returning from crime to confession and from robbery to faith:
Today you shall be with me in paradise. Now the serpent was more cunning than all the beasts that were upon the earth, which the Lord God had made. And the serpent said to the woman: Why indeed has God said, you shall not eat of every tree that is in paradise? When Scripture calls the serpent more cunning, you understand of whom it speaks, namely that adversary of ours, who nonetheless possesses the wisdom of this world. But pleasure too and delight are aptly called 'wise,' because there is even a wisdom of the flesh, just as you have it written that the wisdom of this flesh is an enemy to God; and those who crave pleasures are crafty in seeking out the various kinds of delights.
Whether therefore you understand it as pleasure, which is contrary to the divine command and an enemy to our senses, whence holy Paul says: I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin; or whether you refer it to the devil, he is the true enemy of the human race. And what is the cause of his enmity if not envy? as Solomon says, that by the envy of the devil death entered into the world. The cause of his envy was the blessedness of man placed in paradise; and so, because the devil himself could not retain the grace he had received, he envied man, in that man, fashioned from the clay, was chosen to be a dweller in paradise.
For the devil considered that he himself, who had been of a higher nature, had fallen down into these worldly and earthly things, while man, of a lower creation, hoped for things eternal. This then is what he envied, saying: 'Shall this lower being attain what I could not keep? Shall this one pass from earth to heaven, while I have fallen from heaven down to earth? I have many ways by which I can deceive man. He is made of clay, the earth is his mother, he is wrapped in corruptible things. And although his soul is of a higher nature, yet it too, set in the prison of the body, can be liable to a fall, since I myself could not avoid falling. There is therefore a first way, that he be deceived while he desires things greater than his condition. For here lies a certain straining of effort.'
'Then it belongs to the flesh to desire what it does not possess. Finally, in what do I seem to all to be wiser, unless I circumvent man and contend by guile and fraud?' And so he contrived to assail not Adam first, but to try to circumvent Adam through the woman. He did not attack him who had received the heavenly command in person, but he attacked her who had learned from her husband, and had received from no instruction of God's own what she was to observe. For you do not find that God spoke to the woman, but that he spoke to Adam; and therefore the woman is to be reckoned to have come to know it through Adam. Recognizing, then, in this passage one kind of temptation, you will find very many other kinds of temptation in other passages as well.
Some come through the prince of this world, who has vomited certain poisons of wisdom into this world, so that men might think those things to be true which are false, and that the affections might be captivated by a certain semblance of good. For he does not always enter as an open enemy, but there are certain powers that feign love and put forward a show of favour, so that little by little they may pour into our thoughts the poison of their iniquity; from these arise those sins which are born either of pleasure or of a certain pliancy of mind. There are also other powers which, as it were, wrestle against us. Whence the apostle also says: For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against...
the principalities and powers and rulers of this world, of this darkness, against the spiritual wickedness which is in the heavenly places; for by a certain striving they wish to break us and, as it were, to crush the body of our soul. Whence Paul too, like a good athlete, had learned not only to avoid the blows of the opposing powers, but also to strike the assailants. Whence he also says: I fight with my fists, not as one beating the air. And therefore, like a good athlete, he deserved to attain the crown. The temptations of the devil are therefore manifold. And so the serpent is held to be double-tongued and deadly, in that the devil's minister speaks one thing with his tongue and ponders another in his heart.
There are also other ministers who, infected in both heart and voice with poison, hurl as it were the arrows of their words, to whom the Lord says: O generation of vipers, how can you speak good things, when you are evil? And the serpent said to the woman: Why indeed has God said, you shall not eat of every tree that is in paradise? And the woman said to the serpent: We shall eat of every tree of paradise; but of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of paradise, God has said: You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. When you hear that the serpent was more cunning than all the beasts, here at once look for his craftiness. He pretends to speak the words of God, and weaves in his own deceits. For when God had said:
Of every tree that is in paradise you shall eat for food, but of the tree that is of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat; for in the day that you eat of it, you shall die the death — the serpent, as though questioning the woman, when God had said, 'Of every tree that is in paradise you shall eat, but of one tree alone you shall not eat,' inserted a lie, so as to say, 'Of every tree you shall not eat,' though God had commanded that only one tree, of the knowledge of good and evil, should not be tasted. By what reasoning he deceived is no wonder, for those who try to circumvent someone have it for a custom to deceive. The serpent's questioning is therefore not idle. But that you may know there could have been no fault in the command, the woman answered and said:
Of every tree of paradise we shall eat; but of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of paradise, God has said: You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die the death. In the command indeed there is no fault, but in the reporting of the command. For as far as the present reading teaches, we learn that we ought to add nothing to the command, not even for the sake of caution. For if you either add or take away anything, there seems to be a kind of transgression of the command. The form of the command must be kept pure and simple, or the sequence of testimony reported intact. Very often a witness, while he adds something of his own to the sequence of events, discolours the whole credibility of his testimony by a partial falsehood. Nothing therefore, even what seems good, is to be added.
For here, what offence at first sight is there in what the woman added: neither shall you touch anything of it? — for God had not said 'you shall touch,' but 'you shall not eat' — yet nonetheless the lapse begins to be a beginning. For what she added she either added superfluously, or by adding from her own she understood God's command to be only half-complete. The sequence of the present reading therefore teaches us that we ought neither to take away anything from the divine commands nor to add. For if John adds this in his writings: If anyone shall add to these things, he says, God shall add to him the plagues that are written in this book; and whoever shall take away from the words of this prophecy, God shall take away his portion from the book of life — how much more is nothing to be taken away from the divine commands!
From here, then, the first transgression of the command began. And many think that this fault was not the woman's but Adam's; that Adam thus said to the woman, while wishing to make her more cautious, so that he added that God had commanded: neither shall you touch anything of it. For we have it that Adam, not Eve, received the command from God; for the woman had not yet been formed. The actual words of Adam, in which he tells the woman the form and sequence of the command, the reading does not disclose, but we understand that the sequence of the command passed to the woman through the man. Yet I shall see what others think; to me, however, it seems that the fault began from the woman, that the lie was begun by her. For although it may seem uncertain as between the two, yet the sex betrays which could the more readily have erred.
Add that she is bound by the prejudgement, she whose error was afterward found to be the prior one. For the woman, not the man, is the author of error to the man. Whence Paul also says: Adam, he says, was not deceived, but the woman, being seduced, was in the transgression. Now let us see whether, apart from the addition that was attached to the command, what was added seems to have been harmful. For if in truth it is good that 'neither shall you touch of it,' and it served as a caution, why did God not forbid this at all, nay rather, by not forbidding, seem to have permitted it? And so both must be inquired into: for what reason he neither permitted nor forbade. For there are those who would say: for what reason did he seem not to command that what he made should be touched?
But when you have heard that in that tree there was the nature of the knowledge of good and evil, it can be reckoned that he did not want you to touch evil. For it is enough for us to see Satan falling like lightning from heaven, according to the word of the Lord, and giving food not of light but of night, and to the sons of darkness, for it is written: He gave him as food to the peoples of the Ethiopians. This therefore was said of him: that he did not command it to be touched; but as for what he did not prohibit, hear what I would understand by it. There are many things that harm if we wish to drink them down before knowing what they are.
For both with food and drink it very often happens that, if you first know what is bitter, you will put on patience; and if you understand that those bitter things are beneficial, you will put on endurance, lest the sudden bitterness offend you and you begin to cast away what would profit you. It is profitable therefore to know beforehand, so that from what you have known to be profitable you may not loathe even bitter things. But these can do less harm; note rather that which can do more harm unless it is foreseen. There is a certain pagan, he tends toward the faith: he is a catechumen, he wishes to receive a greater fullness of doctrine and faith: let him beware lest, while he wishes to learn, he learn amiss, and learn from Photinus, learn from Arius, learn from Sabellius, and hand himself over to teachers of this kind, whom some authority draws him to.
And led on by a certain presumption of teachers, with it impressed upon his tender senses, he may not know how to discern. Therefore let him first behold with the eyes of the mind what follows, let him see where life is, let him touch at last the vital parts of the divine readings, so that he may be offended by no perverse interpreter. Sabellius reads to him: I in the Father and the Father in me, and says there is one person. Photinus reads: For the mediator of God and men is the man Christ Jesus, and elsewhere: Why do you seek to kill me, a man? Arius too reads that he said: For the Father is greater than I. The text is read clearly indeed, but for what reason it was spoken he ought first to ponder within himself, so that he may be able to perceive the reason of the words.