[BOOK ONE.] Concerning paradise, in the foregoing books, according to our capacity, as best we could, we set forth the meaning which the Lord poured in, and our understanding discovered—the meaning in which the fall of Adam and Eve is comprised. Now, since that guilt did not stand still in its authors, but, what is worse, found a heir yet more degenerate, let us take up the ensuing history, and pursue in our work those things which are joined according to the divine Scriptures. 'Now Adam knew Eve his wife, who conceived and bore Cain, and said: I have acquired a man through God.' What things we acquire—out of what, and from whom, and through what we acquire them—is wont to be considered: out of what, as out of matter; from whom, the one who is the author; through what, as through some instrument. Surely he does not here speak thus:
'I have acquired a man through God,' so that you should understand God to be the instrument? Not at all, but so that you should understand God to be the author and worker. Hence she rendered the greater honor to God, because she said: 'I have acquired a man through God,' so that we too, when we acquire anything, or in all favorable outcomes, ought to render it to God rather than arrogate it to ourselves. And it adds that 'she bore Abel.' When something is added, what was there before is taken away. This is gathered both from the portions of arithmetic and from the thoughts of the soul; for by adding a number another number is made, the former is abolished, and a new thought coming in excludes the former. Therefore when Abel is added, Cain is taken away. Which is more fully perceived by the interpretation of the names.
For Cain is called 'acquisition,' because he would acquire all things for himself; Abel is one who would refer all things to God, devoted with the pious attention of his mind, arrogating nothing to himself as the elder brother, but assigning the whole to the Creator—namely, whatever he had received from Him. There are thus two parties under the name of the two brothers, contending against one another and contrary to each other: the one which assigns the whole to its own mind as to a ruling principle and as to a certain author of all thought and feeling and motion—that is, the one which ascribes all inventions to human genius; the other which renders the whole to God as to the worker and Creator of all, and submits all things to His governance as to a parent and ruler. The former is signified by Cain, the latter is called Abel.
These two parties one soul brings forth, and therefore they are held to be of the same parentage, because they are founded in one womb; but they are contrary, because it is necessary that, when they have been brought forth by a certain birth of the soul, they be divided and separated; for there cannot be one lodging perpetually for those who fight against each other. Lastly, Rebecca, when she was bringing forth the two natures of human disposition—one of evil, the other of good—and felt them leaping within her womb (for Esau was a figure of malice, while Jacob bore the form of goodness), wondering what that was, since she perceived a certain discord of the conceived offspring, consulted God, that He might disclose her suffering and give a remedy. And so to her as she prayed an answer was given: 'Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples shall go forth from your belly.'
But if you refer this to the soul, you will understand the same to be the parent of good and of evil, because from a certain fountain of the soul each flows forth; yet it belongs to sober judgment that, rejecting the evil, it should as it were nourish and strengthen what is good. Before, therefore, the soul brings forth the good—that is, the reverence owed to God, so that it may refer the whole to Him—it prefers its own; but when it has begotten the confession which is rendered to God, it lays down the swelling of its own heart. Therefore God, by adding the good teaching of the soul, Abel, took away the wicked teaching, Cain.
Yet I in this place rather understand, according to Scripture, the mystery of two peoples: that God, by adding to His Church the faith of a pious people, took away the perfidy of a transgressing people, since indeed the very words seem to signify this, when God says: 'Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples shall go forth from your belly.' This figure of the synagogue and of the Church went before of old in these two brothers, Cain and Abel. By Cain is understood the parricidal people of the Jews, who persecuted the blood of their Lord and Author, and—according to the childbearing of the Virgin Mary—of their brother, so to speak; but by Abel is understood the Christian cleaving to God, as also David says:
'But for me it is good to cleave to God,' that one may join himself to heavenly things and separate himself from earthly. And elsewhere: 'My soul,' he says, 'fainted for your word,' because he had set the order of his living and his practice not in earthly pleasures, but in the knowledge of the word. From which it is recognized that even this was not idly written, but weightily and with examination, which we read in the books of Kings: 'And he was laid with his fathers.' For it is given to be understood that he was like the fathers in faith. Whence it is clear that this is referred not to the burial of the body, but to the fellowship of life. Lastly, concerning Isaac it is not thought to be written carelessly that, leaving the appearance of this body, which was joined to his soul, he was laid with his kindred, because he cleaved to the manners of his father.
Beautifully, moreover, it says 'to his kindred,' not 'to his people,' as elsewhere. For we read in other places that men were laid 'to their people,' but these were not so eminent; the more eminent is he who has been like the few and not the many—there are more in one's people than in one's kindred—and it is reckoned more excellent to be like the few than the many. He therefore who was begotten by the promise of God, who was chosen for the sacrifice of proving piety, who was content with the society of one wife—that is, of wisdom alone—of that lofty kindred which is one and ever in agreement with itself, had to be established by the testimony of divine Scripture as no imitator of plebeian baseness.
For indeed where there is labor, teaching, meditation, there is a fellowship common with many and a certain popular partnership. For very many make progress by hearing, whom He called 'the people.' But where the discipline is received not by human tradition, but by ingenious deduction without the exertion of labor, there is the uncorrupted sincerity of a sublime kindred. And therefore Isaac, as a gift of God, is read to have been laid 'with his kindred' rather than 'with his people,' so that you may recognize that he was a diligent imitator of things divine rather than of things human. Blessed too is that mind which, surpassing both the species and the kindred itself, merits to hear what was said to Moses when he was separated from the people: 'But you, stand here with Me.'
For just as in Isaac the figure of the Lord's incarnation, surpassing the custom of human generation, overcame those who went before, so that in him not vulgar and popular grace, but a special prerogative excelled—as the lesson teaches: 'For to Abraham the promises were spoken, and to his seed. He does not say, And to seeds, as of many, but as of one, that is, To your seed, which is Christ'—so also in Moses, a figure of the Teacher to come, who would teach the law, preach the gospel, fulfill the old testament, establish the new, and give heavenly nourishment to the peoples, exceeded the dignity of the human condition so far that he was honored with the name of God, as we have it written, the Lord saying: 'I have set you as a god to Pharaoh.'
For indeed, as a victor over all passions and captured by no allurements of the world, who had clothed all this dwelling in the body with the purity of a heavenly manner of life, ruling his mind, subduing his flesh, and chastening it with a certain kingly authority, he was called by the name of God, to whose likeness he had formed himself by the abundance of perfect virtue. And therefore we do not read of him, as of the rest, that 'failing, he died,' but that 'he died by the word of God'; for God suffers neither failure nor diminution, nor receives addition. Whence Scripture also added that 'no one knows his burial unto this present day,' so that you may understand his translation rather than his perishing; for death is a certain departure of soul and body.
He died therefore 'by the word of God,' as Scripture says, not 'according to the word,' so that you may mark that not the message of death, but the gift of grace is expressed: he who was translated rather than abandoned, whose burial no one knows. For who on earth could find his remains, whom the Son of God showed in the Gospel to be with Him? Lastly, Elijah too was seen together with Him, who was translated in a chariot, and is read neither to have been buried nor to have died; for he lives who is with the Son of God. But Moses is indeed read to have died, yet to have died 'by the word of God,' through which all things were made. And 'by the word of God the heavens were established'; through the word of God, therefore, there is not the collapse of a work, but a firmament.
He is not therefore found, as if relapsing into the earth, by the dissolution of the body, but as if granted by the operation of the heavenly word and by its gift, so that his flesh received rest rather than a tomb. Well, moreover, is the distance preserved between the Lord and the servant, that you may understand the prerogative of the Lord, the grace of the servant. Of Moses it is read that 'no one knows his burial'; but of Christ, that 'His burial was taken up from the earth,' because the one, according to the mystery of the law, was awaiting redemption, that he might rise again; the other, according to the gift of the gospel, was not awaiting redemption, but was bestowing it.
And therefore His burial was not unknown, but lifted up, which the creation could no longer hold, because through Him all creation hastened to be lifted up from the servitudes of corruption. No one therefore knows the burial of Moses, because all knew his life; but the burial of Christ we have seen, yet now no longer know, because we have recognized His resurrection; for His tomb had to be known, that the resurrection might be made manifest. And therefore in the Gospel the tomb is described with the utmost expressiveness; in the law it is not sought, because, although the law announced His resurrection, yet to us the series of the Gospel has most fully proved it.
Therefore, that we may complete what we proposed, it adds, it says, that 'she bore Abel'—that is, Eve, who before had grievously sinned, generated from herself a better resolve, that she might abolish the error of her former resolve. I am lying, unless this is proved in all cases. For we are born in such a way that first there is in us the feeble sense of infancy, afterward of boyhood, knowing only the care of the body, having no cultivation, no observance of things divine. Whence, to prove the evident newness of nature in the birth of Jesus Christ from a Virgin, the prophet says: 'Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, before he knows evil or good';
since before he knows good or evil he does not believe malice, that he may choose what is good; and further: 'before the child knows how to call father or mother, he shall receive the strength of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria against the king of the Assyrians.' For He alone it was who was not taken by the vanity and carnal pride of this world, inasmuch as He humbled Himself, becoming obedient even unto death—far unlike each one of us, who vainly exalt ourselves, puffed up by a mind of flesh. Whence also no one is without sin, not even an infant of a single day; but He did no sin. And therefore in us Cain is born first, preferring himself, afterward Abel is begotten, in whom there is reverence of the Godhead. First, then, what is evil creeps in; afterward, what is good is recognized.
But where there is good, there is the just; where justice, there holiness—that is, Abel, who cleaves to God, and 'Abel,' it says, 'became a shepherd of sheep,' but 'Cain tilled the ground.' It is not idle that, although Cain was begotten first, as the lesson teaches, Abel is set first in this place, and that the order of the names is not the same as the order of nature. What does this change of order intend, that it should mention the younger first, where the state of life and the practice of work is described? Let us inquire into the difference of offices, that we may gather the cause of the precedence. To till the ground is, in practice, prior, but in grace inferior to pasturing sheep.
For this is, as it were, the likeness of a certain teacher and ruler, and rightly did the elder begin from older things, while the younger preferred newer things, which would bring forth no thorns, no thistles, and would be subject to no judgment of condemnation. Lastly, Adam, guilty of sin, was sent forth from the paradise of delight, to till the ground. Rightly therefore, where these brothers are born, the order of nature is preserved also in the telling; but where the discipline of living is expressed, the younger is set before the elder, because, although younger in time, he is more excellent in virtue. For innocence is later in time than malice, and of an age, as it were, nearly equal, yet earlier in the nobility of merits; for old age is venerable not when gray with years, but with morals.
'And age,' it says, 'is an unspotted life in old age.' Where therefore generation is expressed, let Cain go before; where the preaching of disciplines is made, let Abel run before. Who, then, would deny that youth, and the very flower of youth in its beginnings, seethes with the allurements of various passions; but that, when a more mature age has succeeded, as though the storm of budding wantonness has been dispelled, tranquillity is poured back, and the vessel of the weary soul is drawn into certain quiet harbors? And so the grievous motions of our youth are calmed by the faithful anchorage of old age. Do not therefore doubt, admonished by such examples of nature, that malice precedes in time, but grows young in weakness.
The one has the wages of age, but virtue has the prerogative of glory, which the unjust man for the most part yields to the just, as to a judge. Of this matter the faithful divine Scripture is witness, which teaches that Esau, a man surnamed of folly, patiently yielded his birthright to his brother Jacob, so that he said: 'What is the birthright to me?' But what this man set aside, that the man endowed with the surname of exercise sought to merit. Does it not seem to you that Esau, as though conquered in the contest and judging himself unequal by the weakness of his own mind, yielded the crown to the victor, whom he saw bent by no allurements of the passions, whose very dust he himself could not endure? 'What,' he says, 'is the birthright to me?'
For among the slothful there are no insignia of virtue, but among the wise they are held in the first rank; for the pursuits of virtue are, as it were, certain instruments. And so, just as a warrior cannot exist without arms, neither can virtue exist without exercise. Whence also the Lord in the Gospel says: 'From the days of John the Baptist the kingdom of heaven is taken by force, and they who use force seize it'; and elsewhere: 'Seek the kingdom of God, and behold, all things are ready at hand for you.' Not to the sleeping nor to the idle, but to the watchful and the laboring are rewards promised; ... but for labor a reward is prepared, which, although it is not sweet to gratification, is nevertheless fruitful for reward. This the discourse of the law teaches, as we find it written:
'If,' it says, 'one man have two wives, one of them beloved and the other hateful, and they both bear him children, the beloved and the hateful, and the firstborn be the son of the hateful woman, on the day when he leaves his sons as heirs in his substance, he shall not be able to give the birthright to the son of the beloved woman, passing over the son of the hateful, but he shall acknowledge the firstborn son of the hateful woman, to give him a portion out of all that are found his, because he is the beginning of his sons, and to him are due the first-fruits.' How deep the secrets of mysteries lie hidden in the letters! Recognize, O soul, your offspring, and seek the mystery of that hateful woman. Within yourself you will find these things, if you search.
Recall your thoughts, read over again your feelings, and you will recognize to whom the first-fruits are due. For two women dwell together with each one of us, at odds in enmities and discords, filling, as it were with certain contentions of jealousy, the house of our soul. One of them is to us a thing of sweetness and love, a flattering counselor of pleasure, who is called Delight. This one we suppose to be our companion and of our household; that other we believe to be harsh, rough, and savage, whose name is Virtue.
She therefore, wanton with a harlot's motion, with gait broken by indulgences, casting with nodding eyes and playing eyelids the nets by which she captures the precious souls of young men—for 'the eye of a harlot is the snare of a sinner'—whomever she sees passing by in the corner of her house's passage with wavering perception, she accosts with gracious speeches, making the hearts of young men fly: restless at home, roving in the streets, lavish of kisses, cheap in modesty, rich in attire, her cheeks painted. For indeed, because she cannot possess the true beauty of nature, with adulterate dyes she pimps out an appearance of affected loveliness, not its truth.
Girt with a retinue of vices and surrounded by a certain chorus of wickednesses, the leader of crimes assails the wall of the human mind with such engines of words: 'I have a peace-offering; today I pay my vows. For this cause I have come forth to meet you, desiring your face, and I have found you. I have woven my couch with cords and spread it with tapestries from Egypt. I have sprinkled my couch with saffron, and my house with cinnamon. Come, let us enjoy friendship until daybreak; come, let us wrestle in desire.' For we see this likeness of the harlot expressed through the mouth of Solomon.
For what is so harlot-like as worldly pleasure, which enters from the window of her own house, first playing through the eyes the preludes of temptation, and penetrates swiftly, if you, gazing out into the street—that is, into the public roads of passers-by—do not direct the gaze of your mind into the inner mysteries of the law? She it is, surely, who with stronger bonds weaves a couch, as it were, of a fellowship associated with us, so that whoever reclines himself may be bound, and with a veil of reproachful deceit she covers the bed of her own body, to solicit the souls of young men, hiding the absence of her husband—that is, the neglect of the law. For the law is absent to those who sin; for if it were present, no offense would be committed. And therefore she says:
'For my husband is not at home in the house; he has gone a very long journey, having taken a bag of money in his hand.' What shall I say this is, unless perhaps that the rich think there is nothing that does not yield to their money, and that they wish the law to be venal for their favor? Pleasure scatters her odors, because she does not have the odor of Christ; she displays treasures, promises kingdoms, pledges continual loves, promises unexplored embraces, learning without a tutor, discourses without a monitor, a life without anxiety, soft sleep, insatiable desire. 'Seducing him,' it says, 'with much blandishment of words, and binding him with the snares of her lips, she has drawn him as far as the house.' And he followed her, encompassed about.
The hall shone, splendid with royal luxury, its walls embossed, and on the wet floor the pavements swam with wine. The ground reeked with ointment, strewn with the bones of fish and slippery with flowers already withering. There the tumult of revelers, the shouting of those contending, the brawls of litigants, the concert of singers, the din of dancers, the cackle of laughers, the applause of the wanton—all things confused, nothing in the order of nature. Dancing-girls shorn, and boys with crimped hair, the indigestion of feasters, the belching of eaters, the thirst of drunkards, yesterday's surfeit, today's drunkenness, cups refilled with the vomit of drinkers, with a greater odor of drunkenness than if only fresh wines were reeking.
She herself, standing in the midst, says: 'Drink and be drunken, that each one may fall and not rise again. He is first with me who is the most lost of all; he is mine who is not his own; he is more pleasing to me who is more worthless to himself. The golden cup of Babylon is in my hand, making drunk all the earth; of my wine all the nations have drunk. Whoever, then, is the more foolish, let him turn aside to me, and to those lacking wisdom I give command, saying: Enjoy sweetly the hidden loaves, and drink the stolen water that is sweeter. Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die. Our life shall pass like the traces of a cloud, and shall be dispersed like a mist. Come, then, let us enjoy the good things that are, and use the creature as our youth, swiftly.'
'Let us fill ourselves with precious wine and with ointments, and let not the flower of the season pass us by. Let us crown ourselves with roses before they wither. Let there be no meadow that our luxury does not traverse; everywhere let us leave the signs of merriment. Here all things are left behind; no one will carry anything away with himself except what he has perceived by bodily pleasure. Lastly, I myself have established philosophy; nor is there any truer than that which asserts the good to be what is sweet and delightful. Believe, therefore, either the philosophy or the wisdom of Solomon.' Having heard these things, like a stag shot with an arrow, he sticks wounded in the liver. Pitying him, and seeing him about to fall quickly, Virtue runs to meet him unexpectedly, fearing lest amid the delays the human mind be captured by the soothing allurements.
'Openly,' he says, 'I appeared to you who were not seeking me,' lest a woman, unbridled and dissolute, who knows no shame, deceive the unwary and entrap you. She sits at the doors of her house, openly upon a seat in the streets, calling out to those who pass by. Now therefore, my son, hear me and attend to the words of my mouth. Let not your heart turn aside into her ways; for by wounding many she has cast them down, and they are beyond number whom she has slaughtered. The ways of the underworld are her house, leading down into the chamber of death. Take far from yourself a perverse mouth, and thrust unjust lips far away from you. Let your eyes look straight ahead; do not give heed to the deceitful woman. For honey drips from the lips of the harlot, who for a time fattens your throat, but afterward you will find her more bitter than gall.
The day would fail me sooner than I could set forth her vices, which nevertheless have been described and expressed in the Proverbs by the mouth of Wisdom. Let not the lust of beauty overcome you. It is adulterous, smeared with paints, by no means shining with true and genuine comeliness. Nor let yourself be caught by your eyes; for nets are spread all around. Be rather like him and follow him who leaps upon the mountains and springs across the hills, looking forth through the windows, rising high above the nets. The bonds of pleasure are evil. It delights the eyes, soothes the ears, but defiles the mind. It lies much, attaches falsehoods, withdraws truths, promises money, offers gold, but takes away discipline. But do you rather receive discipline than money, and knowledge above tested gold;
for she is better than precious stones. I will not hide from you what are reported to be her highest enticements, lest I seem to cover up what is displeasing in pleasure and to cast a shadow over what is pleasing. For she lifts up and exalts the mind with persuasive words; she shows all the kingdoms of the earth, saying: All these things I will give you, if falling down you will worship me. There beware lest you be caught by things that slip past and do not abide, for which there is great temptation. The Lord Jesus has surely taught you how to resist temptations of this kind. The devil had first set the snare of gluttony, saying: If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread. The Lord answered: Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. With this saying he loosed the snare.
Again the devil set the second snare, that of boastfulness, which is wont to strangle even a good mind running along prosperous paths. And he led him, it says, into Jerusalem and set him upon the pinnacle of the temple and said to him: If you are the Son of God, cast yourself down from here; for it is written that he has given his angels charge concerning you to keep you, for in their hands they will bear you up, lest perhaps you dash your foot against a stone. And so, though the Lord Jesus could have cast himself down without any danger, having spiritual flights at his command, yet, lest it be a kind of boasting, he answered the devil: You shall not tempt the Lord your God. At the same time he taught us to beware lest we do the will of the devil.
If therefore even true boasting is to be avoided, how much more ought no one to boast of false things as though true? The third snare remains, that of avarice and ambition. He showed, set upon a mountain, all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. Well 'in a moment,' because they cannot be lasting. Wait a little, and they swiftly pass away. And so those who pursue them seem to themselves to be on a mountain, but they are not enduring, as you have it written: I saw the wicked exalted on high and lifted up above the cedars of Lebanon: and I passed by, and behold, he was not. But he who makes much of these things seems to worship the devil, whose god is the belly and whose glory is in their shame. But do you seek glory in God, who says to you:
You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him alone, from whom you may receive eternal things, not temporal. Yet if these things also delight anyone, let them be sought more moderately from him who is the true fount of all. For even those very possessions which the devil seems to possess for himself are not his own, as he himself said: To you I will give all this power and the glory of them, for they have been handed over to me. Hope therefore in him; though for a short life a long provision need not be sought, yet hope in him who founded the whole creation, who handed those things over to the devil for a time, not that he might possess them, but that he might tempt; for there could be no crown without a contest. The doubtful had to be tested, that the just might be crowned.
And so he gave these things to the devil, because in these very things lies the punishment of the receiver, if he knows not how to use them. For what is treasure to the dissolute man but the cost of dissoluteness? But the man approved is not dissolute, but frugal. And therefore use as a frugal man the things set before you, so that when you eat much you do not become hateful; for wakeful nights and torments belong to the greedy man. And further on: If you are forced in eating, rise and vomit. And it will refresh you and you will not bring weakness upon your body. And so gluttony has slain very many, frugality none: wines have harmed countless men, thrift no one. Very many have poured out their soul amid the feasts and have filled the tables with their own blood.
From others indigestion snatched away both voice and sense together, and if to some indigestion was not harmful, to these drunkenness brought ruin. Drunkenness has driven some into crime, though it is itself a crime, and has reduced others to want. Lastly, hear whom Christ shuts out. When, he says, the master of the house has entered and shut the door, you will begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying: Open to us. And answering he will say: I know not whence you are; depart from me, all you workers of iniquity. Then you will begin to say: We ate before you and drank, and you taught in our streets. And he will say to you: I know not whence you are. You have heard what he said about those who eat: hear now what he says about those who fast: