Under the Tree of Paradise

The first chapters of Genesis are by no means a journalistic account: their author did not stand with a camera and a voice recorder when God created the world, when He called the first people into existence and when they made important decisions, including this one... how fatal!

God also did not give the author a detailed account of these events, because for what, and besides, what human language will express what does not fall into our categories? The author had another task: to convey to the reader certain truths revealed by God, in such language that it would be understandable to all. First of all, he was to convey that man from the first moments of his existence is surrounded by the love and care of God. This is why the author tells us that God placed the first people in the garden. Israel has always had problems with water, and part of the country is a desert – no wonder that the garden, from which as many as four rivers flow, was for those people an image of absolute happiness (who knows what image the author would use today to show the happiness of our first parents... maybe a luxury villa?).

This happy man is to be like the governor of God on earth: he rules over the animals, he is to subdue the earth. Man is called to live in the dialogue of love (he created them male and female), he lives in intimacy with God, who, as befits an eastern ruler, walks in the garden in the evening. God and man live in perfect friendship, God who knows everything and cares for man, shows man what is good and what is bad, because only He, the Creator, knows really and to the end what is good and why. Man is only a creature, wonderful, but limited, so he cannot arbitrarily set moral norms (in the language of Genesis: he must not eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil), because it would be a disastrous "playing God" for him... a bit like a small child who decided to manage a nuclear missile launcher.

So let's stop naively imagining that for unknown reasons God forbade the first people to eat apples from this one tree (Where did these unfortunate apples come from? Well, the Latin word "malum" means "evil" and "apple" at the same time. No, God is not a malicious educator who prohibits for the pleasure of prohibiting, He has forbidden man only... the destruction of that happiness which man enjoyed. This happiness was to last forever, man was to be nourished by the fruits of the tree of life – that is, to be immortal.

It was supposed to be... but it was not. A snake appeared... no anaconda or boa, but a small, gray Asian snake, small and very treacherous. It's so easy to ignore the rustle in the grass, to think it's nothing terrible, and then it's too late. That is why the image of the serpent was so perfectly suited to show temptation: something that at first seems small and harmless, but woe to him who engages in a dangerous dialogue with evil.

Let's look at the "tactics" of the temptation to note with embarrassment that is "nothing new under the sun", that we ourselves after so many thousands of years fall for the same tricks.

1. Exaggerating the prohibition to the limits of absurdity. Did God really say, "Do not eat the fruit of all the trees of this garden?" The serpent seems to be simply asking for information: is God so cruel that He has placed man in a beautiful garden and forbidden him to eat the fruits of all the trees of that garden? It seems that God's prohibition makes life unbearably burdensome, that it limits us with absurd obstacles. Then breaking such a prohibition seems to be liberation, following the voice of reason. Evil seems good!

2. "Lies, lies, there will always be something left of it." Eve replies that they can eat the fruits of the trees, only from this one tree it is forbidden to eat or even touch it, so that we do not die. Did God forbid touching? No, but Eve does not understand the point of the prohibition of eating the fruit from this one tree, she fulfills it automatically and just in case she adds additional restrictions. If we reduce moral behavior to automatism, without seeing its goodness and beauty, if the only justification for doing good is "because it is supposed to be so", sooner or later the question will also arise: "And why can’t it be otherwise?" and we will not even notice that we are talking to... a serpent.

3. God – a loving Father or a jealous tyrant? You will definitely not die! But God knows that when you eat the fruit of this tree, your eyes will be opened, and like God you will know good and evil. As we have said, God gave this prohibition to protect man from tragic mistakes, while the serpent suggests that God forbids man to take the opportunity to equate Him with fear for his position. Didn't the first people have – and don't today's people have – enough evidence to the contrary, that God loves them and desires their happiness...? And yet they are deluded by this mirage of equality with God, the right to decide everything... You will be like God! A terrible deception, so terrible that in order to remove its effects, God... became a man.

4. Good or pleasure? The woman saw that the tree was a delight to the eyes. On the way to sin there is a new element: a superficial look, classifying according to the category of "pleasant – unpleasant, pretty – ugly, easy – difficult". What a paradox that it is precisely when assessing the possibility of consuming the fruits of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that the category "good – bad" is not taken into account. What counts is that it looks nice and brings profit.

Now all that remains is to stretch out one's hand, first towards the tree, then towards Adam, so that he too may eat the forbidden fruit. It happened... their eyes were opened, but they did not see the truth of all things; they saw only one thing: that they were naked. For the man of the Bible, nudity is above all a symbol of weakness and vulnerability. At the moment of temptation, man thought that through sinful action he would attain greatness, but he experiences even more strongly his limitations, which he now tries to cover with a bunch of fig branches. But really, only God can shield a weak man—and indeed, He will later give the first people clothes of leather.

Here, however, nudity also has an additional meaning: the biblical author told us that before sin the first people were naked, but they did not feel shame towards each other. They were creatures, but they did not feel any threat from the other person, they did not have to hide from anyone and anything, and their mutual bond was full of harmony. Now everything has changed: man hides himself from another man, but he also feels that he must hide his unworthiness before the holiness of God. God, however, does not turn away from man, he asks him the first question in the history of mankind: Where are you? It is easy for man to hide, but it is much more difficult to confess his own guilt: The woman you placed beside me gave me the fruit. Everyone is to blame, but Adam is the least: Eve is to blame, or, in a sense God himself is to blame, because the creation of Eve was His idea (you put her next to me!). How easy it is for us to find ourselves in this Adam, who shows the whole combination of circumstances, in order to reduce his responsibility as much as possible!

At this point, God speaks. But it would be wrong to read his words as the sentence of a severe judge: for God prescribes to men not so much a punishment as a healing therapy which will protect them for the future, from the mirage of divinity: for what might awaken in man the illusion of divine authority (the transformation of the world by work in the case of man and the transmission of life by woman) will henceforth be marked by toil and pain, moreover, work will sometimes prove fruitless, for the earth will resist man.

Here we see a great picture of what we call the social – or even cosmic – effects of sin: man thinks that his invisible, hidden sin is a private matter between him and God, while he must see that breaking this vertical thread (between God and man) inevitably breaks horizontal threads: interpersonal ties (here especially between man and woman – domination instead of harmony), the relationship between man and nature. Man rebelled against God, and now nature is rebelling against man, who turned out to be the bad steward of the world entrusted to him.

And finally, this last sentence of God, which seems to be the most terrible punishment – the death penalty! – and in fact it is yet another gesture of God's mercy: man must die, and therefore he must leave Paradise, so that he does not eat the fruits of the tree of life (which ensure immortality), thereby perpetuating his present desperate state forever. God already has in mind the great plan of purification – through death to life, but the full implementation of this plan will have to wait until the day when the Lord of Life passes through the gates of death.

And so begins the story of sinful people, the history of their struggle with the forces of nature, with their own weakness and with evil. God constantly accompanies people on this journey from the closed gates of Paradise to the Heavenly Jerusalem, where they will again be able, washed with the Blood of the Lamb who defeated Satan, to eat safely the fruits of the tree of life (Rev 22:2), and death will no longer be...

Until Tomorrow

fr. george