and xviii,27 and note 32 there, for the curious or inquisitive being signified by its eating earth.
Book II 99 worked in paradise and guarded what he had received, he wouldn't come to that deformed state ofmind which would lead him, when displeased with the flesh as with his nakedness, to put together worldly, carnal coverings of lies, like fig-leaves with which to make himself an apron. That after all is what these people do when they tell lies about Christ and declare that he also told lies. And the way they hide themselves from the face of God is by turning away from his truth to their own lies. As the apostle says, And they turn their ears indeed away from the truth, while they turn towardsfables themselves (2 Tm 4:4).
40. And indeed that serpent, to wit that error of the heretics which tempts the Church, against which that snake charmer, the apostle, sings his spell when he says: / am afraid thatjust as the serpent led Eve astray by his cunning, so your good sense too may be corrupted (2 Cor 11:3), so then that error crawls along on its bosom and belly, and eats earth. The only ones it takes in, you see, are either the proud, who arrogate to themselves a status that is not theirs, and readily come to believe that God most high and the human soul share one and the same nature, or else those tangled up in the desires of the flesh, who are only too happy to hear that whatever they do as they kick over the traces is not being done by them selves but by the race ofdarkness, or else finally the curious and inquisitive, who are worldly wise and enjoy the taste ofearthly things, and go looking for the spir itual with a fleshly eye.57
There will be enmity though between this error and the woman, and between its seed and the woman's seed, if she gives birth to children, even though with pain, and turns toward her man, so that he may lord it over her. That, you see, is when the truth can begin to dawn on us that there is not one part of us belonging to God as its author, and another belonging to the race of darkness, as these people say, but rather that both that in us which has the right to govern and that lower element which has to be governed come from God, as the apostle says: The man indeed ought not to veil his head, as he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of the man. For man is notfrom woman, but womanfrom man; infact the man was not createdfor the woman 's sake, but the womanfor the man 's. That is why the woman ought to have a veil overher head,for the sake of the angels. However, neither woman without man nor man without woman in the Lord; forjust as the woman was from the man, so is the man through the woman, while all things arefrom God (1 Cor 1 1:7-12).
57. See above, 1 7,26 for how the serpent's bosom represents the proud and its belly the lascivious; and xviii,27 and note 32 there, for the curious or inquisitive being signified by its eating earth.
100 On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manichees
Adam 'sfall and punishment interpreted allegorically
27. 41 . Now let Adam get to work in his own field, and understand that the earth is yielding him thorns and thistles as a punishment, not as a mere fact of nature. And let him put this down to a divine judgment, not to heaven knows what race of darkness, because the golden rule ofjustice is to grant to each what is his own. Let him give the woman heavenly food, which he has received from his head, who is Christ; let him not receive forbidden fruit from her, the deceitful doctrine, that is, of the heretics with its great promise of knowledge, and the disclosure ofsome marvelous secrets or other, as a kind of seasoning to make the error more attractive—and effective. It is indeed the proud and prying greed of heretics which is crying out in the book of Proverbs under the figure of a woman, and saying: Whoever is foolish, let him turn aside to me; and inviting in those lacking in sense with the words: Enjoy eating bread in secret, andfind stolen water sweet to drink (Prov 9:16-17).
And when anybody does, for all that, believe all this nonsense, brought to it by a lust for lying which lets him believe that Christ also told lies, it is absolutely unavoidable that by a divine judgment he should also receive a tunic of skin. What is prophetically signified by this, it seems to me, is not the mortality of the body, which is the historical signification we have already dealt with, but the fancies and imaginations drawn in from the senses of the flesh, which in conse quence of his flesh-bound lies are imposed as a covering on the liar by a divine law. And in this garb he is sent away from Paradise, that is, from Catholic faith and truth, destined to live over against Paradise, that is to say, to work and speak against the same faith.
But should the time come that he turns back to God through the flaming sword, that is, through the troubles time brings, by acknowledging and grieving for his sins, and no longer blaming them on some extraneous nature (which doesn't exist) but on himself, in order to be worthy of pardon, and also through the fullness of knowledge, which is charity, by loving God who is supreme above all things and never changes, and by loving him with his whole heart and whole soul and whole mind, and by loving his neighbor as himself, then he will come through to the tree of life, and live for ever.
Conclusion; summary answers to Manichee objections
28. 42. So then, what do these people find to criticize in these passages of the Old Testament? Let them interrogate us in their usual manner, and let us give the answers the Lord may be pleased to grant us.
"Why did God make the man," they say, "knowing he was going to sin?" Because even from a sinner he could produce many good results, allotting him his due place according to the standard of his justice, and because his sin