44. Latin, of course; the two-syllable word he mentions is nihil.
366 The Literal Meaning ofGenesis that it became the tree ofdiscerning good and evil; but of course, even if they had been obedient and not grabbed anything from it in spite of the commandment, it would still properly be called what would happen to them there ifthey did do the grabbing. lt is as if there were something called a filling-and-stuffing tree, because people could stuff themselves full from it; that surely would not mean, would it, that if nobody came near it, such a name would be unsuitable for it, seeing that when they did come up to it and stuff themselves full, they would prove how appropriately this tree was so named?
16, 34. And how, they say, could the man understand what was meant when he was told it was the tree ofdiscerning good and evil, when he was altogether igno rant of what evil itself was? People who think like this pay insufficient attention to the way in which all sorts ofthings unknown may be understood through their contraries which are known, so that no hearer is flummoxed when the names of things that do not exist are introduced into the conversation. What does not exist at all, l mean, is called "nothing"; and nobody fails to understand these two sylla bles who hears and speaks English.44 How so, if not because their common sense has a grasp ofwhat does exist, and so recognizes what does not by subtracting it? In the same way too, when the word "empty" is uttered, by considering the full ness of a body we understand "empty" as meaning its contrary lack or subtrac tion, just as with our sense of hearing we makejudgments not only about sounds and utterances, but also about silence.
In the same way the man would also be able, from the life that was in him, to beware of its contrary, that is, the elimination of life which is called death. And as for what would cause him to lose what he loved, that is, any action of his by which it would come about that he would lose life, whatever syllables were used to name it (as when in English it is called sin or evil), he would understand them as being the sign ofwhat he discerned with his mind. How do we, after all, under stand what is meant by "resurrection," which is something we have never expe rienced? ls it not because we are aware of what it is to be alive, and the deprivation of that we call death, and the return from this to what we are aware of we call resurrection? And in whatever language it is called by any other name, this is a sign, of course, by which the mind, on hearing it from the speaker, recog nizes what it could think about even without any sign.
Is it not indeed wonderful how nature avoids the loss of things it has, even when it has not experienced it? Who, after all, has taught cattle about shunning death, if not their sense of being alive? Or who taught the small child to cling to the person carrying him if he has threatened to throw him down from the roof? While such a reaction only occurs, indeed, at a certain age, it is still before the child has experienced anything of the sort.
44. Latin, of course; the two-syllable word he mentions is nihil.