accordingly they shrank from losing it, and were able to understand God, by
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35. In the same way, then, life was sweet to the first human beings, and accordingly they shrank from losing it, and were able to understand God, by whatever means or sounds he signified these things. Nor could they otherwise have been persuaded to sin, if they had not first been persuaded that they were not going to die as a result of that deed; that is, that they were not going to lose what they had and what they enjoyed having—about which we will have to speak at the proper place.
So if you are bothered by this question, how they could understand God naming and warning them of things they had not experienced, you should notice how, without in any way being torn by doubt or hesitation, we recognize the names of all things we have not experienced simply from their contraries which we already know, if they are the names of deprivations, or from things like them if they are the names of specific natures. Unless of course you are worried by the question of how they could talk, or understand someone talking, when they had not learned all this by growing up among talkers or from some teacher—as though it would be a big problem forGod to teach them how to talk, having made them such that they would be able to learn this even from other other people, if there had been any around!
Whether God gave the command to the man alone, or to the woman as well
17, 36. The question is properly asked, whether God gave this command only to the man, or to the woman as well. But the story has not yet been told how the woman was made. Or perhaps she had been made, is that it, but the story of how this, though carried out earlier, was in fact carried out is told later by way ofreca pitulation? You see, this is how the words of scripture run: And the Lord God commanded Adam, saying—it did not say "commanded them"; then it continues: From every tree that is in Paradise you shall eatforfood—it did not say "you all shall eat"; then it adds: butfrom the tree ofgetting to know goodand evil you all shall not take a bitefrom it. Here at last it is speaking in the plural as though to both of them, and he concludes the command in the plural, saying: but on the day you all eatfrom it, you all shall die the death (Gn 2: 1 61 7). Or was it that knowing he was going to make the woman for the man, he gave the command most appropriately in this way, so that the Lord's command would reach the woman through the man? This is a discipline that the apostle maintains in the Church, when he says: But ifthey wish to learn anything, let them question their husbands at home ( 1 Cor 1 3:35).