46. See Prv 3:18.
Book XI 453 him (Lk 24:13-31), though they had not recognized him along the road, not of course because they were walking along with their eyes shut, but because they were not yet capable ofrecognizing him. So then, the narrative in this place is no more figurative than it is there, even though scripture uses a word metaphori cally, and talks of eyes being opened which were wide open already; but opened of course for looking at something and giving it thought which they had never previously noticed.
Bold, shameless curiosity, you see, was moved to transgress the command ment, being greedy for fresh experiences, such as seeing what precisely would follow on touching the forbidden object, and thoroughly enjoying the guilty liberty of snapping the reins of the prohibition; so they reckoned it was highly unlikely that the death they feared would be the result, we must assume, l imagine, that the apple on that tree was the same kind as the apples they had already found to be harmless on other trees,45 and preferred to believe that God could easily forgive sinners, rather than to put up patiently with never finding out what precisely the result would be, or why he had forbidden them to take food from that source. No sooner then had they transgressed the commandment, than they were inwardly stripped stark naked, bereft of the grace which they had offended against by a kind of feverish delusion, and by the proud love of their own independent authority; then they turned their eyes on their own genitals, and lusted after them with that stirring movement they had not previously known. So that is what their eyes were opened to, something to which they had previously been closed, though wide open to everything else.
32, 42. This death happened on the very day that the deed God had forbidden was committed. By this deed, in fact, they forfeited the wonderful condition, which was to be bestowed upon them through the mystical virtue in the tree of life. ln this condition it would have been impossible for them to be tried by disease or altered by age; thus in their flesh, though it was still just "ensouled" and due only later to be transformed for the better, their eating from the tree of life (which is the sacrament or symbol of Wisdom46) would already represent and point to what feeding spiritually on Wisdom does for the angels, by making them partakers of eternity, and thus immune from any change for the worse. When they forfeited this condition, then, their bodies contracted that liability to disease and death which is present in the flesh of animals—and thus also that motion of the genitals which stirs in animals the desire to mate, and so ensures the birth of young to take the place of those which die.
45. So there is no special, death-dealing quality about the fruit of the tree of knowledge, parallel to the mystical virtue Augustine thinks must lie hidden in the fruit of the tree of life. 1t is purely and simply the act of disobedience that makes eating of the tree of knowledge fatal. 46. See Prv 3:18.