because l am naked, and l hid myself(Gn 3:10). It is probable enough that God
Book XI 455 be seen or heard, are presented either to the spirit in a state of ecstasy, or to the senses of the body. This is how God is in the habit of being seen among his angels, or of thundering from a cloud.48
Now, however, their hearing the voice of God walking in Paradise in the evening can only have been effected visibly49 through some creature, lest that invisible substance of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, which is every where whole, should be supposed to have appeared to their bodily senses by movement in space and time.
44. And they hid themselves, Adam and his wife, from theface of the Lord in the middle of the wood which is in Paradise (Gn 3:8). When God turns his face away inwardly and the man becomes troubled, we should not be surprised at these things being done which give every indication of his being out of his mind; done out of extreme shame and fear, that hidden impulse again being at work to do all unwittingly things that had a further significant meaning, which would be picked up at some later time by their posterity, on whose account this story has been committed to writing.
The conversation between Adam and God
34, 45 . And the Lord God calledAdam and said to him: Adam, where are you? (Gn 3:9). Words of reproof, not of ignorance. And this too is surely not without significance, thatjust as the commandment had been given to the man, by whom it was to be passed on to the woman, so it is the man who is first questioned. The commandment, you see, went from the Lord through the man as far as the woman, while the sin went from the devil through the woman as far as the man. All this is full of mystical significance, not put there by the characters between whom it took place, but by the supremely potent Wisdom of God directing them to that end. However, we are not now engaged in unlocking the treasures signi fied, but in defending the reality of the things actually done.
46. So then, Adam replied: / heard your voice in Paradise and l was afraid, because l am naked, and l hid myself(Gn 3:10). It is probable enough that God was in the habit of showing himself to those first human beings in human form by means of something created to suit such activity. However, as he was then
48. Being seen among his angels, as by 1saiah (6: 1 - 1 3); or by the less distinguished prophet Micah, who was sent for by Ahab to prophesy before the battle of Ramoth-gilead, and said: Hear the word of the Lord; Isaw the Lordsitting on his throne, andall the host ofheaven standing beside him on his right hand and on his left, etc. ( 1 Kgs 22: 1 9); or by John the Evangelist (Revelation, passim); thundering from a cloud, as on Mount Sinai, or the Mount of the Transfiguration. 49. Augustine knew as well as we do that it was an audible effect that needed to be produced for them to hear God's voice: but he is making the contrast with what he is just going on to call God's invisible substance; and it was simply not part of the common theological language to talk of God's inaudible substance.