The Literal Meaning of Genesis
BOOK ELEVEN 163 ies, then, were no longer just natural bodies capable of being transformed into a better and spiritual condition without dying, as would have been the case if they had remained obedient, but bodies of death in which the law in the members was at war with the law of the mind.
When they were created, of course, their eyes were not closed. Nor were they going about blind in the garden of delights, feeling their way about, in danger of unwittingly touching the forbidden tree and of picking in their ignorance the forbidden fruit. Indeed, how were the beasts and the birds brought to Adam for him to see what he would call them if he had no sight?!°? And how did it happen that the woman was brought to the man when she was made so that without seeing her he would say, This now 1s bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh? Finally, how did the woman see that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasing to the eyes and a delight to behold,'°° if their eyes were closed?
41. Nevertheless, one should not take the whole passage in a figurative sense on the basis of one word used with a transferred meaning. Consider what was meant by the serpent's words, Your eyes will be open. The author states that this is what the serpent said; the meaning or thought behind what was said is left to the discernment of the reader. But the statement, Then the eyes of both were opened, and they perceived that they were naked,''° is put forth in the way in which the other facts are narrated, and they cannot suggest to us an allegorical narrative.
St. Luke—to cite a parallel case—did not quote figurative language spoken by another person: it was on his own authority that he narrated what had happened when he told about the two disciples, of whom one was Cleophas, and said that when the Lord had broken bread, their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him whom they had not recognized on the road.!!! St. Luke does not mean that they were walking with their eyes closed, but simply that they were unable to recognize Him. In the Gospel text as well as in our passage in Genesis there is no question of a narrative with a figurative meaning, although Scripture has used a word in a transferred sense in speaking of "opened eyes"