The Literal Meaning of Genesis
says that Adam was not seduced. In fact, Adam under interrogation did not say, "The woman whom Thou gavest to be my companion seduced me and I ate"; but, She gave me fruit of the tree and I ate. On the other hand, the woman said, The serpent seduced me.
59. Can we imagine that Solomon, a man of incredible wisdom, believed that there was any advantage in the worship of idols? But he was unable to resist the love of women drawing him into this evil, and he did what he knew should not be done lest he should inhibit the deadly delights in which he was being wasted away.!59 So it was in the case of Adam. After the woman had been seduced and had eaten of the forbidden fruit and had given Adam some to eat with her, he did not wish to make her unhappy, fearing she would waste away without his support, alienated from his affections, and that this dissension would be her death. He was not overcome by the concupiscence of the flesh, which he had not yet experienced in the law of the members at war with the law of his mind,!©° but by the sort of attachment and affection by which it often happens that we offend God while we try to keep the friendship of men.'°! That he should not have acted thus is clear from the just sentence which God pronounced on him.
60. It was, therefore, in some other way that he was deceived; but I do not think that the wiles of the serpent by which the woman was seduced could have been in any way the means of his seduction.!©? According to St. Paul, a seduction in the proper sense occurs when one is persuaded to accept as true what in reality is false; for instance, that God forbade Adam and Eve to touch the tree because He knew that if they touched it they would be like gods, as if He who made men grudged them divinity. But even if the man was moved by a spirit of pride, which could not have been hidden from God, who searches the heart, and if he was tempted by a desire to seek a new experience, when he saw that the woman after eating the fruit was not dead (as I have already suggested),'°* I do not think that Adam, if he was endowed with a spiritual mind, could have possibly believed that God had forbidden them to eat the fruit of the tree out of envy.
BOOK ELEVEN 177
But enough of these speculations. Adam and Eve were induced to commit this sin in accordance with the way in which such persons can be tempted. The account was written as it must be read by all, although the content would be understood as it ought to be by only a few.