Manicheans,!° who are in error not because they are mistaken (continued)
should be considered an outstanding interpreter worthy of great praise. But if there is no way of understanding a passage in a devout sense worthy of God without assuming that it has been set forth in figures and enigmas, we should remember that we have the authority of the apostles, who solved so many enigmas in the books of the Old Testament, and we should stay with the kind of interpretation which we have adopted with the help of Him who bids us ask, seek, and knock.!! Thus, our purpose should be to explain all these figures of things according to the Catholic faith, whether the matter belongs to history or prophecy, without prejudice to a better and more exact treatment which we or others, whom the Lord is pleased to enlighten, may subsequently undertake. !
This is what I said then. And now the Lord has wished that I should look at and consider the same matter more thoroughly, and I believe that according to His will I can reasonably hope that I shall be able to show how the Book of Genesis has been written with a proper rather than an allegorical meaning in view. With this in mind, let us examine the account of Paradise which follows, using the method with which we succeeded in explaining what went before.
CHAPTER 3
On the third day God had created in their causal reasons the plants and trees of Paradise.
6. God, therefore, planted a garden in a delightful place (this is the meaning of in Eden) in the East, and there He put the man whom He had formed.'> Thus it is stated in Scripture because thus it was done. Then Scripture recapitulates in order to show how God did what has been mentioned very briefly, that is, how He planted Paradise and put there the man whom He had formed. For Scripture goes on to say, And again from the earth God made to grow every tree that 1s pleasant to the sight and good for food.'*