SIXTEENTH HOMILY. "They were naked and they did not blush. (Gen, II, 25.)

ANALYSIS.

1. After a short exordium, the orator approaches the story of the fall of our first parents, and proves, by the fact alone of the interview of Eve with the serpent that all the animals were subjected to the man. 2. He then refutes the opinion of those who claimed that this serpent was endowed with reason, and establishes that it was only the organ and instrument of the devil. He then describes at length the colloquy of the latter with the woman, and bitterly reproaches the latter for his imprudent confidence. - 4. It is not less severe for Adam who preferred to be compliant with his wife rather than obeying God. 5. The first effect of sin having been to make Adam and Eve aware of their nakedness, St. Chrysostom explains in what sense Scripture says that their eyes were opened; he fights on this occasion those who maintained that before his disobedience Adam did not have the knowledge of good and evil, and explains why the Scripture names the fatal tree, the tree of the science of good and evil. 6. He shows the wisdom of God in the easy defense made to man, and ends with an eloquent parallel between the tree of earthly paradise and the tree of the cross.

1. I want today, my dear brothers, to put at your disposal a spiritual treasure which never empties itself, although one takes it with all the hands: it has even the double privilege of enriching all those who appropriate it and fill up again, when you think it's exhausted. Often a slight portion of a material treasure is enough to make us powerfully rich; and all the more, the least words of Scripture contain excellent truths, which are like abundant riches. The peculiarity of this treasure is to enrich all who find it, and to be inexhaustible, because it is constantly nourished by the sources of the Holy Spirit. It is necessary therefore that you from your side hold my explanations carefully, and that mine, I strive to make you more understandable, because the grace is ready, and only asks for hearts on which it can be widely spread . Moreover, the explanation of the passage which has just been read, will be very proper to show us the immense goodness of the Lord, and his extreme benevolence towards our salvation.

And they were both naked, Adam and the woman, and they did not blush. (Gen. II, 25.) Consider, I invite you, the eminent happiness of our first parents. How high they were above all sensible and gross creatures! they dwelt less on the earth than the sky; and although clothed with a body, they did not feel the infirmities, since they did not need a roof, nor clothes, nor any other external help. Now it is not without reason and without motive that Holy Scripture enters into this detail, and teaches us that their life was exempt from. sorrow and sadness, and that their condition was almost that of angels. She wishes that, seeing them then stripped of all these privileges, and fallen from a high opulence into a deep misery, we attribute their fall only to their own negligence. For the rest, it is important to pay attention to this entire passage of Genesis. For Moses first said that Adam and Eve were naked, and that they did not blush. Hey! how could they have known their nakedness, since heavenly glory seems like a superb garment! Then he adds that the serpent was the most cunning of all the animals that (88) the Lord God had created on the earth, and the serpent said to the woman: Why did God tell you: do not eat fruit of all the trees that are in paradise?

Do you see the black jealousy of the devil, and his pitfalls multiplied! he could not bear to see that the man was placed in a rank of honor which almost equaled him to the angels. And indeed, the Psalmist says of man: Lord, you have lowered him a little below the angels (Ps. VIII, 6); and again, this expression, a little lowered, relates to the state which followed the sin of disobedience, since David spoke after the fall of man. The demon, therefore, saw that man was an angel on earth, and the sight of his happiness made the author of all evil dry out of envy. For he himself had been part of the heavenly choruses, but his evil will and great mischief had precipitated him from the highest heaven. This is why he tried to make the man disobedient, so that by making him lose the divine grace, he could deprive him of the goods of which the Lord had enriched him. How did he do it? He used the snake, which was the wisest of all animals, as we learn it: Moses: Now the snake was the most cunning of all the animals that the Lord God had created on earth. It was the instrument he used to deceive the woman, and to seduce her by an insidious familiarity, as being weaker and simpler than man. And the snake told the woman. This interview shows us that, in principle, neither man nor woman feared animals, and that they all recognized their empire and their authority. Wild and ferocious beasts were as submissive as pets are today.

2. Here perhaps I will be asked if the snake was endowed with reason. Assuredly not, and the sense of Scripture is that it was the devil who borrowed his organ, and who deceived the man by an effect of his black jealousy. The serpent, then, was only the docile instrument of his malice, and he used it to tempt the woman first, as being weaker, and then to lead, through her, the first man. So he pitched his ambushes through the serpent, and through his organ he entered into conversation with the woman: Why did he ask him, God did he say to you: do not eat the fruit of all the trees that are in paradise? But, consider the malice of this artificial spirit. It seems as though he only wishes to insinuate a good thought, and to question the woman on this defense only by the motive of a tender interest. This is what this word shows: Why did God tell you: Do not eat the fruit of the roofs of the trees that are in paradise? This evil spirit seems to say to him: Why did God forbid you so sweet enjoyment? and why did he not grant you the use of all the fruits produced by this garden? he has only allowed you to see it to make your privation more painful and bitter. Why did God tell you? What! he added, "is it really to your advantage to live in this garden, since you can not enjoy his productions? Or rather, is it not a real torture to see these beautiful fruits, and to be unable to eat them?

Observe as words insinuated the poison in the heart of the woman. From the beginning she must have suspected the mischief of her interlocutor, for he lied to her knowingly, and seemed interested only in knowing the command of the Lord, and then urging him to transgress it. Eve could easily see the imposture; and she must suddenly repulse the words of the evil spirit and not become the plaything of her mischief, but she would not do it. It was necessary, I say, that from the beginning she should break the interview, and henceforth confine herself to speaking to the man for whom alone she had been formed, and of which she was the companion and the equal, no less than help and consolation. But she allowed herself, I do not know how, to engage in this fatal colloquy, and she listened to the insidious words which the devil addressed to her through the organ of the serpent. At least it was easy for him to admit that these words were only deception and lies, since they affirmed the very opposite of what God had commanded them. That is why at the moment she must have fled, broken all relations and cursed that evil spirit who dared to censure the Lord's orders. But Eve was so light and so thoughtless that, far from escaping, she revealed to the devil the divine precept, and, according to the expression of the Gospel, she threw precious stones before a hog. Thus she acts against this commandment of the Savior: Do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they (89) trample them underfoot, and turning, they do not tear you. (Matt VII, 6.)

This is what happened then: Eve threw before the devil, that filthy pig and that fierce beast, the pearls of the divine precept; and this evil spirit, which acted by the organ of the serpent, trampled them unworthily by its daring lies; then again, turning against the woman, he made her and the man fall into the abyss of disobedience, so dangerous is it to reveal the divine secrets indistinctly! Notice to those who talk of religion indifferently with all! For Jesus Christ, in this place of the Gospel, designates much less true swine than those men whose manners are depraved, and who plunge themselves, like real pigs, into the mire of sin. He teaches us, therefore, to observe the persons and morals of those to whom we explain the teachings of religion, lest these conversations be mutually harmful. For, besides that spirits of this character do not profit by our words, they often drag into the abyss those who, without any discretion, spread before them these divine pearls. So, let us be cautious and reserved, so as not to be seduced like our first parents. For if the woman had not thrown the pearls before this swine, she would not have disobeyed God himself, nor would he have dragged the man into his sin.

3. But let's listen to the woman's answer. The tempter asks: Why did God tell you: Do not eat all the fruits of the trees of Paradise? and the woman answers, We eat the fruit of all the trees of this garden; but for the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God said to us, Do not eat of it, nor touch it, lest you die. Do you see the malice of the devil? he had made a lie to engage in conversation and learn what the command of the Lord was. And, indeed, the woman, too confident in her supposed benevolence, discovered to her, with precept, all the economy of the divine decrees; but it thus removed all means of defense. Eh! What could you, O woman, answer to such a word: The Lord said: Do not eat all the fruits of the trees of Paradise? you must suddenly drive out that insolent man, who dared to speak other than God, and say to him, "Get away, you deceiver; you do not know the importance of the commandment that is given to us, and you know neither the goods we enjoy nor the abundance where we are of all things. You dare to say that God has forbidden us the use of the fruits of this garden! but, on the contrary, the Creator God has deigned, in His immense goodness, to allow us to enjoy all things and to eat of all fruits, except for one whom he has excepted in our interest, lest we die.

It was thus that the woman had to repel the tempter, and the slightest prudence advised him to break up the interview and not to prolong it. But, not content with having revealed to the devil the precept and divine command, she listened to her treacherous and dangerous counsels; The woman said, We eat the fruit of the trees of this garden, but for the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, God said to us, Do not eat this fruit and touch it, out of fear that you do not die; and now the evil spirit is blowing on him a counsel quite opposite to that of God. It was by a trait of providence towards man, and to protect him from death, that the Lord had made him this defense; but the devil said to Eve, You will not die. How to excuse such imprudence? and how could Eve listen to such a daring language? God said, Do not eat this fruit, lest you die; and the demon dares to say to him: No, you will not die. Moreover, it is not enough for him to contradict the divine word, he still accuses the Creator of acting in a spirit of jealousy, and he leads his deceit with so much skill that he seduces the woman and realizes her iniquitous projects. No, you will not die, he says, but God knows that the day you eat this fruit, your eyes will open and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil. (Gen. III, 5.)

Here, then, is the fatal bait and the mortal poison that the demon presents to the woman, and the latter does not suspect the danger, although, from the beginning, it is very easy for her to recognize it. But learning that God's defense was because he knew that their eyes would be open, and that they themselves would be gods, knowing good and evil, she prides herself on this flattering hope and conceived great thoughts. (90) Such is still today the artifice of the devil he raises us by his deceptive suggestions and then lets us fall into a deep abyss. Thus Eve, already dreaming of equality with God, hastened to gather the forbidden fruit; her eyes, her mind and her heart stopped there, fixedly, and she thought only of exhausting the poisoned cup which the devil had prepared for her. Such were certainly her dispositions from the moment she listened to the pernicious counsels of the devil, and Scripture testifies to it. For the woman, she says, saw that the fruit was good to eat, and beautiful to see, and of a delectable aspect; and she took some and ate it.

Truly, as the Apostle says, bad conversations corrupt good morals. (I Corinthians XV, 33.) Eh! Whence comes it that before the counsel of the devil the woman had not had such thoughts, and that she had neither fixed this tree particularly, nor considered the beauty of her fruit? it was because she respected the defense of the Lord, and feared the punishment of which he threatened his disobedience. But as soon as she had listened to this perverse and evil spirit, she believed and had nothing to fear from eating the forbidden fruit, and that even they would become equal to God. This hope thus excited her to pluck fruit, and, flattering herself to rise above humanity, she added more faith to the perfidious insinuations of the enemy of our salvation than to the words of God. But his experience soon taught him the fatal consequences of this pernicious advice and the terrible misfortunes that were about to envelop him. For as soon as she saw, says the Scripture, that the fruit was good to eat, and beautiful to see, and of a delectable aspect, she followed the impulse of the evil spirit that spoke to her through the organ of the serpent, and reasoned thus in itself: If this fruit seems good to eat, if it charms the eye and if it is of a delectable aspect, and if it must, moreover, raise us to the supreme honors and make us as great as the Creator, why should I hesitate to pick him?

4. Do you see with what art the demon captivated the woman, and how he troubled his reason? She ventured to carry her hopes above her condition, and the proud hope of obtaining imaginary goods made her lose those she really possessed. So she took that fruit and ate it, and she gave it to her husband, and they ate it, and their eyes were

open, and they knew they were naked. What have you done, O woman! Yielding to treacherous counsel, you have trampled on the law of the Lord and despised His commandments! What! by an excess of intemperance, the use of all these fruits so numerous and varied has not sufficed for you, and you have dared to pluck the very one of which God had forbidden you to eat! At last, you have believed the words of the serpent, and you have esteemed his advice more salutary than the orders of the Creator! Alas! your presumption renders this crime irreparable. But whoever spoke to you was he your equal? No, no doubt; it was one of your subjects: he was subject to you and he was your slave. Why then degrade yourself to the point of abandoning the man for whom you have been formed and whose help and consolation you have been created? You share the dignity of his nature and the nobility of his word, and you may have conversed familiarly with the serpent, which has become the organ of the devil, has insinuated you with advice that is manifestly contrary to the Lord's command. You had to push him away; but, flattered by his empty promises, you have picked the forbidden fruit.

Well, be it! you wished to rush into the abyss and descend from the summit of honors; but why drag your spouse into the same misfortune? You must be his help, and you give him some pitfalls. What! for a miserable fruit, you lose both the grace and the friendship of God! What strange madness has inspired you this audacity? Was not it enough for you to lead a sweet life and to be clothed in a body, without experiencing its weaknesses? You enjoyed all the fruits of earthly paradise, with the exception of one, and, queen of the universe, you command all creatures; and now, seduced by vain promises, you flatter yourself to rise to the highest honors of divinity! Alas! you will learn from a harsh experience that, far from obtaining these much envied goods, you will lose, you and your spouse, all those whom the Lord has filled you with. But when repentance has made your grief deep and bitter, the evil spirit who has suggested this fatal counsel will laugh at your ills; he will insult your fall and congratulate himself for having dragged you into his misfortune. For it is because, swollen with pride, he wanted to rise above his condition, (91) that he was stripped of his dignity and precipitated from heaven on earth; and in the same way he wished to make you incur, by your disobedience, the anathema of death, and thus to satisfy his black jealousy, according to this word of the Wise One: By the envy of Satan, death entered the universe. (Sag II, 24.)

The woman therefore took fruit and gave it to her husband; and they ate, and their eyes were opened. How man was guilty! for although the woman was a portion of her substance, and even her wife, he must have preferred the precept of the Lord to his vain desires, and not be made an accomplice to his disobedience. Did such a frivolous pleasure deserve that he deprived himself of the most excellent advantages, and that he offended the Master who had enriched him with so many goods, and who had granted him an existence exempt from pains and fatigues? Was he not allowed to enjoy abundantly all the fruits of earthly paradise? Why then, O man! Did you not want to, and you too, observe this slight defense? Because, no doubt, you have known by your wife the promise of the tempting spirit; and suddenly, swelled with the same presumption, you ate forbidden fruit. So both of you will be cruelly punished and learn from hard experience that it was better to obey God than to follow the advice of the devil.

5. So the woman took the fruit and gave it to her husband, and they ate it; and their eyes were opened, and they knew they were naked. Here is the important question I was talking about yesterday; for it is right to ask what virtue this tree had, whose fruit opened the eyes of those who ate it, and why it is called the tree of the science of good and evil. Wait a little, please, and I will satisfy your just curiosity. And first, let us observe that a right and enlightened study of the Holy Scriptures easily resolves the difficulties. Thus it is not precisely because Adam and Eve ate this fruit that their eyes were opened, since before they had the use of sight; but because this act of intemperance was at the same time an act of disobedience to the Lord's orders, it is attributed to him the privation of the glory which surrounded them, and of which they themselves had made themselves unworthy.

This is why Scripture says, according to its ordinary language, that they ate it, and that their eyes were opened, and that they knew that they were naked. Yes, sin, by stripping them of heavenly grace, gave them the feeling of their nakedness; so that this shame which seizes them suddenly made them see in what abyss their disobedience had precipitated them. Before this disobedience, they lived in perfect security and did not suspect that they were naked; but they were not so, since celestial glory covered them better than any garment. But when they had eaten forbidden fruit and thus violated the precept of the Lord, they were reduced to such deep humiliation that the feeling of shame led them to seek a veil over their nakedness. It was because the transgression of the divine precept had stripped them of the glory and celestial grace which clothed them as a splendid garment; and, by making them know their nakedness, she had penetrated them with a strong feeling of shame.

And they intertwined fig leaves and made themselves belts. Measure, my dear brother, I invite you to the depths of the abyss where, from the height of glory, the demon made our first parents fall. Formerly they were clothed with a celestial luster, and now they are forced to intertwine fig leaves and make sashes. Such was the result of the deceits of the devil and the pitfalls he offered them. Of course, he did not propose to give them any new advantages, but he only wanted to strip them of those they possessed, and thus reduce them to a shameful nakedness. And because their disobedience had the opportunity of the forbidden fruit, Scripture says that they ate it and that their eyes were opened, which must be understood as the perception of the mind rather than the organ of view; for, after their sin, God made them feel impressions which, by an effect of his extreme goodness, they had previously ignored. This expression their eyes were open means that God made them feel the shame of their nakedness and the privation of the glory they enjoyed. Moreover, this language is ordinary in Scripture, as is proved by this passage in Genesis: Hagar, a fugitive slave, wandered in the wilderness, and, having placed his child under a palm tree, she went away not to to see die. So, God opened his eyes. (Genesis XXI, 19.) It is not (92) that she saw before, but that God enlightened her understanding; so that this word opens must be understood rather of the mind than of the organ of sight.

I will give the same solution to a second difficulty. For some say, why is this tree called the tree of the science of good and evil? And we even see some who oppose the argument that Adam had discernment of good and evil only after eating the fruit of this tree, but it is pure extravagance. Already, and as if to answer in advance, I spoke at length about science. infused by Adam; now this science was revealed by the correctness of the names which it imposed on all birds and all animals, and by the gift of prophecy which was its glorious coronation. It can not be said, therefore, that he who named all the animals, and who uttered so admirable a prophecy about the woman, knew nothing of good and evil. Besides, such an assumption would do, what God forbid! to pour on God even a horrible blasphemy. For could he have given orders to man if he had invincibly ignored disobedience as an evil? But it was not so; and Adam knew perfectly well what he was doing, since from the beginning he possessed free will. In the contrary case, his disobedience would not have been more worthy of punishment than his submission of praise. On the contrary, it is evident from the very words of the precept, and subsequently from events, that the act of their disobedience alone subjected our first parents to death. This is what the woman herself says to the serpent: For the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God said: Did not eat it, lest you die. Thus before their sin they were immortal, otherwise their prevarication could not have been punished by the punishment of death.

6. Can we therefore maintain that it is by eating the forbidden fruit that man acquires the knowledge of good and evil? But did not he already have this knowledge, he who was full of wisdom and adorned with the gift of prophecy? and how can it be reasonably supposed that goats, sheep, and other herbivorous animals can distinguish between useful plants and weeds, in order to graze some and move away from one another, and that man, endowed with reason, does not know to discern good from evil? But it is no less true, you say, that this tree is called in Scripture the tree of the science of good and evil. I agree with that; and yet it is enough to be a little familiar with the style of Scripture to realize this expression. He was so called, not that he gave man the knowledge of good and evil, but because he was the occasion of his disobedience and he introduced the knowledge and shame of sin. . And in fact. Scripture often designates facts by the circumstances that accompany them; and as this tree was to be for man an occasion of sin or merit, she called it the tree of the science of good and evil.

The Lord wanted from the beginning to make known to man that the God who created the universe had also given him being. He therefore gave him this little commandment so that he might recognize his title of Master and Lord. Thus a generous proprietor who grants to his steward the usufruct of a magnificent palace, demands a fee, as a proof of his right of property. The steward thus knows that this palace does not belong to him, and that he enjoys it only by the goodness and liberality of his master. And so was the Creator, who had made man king of nature; and who had placed him in the terrestrial paradise of which he fully enjoyed, wished to avoid that, seduced by his own thoughts, he could believe that the universe existed by itself, and that he did not pride himself on his superiority. Therefore he forbade him the fruit of a single tree, and threatened him in case of disobedience; the most severe punishment, to oblige him to recognize a Master, and to proclaim that he had all his advantages from his pure liberality. But the presumptuous temerity of Adam precipitated him with Eve into a frightful ruin; they transgressed the commandment, and ate forbidden fruit. This is why this tree has been called the tree of the science of good and evil. It is not that they did not know beforehand the good and the bad, as the words of the woman to the serpent prove: God said to us: Do not eat this fruit, lest you die. They knew, therefore, that death would be the punishment for their disobedience; so it is after having eaten forbidden fruit that they were stripped of their garment of glory, and that they felt the shame of their nakedness. This tree is therefore called the tree of the science of (93) good and evil, because it was destined to test their obedience.

Now you understand how Scripture says that their eyes were opened, and that they knew they were naked. You also understand why this tree was called the tree of the science of good and evil. But appreciate, if it is possible, what was their shame, when after eating the forbidden fruit, and transgressing the precept of the Lord, they intertwined fig leaves and made themselves belts. See how from the summit of glory they were precipitated in the deepest humiliation! Those who previously lived on earth as angels, are reduced to cover themselves with fig leaves, so sin is a great evil! For it deprives us first of all of God's grace and friendship, and then covers us with shame and confusion. Moreover, after having stripped us of the possessions we possessed, he robs us of the hope of recovering them.

But I reproach myself for ending this conversation with the sad considerations which the intemperance of man, his disobedience and his fall, furnish me with. That is why, please, on the occasion of this tree, I will speak of the tree of the cross, and to the evils that the first has produced, I will oppose the goods that the second has produced to us. However, it is not properly the tree that caused these disasters, but the will of the sinful man and his contempt for the divine precept. I will say, then, that the first tree brought death into the world, for death followed sin, and the second brought us back to immortality. One chased us out of paradise, and the other opened the entrance to heaven. He has weighed on Adam, for one fault, the hard burden of human misery, and this one has delivered us from the weight of our sins, and has given us a sweet and full confidence in the Lord.

Let us arm ourselves, my brothers, I conjure you, let us arm ourselves with the virtue of this vivifying wood, and by its help, mortify the evil affections of our souls. This is the counsel of the Apostle, when he tells us that those who belong to Jesus Christ crucified their flesh with his passions and desires unregulated. (Gal. V, 24.) The meaning of this word is that those who have devoted themselves entirely to Jesus Christ have tamed this concupiscence of the flesh which tends only to corrupt the operations of the mind in us. Let us imitate these generous Christians, and on their example, let us reduce our bodies to servitude, so that we may resist the suggestions of the evil spirit. It will also be the most assured way to happily cross the stormy sea of ​​the present life, and to approach the quiet port of salvation. May we thus obtain the goods that God has promised to those who love Him in Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom be glory, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and always, and in all ages centuries! So be it.