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Library / Commentaries and Disputations on Genesis, Volume I

Book Six — the temptation and fall

QUESTION I. Whether on the same day on which Adam was created he was cast out of paradise

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QUESTION I. Whether on the same day on which Adam was created he was cast out of paradise.1

QUAESTIO I. An eodem die quo creatus est Adam sit eiectus paradiso.

Pervulgata opinio est, eademque ut multorum; sic in primis nobilium & illustrium Auctorum firmata consensu, eodem ipso die, quo creatus est Adamus, fuisse eum introductum in paradisum, & inibi tentatum ac lapsum, atque ex eo loco eiectum; nec mansisse in paradiso unum diem integrum artificialem, hoc est, per duodecim horas, sed tantum, ut quibusdam placet, per sex horas, ut visum est aliis, per septem, ut nonnulli tradunt, per decem. Etenim (nescio quibus ducti coniecturis) putant isti, Adam prima hora illius sexti diei artificialis fuisse creatum extra paradisum: deinde tertia hora collocatum in paradiso. postea circa horam sextam comedisse fructum vetitum: ad horam autem nonam venisse Deum in Paradisum, & increpasse Adamum & Evam, suisque utrique poenis mulctasse: ad vesperam vero, & ante solis occasum eiectos esse ex paradiso. Videtur ea sententia placuisse Irenaeo in libro quinto adversus haereses, cuius item probatores citantur Cyrillus & Epiphanius. Moses Barcephas libro de Paradiso, & probat eam, & fuisse in ea confirmat, tum alios multos, tum in primis Philoxenum in oratione, quam scripsit de Arbore vitae, Ephraem quoque in Commentariis, quos scripsit in Genesim,
It is a very common opinion, and that of many, and confirmed especially by the consensus of noble and illustrious authors, that on the very same day on which Adam was created, he was brought into paradise, and there tempted and fell, and was cast out from that place; and that he did not remain in paradise one whole artificial day, that is, twelve hours, but only, as some hold, six hours; as it seemed to others, seven; as some hand down, ten. For (led by I know not what conjectures) these think that Adam was created in the first hour of that sixth artificial day outside paradise; then at the third hour placed in paradise; afterward, about the sixth hour, ate the forbidden fruit; and at the ninth hour God came into Paradise, and rebuked Adam and Eve, and mulcted each with their penalties; but at evening, and before sunset, they were cast out of paradise. That opinion seems to have pleased Irenaeus in the fifth book against Heresies, of which the approvers too are cited as Cyril and Epiphanius. Moses Barcephas, in his book on Paradise, both approves it and confirms that many others held it — both many others, and especially Philoxenus in the oration which he wrote on the Tree of Life, and Ephraem too in the Commentaries which he wrote on Genesis,2
necnon & Iacobum Sabugesem in Oratione de passione Domini: ad quos adiungi potest Diodorus Tharsensis Episcopus, ut citatur in Catena in Genesim super illa verba tertii, capitis, De omni ligno Paradisi vescimur. Nec ad faciendam huic opinioni fidem, desunt argumenta. Principio, videtur id perspicue significari illis verbis, quae serpens dixit Evae, Cur praecepit vobis Deus, ut non comederetis ex omni ligno paradisi? id est, ut ex nullo ligno paradisi ederetis. Quibus ex verbis licet intelligere, nihil usque ad id temporis, quo serpens haec dixit, Adamum & Evam comedisse: namque si vescentes eos ante vidisset serpens, id profecto minime dixisset: iam vero, si multo ante conditi, & in paradiso versati essent, nequaquam sane potuissent tamdiu absque fame ciboque vitam tolerare.
...and also James of Sarug in his Oration on the Passion of the Lord: to whom can be added Diodorus, Bishop of Tarsus, as he is cited in the Catena on Genesis on those words of the third chapter, 'Of every tree of Paradise we eat.' Nor are there lacking arguments to produce credence for this opinion. In the first place, it seems to be clearly signified by those words which the serpent said to Eve, 'Why has God commanded you that you should not eat of every tree of paradise?' — that is, that you should eat of no tree of paradise. From which words one may understand that up to the time when the serpent said this, Adam and Eve had eaten nothing: for if the serpent had seen them eating before, he certainly would not have said this; but now, if they had been created long before and had lived in paradise, they could by no means have endured life so long without hunger and food.3
Deinde, multo facilius primi homines decipi potuerunt in ipso exordio, quam si longo tempore Paradisum incoluissent. Si enim diutius apud animum suum meditando expendisset Adamus imperatam sibi a Deo legem, cautior factus, minime lapsus esset. verum quia exiguum illic spatium temporis egit, facilius potuit eius animus, scilicet in illis primordiis incautus, atque improvidus, ad malum inclinari. Adhaec, credibile est, Deum, quem paradiso pulsurus erat, noluisse eum longo tempore tanta foelicitate frui, ne postea eius possessione orbatus, nimium excruciaretur, sed mollius, ac minus aegre ferret tantis spoliatum se deliciis. Solet enim Deus castigationem & animadversionem suam ad imbecillitatem eorum, quos puniendo emendare, non perdere vult, moderari, & clementer exercere.
Then, the first men could much more easily be deceived at the very beginning than if they had inhabited Paradise for a long time. For if Adam had for a longer time weighed by meditating in his mind the law commanded him by God, having become more cautious, he would by no means have fallen. But because he spent only a small space of time there, his mind — namely, in those beginnings incautious and improvident — could more easily be inclined to evil. Besides, it is credible that God, whom he was about to drive from paradise, did not wish him to enjoy so great a felicity for a long time, lest afterward, bereaved of its possession, he should be too greatly tormented, but should bear more gently, and less grievously, being stripped of such delights. For God is accustomed to temper and exercise clemently his chastisement and animadversion to the weakness of those whom, by punishing, he wishes to amend, not to destroy.4
Ad extremum, cum Christus dominus noster mortem passus sit, ut peccatum Adami tolleret, evenit, ut quae ipse passus est, emendando expiandoque Adami delicto mirifice respondeant. Etenim sexta die Adamus est creatus, eodem quoque die passus est Christus. in eius diei exordio ille est ex luto compositus, hic item ad tribunal raptus, & sordidissimis foedatus sputis. hora eius diei tertia inductus est Adamus in paradisum, & Christus tertia hora, mortis accepta sententia, urbe Hierosolyma extractus est ad supplicium. inter sextam & nonam horam Eva & Adamus protenderunt manus ad decerpendos fructus negatos, ex quorum gustu nefariam ceperunt voluptatem; hoc tempore Christus suas manus extendit super ligno crucis, & amarissimo felle potatus est. Denique post meridiem Dominus eiecit Adamum ex paradiso, Christus autem latronem, sicut ei promiserat, in paradisum introduxit. His igitur argumentis, praedicta munitur, & fulcitur sententia.
Finally, since Christ our Lord suffered death to take away Adam's sin, it comes about that the things which he himself suffered correspond marvelously to the amending and expiating of Adam's fault. For on the sixth day Adam was created, and on the same day too Christ suffered. At the beginning of that day, the one [Adam] was composed from mud; the other [Christ] likewise was dragged to the tribunal and defiled with the foulest spittle. At the third hour of that day Adam was brought into paradise; and Christ, at the third hour, the sentence of death received, was dragged out of the city of Jerusalem to punishment. Between the sixth and ninth hour Eve and Adam stretched out their hands to pluck the forbidden fruits, from the taste of which they took wicked pleasure; at this time Christ stretched out his hands upon the wood of the cross, and was given the most bitter gall to drink. Finally, after midday the Lord cast Adam out of paradise, but Christ introduced the thief, as he had promised him, into paradise. By these arguments, therefore, the aforesaid opinion is fortified and propped up.5
Sed aliorum Doctorum contraria est sententia, plus uno die versatos esse primos illos homines in paradiso. Non enim omnia, quae Moses de illis narrat, priusquam paradiso pulsi essent, unius diei spatio confecta videntur. Quod si Adamus necdum fructum paradisi ullum gustasset praeter illum vetitum, neque satis adhuc eius loci amoenitatem, aut eorum, quae in eo erant suavitatem & delicias expertus solum vertisset, quomodo potuisset per comparationem ex...
But of other Doctors the opinion is contrary: that those first men stayed in paradise more than one day. For not all the things which Moses narrates of them, before they were driven from paradise, seem to have been accomplished in the space of one day. For if Adam had not yet tasted any fruit of paradise except that forbidden one, nor had sufficiently experienced the amenity of that place, or the sweetness and delights of the things which were in it, and had departed from it, how could he have, by comparison from...6
eius terrae, unde exciderat, foelicitate, eam in quam detrudebatur, duram, horridam, & infoelicem existimare? Fuisse videntur in hac sententia Iosephus libro primo Antiquitatum, Basilius homilia de Paradiso, Damascenus libro 2. de Fide orthodoxa, capit. 10. quippe qui scriptum reliquerint, serpentem in paradiso praeter ceteras animantes frequenter ad primos illos homines adire, & cum eis blande, ac quasi familiariter versari solitum: indeque postea diabolum ansam decipiendi mulierem rapuisse. Idem sensisse Augustinum, illa eius verba, quae sunt capite 31. libri 11. super Genesim ad litteram, declarant: Tale, inquit, pomum in arbore illa vetita credendum est fuisse, cuius generis poma iam in aliis arboribus innoxia sibi senserant.
...the felicity of that land from which he had fallen, esteem that [land] into which he was thrust down as hard, horrid, and unhappy? In this opinion seem to have been Josephus in the first book of Antiquities, Basil in the homily on Paradise, and Damascene in the second book On the Orthodox Faith, chapter 10 — inasmuch as they left it written that the serpent, beyond the other animals, was accustomed frequently to approach those first men in paradise, and to converse with them blandly and as it were familiarly; and that thence afterward the devil seized the occasion of deceiving the woman. That Augustine held the same, his words in chapter 31 of book 11 on Genesis according to the Letter declare: 'Such a fruit,' he says, 'is to be believed to have been on that forbidden tree, of which kind of fruits they had already felt others, on other trees, to be harmless to them.'7
Idem quoque in libro 20. de Civitate Dei capit. 26. licet primos homines non longo tempore mansisse in paradiso censeat, diutius tamen quam unum diem eo in loco fuisse, non obscure indicat. Apertius hoc ipsum significat B. Gregorius in libro 4. Dialogorum ca. 1. In paradiso, inquit, assueverat homo verbis Dei, & beatorum Angelorum spiritibus cordis munditia ac celsitudine visionis interesse. Tostatus quamvis super tertium caput Geneseos quaestione 14. scripsisset, Adamum non nisi unum diem, ac ne eum quidem integrum in paradiso fuisse: postea tamen revocata sententia, super 13. caput Geneseos a quaestione 606. usque ad 611. ea de re disputans, contrarie sensit & scripsit. Atque haec fere ab aliis de hac quaestione disputata, concertata, & scriptis prodita sunt.
The same [Augustine] also, in book 20 of the City of God, chapter 26, although he judges that the first men did not stay a long time in paradise, yet not obscurely indicates that they were in that place for more than one day. More openly, blessed Gregory signifies this very thing in book 4 of the Dialogues, chapter 1: 'In paradise,' he says, 'man had been accustomed to take part in the words of God, and, by purity of heart and loftiness of vision, in the spirits of the blessed Angels.' Tostatus, although on the third chapter of Genesis, question 14, he had written that Adam was in paradise not more than one day, and not even that a whole one, yet afterward, his opinion recalled, disputing on the thirteenth chapter of Genesis from question 606 to 611, felt and wrote the contrary. And these are about the things which have been disputed, contended, and produced in writing by others about this question.8

Translator’s notes

  1. Heading of Question I of the disputation. ↩
  2. The first (very common) opinion: on the same sixth day Adam was created, brought into paradise, tempted, fell, and was cast out — staying not a full twelve-hour day but only about six (some say seven or ten) hours. The hour-by-hour scheme: created 1st hour (outside paradise), placed in it 3rd hour, ate the fruit 6th hour, God came and rebuked/punished 9th hour, expelled by evening before sunset. Authors: Irenaeus (Adversus Haereses 5), Cyril, Epiphanius, Moses Barcephas (De Paradiso), Philoxenus (on the Tree of Life), Ephraem (Commentaries on Genesis). Marginal glosses: 'Prima opinio multorum, Adamum eodem die quo est creatus, fuisse paradiso eiectum'; 'Auctores huius sententiae.' Page footer signature 'VVV'; catchword 'necnon.' ↩
  3. Continuing the authors of the first opinion (Adam expelled the same day he was created): James of Sarug (Oration on the Passion), Diodorus of Tarsus (via the Catena on Genesis). First argument FOR: the serpent's 'Why do you not eat of every tree of paradise?' implies they had eaten nothing yet — had they been long there, they could not have gone so long without food. Marginal gloss: 'Argumenta pro supradicta opinione.' Running head '696'; true printed page 706. ↩
  4. Second and third arguments FOR same-day expulsion: the first men were more easily deceived at the very start (had Adam meditated the law longer, he would have been more cautious); and God did not wish Adam to enjoy such felicity long, lest the loss torment him too much (God tempers punishment to weakness, to amend not destroy). ↩
  5. Fourth (and strongest) argument FOR: the marvelous analogy between Adam and the Second Adam, Christ — both on the sixth day (Friday): Adam formed from mud at dawn / Christ dragged to trial and spat upon; Adam into paradise at the third hour / Christ led out to Calvary at the third hour; Adam and Eve reach for the fruit between the sixth and ninth hour / Christ's hands stretched on the cross, given gall; after midday Adam cast out / Christ brings the good thief into paradise. Marginal gloss: 'Analogia inter Adamum & Christum Dominum.' ↩
  6. Begins the contrary (second) opinion: the first men stayed in paradise more than one day, since Moses's narrative cannot all fit in one day; and if Adam had tasted no fruit but the forbidden one and had not experienced paradise's delights, he could not [by comparison feel the loss]. Marginal gloss: 'Altera sententia, plus uno die fuisse primos homines in Paradiso.' Catchword: 'eius' (continues on the next page). ↩
  7. The contrary opinion's authors (they stayed more than one day): Josephus (Antiq. 1), Basil (homily on Paradise), John Damascene (De Fide orthodoxa 2.10) — the serpent conversed familiarly with them (whence the devil's opportunity); Augustine (De Gen. ad litt. 11.31 — they had already found similar fruits on other trees harmless, implying prior experience). Marginal gloss: 'Basilius homilia 11.' Running head '697'; true printed page 707. ↩
  8. More authorities for the second opinion: Augustine (De Civ. Dei 20.26 — not long, yet more than a day); Gregory (Dialogues 4.1 — man had grown 'accustomed' to God's words and the Angels' company, implying time); Tostatus, who first said one day (or less), then reversed himself (on Gen 13, qq. 606-611). Marginal glosses: 'Gregorius'; 'Tostatus mutavit sententiam de mansione Adami in paradiso.' ↩