The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil According to the Holy Scriptures

indeed known in Himself were not only what He would do, but also by what reason, mode, or moment of time He would do and form those things, since He is infinitely wise. Furthermore, He created a rational creature who would be apt and suitable through the light of internal inspiration and revelation to manifest these things to the world and to the rest of the rational creation, which He willed to be manifest to the same, since He is infinitely provident. For surely it behooved the providence of this infinite being that the reason and order of our first creation be manifested to us, lest the rational creature—who through disobedience fell from that felicity in which it was placed by God its creator—might perhaps cast the cause and origin of this fall not upon its own perverse will, as it really was, but upon God the Creator Himself, if it could not be convinced by open revelation how mercifully, liberally, and paternally the Creator God had acted with the rational creature in its creation, and how wickedly, maliciously, and perfidiously this very creature had abandoned and despised its Creator and Father by disobeying. Moses, therefore, was that first Prophet and Leader of the people sent by God, through whom He willed not only that the reason and order of the first creation be manifest to us, but also who might teach his people the way of living and the precepts for worshipping God. The express letter of Holy Scripture holds this: the constant and uninterrupted tradition teaches this: the infallible Teacher, the Church of God, has held and holds this: it is evident from the unanimous consensus of the Fathers: all the faithful up to this point have believed this. Who, therefore, would deny Moses as the Prophet and Leader given and sent by God, without establishing God Himself as the author of this error nurtured among men until now, and thus thoroughly overturn and eliminate all Divinity after the example of impious Atheists?

Paradise was truly a terrestrial and corporeal place.

This Prophet sent by God, arriving at the rational creature, namely man, in the narrated series of divine Creation, asserts him to have been founded by God and placed in the paradise of pleasure. And the Lord God had planted a paradise of pleasure from the beginning: wherein he placed man whom he had formed (Gen. 2. v. 8). This place was most full of all abundance and earthly pleasure, and whether it still exists, or in what corner of the earth it was placed by God, does not pertain to our present undertaking. It suffices for us to have asserted that this place was truly founded by God in the beginning, and was a place truly terrestrial and corporeal: for the open letter of Scripture and the continuous doctrine of the Church and the Fathers again command and teach that it should be accepted in this way. For if we look at the literal text of Scripture, it shadows forth the description of this place as very similar to a most pleasant garden; hence also in the Hebrew text it is called Gan or garden. Jerome, in his book of Hebrew Questions on Genesis, notes that in it one could see every species of wood and trees, and the most sweet and diverse fruits hanging from them: And the Lord God brought forth of the ground every tree, pleasant to the sight, and good for food (Gen. 2. v. 9). The place was also planted with a variety of all the most diverse flowers and herbs, in pleasantness and beauty, and lest man be fatigued by the labor of irrigating the same, a river rising and emerging from the earth irrigated the whole place wherever it extended: And a river went out of the place of pleasure to water paradise (Gen. 2. v. 10). Moreover, to drive away the hunger and thirst of man, an abundance and plenty of the most diverse and sweet fruits stood ready: Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be your meat (Gen. 1. v. 29). Indeed, lest man, corruptible and mortal according to the body, should fail and be consumed by age, the most benign Creator God also placed the tree of life in the midst of paradise against this corruptibility and defectibility: the tree of life also in the midst of paradise (Gen. 2. v. 9). And so man lived, says St. Augustine,