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

by necessity or reasonable cause, nor should we add, subtract, or modify anything. Certainly, such necessity or reasonable cause is not found here; rather, by adopting a different way of understanding, we would slide back into many absurd and exotic notions once again, as we shall see in the course of this subject. Furthermore, if we look at the context, just as God granted the fruits of other trees to the first man for eating and for appeasing hunger, so He also prohibited him from eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Here, the plain literal sense of eating is expressed everywhere, which, in these circumstances, can be understood as nothing other than the eating of fruit from a woody substance, which is clearly and openly stated everywhere and at all times. And God commanded him, saying: of every tree of paradise you shall eat: but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. Gen. 2. v. 16. & 17. Therefore, we rightly assert, in accordance with the plain letter of Scripture, that this tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a real tree. It follows, says Magnus Aurelius Saint Augustine of Hippo in his 8th book On the Literal Meaning of Genesis, Chapter 6, Number 12, that we must look at the tree of the knowledge of how to distinguish good from evil. This tree was entirely visible and corporeal, just like other trees. Therefore, there is no doubt that it was a tree. Thus, without any doubt, Augustine asserts that this tree was a real tree, just like the others planted in Paradise, and it is not permitted for us to doubt this. Rather, we must necessarily confess, with Scripture and Augustine, that this tree of the knowledge of good and evil both existed in Paradise and was a true tree. (a)

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a true tree.

(a) A certain anonymous Frenchman denies that this tree had the nature of a true tree and asserts that it was the very act of marriage, on the grounds that Scripture speaks allegorically according to the custom of the Egyptians: Here are his own words from the German translation, which is the only one I have at hand: If Moses has made use of figures and allegories here, this should not surprise us at all. One need only remember that this famous lawgiver was raised among the Egyptians. This was a nation that represented all things through Hieroglyphen hieroglyphs. Did Moses, therefore, as a prophet of God...