V. 6. _And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and
that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired
to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat; and she
gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat._
Mark here the manner in which sin diffuses itself through all the five
senses. For what did Eve neglect that could be used in the service of
sin when once she had believed Satan contrary to the Word of God, and
had listened to his lies in telling her that she would not surely die,
but that her eyes would be opened and that she would know both good
and evil. Her eyes could not be satisfied with seeing. It was nothing
to her now that she possessed the knowledge of God, and that she had a
sound and perfect mind. She was not content without the addition of
the knowledge of evil also. And this was the very essence of Satan's
poison; her desire to be wise above that which God had spoken to her
as his command. For such wisdom was death and the very enemy of that
wisdom of God, which had been delivered to her in his Word. For this
wisdom caused her to consider that to be righteousness, which was
really sin, and to look upon that as most desirable wisdom which was
utter madness.
The whole point therefore lies in this which the Latin version has
omitted to express: that the tree was a tree to be desired, because it
made the eaters thereof wise. And this is the very aim of the devil,
to cause a man to think his knowledge and wisdom the greater, the
further he departs from the Word.
Hence the Sacramentarians think it the sum of all wisdom to assert
that bread is bread, and that wine is wine; but that bread is not the
body, nor wine the blood of Christ. So Arius considers that he has
carried off the palm of all wisdom, when he asserts, from certain
Scriptures evilly distorted from their manifest sense, that the Logos
was indeed before all creatures; but that still he was created. In
like manner the Anabaptists imagine that they trumpet forth the very
height of wisdom, when they declare aloud with full-swollen cheeks
that water cannot reach the soul or the spirit, but that it washes the
naked skin only, and that therefore baptism avails nothing to the
remission of sins. Hence we have known fanatical spirits to baptize
here and there without any water at all, who nevertheless continued to
boast that they never dissented from us or our doctrine. And truly,
this is wisdom. But it is the wisdom of the devil; and directly
contrary to the Word and wisdom of God. And it is the peculiar and
proper temptation of the devil thus to render us wise in our own
conceits contrary to and above the Word of God. Just as he himself was
once in heaven, and then fell. And this high wisdom is a temptation of
his, far exceeding in destructive efficacy all the grosser temptations
of lust, avarice, pride, etc.
The verb HISKIL signifies "to be prudent" or "wise." Hence, MASKIL is
"wise" or "prudent," as in Psalm 14:2, "Jehovah looked down from
heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did
understand, that did seek after God." And again, Is. 53:11, "By the
knowledge of himself, JASKIL, shall my righteous servant justify
many." The word signifies properly that wisdom by which God is known
and acknowledged. And Eve had this light or rather this sun of
knowledge in her heart before she fell; because she had the Word. And
she had moreover the knowledge of all the creatures. But not content
with this wisdom, she wished to mount higher and to know God otherwise
than he had revealed himself to her in his Word. This was her fall.
She let go the true wisdom, and that being lost, she rushed into utter
blindness.
Just as Satan acted in the garden of Eden, so he acts now. God
commands us to believe the Gospel of his Son, that we may thus be
saved. This is true wisdom, as Christ himself also affirms: "This is
life eternal, that they should know thee, the only true God, and him
whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ," John 17:3. This wisdom the
monk utterly disregards, and turns aside to other things. He puts on a
cowl, girds himself with a rope and takes upon him the vow of
celibacy; and he thinks that by such means he shall please God and be
saved. And all this is that sublime wisdom which is exercised in the
worship of God, and in a great religious observance toward him; all of
which is the implantation of Satan, engrafted on the original sin of
our fallen nature; causing men to turn away from the Word of God,
which he has himself "set forth" as the way of salvation, and to turn
aside to following their own cogitations. Just like Eve. She was
created the wisest of all women that ever existed; but she longed for
another wisdom contrary to and above the Word; and on account of this
newly desired wisdom she fell and sinned, in a multiplicity of forms,
with all her senses, with her thoughts, with her sight, with her
desire, with her touch, with her taste, with her whole act.
They are not to be listened to, therefore, who argue it was cruelty
that this nature of ours should be thus miserably corrupted, sunk
under death, and involved in all the other calamities to which it is
subject for the simple act of tasting a certain fruit. The Epicureans,
indeed, when they hear these things, laugh at them as a mere fable.
But to a careful reader, who duly ponders these recorded facts, it
will at once be manifest that the simple bite of the fruit was not the
cause of these awful consequences. Such an one will see that the sin
committed was the cause of the whole calamity which followed, even the
sin of Eve, which she committed against both tables of the law,
against God himself and against his Word. For her sin was of that
description that she cast aside the Word of God and gave herself up
wholly to Satan, and to his teaching as his disciple.
The greatness and awfulness of the sin of Eve therefore can neither be
lessened nor made too great. This greatness and awfulness of the sin
of Eve are the pregnant causes of all the calamitous punishments which
we endure. So awful was the sin, and so awful the turning away from
God! And this horrible turning away from God is the great solemn fact
which our minds ought to contemplate. They ought not to dwell upon the
mere plucking or swallowing the fruit; for those who look upon the act
only, and not upon the sin of the heart, from which the act proceeded,
must naturally be led to accuse God of cruelty for having inflicted
upon the whole human race such terrible punishments for so small and
insignificant a sin. Such reasoners on the matter, therefore, hate God
and despair; or like the Epicureans they laugh at the whole matter as
a fable.
What we have to consider therefore is the Word. For that, against
which Eve sinned, was the Word of God. As great therefore as was the
Word, so great was the sin which Eve committed against the Word. It
was under this sin that all nature fell, and under which it still
lies. For, how can nature overcome that sin! It is of a magnitude
infinite and inexhaustible. Consequently, to overcome this sin there
is need of him who brings with him an inexhaustible righteousness,
even the Son of God.
That Satan knew all this, his subtlety proves. For he does not
immediately entice Eve with the sweetness of the fruit; he attacks at
once the chief strength of man, faith in the Word! The root and source
of all sin therefore is disbelief, and turning aside from God. Even
as, on the contrary, the root and source of all righteousness is
faith. Satan therefore first of all draws Eve aside from faith to
unbelief. When he had accomplished this and had brought Eve not to
believe the Word of God's commandment spoken unto her, he had no
trouble in accomplishing the rest, in causing her to rush up to the
tree, to pluck the fruit and eat it. For when sin is ripened in the
heart by unbelief, the external act of disobedience soon follows. This
is the manner in which the nature of sin is to be considered, namely,
according to its true magnitude, under which magnitude we are all
ruined. Next follows the description of sin, with its punishments.
V. 7. _And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they
were naked; and they sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves
aprons_ (girdles).
I have remarked above that the form of all Satan's temptations is the
same. He first plies his temptation upon a man's faith, and then draws
him away from the Word. Upon this follow various sins against the
second table. This procedure of Satan we may see plainly manifested in
our own experience. That which follows therefore in the present
chapter, is a particular description of sin, what it is in the act,
and what it is afterwards, when the act is performed. For, while sin
is in the act, it is not felt. If it were truly felt, we should return
to the right way, warned by the sorrows which sin ever brings upon the
sinner. But because these sorrows lie hidden, after we have departed
from integrity of soul and from faith, we go on without concern into
the act itself. Just as Eve sinned in eating the fruit, after she had
been persuaded by Satan, contrary to the Word of God, "that she should
not die" but that the only effects would be, "that her eyes would be
opened," and that she would become wiser. After she had drunk in this
poison of Satan through her ears, she stretched forth her hand to the
forbidden fruit, plucked it and ate it with her mouth; and thus she
sinned with all the senses of her mind and of her body. And yet she
did not even then feel her sin. She ate the fruit with pleasure and
entreated her husband also to do the same.
The essential principles are the same in all temptations and in all
sins, whether of lust, of anger, or avarice, etc. While the sin is in
the act, it is not felt; it terrifies not, it stings not, but it
rather flatters the passions and delights. And no marvel that the case
should be so with us when we are infected with this poison of original
sin, from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head, and
especially when we reflect that the sins of paradise took place in
nature while it was yet sound and perfect. Hence it is that we see in
the cases of profane men, of fanatical spirits and of those who have
no faith, or who have fallen from the faith, how secure and
unconcerned they are, how vehement and pertinacious in defending their
errors; so much so that they will not hesitate even to die in the
defence of them. Such is the nature of sin, while it remains unfelt.
But afterwards when the sin is made manifest by the law, then it comes
down upon the man with all its intolerable weight.
So before this discovery of her sin, while it was inwardly preparing
for the act, the eyes of Eve were not opened. Had they been she must
have died before she could have touched the fruit; but because her
eyes were not yet opened, and because her unbelief yet remained, there
remained also the longing for the fruit prohibited, and there remained
also the purpose and the desire to obtain the Satan-promised
knowledge, which was also forbidden. Poor miserable Eve, she is so
wrapped up in disbelief, both in soul and in body, that she sees not
the mighty evil she is committing! Similar examples of the insensible
security and unconcern of sin are furnished by our ecclesiastical
histories. Arius securely blesses himself, as long as he can find
means of eluding the Scripture testimonies concerning the Divinity of
the Son.
But this security lasts not very long. As soon as the eyes of Eve were
opened, she remembered the law of her God spoken to her, which before
she had forgotten, "that she and Adam should not eat of the forbidden
tree." Before she had this knowledge of God's law she was "without
sin," as Paul expresses it, Rom. 7:9, "And I was alive apart from the
law once." Not because the law really did not exist, but because the
apostle did not feel the threatenings and punishments of it; and hence
he seemed to himself to be "without the law." "For through the law
cometh the knowledge of sin," Rom. 3:20. When therefore the law
revived in his knowledge of it, his sin revived also with that
knowledge, Rom. 7:9.
All this Moses would indicate in his history of our first parents,
when he says, "And the eyes of them both were opened," as if he had
said, Satan had closed, not the eyes only of Eve, but her heart also
by unbelief and by the disobedience of all the members of her body and
of her soul without and within. But after her sin was committed and
"finished," he willingly suffers the eyes of them both to be opened,
that they might see what they had done. For this is Satan's manner of
cutting short the ruin of those who sin under his temptations; when
they have sinned, he leaves them to perish in despair.
This portion of sacred history therefore is like a complete exposition
of the sentence of Paul's words, "For through the law cometh the
knowledge of sin," Rom. 3:20. For the law does nothing but make known
and cause to revive that sin, which before the knowledge of the law
lay asleep as it were and dead. Just as in the following chapter it is
said to Cain, "If thou doest evil, thy sin sleepeth until it be made
known to thee," Gen. 4:7. For it lieth asleep, while it is in the act.
But when the law comes then the eyes are opened, so that the man then
sees what God had commanded, and what punishment he had decreed for
the transgressors of his command. When this takes place, so that the
law fully rules in the conscience; then a man arrives at the true
knowledge of his sin, which knowledge no human hearts can endure
unless consolation be given them from above.
What Moses next adds, therefore, that after they had eaten the fruit,
"they saw that they were naked," are words by no means superfluous nor
without special import. For if duly considered, they contain a
beautiful description of original righteousness.
The schoolmen indeed argue that original righteousness was not
connatural; that is, not a part of human nature as originally created;
but a certain ornament, only additionally bestowed on man as a
separate gift. Just as if one should place a garland on the head of a
beautiful maiden. A garland is certainly no part of the nature of a
virgin, but something separate from her nature as such; something
added from without, which might be taken away again without any
violation of her nature. These schoolmen therefore argue, both
concerning man and concerning devils, that, although they lost their
original righteousness, yet their natural properties remained pure as
they were originally created. This doctrine however detracts from the
magnitude of original sin and is to be shunned as a deadly poison.
We conclude therefore that original righteousness was not a superadded
gift, which was bestowed from without, separate from the very nature
of man; but a truly natural righteousness; so that it was the very
nature of Adam to know God, to love God, to believe in God, to
acknowledge God and to worship God, etc. These things were as natural
in Adam, as it is natural to the eyes to see the light. When the eye
is injured by the infliction of a wound, you may rightly affirm that
nature is violated; so after man fell from his original righteousness,
it is correctly maintained, that the properties of nature were no
longer sound and whole, but defiled and corrupted by sin. For as it is
the nature of the eye to see, so it was the original nature of the
reason and of the will of Adam to know God, to trust in God, and to
fear God.
Since therefore it is evident that all these natural powers are lost,
who is so mad as to assert that the faculties and properties of nature
are still sound and whole? And yet, there was nothing more common nor
more fully received in the schools than this doctrine. How much
greater then must be the absurdity and the madness, to affirm this
doctrine concerning devils to be true, especially since Christ himself
declares "that they abode not in the truth," and when we ourselves
know them to be the most bitter enemies of Christ and of his Church!
The natural faculties in man therefore created originally sound and
whole, were the knowledge of God, faith in God, the fear of God, etc.
All these Satan corrupted by sin in the same manner as leprosy defiles
the whole flesh. The will and reason of man therefore are so corrupted
by sin, that he not only does no longer naturally love God, but flees
from him and hates him and wishes to live without him, and to be
without him altogether.
Therefore Moses has exactly described in this portion of his sacred
history that corruption which succeeded original righteousness and its
glory. For it was the peculiar glory of Adam and Eve not to know that
they were naked. What corruption then can be greater than that the
nakedness, which was originally the glory of our first parents, should
now be changed into the basest turpitude. Thus no one blushes on
account of his eyes, when sound and perfect. But when the eyes are
distorted or partially blind, they cover us with a certain cloud of
defect and with a feeling of shame. In like manner in their state of
original innocency, it was entirely a matter of glory for Adam and Eve
to walk in nakedness. But when, after their sin, "they saw that they
were naked," they were overwhelmed with shame and looked about them
for "girdles" wherewith to hide their turpitude. How much greater
turpitude then is disclosed by the fact, that the slaughtered will,
the corrupted understanding and the wholly defiled reason have changed
man into an utterly altered being. Are all these woeful things proofs,
I pray you, that the qualities and faculties of man's original nature
still remain sound and whole?
But consider for a moment what will necessarily follow from the
doctrine of making original righteousness, not to have been an
essential part of created nature, but only a certain superfluous and
superadded gift or ornament. If you lay it down as a fact, that
original righteousness was not an essential quality of the nature of
man, it must inevitably follow that the sin, which followed original
righteousness, was also not an essential quality of the nature of man.
And if so, was it not an utterly vain thing that Christ should be sent
into the world as the Redeemer of man, if it was man's original
righteousness only, which was merely a foreign and separate addition
to his nature, that was lost; and if that loss still left the
faculties and qualities of his original nature sound and perfect? But
what doctrine can be worse than this? What doctrine more unworthy a
divine to utter?
Flee therefore from such mad dreams as from a real pestilence and from
corruption of the Holy Scriptures; and let us instead follow actual
experience which teaches us that we are born of corrupt seed and that
we derive from the very nature of that seed, ignorance of God,
self-security, unbelief, hatred of God, disobedience, impatience and
numberless other kindred evils; all which are so engendered and
implanted in our very nature, and are a poison so wholly diffused
throughout our flesh, body, soul, nerves and blood, yea, through all
our bones and their very marrow; and so wholly poisoning our will, our
understanding and our reason, that the poison not only can never be
extracted, but that we cannot even acknowledge, or feel, or see that
this is our state of sin!
It is a well known sentiment of the old Greek comedian, Aristophanes,
"that to visit harlots is no disgrace to a youth." Pardon however may
be extended to such a sentiment in a heathen poet. But it is most
awful in such as call themselves Christian men, and men professing a
knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, to incline toward such a sentiment
that whoredom is not positive sin. And yet, whole colleges of our
canonicals actually approve the sentiment, with one consent by their
lives and manners. When this is the case therefore with respect to
actual outward sins, what must we conclude to be the state of men's
minds, with respect to the uncleanness of the heart and the motions of
sin in our very nature? These motions of nature, wicked men cannot of
course understand to be sins.
Thus a wicked man cannot understand that the glory of nakedness was
lost by sin. For the fact of Adam and Eve walking abroad naked was
their highest adornment in the sight of God and before the whole
creation. But now since the entrance of sin we not only recoil at the
thought of walking naked before men for their sakes, but we are filled
with shame for our own sakes; as Moses here testifies, concerning the
feelings of Adam and Eve. And this very shame witnesses that our
confidence in God as well as in man is lost, whereas this confidence
in both existed before sin entered by the fall. But after the entrance
of sin, Adam even though blinded would yet have been abashed to
present himself naked before the eyes of God or of men; because by his
disobedience, his former confidence in God, his glorious Creator, was
lost.
All these things therefore abundantly testify that original
righteousness was an essential quality of the nature of man, when
first created; and as that original righteousness was lost by sin, it
is manifest that no qualities or properties or powers of nature remain
perfect and sound, as the schoolmen madly dream. For, as it was the
original nature of man to go forth naked, full of innocent confidence
and security toward God and with the knowledge that such nakedness
pleased both God and men, so now since the entrance of sin man feels
that this same nakedness of nature, originally so glorious, is
displeasing to God, to man himself and to all rational creatures. And
accordingly man prepares himself girdles, and carefully covers his
"uncomely parts," 1 Cor. 12:23. Is this not an awful change in nature?
Nature does indeed remain, but corrupted in numerous forms. For all
innocent confidence in God is lost, and the heart is full of distrust,
fear and shame. So, also the members of nature all remain the same.
But those members which were once beheld in all their nakedness with
glory are now cautiously covered, as dishonorable and base, lest they
should be seen, because of the great internal defects of nature;
because nature has lost all confidence in God by sin. For if we
possessed that confidence in innocency, as Adam enjoyed it, we should
know no shame, no blush in our nakedness.
From this corruption, which immediately followed sin, arose another
evil. Adam and Eve were not only ashamed on account of their
nakedness, which before their sin was most honorable, and a most
glorious adornment; but they even make for themselves coverings to
hide from sight those parts of their body which, in their original
nature, were thus so honorable and so glorious. For what in all nature
is so wonderful, so noble and so glorious, as the fact of generation!
And this fact, so noble, so glorious, is not assigned of God to the
eyes or to the face, which we consider to be the more honorable and
dignified parts of our body, but to those parts which thus, taught by
our awful state of sin, we cover from sight with all possible
carefulness lest they should be seen. And thus as the fact of
generation in the innocent state of nature, had it continued, would
have been most pure and most holy; so since the entrance of sin, even
this fact is filled with the leprosy of lust, as are also all the
parts of the body connected with it. Those therefore who live without
marriage, "burn" in lust, most impurely. And those also who live in
marriage, unless they rightly moderate their feelings and affections,
and carefully guard their "due benevolence," 1 Cor. 7:3, are variously
tempted and afflicted.
Do we not then, from all these considerations, feel how foul and
horrible a thing sin is? For lust is the only thing that cannot be
cured by any remedy! Not even by marriage, which was expressly
ordained from above to be a remedy for this infirmity of our nature.
For the greater part of married persons still live in adultery, and
thus sing practically the well-known song of the heathen poet of
old:--
_"Nec tecum possum vivere sine te."_ (OVID)
Neither with thee, nor yet without thee, wife, can I by nature, live.
Such is the horrible turpitude which arises out of this most honorable
and most excellent part of our natural body! I call it most excellent,
on account of the noble and marvelous work of generation, which is
indeed most excellent, and wonderful and glorious; because it
preserves the continuation of the race of mankind! By reason of sin
therefore the most excellent and effectual members of our body have
become the most vile and base.
But this would not have been the case with Adam and Eve, had they
continued in their innocency. They were full of innocent confidence in
their God. Therefore whenever they wished to devote themselves to the
procreation of children, they would have come together, not maddened
with that lust which now reigns in our leprous flesh, but with an
admiration of the ordinance of God, in obedience to God and in the
worship of God; and also with the same holy quietness and solemnity of
mind, as that in which we go to hear the Word of God and to worship
God. But all these things we have lost by sin, so that we can now only
conceive of them and understand them negatively, not positively. For
from the awful state of evil in which we now stand, we can only gather
negatively an idea of the greatness of that good and that glory which
we have lost. But we owe a deep debt of gratitude to God, even for the
remnants of the original glory still left us, however corrupt the
noble, wonderful and glorious work of generation now may be; of which
both the Church and the State have need for the perpetuation of saints
and of citizens.
And it is a marvelous fact that in all the writers, of all tongues not
one iota is found which sets forth the glory of that original
nakedness, which is now through sin so filled with turpitude and
shame; but which before sin entered into the world was so honorable
and glorious. Here we have Moses alone as our great teacher, who
however sets forth the whole matter in but very few, and those very
simple words, teaching us that man, having fallen from faith, was
filled with confusion, and that the glory of his organs of generation
was changed into utter turpitude and ignominy, so that he was
compelled to make coverings to hide them from sight.
The Hebrew term HEGORAH, of which we here have the plural, properly
signifies a girdle or apron-girt, so that we are to understand that
these fig leaves covered the upper parts of the thighs all round in
every part, in order that the part of the body which before sin was
the most honorable, 1 Cor. 12:23, might now be covered as being the
most uncomely and base, and utterly unworthy the sight of men. O how
horrible was the fall by sin! For after it the eyes of man were so
opened that what was before the most honorable and glorious, he now
looks upon as most dishonorable and base.
And so it is to this day. As soon as the law has come, we then first
discover what we have done. And sin thus made known seems to have in
it such awful baseness that the enlightened minds of men cannot endure
the sight, and therefore they endeavor to cover their turpitude. For
no one ever, though he be a thief, an adulterer or a murderer, etc.,
is willing to appear to be such. So also heretics are never found to
acknowledge their error in any degree, but defend it most
pertinaciously and wish to appear to hold the catholic truth. And that
they may secure this appearance, they sew together fig leaves as broad
as possible; that is, they try all things which seem likely to color
over and cloak their heresy.
This same nature of sin is seen even in children, who frequently,
though caught in the very fact of doing evil, yet busy themselves in
discovering means whereby they can persuade their parents to the
contrary; thus excusing themselves, speaking lies, Ps. 58:3. In
precisely the same manner do men also act. Even when caught and held
fast, they yet endeavor to slip away that they may not be confounded,
but may still appear good and just. This portion of poison also has
been infused into our very nature, as the present passage of Moses
likewise testifies.