What kind of tree of knowledge was it? Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Need help studying a topic?

Man's sinlessness was relative, not absolute; it lay in the free will of man, but was not a necessity of his nature. That is, “man could not sin,” and not “man could not sin.” About it Saint John of Damascus writes:

“God created man by nature sinless and free by will. Sinless, I say, not in the sense that he could not accept sin (for only the Divine is inaccessible to sin), but in the sense that he had the possibility of sin not in his nature, but primarily in free will. This means that he could, assisted by the grace of God, remain in goodness and succeed in it, just as by his own freedom he could, with God’s permission, turn away from goodness and end up in evil.”

In order for a person to develop his spiritual powers by improving in goodness, God gave him the commandment not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: “And the Lord God commanded Adam, saying: “Thou shalt bring food from every tree that is in heaven; But from the tree, which you understand to be good and evil, you will not tear it down; And if you take it away one day, you will die” (Gen. 2:16-17; cf. Rom. 5:12; 6:23).
St. Theophan the Recluse explains:

“God created man for bliss, and precisely in Him, through living communication with Him. For this purpose He breathed into his face the breath of His life, which is spirit... The essential property of the spirit is consciousness and freedom, and its essential movements are the confession of God, Creator, Provider and Rewarder, with a feeling of complete dependence on Him, which is all expressed in a loving view of God, unceasing attention to Him and reverent fear of Him with the desire to always do what is pleasing to Him according to the instructions of the law-giver - conscience and with renunciation from everything, so that To taste the One God and live and delight in Him alone. Man is given consciousness and freedom in the spirit, but not so that he becomes arrogant and self-willed, but then so that, realizing that he has everything from God and in order to live in God, everything freely and consciously directed towards this single goal. When he is so disposed, then God abides in God and God abides in him. God abiding in man gives his spirit the power to rule over soul and body, and further over everything that is outside of him This was the original state of man. God appeared to the ancestors and confirmed all this with His Divine word, commanding them to know His One, to serve Him alone, to walk in the will of His One. So that they would not get confused about how to do all this, He gave them a small commandment: not to eat the fruits of one tree, which He called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This is how our forefathers began to live and were blissful in paradise.

“God gave man free will,” says St. Gregory the Theologian, - so that he would choose good with his free determination... He also gave him the law as material for the exercise of free will. The law was the commandment, which fruits he could eat and which he should not touch.”

“In fact, it would not be useful for a person,” he reasons. Saint John of Damascus, - to receive immortality before he was tempted and tested, for he could become proud and fall under the same condemnation as the devil (1 Tim. 3:6), who, through an arbitrary fall, due to his immortality, was irrevocably and relentlessly established in evil; while the Angels, since they voluntarily chose virtue, are unshakably established in goodness by grace. Therefore, it was necessary for a person to be tempted at first, so that when, when tempted through keeping the commandment, he appears perfect, he accepts immortality as a reward for virtue. In fact, being by nature something between God and matter, man, if he had avoided attachment to created objects and united with God through love, would have been unshakably established in goodness by keeping the commandment.”

St. Gregory the Theologian writes:

“The commandment was a kind of educator of the soul and tamer of pleasures.”

“If we had remained what we were and kept the commandment, we would have become what we were not, and would have come to the tree of life from the tree of knowledge. What, therefore, would they become? “Immortal and very close to God.”

Jerome. Seraphim (Rose):

"Paradise - and all earthly life man - was created by God, in words holy Vasily, as “mainly a school and place of education of human souls.” (Sexday, I, 5, p. 11). At the beginning, man was presented with the possibility of ascending from glory to glory, from paradise to the position of a spiritual inhabitant of heaven, through the exercises and trials that the Lord would send him, beginning with the commandment not to eat from the only tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Man was placed in paradise, as in a state intermediate between heaven, where only the purely spiritual can dwell, and earth, capable of corruption - it became corruptible, as we will see, because of his fall.

What then was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and why was it forbidden to Adam? In the classical interpretation holy Gregory the Theologian, in paradise God gave Adam “a law for the exercise of freedom. The law was the commandment: what plants should he use, and what plants should he not touch?

2. The tree of knowledge was good, like everything created by God

St. John Chrysostom:

"The tree of life was in the middle of Paradise, as a reward; the tree of knowledge - as an object of competition, feat. Having kept the commandment regarding this tree, you receive a reward. And look at the wondrous thing. Everywhere in Paradise all kinds of trees bloom, fruits abound everywhere; only in the middle are two wood as a subject of struggle and exercise."

Saint Gregory the Theologian writes:

“They were commanded not to touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which was not planted with malicious intent and was not prohibited out of envy; on the contrary, it was good for those who would use it in a timely manner, for this tree, in my opinion, was contemplation, which only those who have been perfected by experience can approach without danger, but which was not good for the simple and immoderate in their desires , just as perfect food is not good for the weak and those who require milk.”

“The tree of knowledge in paradise served as a kind of test, and temptation, and exercise of human obedience and disobedience; therefore it is called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Or maybe it was given such a name because it gave those who ate its fruit the strength to know their own nature. This knowledge is good for those who are perfect and established in divine contemplation and for those who are not afraid of falling, for they have acquired a certain skill through patient exercise in such contemplation; but it is not good for those who are unskilled and subject to voluptuous lusts, for they are not established in goodness and are not yet sufficiently established in their adherence to only that which is good.” “It was not the tree that gave birth to death, since God did not create death, but death was the result of disobedience.”

St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov):

In the middle of paradise was the tree of life; by eating its fruit the immortality of the human body was maintained. There was another tree in the middle of paradise, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The Lord, having led the first-created into paradise, commanded Adam: “Take food from every tree that goes to paradise. But from a tree, even if you understand good and evil, you will not cut it from it: but if you cut it down one day, you will surely die” (Genesis 2:16, 17). This commandment explains a lot. It is obvious that the fruits of the trees of paradise, as we saw above, are much subtler and stronger than the fruits of the earth, affecting not only the body, but the mind and soul. One tree was the tree of life, and the other tree was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This knowledge was preserved, postponed, perhaps, for those who had perfected themselves by making and preserving paradise, but for the newly created it was premature and deadly.

... There is a deadly knowledge of evil that a person can develop in himself: it is deadly because then the natural goodness of a person is poisoned by accepted evil, like fine food by poison, and itself turns into evil. There is also the most soul-beneficial knowledge of evil, bestowed by the Holy Spirit on His chosen vessels, in which a pure and strong mind examines everything, even the most subtle convolutions of sin, exposes them without mixing with sin, and protects itself and others from evil. Thus, led by the Holy Spirit, the holy Apostle Peter said to Simon the Magus: “In the gall of sorrow and the covenant of unrighteousness I see you existing” (Acts 8:23).

Dogmatic theology:

In the oldest patericon of Christian writing, in the “Epistle to Diognetus,” we read: “Knowledge or understanding is inseparable from life; the symbol of this was the tree of life and the tree of knowledge in paradise, planted side by side. This meant that God did not prohibit knowledge, but demanded that those who wanted knowledge were people good life, that is, they lived according to God’s commandments. It was not the desire for knowledge that was in itself a guilt or sin in the first people, but the desire to have this knowledge without a good life, to receive it not by virtue of fulfilling the commandments of God, but, on the contrary, by disobeying them."

St. Theophilus of Antioch:

“The tree of knowledge in itself was good and its fruits were good. It was not the tree, as some think, that contained death, but disobedience, for the fruits contained nothing but knowledge, and knowledge is good, if, of course, it is done correctly use".

Alexander Kalomiros:

“The Fathers teach us that the prohibition to eat from the tree of knowledge was not unconditional - it was temporary. Adam was a spiritual baby. Not all food is good for babies. Some foods can even kill them, although adults will find them perfectly fine. The tree of knowledge was planted by God for man. It was good and nutritious. But it was" solid food", while Adam was only able to digest "milk."

“We see that death came not as a result of the command of God, but as a consequence of Adam darkening his relationship with the Source of life by disobedience; God, in His goodness, warned him about this.”

Rev. Ephraim the Syrian:

“God planted two trees in paradise - the tree of life and the tree of knowledge: both of them are blessed sources of all good things. Through them, a person can become like God - through life, not know death, and through wisdom, not know error.

... Anyone who eats this fruit must either receive his sight and become blessed, or receive his sight and groan. If one who is devoted to sin eats, he will complain.

... God set the tree as a judge, so that if a person tastes its fruit, it would show him the dignity that he had lost through arrogance, and equally, it would show the dishonor that he found as punishment for himself, and if he wins and triumphs, it would clothe him glory and revealed to him what shame is; and then the person, remaining healthy, would have knowledge of illness.

... If Adam had won, his members would have been covered with glory, but with his mind he would have known what suffering is, his body would have flourished and his rational powers would have been elevated. But the serpent perverted this, through humiliation he allowed him to taste it in reality, and left the glory only in memory; What a person found covered him with shame, and what he lost, he should cry about.

This tree was for him the image of a door, the fruit was a curtain that covered the temple. Adam picked the fruit, transgressed the commandment, and as soon as he saw the glory that shone with its rays from within, he ran away and hurried to seek refuge under humble fig trees.

He who planted the tree of knowledge placed it in the midst, so that it would separate the highest from the lowest, the holy and the holy of holies. Adam approached, dared to enter, and was horrified.

... Because Adam was not allowed to enter the inner temple; then this temple was guarded so that Adam would be content with serving in the outer temple, and as the priest serves, bringing censer, so he would serve, keeping the commandment. The commandment for Adam was a censer, so that with it he could enter before the face of the Hidden One, into the hidden temple.

... Adam, in his uncleanness, wanted to enter the Holy of Holies, which loves only those like him; and since he dared to enter the inner sanctuary, he was not abandoned in the outer one.

...If the serpent had not drawn them into crime, then they would have tasted the fruits of the tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would not have become forbidden to them, for from one of these trees they would have acquired infallible knowledge, and from the other they would have received eternal knowledge. life and in humanity would become godlike.

The ancestors would have acquired infallible knowledge and immortal life while still in the flesh..."

3. When did Adam receive the knowledge of good and evil?

“Before we promised to talk about the tree, whether Adam received the knowledge of good and evil from it, or had this knowledge even before eating. We can now safely say that he had this knowledge even before eating. If he did not know what is good and what is evil, he would be more foolish than even the most dumb, and the master would be more senseless than slaves.

... If we know this now, and not only we, but also the Scythians and barbarians, then even more so did man know this then, before the Fall. Having been awarded such advantages as being (created) in the image and likeness, and other benefits, he could not be deprived of the main benefit. Only those who by nature do not have reason do not know good and evil, and Adam possessed great wisdom and could recognize both. That he was filled with spiritual wisdom, see its discovery. “God brought the beasts to him,” it is said, “to see what he would call them, and that whatever a man called every living soul, that would be its name” (Gen. 2:19). Think about the wisdom of the one who could give names, and his own, to so many different and diverse breeds of cattle, reptiles and birds. God himself accepted this naming of names so much that he did not change them and even after the Fall did not want to abolish the names of animals. It is said: “Whatever a man calls every living soul, that is its name.”

So, did he not know what is good and what is evil? What does this mean? Again, when God brought his wife to him, he saw her and immediately recognized that she was of the same nature as him. And what does he say? “Behold, this is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Gen. 2:23).

... So, you who knew so much, tell me, really didn’t know what was good and what was evil? What will this be consistent with? If he (Adam) did not know before eating from the tree what was good and what was evil, but learned after eating, then, consequently, sin was for him a teacher of wisdom, and the serpent was not a seducer, but a useful adviser, making him a man from a beast. But let it not be! It's not like that, no. If you did not know what is good and what is evil, then how could you receive the commandment? They do not give a law to someone who does not know that crime is evil. And God both gave (the law) and punished for the crime (of the law); He would not have done either of these things if He had not first created Adam capable of knowing virtue and vice. Do you see how it is revealed to us from everywhere that it was not after eating from the tree that (Adam) learned good and evil, but he knew it before?

...And the devil said: “In the day that you eat of them, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5). How, they will say, do you say that it did not convey the knowledge of good and evil? Who, tell me, suggested this? Isn't it the devil? Yes, they say he did when he said: “You will be like gods, knowing good and evil.” So do you present me with the testimony of an enemy and a slanderer? Although he said: “You will be like gods,” did they become gods? Just as they did not become gods, they did not then receive the knowledge of good and evil. He is a liar and does not say anything true: “There is no truth,” it is said, “in him” (John 8:44).

Let’s not cite evidence from the enemy...”

4. Why is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil called this?

St. John Chrysostom:

“...why is it called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And first, if you wish, let us consider what good and evil are? What is good? Obedience. What is evil? Disobedience. And then, so that we do not make mistakes regarding the essence of good and evil, let us carefully examine this on the basis of Scripture. What is really good and evil in this, listen to what the prophet says: “What is good and what does the Lord (God) require of you” (Mic. 6:8)? Tell me what's good? - To love the Lord your God. You see that obedience is good (comes) from love. And again: “My people have done two evils,” says the Lord: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and have hewed out for themselves broken cisterns that cannot hold water” (Jer. 2:13). Do you see that disobedience and abandonment are evil? So, let us remember that good is obedience, and evil is disobedience, and so we will understand both. That is why the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is so named because the commandment that taught obedience and disobedience was connected to this tree. And before this, Adam knew that obedience is good, and disobedience is evil, and then he learned (this) more clearly in fact...

... Adam knew that obedience is good, and disobedience is evil, and then he learned more clearly when, having eaten from the tree, he was expelled from paradise and deprived of that bliss. When he was punished for eating from the tree, contrary to the divine prohibition, the punishment showed him more clearly, in fact, what evil is disobedience to God, and what good is obedience. That is why this tree is called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Why is it called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, if in its very nature it did not contain this knowledge, and man learned this most clearly from the punishment for disobedience regarding this tree? This is because Scripture usually names the places and times where and when events take place from those events. And to make this clearer to you, I will give an example. Isaac once dug wells, the neighbors decided to spoil these wells, as a result of this, enmity arose, and Isaac called the well “Enmity,” not because the well itself was at enmity, but because enmity arose for him. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is also called this way, not because it itself has knowledge, but because it has revealed the knowledge of good and evil. … it (served as) an exercise in obedience and disobedience.”

A lengthy catechism compiled by St. Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow:

The name “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” corresponds to itself, because through this tree man learned from experience what good lies in obedience to the will of God and what evil lies in opposing it.

5. About the tempting snake

Holy John Chrysostom:

“Do not look at the current serpent, do not look at the fact that we avoid him and feel disgust for him. He was not like that at first. The serpent was a friend of man and the closest of those who served him. Who made him an enemy? The sentence of God: “Cursed you are from all the cattle and from all the beasts of the earth (...) and I will put enmity between you and the woman" (Genesis 3:14-15). It was this enmity that destroyed the friendship. I do not mean a reasonable friendship, but one that which a dumb animal is capable of. Just as a dog now shows friendship, not with words, but with natural movements, so the serpent served man. As an animal that enjoyed great closeness to man, the serpent seemed to the devil a convenient tool (for deception)... So , the devil speaks through the serpent, deceiving Adam. I ask your love to listen to my words not somehow. The question is not easy. Many people ask: how did the serpent speak, did he speak with a human voice, or with a snake hiss, and how did Eve understand? Before the crime, Adam was filled with wisdom , intelligence and the gift of prophecy... The devil noticed both the wisdom of the serpent and Adam’s opinion of him, because the latter considered the serpent wise. And so he spoke through him, so that Adam would think that the serpent, being wise, was able to adopt the human voice."

St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov):

"While our forefathers were enjoying themselves in paradise, the fallen prince heavenly powers with a large crowd dark angels, already cast down from heaven, wandered in the heavenly realms. According to the inscrutable destinies of God, he was allowed entry into heaven, as a not yet completely desperate villain. Satan used this goodness of God, which attracted the lost to the consciousness of sin and to repent of it, to commit a new crime, to incurably seal himself in enmity towards God. The devil, having entered paradise, filled paradise with blasphemy, intertwined with lies, and marked his presence in paradise with the destruction of primordial people, as he had previously marked his presence in heaven with the destruction of countless angels. He approached his wife as a weaker creature, and, pretending to be ignorant of the commandments given by God, proposed a crafty question: “What did God say: Do not eat from every tree of paradise?” (Gen. 3:1) He represents the all-good God as not good enough, and the holy and beneficial commandment of God as cruel and heavy! Seeing that his wife entered into a conversation with him with some gullibility and, in refutation, she expressed to him the exact words of the commandment: “Of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God said, “Thou shalt not eat of it; thou shalt not touch it, lest ye die” (Gen. 3, 3) - the villain begins to directly challenge and reject the justice of God’s Commandments. It’s scary to repeat his impudent and blasphemous words! “You will not die by death,” he said. - “For God knows that even if you take away the day from him, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like a god, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3, 4, 5). Despite the obvious poison of the serpent's words - this is what Scripture calls fallen angel- the wife stopped at them; Having forgotten both the commandment and the threat of God, she began to examine the tree under the guidance of her own mind, which had bowed under the influence of the devil’s lies and deception. The fruit of the tree seemed like good food to her, and the knowledge of good and evil seemed like a curious knowledge. She ate from the tree and persuaded her husband to eat. It’s amazing how easily the forefathers fell! Wasn't it prepared for them? internal layout? Did they not abandon the contemplation of the Creator in paradise, did they not indulge in the contemplation of creation and their own grace? It is beautiful to contemplate oneself and the creature, but in God and from God; with the removal of God it is disastrous, leading to exaltation and conceit. Scripture leads to such a reasoning when it says that the wife, having listened to the words of the devil, “saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasing to see with the eye and to eat well, even if you understood; and he took the poison from the fruit, and gave it to his husband, and ate it” (Gen. 3:6).

It is obvious that the forefathers, having disobeyed God and bowed to obedience to the devil, made themselves alien to God, made themselves slaves of the devil. The death promised to them for breaking the Commandment immediately overwhelmed them: the Holy Spirit, who dwelt in them, departed from them. They were left to their own nature, infected with sinful poison. The devil imparted this poison to human nature from his corrupted nature, filled with sin and death.

... “Adam’s soul was killed,” says Saint Gregory Palamas, - being separated from God by disobedience: for he lived in body after that (after his fall) until nine hundred and thirty years. But death, which befalls the soul due to disobedience, not only makes the soul obscene and brings a curse on a person, but also the body itself, subjecting it to many infirmities, many ailments and corruption, finally puts it to death." "Adam," says Blessed Theophylact of Bulgaria,- being alive, he was also dead: he died from the hour in which he ate (from the forbidden tree)."

Holy Ambrose of Milan:

""But by envy the devil brought death into the world" (Wis. 2:24). The cause of envy was the bliss of man placed in Paradise, for the devil could not bear the mercies received by man. His envy was aroused by the fact that man, although created from dust, was chosen to be an inhabitant of Paradise. The devil began to think that man is a lower creature, but has hope of eternal life, while he, a creature higher nature, fell and became part of this worldly existence."

Rev. Ephraim the Syrian:

“...The enemy was jealous of the first parents, for they, in glory and the gift of speech, appeared above everything on earth; they alone were promised eternal life, which the tree of life could give. Thus, envying both what Adam had and what he should have acquired, the enemy plots his intrigues and in a short-term battle takes away from them what they should not have lost in a long struggle. If the serpent had not drawn them into crime, then they would have tasted the fruits of the tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would not have become forbidden to them, for from one of these trees they would have acquired infallible knowledge, and from the other they would have received eternal life and in humanity they would become godlike.

The ancestors would have acquired infallible knowledge and immortal life while still in the flesh, but the serpent, with his promise, deprived them of what they could have acquired, and assured them that they would acquire it by breaking the commandment - and all for the sole purpose of not acquiring what was promised by God through keeping the commandment. Having promised that they would be like gods (Gen. 3:5), he deprived them of this, and so that the promised tree of life would not enlighten their eyes, he promised that the tree of knowledge would open their eyes.”

6. The essence of the Fall

St. Augustine:

“Let no one think that the sin of the first people was small and light, because it consisted of eating fruit from a tree, and the fruit was not bad or harmful, but only forbidden; the commandment requires obedience, such a virtue that intelligent beings is the mother and guardian of all virtues. … Here is pride, for man desired to be more in his own power than in God’s; here is blasphemy of the holy thing, for he did not believe God; here is murder, for he subjected himself to death; here is spiritual fornication, for the integrity of the soul is violated by the temptation of the serpent; here is theft, for he took advantage of the forbidden fruit; here is the love of wealth, for he desired more than was enough for him.”

St. Theophan the Recluse:

“This is how our forefathers began to live and were blissful in paradise.

The spirit that had previously fallen through pride envied them and led them astray, inciting them to break the small commandment given to them by seductively imagining that by eating the forbidden fruit they would taste such a good thing that they could not even imagine without it - they would become like gods . They believed and tasted. The matter of eating may not be great, but it is bad that they believed without knowing whom. Perhaps this would not have been so important if it were not for those terribly criminal thoughts and feelings towards God that, like poison, the evil spirit poured into them. He told them that God forbade them to eat from the tree so that they too would not become gods. They believed it. But having believed this, they could not help but accept blasphemous thoughts about God, as if He envied them and treated them unfavorably, and having accepted such thoughts, they could not avoid some unkind feelings towards Him and willful decisions: so we ourselves will take that, before what You don't want to allow us to do. So this is what He is like, it stuck in their hearts about God, and we thought that He was so good. Well, then we will set ourselves up in opposition to Him. These thoughts and feelings were terribly criminal! They mean a clear apostasy from God and a hostile rebellion against Him. The same thing happened inside them, which is attributed evil spirit: I will set my throne above the clouds and I will be like the Most High - and this is not as a fleeting thought, but as a hostile decision. So consciousness became arrogant and freedom became self-willed, taking upon itself the arrangement of its fate. The falling away from God was accomplished completely with a kind of disgust and hostile rebellion against. For this, God retreated from such criminals - and the living union was interrupted. God is everywhere and contains everything, but He enters into free creatures when they surrender themselves to Him. When they are contained within themselves, then He does not violate their autocracy, but, preserving and containing them, does not enter inside. So our ancestors were left alone. If they had repented sooner, perhaps God would have returned to them, but they persisted, and in the face of obvious accusations, neither Adam nor Eve admitted that they were guilty. A trial followed and punishment by expulsion from paradise. Then they came to their senses, but it was already too late. It was necessary to bear the imposed punishment, and for them, our entire family. Thanks be to the All-Merciful God that although He retreated from us, He did not abandon us, having arranged a wonderful way to reunite us with Himself.”

Rev. Justin Popovich writes:

“Through the Fall, the theanthropic order of life was broken and rejected, and the devil-human order was adopted, for by a willful transgression of the commandment of God, the first people declared that they wanted to achieve divine perfection, to become “like gods” not with the help of God, but with the help of the devil, and this means - bypassing God, without God, against God.

By disobedience to God, which manifested itself as a creation of the will of the devil, the first people voluntarily fell away from God and cleave to the devil, leading themselves into sin and sin into themselves (cf. Rom. 5:19).

In fact original sin means a person’s rejection of the purpose of life determined by God - becoming like God on the basis of a god-like human soul - and replacing this with likeness to the devil. For through sin, people transferred the center of their lives from God-like nature and reality to an extra-Godly reality, from being to non-existence, from life to death, and rejected God.”

The essence of sin is disobedience to God as the Absolute Good and the Creator of all good things. The reason for this disobedience is selfish pride.

“The devil could not lead a person into sin,” writes St. Augustine, - if it weren’t for pride.”

“Pride is the pinnacle of evil,” says Saint John Chrysostom.- For God, nothing is so disgusting as pride. ...Because of pride, we have become mortal, we live in sorrow and sorrow: because of pride, our life is spent in torment and tension, burdened with incessant labor. The first man fell into sin out of pride, desiring to be equal with God.”

St. Theophan the Recluse writes about what happened in human nature as a result of the Fall:

“To be subject to the law of sin is the same as walking in the flesh and sinning, as can be seen from the previous chapter. Man fell under the yoke of this law as a result of his fall or falling away from God. It is necessary to remember what happened as a result of this. Man: spirit - soul - body. Spirit to live in God, the soul is destined to organize earthly life under the guidance of the spirit, the body is to produce and maintain visible elemental life on earth under the guidance of both.When man broke away from God and decided to arrange his own well-being, he fell into selfhood, the soul of which is all self-indulgence. Since his spirit did not imagine any ways of doing this, due to his detached nature, he turned entirely to the area of ​​mental and physical life, where extensive nourishment was presented to self-indulgence - and he became spiritually carnal. a sin against his nature: for he should have lived in the spirit, spiritualizing both soul and body. But the trouble was not limited to this. From the self, many passions were born, which, together with it, invaded the soul-body area, distorted the natural forces, needs and functions of the soul and bodies and, moreover, they contributed much that has no support in nature. The spiritual fleshiness of fallen man became passionate. So, fallen man is self-indulgent, and as a result he is self-indulgent and feeds his self-indulgence with passionate spiritual carnality. This is his sweetness, the strongest chain holding him in these bonds of fall. Taken together, all this is the law of sin that exists in our lives. In order to free one from this law, it is necessary to destroy the indicated bonds - sweetness, self-indulgence, selfishness.

How is this possible? We have a detached power - a spirit breathed into the face of man by God, seeking God and only by living in God can find peace. In the very act of creating him, or blowing him out, he is put into communion with God; but fallen man, who was torn away from God, also tore him away from God. His nature, however, remained unchanged - and he constantly reminded the fallen, mired in spiritual-fleshness - horrified - of his needs and demanded their satisfaction. The man did not reject these demands and, in a calm state, believed in doing what was pleasing to the spirit. But when it was time to get down to business, passion rose from the soul or from the body, flattered by pleasure and took possession of the will of the person. As a result, the spirit was denied the task at hand, and the passionate soul-carnality was satisfied, due to the promised sweetness in nourishing self-indulgence. As we acted in this way in every case, it is fair to call this way of acting the law of sinful life, which kept a person in the bonds of fall. The fallen one himself was aware of the burden of these bonds and sighed for freedom, but he could not find the strength to free himself: the sweetness of sin always lured him and incited him to sin.

The reason for such weakness is that in the fallen the spirit lost its defining power: it passed from him into a passionate soul-physicality. According to his original structure, a person should live in the spirit, and by this we determine to be in his activity - complete, that is, both mental and physical, and to spiritualize everything within himself with the power of it. But the strength of spirit to keep a person in such a rank depended on his living communication with God. When this communication was interrupted by the fall, the strength of the spirit also dried up: it no longer had the power to determine man - the lower parts of nature began to determine him, and, moreover, ostracized - in which are the bonds of the law of sin. It is obvious now that in order to be liberated from this law, it is necessary to restore the strength of the spirit and return to it the power that was taken from it. This is what accomplishes the economy of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ—the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.”

Next to the “tree of life”, in the middle of the same paradise (Genesis 2:9 and 3:3), stood another no less, if not more, mysterious tree known in the Bible as " tree of knowledge of good and evil"(Genesis 2:9).

The exact meaning of this name is not clear enough and therefore exegetes define it quite differently. According to, for example, blzh. Augustine and James. Edessa, this tree is in its own way natural properties undoubtedly could not contain anything “evil”, because everything created by God was “good and evil” (Genesis 1:31). Blzh. Theodoret says that the first people, who had only a theoretical understanding of good and evil, received, thanks to this tree, an experimental knowledge of both. Gregory of Nyssa interprets this in such a way that the specified tree gave rise to people’s desire for evil, covered with a mask of good. Most Jewish commentators suggest that the “tree of knowledge” received its name after the violation of the commandment, when the first people, who, like children, did not know the difference between good and evil, had their eyes opened and they were convinced of it by their own experience (Chald. Pseudo-Jonathan, Targum Hierus, etc.). Finally, among also rabbinic, and partly also some Christian exegetes (Alexandrian school), there is another original interpretation, which this entire section of the Bible understands allegorically, and in particular, by the “tree of knowledge” it means nothing more than the entry of our first parents into sexual intercourse , which was supposedly their first fall from grace, which entailed all subsequent disasters.

The latter interpretation serves as a transition from the field of biblical exegesis to the soil of rationalistic criticism. Its main position is the same, i.e., that the biblical story about the “tree of life” is not a historical fact, but an allegory that gives a mythical and poetic image of the idea of ​​human progress: the very fact of eating from a previously inaccessible fruit represents the initial moment of intellectual moral development of man, when he had just awakened from his state of passive inertia and primitive savagery and for the first time began to live a real, conscious, truly human life (Hegel, Schiller, Bauer, and Bretschneider, de Wette, Reuss, Wellhausen, etc.) . Consequently, the “tree of knowledge” is only an image that received its name from the idea contained in it of the awakening of man from instinctive life to conscious existence. At the same time, it should be noted that most rationalists do not distinguish the “tree of knowledge” from the “tree of life”, that the Bible always reveals the same image, that is, it speaks about one tree, calling it either the tree of “life” or the tree “knowledge”, since a true life worthy of a person really lies in “conscious existence”.

It is not difficult to see that the rationalistic understanding of the “tree of life” not only has nothing in common with the actual narrative of the Bible, but is directly opposite to it. It, strictly speaking, would not deserve our mention if it were not based on the allegorical interpretation of the biblical text, which, as we have seen, is shared by some not only Jewish, but also Christian exegetes.

In contrast to this, we categorically assert that allegory is inappropriate here: the direct, literal meaning of the biblical account of the “tree of knowledge” is decisively established, as general character of this narrative and the entire speech context surrounding it. The Bible clearly and repeatedly mentions the existence of various trees in paradise (2, 9, 16; 3, 2, 7-8). She equally clearly distinguishes two special trees in it, which she calls by name (2, 9, 17; 3, 3, 22). The fact that the Bible does not at all identify or confuse these trees with each other is most eloquently said by the fact that it endows them with completely opposite properties: one with the property of immortality, the other, on the contrary, with death, and then it blesses the fruits of one for food, and the fruits of another are categorically prohibited (2, 9, 16, 17; 3, 2-3). Finally, the Bible gives us indisputable proof that the fruits of the “tree of knowledge” were not some symbolic images, but actually real fruits, since they produced a very definite irritation to external senses, corresponding to their physical nature (Gen. 3, 6). All that remains to be added to this is that in the New Testament the story of the Fall with all its details is considered undeniable historical fact(Rom. 5:12; 2 Cor. 11:3; 1 Tim. 2:13-14). Returning again to the very name of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” we do not consider it possible to agree with the opinion of those who explain it from the fact of the Fall and because of it, when a person learned through experience how good, which he lost, so and so evil, which he now received. This cannot be allowed, firstly, because the “tree of knowledge” received its name even before the fall of our ancestors, from the moment it became the subject of the commandment: secondly, and even more so, because this tacitly assumes the absence of our ancestors until the time of their fall of clear ideas about good and evil; and this is positively impossible, since only with the presence of clear moral concepts is the very existence of the heavenly commandment and the subsequent imputation for it exclusively conceivable.

In view of this, in our opinion, those who make the name “tree of knowledge” dependent not on the violation of the first commandment, but on its very existence, are much more right. The abstract legal term “law” or “commandment” in the specific language of the Bible is usually depicted, descriptively, in the form of the ability to “do good or evil,” “walk right or wrong,” “choose life or death,” etc. Of all them, the first form of expression is especially popular in the Bible, i.e. “to do good or evil” (Deut. 1, 39; 2 Kings 14, 17; 19, 35; 3 Kings 3, 9; Isa. 5, 20 : 7, 15; Am. 5, 14-15, etc.). From this it is clear that the law itself and its requirements were depicted in the consciousness of the first people either in the form of good, if executed, or in the form evil, in case of their violation, i.e., in other words, here we have an example of a kind of biblical metonymy, when an object (law) is called by its properties or, more precisely, by its consequences. Translating this uniquely biblical language into the language of our modern concepts, we will have to call the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” the “tree of the knowledge of the law.” And since in that heavenly era that we are talking about, the entire law was expressed in only one commandment, then we must replace the term “law” with the word “commandment”; Thus, the biblical name “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” when translated into modern concepts will mean: “the tree of knowledge (i.e., understanding, conscious affirmation) of the commandments,” “the tree of commandments.”

This interpretation fully corresponds to the biblical teaching about the essence and purpose of the paradise commandment, which was given, precisely, to strengthen the human will in goodness, by exercising it in the fight against evil, objectively presented before it in the form of temptation from the “tree of commandment.”

The biblical legend about the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” has its echo in universal traditions: almost everywhere where even a vague memory of paradise is preserved, there is an indication of a special tree with forbidden fruits, through the eating of which a person lost his bliss. Justice requires noting that in the legends of paganism this biblical fact is sometimes dressed in such a bizarre form, under which it is only with difficulty that one can discern its historical fundamental principle (Pandora's apples, Prometheus's fire, etc.). Rationalistic criticism in this case, just as in the question of the tree of life, makes attempts to undermine the apologetic significance of traditions; but here she does not say anything essentially new, but repeats all the same techniques already known to us, the inconsistency of which was shown by us above (see Tree of Life).

References: Hummelauer, "Commentarius in Genes." Parisiis 1895. Vigouroux, “La Bible et la critique rationaliste” II, II, 1891. Pokrovsky, “ Bible teaching O primitive religion"1901. Vvedensky, "The Teaching of the Old Testament about sin" 1901. Butkevich, "Evil, its essence and origin", Kharkov 1897.

* Alexander Ivanovich Pokrovsky,
Master of Divinity,
Associate Professor at Moscow University.

Text source: Orthodox theological encyclopedia. Volume 5, column. 43. Petrograd edition. Supplement to the spiritual magazine "Wanderer" for 1904. Modern spelling.

The Fall

The tree of knowledge becomes the center of the plot of the Fall, described in chapter 3 of the book of Genesis. The first man, Adam, was warned that eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil would lead to death:

Interpretation in Judaism

TREE OF KNOWLEDGE

one of the options world tree, modeling the process of distinguishing between entities in order to achieve a state of integrity and perfection. In mythopoetic concepts, this process of distinction is used in describing the basic parameters of cosmological organization and composition of elements space, in the selection of the necessary from the random, preparing the transition to the next, more high levels comprehension of the world, where the specified procedure of distinguishing and finding what is needed will be repeated cyclically. This very distinction (associated with isolation), the finding of truth in mythopoetic imagery and in language is equated to birth (“finding truth” in many linguistic traditions is synonymous with the “birth of a being”), which helps restore parallelism tree of life and D. p. This connection between the two indicated complexes, presuming their single source, also explains the vagueness that exists, for example, in the book of Genesis: “And the Lord God brought forth... the tree of life in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” (Genesis 2:9); “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou shalt eat; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat from it; for on the day that you eat of it, you will surely die” (Gen. 2:16-17); “Only the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, God said, do not eat it...” (Genesis 3:3). Seduced by the serpent, the first people tasted the fruits of D. p. and learned about their nakedness (for more details, see the article “The Fall”) . The connection of the serpent with the principle of good and evil (with the usual connection of the serpent with the tree of life) also does not contribute to a clear distinction between these two versions of the world tree.
However, the variant of D. p., where cognition is aimed at distinguishing between good and evil, strictly speaking, is neither widespread nor archaic primarily. In itself, the image of D. p. is much more ancient and archetypal and acquires the content of a moral and evaluative nature only at a later stage of its development. In the ancient Egyptian tradition, where the tree of life and D. were known, the “Book of the Dead” contains an invitation to the deceased to descend in the form of a bird onto a beautiful sycamore tree with the fruits of life, since the one on it becomes a god; death returns a person to that divine country from which he was expelled during his earthly life; the deceased is revealed great secret: he recognizes his divine essence, his origin from Ra. In ancient Babylon, two trees were also known - the tree of truth (option of D. p.) and the tree of life. Sometimes both functions (life and knowledge) are combined in the image of one tree. So, in the Hawaiian Islands the tree eternal life and the tree of knowledge of death (option D. p.) are depicted as a single tree. One of the myths tells that a soul, having reached a crack in the earth that marks the entrance to the land of the dead, saw there a tree, one side of which was alive and green, and the other dead and dry. Small children gathered around a tree give the soul advice to climb the tree along the dead side in order to descend along the living side, which will lead the soul to the kingdom of the dead (similar versions are known from some images in the Christian tradition). There are other options for D. p. B in a certain respect These include those shamanic trees on which people sit who are planning to become shamans and undergo the test, learning the secrets of shamanic art (some specific descriptions set out in some detail the course and stages of this knowledge). Certain signs of D. p. are revealed by the tree on which he was hanging One for the sake of knowledge of runes. “I know, I hung in the branches in the wind for nine long nights... I learned nine songs from the son of Belthorn... I tasted honey... I began to ripen and multiply knowledge, grow, prosper; Word from word gave birth to word, deed from deed gave birth to deed. You will find the runes and comprehend the signs... Can you cut? Can you solve?... Do you know how to ask? Do you know how to pray and prepare sacrifices?... I know spells - no one knows them...” and further: “I know the second...”, “I know the third”, etc. (“Elder Edda”, “Speeches” High" 138 et seq.). One of the most significant mythologies related to this topic, but not always having a sufficiently clearly expressed problematic of knowledge, is that there is a certain treasure (material or even spiritual) near the tree, guarded by a snake, dragon, etc.; the mythological hero must find this treasure, open it, know it. A similar scheme, interpreted as archetypal, is found in a transformed form in some texts related to the presentation of meditation techniques, in particular in the Indian “Kundalini Yoga”, where the images of a tree, a snake, an eagle, a duel between heavenly and earthly forces are transformed into the context of the problems of spiritual growth , liberation. In principle, similar phenomena were discovered by K. Jung in connection with his analysis of alchemical experiments in the transmutation of metals into gold and alchemical symbolism (including pictorial), as well as drawings of a tree sketched by some patients (cf. the same image in dreams), not familiar with either religious or alchemical symbolism. The striking universality of the “tree” scheme led the researcher to the conclusion that the image of a tree standing in the center is the most suitable symbol of the origins of the unconscious (roots), the realization of the conscious (trunk) and the “trans-conscious” goal (crown, foliage). This symbol is created in the course of self-knowing individuation, which continues the macrocosmic process on the microcosmic level. K. Jung's ideas have direct relation to all the problems of knowledge and its images, including D. p.; they indicate the goal (spiritual integration by opening the sphere of the unconscious, on the one hand, and the direction of movement towards the spiritual ideal, on the other), which the process of self-knowledge sets for itself. Mystical variants of the Indian, Jewish, and Muslim traditions provide extensive material for this topic. It is no coincidence that they turn to the image of a tree, which often acts as a D. p.
Lit.: Veskwith M. W., Hawaiian mythology, Honolulu, ; Jung K. G., Psychologie und Alchemie, 4 AufL, Olten - Freiburg, ; him. The philosophical tree, in his book: Alchemical studies, L.-N. Y., 1967; Arberry A. J., Sufism. An account of the mystics of Islam, L., 1950; Eliade M., Le chamanisme et les techniques archaiques de l'extase, P., 1951; his, Yoga. Immortality and freedom, 2 ed., Princeton,; his, Images and symbols, L., ; Tillich P. , Systematic theology, v. 2, L.-Chi, 1957; Scholem G. G.. Major trends in Jewish mysticism, N. Y., ; his, On the Kabbalah and its symbolism, L., 1965; Yarden L., The tree of light , a study of the Menorah, L., 1971; Cook R.. The tree of life. Image tor the cosmos, N. Y., 1974.

(Source: “Myths of the Peoples of the World.”)

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"THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE" in books

Tree of knowledge