A couple of loose ends
This is probably the point where patient readers sit pennydropped having made a crucial connection regarding the last two wayward story elements. Namely, the loaded tree and that free range serpent.
We’ve posed such questions: why would disastrous flora be planted within hand’s reach, and, how did that snake ever sneak into the garden? Almost as if the trees were there to aid his/its fell enterprise. They now need addressing. For good. Otherwise the story won’t hang, and we’ll be pulling at those threads in a state of semi-distraction, all the way to the final, and in the event, less than great amen.
These elements are still unresolved from our previous reflection because it’s not beyond the bounds of imagination for God to have simply fenced off Eden. Without such demonic manipulation it’s possible no ‘fall’ would ever have occurred. That’s a fair but hypothetical point, because the story leans in a different direction. The woman’s words reveal the couple had been obsessing about that fruit even before the devil’s catalytic approach. And, we’ve discovered that the devil possesses a certain freedom, equivalent to ours, (a gift God will not rescind), and that he is pure spirit and so, presumably, unhampered by the standard constraints of space/time. It turns out the ‘fall’ only truly might have been avoided if the couple had simply heeded God’s warning. And neither is it beyond the bounds of possibility that they might have done just that.
Still, they certainly could have done without the added temptation of those juicy fruity fruits. A lot of the context must be intuited and further questions gather like clouds. Had the couple been successfully resisting temptation before the story? Why is the story focused on their one bad day? Why is the nibbling such a big deal? Can’t they just be forgiven and the prohibited trees relocated? Big reset n’all.
What’s in the tree?
Clarity follows hard on the heels of another ‘representational leap’, but like all these things it only seems simple once grasped. We discovered that serpent = devil. The snake/dragon is representational. We had to cheat-read ahead for the reveal but, hey, it’s our rodeo! We also previously noted the peculiarity of the two specially named trees - of life and of the knowledge of good and evil. As with a good fable, there’s something magical about this and we sense there’s much more than meets the eye.
A question forms: if the serpent is representational then why not these trees? And then another: and if a serpent makes for such a good representation of the devil, how does a fruit tree make for a sound representation of temptation, transgression, moral knowledge and ultimately death? Less obvious? Stepping back a moment, it’s not as if there couldn’t have been alternative equivalent representations for the devil in this story, eg scorpion, wasp, panther, (I’m rehabilitating goats here - they’re wonderful creatures, especially ones with wobbly bottoms!). We already know why a serpent was chosen, and it turns out the same context applies to the fruit tree, ie the influence of Sumero–Babylonian mythologies.
We noted that to the nomadic herding cultures behind these original oral stories, the Fertile Crescent would have represented paradise - a well-watered garden of earthly delights, (2:10-14). Naturally, through the embellishments of good storytelling, sacred or significant trees take centre stage, eg the tale of Inanna and the Huluppu Tree in the preamble to the Gilgamesh Epic. This at least answers the question of why gardens of fruit trees aptly represent a survival or good living ideal in the Ancient Near East. However, there’s still those deeper questions of forbidden knowledge and mortality.
Again, it’s entirely conceivable that the forbidden food might have been something else, eg magic bread, sacred water, holy honey. Is there anything deeper in the significance of fruit? It’s possible, as per Dr Jordan Peterson’s insightful reflections, that there’s an echo of evolutionary history here - a tree-dwelling, fruit-eating, snake-avoiding past. Knowledge of fruiting trees equals life. Knowledge of how to spot a stalking tree serpent equals survival. Ok, but this would account for our hardwired love of fruit rather than why we shouldn’t eat it.
Well, of course, not all fruit is equal. There’s also an evolutionary ‘journey’ to discovering when not to eat unripe or rotten fruit. Fermented fruit may have psychotropic or alcoholic effects that mark it out as special or sacred. It isn’t beyond imagining that these might take on significance relating to insight. Equally, you’d really want to remember the very particular look of that fruit… you remember, so pleasing to the eye, just like those lovely blackcurrants. Oh, what was it called? Got it: belladonna. The idea of poison is embedded in both serpent and forbidden fruit. This brilliantly carries the idea that death gets into you. In the case of poisonous fruit, via ingestion.
Representing
We’ll explore the tree of life in a later post. For now, our focus is on the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. All these profound themes are enclosed in it like pips: good fruit can represent sweet and innocent pleasure, vibrant vits and life-giving energy, a cornucopia of orchard bright beauty; bad fruit can represent tricksy poison and possibly death; overripe or ‘magic’ fruit can represent intoxication or narcotic insight. Hand this mixed basket to a brilliant storyteller and you’ve got irresistible fruit, heaven-forbidden due to its perception-enhancing but also life-threatening properties.
We’ve never asked why our couple even need to eat in Eden. Is it out of pure pleasure or necessity? That’s never explained. What’s obvious is the establishing of the aetiology of ‘spiritual food’: when permitted, it brings life, when prohibited, death. Most curiously, this particular fruit brings knowledge beyond our bearing. The writers portray something like a promethean overreach; a prideful grasping for appropriately proscribed gifts.
As explored, it’s astonishing that eating the fruit leads to secret knowledge about the nature good and evil, a hallmark of divine wisdom (3:22). It’s impossible to avoid the theological implication that human disobedience unlocked this otherwise inaccessible knowledge. It’s a curious mystery also illuminated by Dr Peterson. The story fits the pattern of mythological archetypes where the hero faces the dragon/serpent monster of chaos in order to acquire the divine knowledge necessary for survival/growth and/or to defeat and destroy it. That’s a great insight because it alerts us to the personal folly of pursuing false knowledge and the ruinous nature of self-reliance in facing the darkness.
The heart of the Judaeo-Christian hero is, unequivocally, to do God’s will. Especially after a struggle of wills. If all epic storytelling and fable is fundamentally about contending with the darkness, the clarification being made here is: only by God’s power; no shortcuts to victory and glory, however tempting.
The test of time
Quite simply, then, the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil represents a test of loving obedience. The story is at pains to show that the fruit munching is fully aware and wilful. Despite all the tempting going on. Taking that fruit is a radical rejection of God’s love. There’s no, ‘Oh, soz, didn’t realise wot we woz doin, gavna!’
We’ll reflect more deeply on the nature of this rupture in another post. Suffice to say, the fruit shows us that perfect love not only must be completely free, but also, crucially, tested. Love isn’t inert. Its fulfilment is only found in perfect active expression and the fully willed rejection of everything opposing it. It’s not that we have to prove our love, but rather love is its own dynamic proof. In this, the couple failed. A tad catastrophically.
Here’s how my Catechism puts it:
The ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ symbolically evokes the insurmountable limits that man, being a creature, must freely recognise and respect with trust, [396]… Constituted in a state of holiness, man was destined to be fully ‘divinised’ by God in glory. Seduced by the devil, he wanted to ‘be like God’, but ‘without God, before God, and not in accordance with God.’ [398]
The broader moral of this part of the story seems to be: our intentions and resolve require sifting and clarifying which can only happen through everyday circumstance and trial. This is how we learn about the extents of our true commitments. Despite its ironic turns, one of Shakespeare’s most famous sonnets, 116, addresses such matters:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixèd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
If you’ll excuse the pun, it’s almost as though love ripens under temptation, or is otherwise revealed as blown.
Either by fire or fire
This whole rather testing testing business is thus fundamental to the Judaeo-Christian tradition.
God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it, (1Cor 10:13).
Blessed is the man who endures trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him, (Jam 1:12).
We’re into the realms of the mystery of free will: the subterranean soul-fires of chaos and order. Although this primordial, selfish rejection of God’s love has had dire consequences for the exercise of all human freedom (future post), the gift nonetheless remains. As does the unquenchable flame of God’s passionate love.
No one but God knows what our soul has received from him, not even we ourselves. But temptation reveals it in order to teach us to know ourselves, and in this way we discover our evil inclinations and are obliged to give thanks for the goods that temptation has revealed to us.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, the idea of Christian character being forged in the fires of temptation has stuck, (Sirach 2:5, 1 Pt 1:7 Prov 17:3 1Cor 3:13), and sometimes (as here in our spiritual ancestors) quite literally.
Enduring (the) mystery
Our fruity escapade has been full of revelations, but there’s still a big ole stone concealed in the centre of this fruit we’ve been observing. And a Christian might still break a crown on it. Because it sure is a tough one. My catechism presents the matter with excruciating understatement:
It is a great mystery that providence should permit diabolical activity, but ‘we know that in everything God works for good with those who love him.’ (Rom 8:28) [395]
We know angelic and so too demonic freedom echoes our own freedom equation. But how do these ‘work’ in the context of God’s freedom? Our story so far shows there’s no comparison to be made between God’s power and that of Satan. Yet in the hurly-burly of life, that’s not often how it feels. There’s something of gap between what’s revealed and everyday experience. The temptation is to lose hope; the perennial mistake is to rely upon our own miscalculations. Remember Job. Working out just how God is turning all darkness to light, bringing all brokenness to balm, and hauling all out of despair, is simply beyond us. So we shouldn’t try.
But it’s worth recognising that it takes some forbearance to suffer the repeated anvil strikes of existence whilst trusting they’re all for our betterment and somehow part of the great cosmic correction. That is, however, the sheer simplicity of faith. To accept trials out of love and to suffer the rapacious forest fires of the soul, knowing that one day, out of the devastation, will spring the first signs of God’s green shoots.
The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. (1 Jn 3:8)
Photo by Hannah Gibbs on Unsplash
Staggeringly brilliant essay, Adrian, with some very funny asides in it as well. Alistair Fowler’s edition of Milton’s PL has a running commentary throughout that’s quite erudite. His analysis of the argument between Eve and the Serpent is enlightening. In the poem, their dialogue devolves into a Scholastic debate between the two and I feel like the Tempter won. (Wonder if that was Milton’s intent.) One of things I didn’t know was that some medieval scholars believed that the Serpent was created four-legged, like the beasts of the field; and that it was only after the curse that he was forced to crawl on his belly as a snake. That passage in PL also has a word formation that makes me wince to this day: “into the plant sciential sap, derived.” Even Homer nods. 😂