De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae
The Soul's Paradise and Its Charge
The soul is placed in a guarded paradise of obedience, warned to refuse forbidden knowledge and to cling to what has been entrusted.
You too, O Eve, are placed in paradise, to work alongside your husband and keep watch over him; and if you carry out what is commanded, you will one day pass to a better place, where there will be no need for you to be occupied with any task, nor to be anxious about keeping watch.✦✦ Every tree in paradise is granted you for food, except the one called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.✦ For if the other trees are good and taste of the good, what need is there to eat from the tree that tastes also of evil? Do not seek to know more than it is fitting to know.✦ For to know evil is not truly to know — it is to lose one's wisdom. So guard what has been entrusted to you; await what has been promised; beware of what has been forbidden, lest you lose what has been granted.
The Gaze That Opens the Way to Fall
Curiosity of the eyes is shown to be the first step toward disobedience, even when no outward fault is yet committed.
Why do you stare at your own death so intently? Why do you keep casting your wandering eyes in that direction? Why is it so pleasant to look at what you're not allowed to eat? "I'm stretching out my eyes," you say, "not my hand." The prohibition wasn't given so I wouldn't look, but so I wouldn't eat. Or am I not allowed to raise my eyes wherever I wish, when God himself has placed them under my authority? To which the Apostle replies: All things are permitted me, but not all things are profitable.✦ Even if no fault is involved, it's still a sign of fault.
Curiosity as Occasion of Sin
Even seemingly innocent curiosity becomes an occasion of fault, revealing past sin and preparing the way for future sin.
Unless your mind were less carefully guarded, your curiosity would not have free time on its hands. Even if it's no fault, it's still an occasion of fault — evidence of what has been committed and a cause of what will be.
The Serpent's Flattery and the Loss of Paradise
The serpent's hidden work of flattery and lies leads the soul to drink forbidden poison, lose paradise, and transmit death to all its descendants.
Because while you're focused on something else, the serpent quietly slips into your heart the whole time, speaking to you with flattery.✦ With flattery it holds reason in check; with lies it holds fear in check. 'Not at all,' it says, 'will you die.'✦ It increases anxiety while stirring up appetite; it sharpens curiosity while planting desire. In the end it offers what is forbidden and takes away what is permitted: it holds out the fruit and steals paradise.✦ You drink in the poison, on the verge of perishing yourself, and on the verge of bringing forth those who will perish. Safety perishes, yet the birth does not cease. We are born, we die; and so we are born to die, because we die first before we are born. So a heavy yoke rests on all your sons, even to this present day.✦
Read the original Latin
Tu quoque, o Eva, in paradiso posita es, ut cum viro tuo opereris et custodias illum, si iniunctum perfeceris, quandoque transitura ad melius, ubi nec opus sit te in aliquo opere occupari, nec de custodia sollicitari. Omne lignum paradisi ad vescendum tibi conceditur, praeter illud quod dicitur scientiae boni et mali. Si enim cetera bona sunt et sapiunt bonum, quid opus est edere de ligno, quod sapit etiam malum? Non plus sapere, quam oportet sapere. Sapere enim malum, sapere non est, sed desipere. Serva ergo commissum, exspecta promissum; cave prihibitum, ne perdas concessum.
Quid tuam mortem tam intente intueris? Quid illo tam crebro vagantia lumina iacis? Quid spectare libet, quod manducare non licet? "Oculos", inquis, "tendo, non manum. Non est interdictum ne videam, sed ne comedam. An non licet oculos quo volo levare, quos deus in mea posuit potestate"? Ad quod Apostolus: Omnia mihi licent, sed non omnia expediunt. Etsi culpa non est, culpae tamen indicium est.
Nisi enim mens minus se curiose servaret, tua curiositas tempus vacuum non haberet. Etsi culpa non est, culpae tamen occasio est, et indicium commissae, et causa est committendae.
Te enim intenta ad aliud, latenter interim in cor tuum serpens illabitur, blande alloquitur. Blanditiis rationem, mendaciis timorem compescit: "Nequaquam", inquiens, "morieris". Auget curam, dum incitat gulam; acuit curiositate, dum suggerit cupiditatem. Offert tandem prohibitum, et aufert concessum: porrigit pomum, et surripit paradisum. Hauris virus peritura, et perituros paritura. Perit salus, non destitit partus. Nascimur, morimur: ideoque nascimur morituri, quia prius morimur nascituri. Propterea grave iugum super omnes filios tuos usque in hodiernum diem.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Gen.2.15 — The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
- ↩Gen.2.16-Gen.2.17 — And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; Gen.2.17 — but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for on the day you eat from it you shall surely die.
- ↩Gen.2.16-Gen.2.17 — And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; Gen.2.17 — but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for on the day you eat from it you shall surely die.
- ↩Rom.12.3 — For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly than one ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
- ↩1Cor.6.12 — All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.
- ↩Gen.3.1-Gen.3.5 — Now the serpent was more crafty than any other animal that the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden'?" Gen.3.2 — And the woman said to the serpent, "From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, Gen.3.3 — but of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, God said, 'You shall not eat from it, and you shall not touch it, lest you die.' Gen.3.4 — But the serpent said to the woman, 'You will not certainly die.' Gen.3.5 — for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.
- ↩Gen.3.4 — But the serpent said to the woman, 'You will not certainly die.'
- ↩Gen.3.6 — And the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and the tree was desirable to make one wise. She took of its fruit and ate, and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.
- ↩Lam.3.27;Acts.15.10;Gal.5.1 — It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. Acts.15.10 — Now then, why are you testing God by placing a yoke on the necks of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? Gal.5.1 — For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not again be subject to a yoke of slavery.
De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae (On the Steps of Humility and Pride) companion
Humility is climbed one day at a time
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