But in the shade of the Garden of Eden there was another tree...

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

"And the Lord God brought forth out of the earth every tree that was pleasant to look at, and good for food, and the tree of life in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Gen. 2:9), the fruit of which God forbade man to eat. One of the editors of the book "Mysteries of the Bible" writes: "The book of Genesis does not explain why it was necessary to forbid man to know good and evil. Could it be that the unfortunate tree simply expressed God's dominion over His creation and man's duty to obey Him?" And here we see the key to clarifying the difference between the Western and Eastern understandings of creation and the Fall.

The Hebrew word yada, rendered by the quoted author as "knowledge," is deeper in its content: the Russian translation of "knowledge" is undoubtedly more accurate, although it does not exhaust the entire depth of the original. Yada expresses not merely intellectual, theoretical, or abstract knowledge of the subject, not the "detached knowledge" of the mathematician, but rather experiential knowledge in personal experience, for example: "Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bore Cain" (Gen. 4:1). The question was not legal, but essential, existential: experienced personal participation not only in good, but also in evil.

Let us pay attention to the devil's argument of temptation: Did God really say, "You shall not eat of any tree in the garden"?

"And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees, but of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden (the tree of knowledge), said God, you shall not eat of it or touch it, lest you die. And the serpent said to the woman, No, you will not die..." (Gen. 3:2-4).

The commentator in Bible Today, after running ahead and making sure that both husband and wife did not die after eating the forbidden fruit, asks: "So, was the serpent right?" and continues: "According to the book of Genesis, God never promised immortality to man. However, it has often been suggested that it was as a result of this act of disobedience that man became mortal." On such arguments, which for a large part have passed to us in the East, the entire history of creation and the Fall in the Western Christian world is built. Thought does not depart from the "worldly", "legal".

In the East, especially in the first centuries, the approach was different. The patristic Eastern interpretation proceeded from the following words of the tempter: "But God knows that in the day that you eat of them, your eyes will be opened, and you will be as gods... (Gen. 3:5). Not at all an outward act of obedience, nor a promise of immortality, but the very essence of the matter: "Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Immortality was primordial; there was no "promise," because creation itself was immortality, and just as men did not yet know good and evil, they did not know death either; they dwelt in the tree of life. God warned people not even to touch the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil," because contact with it "opened the eyes," as Satan rightly put it in this case, opened their eyes to evil, which in cognition, in experience, instantly violated the essence of the tree of life in people, and they instantly found themselves "cut off from life," that is, they died. Life outside of Paradise, in separation from the Tree of Life, was no longer eternal life, even if it lasted for years and years and even centuries: "bad infinity" is not eternity.

"Be ye as gods," as if contact with evil was a "sign of divinity." But this was already a diabolical lie, on which his own, diabolical self-deification was built: the egoistic pride of self-admiration in emptiness, like wood shavings curled up around itself - with emptiness inside. Diabolical parasitism on Divine Creation.

What happened? What shook the very foundations of life?

And this is what happened: "And the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasing to the eyes and desirable..." (Gen. 3:6). This is what happened: "lust," that is, an egoistic, separate, personal desire to quench one's unexpectedly manifested passion of love for oneself and for one's pleasure, "because it gives knowledge." Interest awoke. In America, they often say, considering it quite natural: "This is a conflict of interest." Yes, humanity began to live in a "conflict of interests" and in a struggle for interest, in a struggle for existence. And if we try to restructure ourselves in such a way as to destroy any interest, we see that such a restructuring turns out to be a living hell. Because without interest, no one can and does not want to do anything, and "building a paradise on earth" therefore turns into social suicide. This is what happened as a result of the Fall. "And the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked" (Gen. 3:7). Nudity was revealed, as in a children's fairy tale: "the king has no clothes". "And the Lord God (Yahweh-Elohim - the Eternal-Godhead) said: Behold, Adam became as one of Us..." (Gen. 3:22).

How do you understand this "one of us"?

"We" are the Divine Trinity. "One of..." is the exact opposite of that. It is impossible to be in the "Trinitarian unity of the sacred mystery" and at the same time to be "one of...". It is impossible to separate the Holy Trinity, Yahweh-Elohim, Divine Love. You can try! But how? And this is exactly as Satan advised and as Adam did: "knowing good and evil." And instantly, being the image of the Holy Trinity, the one who lives by the Tree of Life turns into an "individual", "one of"... "From" whom? Yes, from all other people. Paradisiacal humanity, the Church created "before the foundation of the world," the Bride of the Lamb, is shattered to pieces into many particles. And he can no longer remain in Paradise: lest such a fragment "stretch out his hand, and take also of the tree of life [...] and did not live forever" (Gen. 3:22).

Smithereens