Question on the order of events during the Fall.

[Seraphim Reeves]

According to the third chapter of the book of Genesis, Eve is first tempted by the serpent, eats the forbidden fruit, and then gives it to her husband, who in turn eats it.

1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

However what is mentioned next is something I've begun to ponder, and am curious if there is a Patristic answer to this, or if anyone has any reasonable thoughts on the correct understanding.

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.
8 And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.

It is the seventh verse in particular which makes me wonder.

Obviously, Eve ate of this forbidden fruit first. It would seem to follow then, that if the effect of eating was to have their eyes open and perceive things differently, this would happen to her before it did Adam. Or should we conclude, that this "opening of the eyes" did not occur to both of them until Adam himself ate this fruit?

I guess to get at what I am asking here, I'll retell the story in both scenarios.

Scenario 1 - Eve falls first.

The woman saw that the fruit was pleasant looking, and wanted to take advantage of the powers eating it would bestow upon her. When she ate of the fruit, she began to perceive differently, and even realized her own nakedness and that of her husband in the distance. With new insight, she approached her husband, wanting to spread this new way of seeing to him as well; when he does eat (it's unclear whether she actually told him what he was eating), he too see's things as she did, but is horrified. Now the two of them are deeply troubled. Then God the Word comes walking through Paradise, and Adam and Eve hide, filled with shame.

Scenario 2 - They both fall exactly when Adam eats.

The woman is enticed by the devil, seeing that the fruit is pleasant, and wanted to take advantage of the powers eating it would bestow upon her. When she ate the fruit, nothing much happened. But, she took it to her husband (it's unclear whether she told him just what tree the fruit was from) and he in turn takes a bite. At that moment, the two of them simultaneously begin to see things with new eyes, and what they see terrifies them. Ashamed, consciences wounded, they begin covering themselves, and hide when they hear God the Word walking through Paradise.

The impression I get from the Biblical narrative, is that these events happened very quickly, and not long after the woman had been created (which was also not long after the man had been created.) Thus, the way the seventh verse is phrased, does not clearly tell me specficially how things went down.

At this point, I'm inclined to believe "Scenario 1" - whatever eating this fruit imparted (which is itself a good question - was there anything the fruit itself bestowed, or was it simply the act of disobedience which wrecked the conscience of our first parents, and in turn this caused them to see differently), it would have affected the woman first, the man second. Indeed, if it had no effect on the woman until the man ate, I have to wonder why she would have brought it to Adam at all, but just concluded the devil was full of beans.

While I'm inclined to believe "Scenario 1", I think it's obvious from the text that the enormity of what they both did (one after the other) did not dawn on them until after Adam ate; perhaps it was he who perceived that what they did was terrible (maybe it was only after eating that he realized just what it was that the woman gave him?)?

I'd be interested in your thoughts, particularly the thoughts of any of the clergy reading this.

Seraphim

[Joseph D]

One stupid and hideous lay account:

According to a Catholic professor of mine, the origin of the fall lies in the inner disposition of desire, or "eros" in Greek. An elaborate discussion of which is the topic of Plato's Symposium (which, as may perhaps be of interest to Justin Kissel who may well have already read it, begins as a discussion of pederasty and homosexuality and draws to a comdemnation of both). No, Orthodoxy takes to no account the opinions of Catholic professors or, officially, of Plato. But logic is logic.

According to at least one Orthodox Priest, the first sin was disobedience.

The two accounts are easily reconciled. Disobedience is not blameworthy unless undertaken willfully, and willful disobedience is preceeded by assent to temptation, which is desire, or properly passionate desire called eros.

So, the first sin expressed the first sinful desire. That is plain enough.

But though Adam and Eve were of one flesh, being not just of the same flesh originally but of "one flesh" by marriage, they nonetheless desired individually, sinned individually, and tasted of the fruit individually, which is readily apparent in the text.

It was the capacity for personal judgment which followed the eating of the fruit. This new overwhelming capacity distracted the two from their original vocation which was to keep the garden and basically just to enjoy themselves and each other's company there, and to the pleasure of the Creator and Provider, God.

Obviously we trust that Eve had no malicious motive for sharing the fruit with Adam. Had she felt guilty (and inward disposition of conscience, note), she would have attempted to hide her error even from Adam, for such is the nature of guilt. So to continue, after Adam had eaten, the two felt the shame (a projection of inadequacy from without) of nakedness -- they realized through actual knowledge that they were not the stuff of gods. Cruel irony!

My backwards and unlearned attempt to answer our question as to whether the fall was individual or collective:

Eve sinned first, obviously, and Adam followed. The fall is not in the eating.

The shame of nakedness is felt between the two after Adam had eaten, for shame comes from without and the judgment "of good and evil", which was the nourishment of the fruit, is a projection first, a reflection second. The secondary effect of reflection showed personal guilt inwardly to the two individually -- they both hid from God, and not because they had conspired to do so, for conspiracy had not yet been invented. Still yet, the fall is not in the forbidden knowledge.

In 3:10 Adam answers the Lord Who calls for him and his wife, but his humility cloaks his pride of projection. And when the Lord asks if Adam has eaten the forbidden fruit, Adam projects his personal judgement upon his wife, who in turn, projects her personal judgment upon the serpent. Then the Lord shows the two how genuine judgment is projected, and such was the fall.

,Joseph

[Justin Kissel]

I think Joseph has much that is insightful in his post. For my own part, if I can speculate, I would say that Eve was effected from the time that she first decided to take a bite, but that she was effected to a lesser degree at first. Before I say anything more I'd like to quote something:

But when the soul is taken captive by sensible things, then the operations of the senses, the senses themselves, and within them the corresponding faculties of the soul, put on the form of sensible things, seeing that they submit to them and are shaped in conformity with them. 'When the soul is moved towards matter by means of the flesh in a way contrary to nature, it puts on the earthly form.' (Maximos the Confessor, Ambigua, PG 91, 1112C) That is what was termed above, in our analysis of St Gregory of Nyssa, union with the 'non-rational form.' The result of this union is the non-rational life, which is characterized by the passions, as St. Gregory has already taught us. St Maximos explains in addition how the passions are brought into being.

When the intellect, he writes, denies its natural movement towards God, since there is no other direction in which it can move, it gives itself over to the senses, and these delude it ceaselessly, decieving it by the superficial aspects of sensible things 'through which [the soul] grows forgetful of natural goods and perferts the whole of its activity with regard to sensible things, becoming subject to unseemly fits of anger, desires and pleasures through what I have mentioned.' For pleasure is nothing other than a 'mode of sensory operation constituted by irrational desire.' Irrational desire, when it gains a hold on sensation, transforms it into pleasure, adding to it a 'non-rational form.' Moreover, when sensation, moving in accordance with irrational desire, attaches itself to the sensible object it creates pleasure. (Ibid., 1112ABC)

And in another text he says with direct reference to Adam: 'Thus, having become a transgressor [having changed direction] and having become ignorant of God, and having closely mingled the whole of his intellective faculty with the whole of sensation, he embraced the knowledge of sensible things, which is composite and destructive and oriented towards passion. So he came to resemble dumb beasts, doing, seeking and desiring the same things as they do in every way and, moreover, cleaving to irrationality.' (Maximos the Confessor, To Thalassios: On Various Questions, PG 90, 253CD) - Panayiotis Nellas, Deification in Christ: The Nature of the Human Person, (Saint Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1987), pp. 57-59

Put simply, sin can be blinding, enjoyable, and mesmerizing. It's possible that, having fallen into sin (even in her intention to eat the fruit), Eve became very confused as to what right and wrong really was. "Irrational desire, when it gains a hold on sensation, transforms it into pleasure, adding to it a 'non-rational form'". In other words, having decided to eat the fruit (the irrational desire), and having done so, Eve became irrational and unable to utilize the spiritual discernment that she had had. She unwittingly "embraced the knowledge of sensible things [apart from a spiritual understanding]," "having become ignorant of God". Therefore, she became as a dumb beast, making foolish decisions.

From my own experience, it seems to me that sometimes thing's don't penetrate into our souls until we see the effects on others. We are so blinded by our irrationality (and perhaps pleasure) that we fail to realise what is going on. I know that sometimes I sin and am clueless or apathetic about the sin; but when my wife begins to participate in the sin with me, it cuts straight to my heart and conscience. Certainly I was sinning even before my wife began sinning: yet it was in seeing someone that I deeply love do the same thing that my eyes were opened. It's possible that it was the same with Adam and Eve.

Also, there's the idea that the fall was a process. This is not to say that the fall was not a literal historical event. I'm only taking what Saint Athanasius said about ancient mankind in general and applying it specifically to Adam and Eve. Saint Athasius argued (I don't remember whether it was in Against the Heathen or On the Incarnation, I can get a reference if someone needs/wants it) that man did not fall into sin all at once, but that it was a gradual process over generations. This doesn't seem incompatible with the Scripture (cf Gen. 6:1-13), in which I think a process of decay and increasing corruption can be found, if not explicitly stated.

If the fall, even for Adam and Eve individually, was a process, Eve might very well not have realised her error until a certain amount of time had elapsed. Sometimes there is a bit of a disconnect: even when someone should know better, they can be blinded by their sin into thinking that nothing is wrong. "If I had not come and spoken to them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin... If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father." (Jn. 15:22,24). Sometimes we don't realize our sin until its staring us straight in the face.

If anything of the above is true, then this would also explain why Eve did not seem to immediately experience "the fall". In actuality she did experience a fall, and the part she experienced was being deluded into thinking that everything was alright, and that she should therefore invite (ie. tempt) her husband to eat as well. Perhaps we are looking for huge fireworks and the earth swallowing people up: but when it comes down to it, the negligence and carelessness (and disobedience/forgetfulness) displayed are as frightful and awful as we could expect. What is more frightful is that most of us are just as negligent and careless, not to mention disobedient and forgetful.

[Joseph D]

Dear Justin:

(We seem to agree that man is prone to judge the shortcomings of others before he is willing to reflect upon his own. )

After your post, could we then speculate that the sin may have been pleasurable, and that in the thrall of such pleasure Eve was eager to share the same with her husband? It seems natural enough that such may have been the case.

You say that the fall from grace was a gradual process, and by common knowledge most processes of any consequence are indeed gradual, or at least gradually understood. Might we speculate then, along with the idea that the sin were pleasurable, that the forbidden knowledge gained after the pleasure may have been gradual as well?

Sincerely:
Joseph

[Justin Kissel]

I think those are fair speculations. I don't know if they're true, but they certainly sound tenable. I also think that the coming back to God after the fall was gradual as well, both over the long term (until Christ came), and even in the short term (it was a few generations before the Bible says "at that time men began to call upon God").