evil, which they did not have before, but because, by their eating from the forbidden tree they were to find out experimentally, and did find out, all the distinction between good and evil, ‘between the good,’ as the blessed St. Augustine remarks, ‘from which they fell, and the evil into which they fell,’ a thought which is unanimously taught by all the teachers of the church. (c) This tree, according to the opinion of some of the teachers of the church, was by no means destructive and venomous in its nature; on the contrary, it was good, like all the other divine knowledge, but it was chosen by God only as a tool for trying man, and was forbidden, perhaps, because it was too early yet for the new-born man to eat of its fruits.
“‘The tree of knowledge,’ says St. Gregory the Divine, ‘was planted in the beginning without any evil purpose and was not forbidden through envy (let not the wrestlers against God open their lips and imitate the serpent!); on the contrary, it was good for those who used it in proper time (for this tree, according to my opinion, was the contemplation to which only those may proceed who are perfected by experience), but it was not good for simple. people and for those who were immoderate in their desire, even as perfect food is not useful for feeble people who need milk’.—‘The tree is good,’ blessed St. Augustine, who understands the forbidden tree in a sensuous sense, says to Adam, in the person of God, ‘but do not touch it! Why? Because I am the Lord, and you are a slave: that is the whole reason. If you consider this insufficient, it means that you do not wish to be a slave. What is there more useful for you than to be under the power of the Lord? How will you be under the power of the Lord, if you are not under his command?’”
Thus the church understands it, and thus it commands you to understand it. The fact that the tree is called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; the fact that
