Tree of knowledge of good and evil. Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil (possible interpretations)

Thousands of volumes have been written about the Bible, in which biblical texts have been deciphered, but so far the meaning of what has been written eludes us, remains closed to understanding and awareness. Let's think, why does she need a Bible published in many languages ​​in more than a trillion copies? That is, at least one copy for every inhabitant of the earth in 150 generations. Why, regardless of her death in fires, wars and under other external circumstances, she returns again and again. No wonder the word "library" means "collection of Bibles." Where is the answer to this phenomenon? Why is it still closed? Why are materialistic scientists so persistently arguing with its content? What is this - the Bible?

In fact, the Bible is the Constitution for mankind, the Instruction for each person and the reader of the universe. The Constitution, as the basic law of being, the Reader, as a systematic explanation of the essence of the current Divine laws and Instructions, using specific examples and models, practical guide in being. Why, having everything at hand, we can not use it? The answer is simple. The philosophical terminology of eternal entities has three meanings: rational, spiritual and material. Using only the material meaning of eternal entities when reading the Bible leads us to a dead end, allowing us to know only the third part - the sector of truth. Meanwhile, the main meaning of the Teaching is a description of the invisible, secret for us spiritual world and the world of reason, although everyone knows very well about their existence: the world of feelings and sensations is the spiritual world; the world of thoughts and knowledge is the world of reason.

In many studies, we approach the study of phenomena and processes not from the beginning, but from the middle, studying not the essence, but the manifestation and consequence of individual entities. And therefore, in a world that has not known its beginning - the origin of the Earth, there are many conflicting theories, concepts, guesses that are far from the truth.

So, the first step to knowledge is a return to the beginning. The second step is understanding the meaning of the main biblical terms: God is the Creator and Creator of the Earth, and the process of His thinking is creation; creation - "action with knowledge", but with Divine knowledge - this is the process of forming the spiritual world; The Spirit of God is the true Divine thought, just as the only true feeling human - sense of smell; another important term - Light - this name bears Wisdom, which, during the creation of the Earth and Heaven, fulfilled all the plans of the Lord; Another important term is life - the existence of the soul in spiritual world, being - being in the material world - or a "business trip" from the spiritual world to the material world in order to become a creator and creator.

Once in the material world or being, you need to know the beginning of the origin of the Earth, Heaven, the living world and man. That is why the first book of the Bible is called Genesis.

"And the Lord God planted a paradise in Eden in the east, and placed the man there whom he had made. And out of the earth the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight 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."

The Lord planted two trees in Paradise, the tree of life and the tree of good and evil, and gave the 1st commandment: "from every tree in the garden you will eat, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil do not eat from it, for on the day that you eat from it, you will die." There was a living soul and life, but here death appears - a new concept: "to be moderate", as the commandments are fulfilled. Death is a concept of the spiritual world. Here God laid down the method of trial and error - the method of choosing a solution. With Him is definitely life, and the tree of good and evil is a piece (sector) of knowledge. "Taste" - took a piece of knowledge and became a piece (wormhole) - joined a piece of knowledge.

And then, the tree of life is the knowledge that gives a person eternal life and is a whole, and the tree of good and evil is a part of this knowledge - a piece (knowledge about the material world). If we receive knowledge from the tree of good and evil, then we will receive part of the knowledge.

The whole is the knowledge of the three worlds. The Lord is the teacher of knowledge from the tree of life, and the evil serpent from the tree of good and evil. Then, if we have received only a part of knowledge (knowledge about the material world), then we do not know the structure of the spiritual world and the world of reason. Knowing only the material world prevents us from knowing God and our relationship with Him. Since this is not a whole, but a part of knowledge, then there is a temptation and the appearance of knowing the whole piece by piece, as an illusion of knowing the whole.

Temptation - went astray from the good path: the knowledge of the whole. The temptation is great - to take an accelerated course that has only the name of a full course. Image: you can study at the university for 5 years, accumulating knowledge in the works, or buy a fake diploma.

Here lies the algorithm of temptation by a part of the whole and the method of trial and error. That's where he's coming from!

The Bible describes in detail the concepts - according to which a person, having made a free choice, can either achieve the image of God and live forever, having learned the knowledge from the Tree of Life (Fig. 19), or in fuss and false desire to aimlessly spend life in the material world, gaining the death of the soul, saturated with false knowledge from the tree of good and evil (Fig. 26). I immediately wanted to notice that the branches and roots of the tree of good and evil are of a negative nature, that is, the so-called good, there is no truth in this tree, because initially the evil serpent does not have complete true knowledge, it is his false idea of ​​good as a service , buying and selling in relationships, constant bargaining with the Lord, selfish goals and desires are reflected in the tree of good and evil. Conventionally, this tree can be called the tree of evil - the tree of flawed contradictory knowledge, personifying the evil serpent.

Branches of the tree of life

Each branch has five branches.

Faith - faith is the realization of what is expected (from the Lord) and confidence in the invisible (the Lord) (Apostle Paul). Faith receives, without faith nothing can be received (Gospel of Philip).

Filial relationship- faith in the Lord, the Heavenly Father, gives rise to a confident knowledge in the soul of a person that she is the son of her Father.

Prayer- the realization that the Heavenly Father is Great, and the son - the human soul is small, therefore, when turning to the Father with a question, it diminishes.

sacrifice- I wish Your Reason, gratitude of the human soul for grace, wealth, Word - Thought.

Receipt- obtaining three estates: material (house, money, harvest, success); spiritual (inspiration for creatures, love, pleasure, feeling of harmony with the world); reasonable (blessing in all matters of creation, protection from evil, misfortune, disease).

Immortal life- the acquisition of eternal life, fruitful for the soul and good fruits.

Love is the second most important human feeling, if faith receives from the Lord, then love distributes what it has received. "Love distributes, nothing can be given without love" (Gospel of Philip), otherwise it is violence or hypocrisy. It is with love that the Lord gives mankind everything: nature, seeds and everything that moves into food, shines with the Sun and pours rain, gave the Teaching and sends ideas to scientists, gives children and so on.

Gratitude- a feeling of the grace of God and a desire for reciprocal action.

Generosity- a feeling of joy of satisfaction from the commission of selfless good and good deeds.

Gracious- my face has become, a person who performs deeds and deeds similar to the deeds of the Lord, has become like the Father.

Dobrokhotny- a constant feeling of desire and need to selflessly do good and good.

Affectionate- to flatter, to speak sincerely and righteously pleasant, well-deserved, out of good intentions.

Wisdom is a concentrated amount of knowledge accumulated in the mind over many incarnations of the soul in the material world.

Unfortunately, modern man does not know how to use this huge store of knowledge about the essence of the structure of the world.

In the prayer "Our Father ..." we ask: "give us our daily bread (the wisdom of our mind) for this day (for this being)", but the Lord does not give, since they can be used in the area of ​​​​our destination, and we we don’t know him, we don’t know who we should be?

Thinking- the ability to communicate with the Lord, sending thoughts - questions and receiving thoughts from Him - sending answers or messages in order to act with this message or according to conscience.

prudence- the ability to see temptations, condemn them and make a righteous (correct) decision.

foresight- the ability in the process of thinking to request and receive a short-term or long-term forecast for the development of an undertaking or a proposed act.

Simplicity- a feeling of simplicity or genius of the Divine Thought as the main criterion. If the Thought is simple - from the Lord, complex, incomprehensible - it means not from the Lord, your own.

Maturity- The divine classification of people according to reason has five levels: infants, youths, youths, adults, mature. Only those who are mature in reason possess maximum wisdom.

Freedom - God is with you, freedom is possible only in the spiritual world and the world of the mind, it is useless to try to feel freedom in the material world, because there are restrictions all around: civil, prohibiting laws restricting activities, licenses, certificates, rules, norms, time limits, various complicating obligations, etc.

house building- awareness of the need to build a body - a house, soul and mind, the main owners of this house, and the need to give them the priority of the will in harmony with the will of the Lord.

incorruptibility- opposition to the seduction, and then the deception of the devilish essence, the inability to betray His Father in any situation.

conscientiousness- a state when any actions are taken in accordance with the received messages - thoughts from the Lord.

Strong- strong in mind, the evidence of a reasonable decision received from the Lord, acts as a force forcing other people to voluntarily submit to this force and implement this decision.

obedient- indisputably admitting the guilt committed during the incorrect fulfillment of the message sent by the Lord, at the first instruction, a hint from Him, by a negative result, but necessarily independently.

Joy - birth has become. The life cycle of nature and all living things is one year: winter, spring, summer and autumn. The life cycle of the spiritual life of a person in being is one day: sleep is winter, morning is spring, day is summer, evening is autumn, when a person should receive the fruit of the day.

Joy- this is the daily birth of the fruit - obtaining a result, albeit a small creation or creation, which are summed up in a great creative success.

Independence- the ability to make decisions independently, alone, only in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bits mission. The principle of unity of command is being implemented, when the Lord is the One Head. A person feels independence when the Lord stands behind him, and a person experiences fear at the thought of being left without the Lord.

harmony- a state when a person feels himself a part of the Lord, agrees and realizes Him, and not his goals and plans.

Honesty- a constant process of cleansing one's mind from vices and proving the purity of one's thoughts by deeds and the knowledge that the Lord compares deeds with intentions, reading them in the human mind.

Politeness- the ability to see in the spiritual world with the eyes of the mind - temptations, seductions and vicious souls of other people.

Frankness- the ability to submit to the open knowledge in the material world by the Lord, when the people around them say: he is lucky, more correctly: he is being led.

Bliss is the desire of a person to gain his divine capabilities in order to fulfill his main destiny - to rule on Earth.

trustworthiness- the ability of a person to become completely reliable for the Lord.

plausibility- a blessed person in front of other people has the appearance of a pure, honest, luminous person.

good manners- a person who has received divine education, mainly receiving food for his mind from the mouth of the Lord.

Benefactor- a person capable, knowledgeable, able to do good deeds.

Nobility- born of God, a human soul pure from vices, capable of good deeds.

The roots of the tree of life

In the Epistle to Titus, the Holy Apostle Paul formulated seven virtues, seven moral principles moral society, Solomon called them the seven pillars that Wisdom carved - these are the roots of the tree of life.

Silence- the ability to silently meet strange knowledge and begin the process of comprehending them.

Generosity- the ability to perceive new knowledge as long-awaited, because they increase the mind and exalt the feeling of the soul, bringing it closer to perfection.

cordiality- a joyful feeling that strange knowledge will allow the soul to give birth to new creations and creations.

Benevolence- this is a desire to gain one's divine capabilities, allowing one to become the ruler of the Earth, and to try to become similar to the Father by actions.

Compassion- uniting in suffering, feeling the suffering of unbelievers in order to help them come to God.

Condescension- the ability to show oneself lower than the suffering one, the readiness to "wash one's feet," for only such unbelievers open their souls, without which it is impossible to help him.

love of wisdom- love for wisdom, love for knowledge received from the mouth of God, which gives a feeling of the ripening of the fruits of creation within the mind.

purity of heart- the feeling of seeing temptations, the feeling of a divided vision of the manifestations of the desire of the body and soul, the feeling of the purity of the mind from vices.

Understanding- the feeling of recognizing the truth of knowledge brought to man and sent by the Lord.

law abiding- this is the state of a person when the Divine laws become for him above all civil laws, rules of decency, conventions of society, their violation becomes impossible under any circumstances.

Justice- a state when a person carries out judgment according to Divine laws, Divine truth, impartial, despite the clothes in the material world, but only at the prompt of the Lord, not recognizing false evidence.

Forgiveness- a manifestation of generosity, generosity is a beneficence synonymous with Divine mercy, similar to the forgiveness of the Lord, which comes not after serving the punishment, but after the realization of sin, error and repentance to tears, which, like the image of a mini flood, wash the soul from vice. Therefore, in the prayer "Our Father ..." such important attention is paid to forgiveness.

Sympathy- this is a state corresponding to the feeling of the Lord, where is good, where is evil, where is seduction and deceit, where is good deed, where is deceit and abomination.

Repentance- a deep understanding of Saturday, the seventh day of the week, when all the deeds committed in six days are independently illuminated, sins are independently revealed, they are corrected independently, the sacrifice of guilt is offered independently, the fifth part, and in all this, sincerely, to tears, confession is made to the Lord, for the Lord considers that only in this case a person will not commit a sin again.

worship- deep love and respect for your Father, when His Name really shines in a person’s mind, so as not to forget to ask Him for advice: which way to go at the next life crossroads; deep hope of receiving an inheritance of wisdom from the Heavenly Father.

Humility- this is a feeling of being in harmony with the threefold world of rational, spiritual and material, acceptance of the goals of the Divine world order, Divine control of the order in this world, refusal of one's own interference in this order, which leads to the creation of an order similar to the order in nature, instead of order in human society similar to Brownian motion.

Patience- "thorns to overcome." The Lord in our affairs performs the greatest amount of work Himself, assigning us the role of the ribbon-cutting completion of construction. So that we do not interfere with Him in the main work, He puts a thorn bush in front of us, which can be overcome with very slow movements - this is an image of patience. The ideal model of patience was demonstrated by Abraham in expecting the promised son from the barren Sarah.

diligence- the fulfillment by a person of the Divine messages without doubt, often contrary to the ambitious logic of the material world, which tries, but is not able to help predict its future, unlike the Lord, who plans everything for millennia ahead.

7. Root - holding the true word (adherence to the true word), in accordance with the Teaching, in order to denounce those who resist (Fig. 25).

Service- if the Lord revealed the essence of the Skill, then this is for a person to use the essence of the Teaching for service, just as Jesus Christ carried the Teaching, descending from Heaven carried it human language so that the eyes of the soul - the eyelids - open and the ears of the soul hear the voice of the Lord, saving the souls themselves from death.

Zeal- the act of the heart - the mind to admonish untrained people. In the material world, new knowledge must be read or heard and remembered, it takes a lot of time to read and listen. In the world of the mind, knowledge is transmitted by reasoning from the heart-mind directly to the heart-mind of another person, these knowledge are transmitted in images that carry a huge amount of information, an order of magnitude larger than a word.

preaching– The divine mission is to speak about the commandments and laws of the Lord and explain their meaning, explain the essence of "rewards" for their fulfillment or violation.

The roots of the tree of life nourish fruit-bearing branches, their description is found in various books of the Bible.

Branches of the tree of good and evil

The trunk of the tree of good and evil is pride, it has seven branches, each branch has five branches.

Pride (Fig. 26)- "mountains to give", which, according to a person, he acquired with his work, talent, cunning: mountains of money, mountains of popularity, mountains of knowledge. Pride and faith in the Lord are like communicating vessels: faith grows, pride decreases, and vice versa.

The evil serpent, the author of knowledge from the tree of good and evil, is not interested in a man, the son of God, reaching the image of God, that is, he would do good, but he is interested in the person reaching him, the serpent of the evil image, and doing evil. Therefore, the main task of the evil serpent, the devil, Satan is to instill pride in the mind of a person and to drown out faith in his Father as much as possible. The roots of the tree of good and evil are known, now the branches will bear fruit with deeds, and the fruits will nourish the roots with their juice.

1. Branch - greed (Fig. 27)- the desire of hell, in the word itself is the final for a person. Greed is the desire even with the eyes to appropriate everything, to save, not to allow the use of what is, to limit the use of oneself and loved ones, the highest pleasure of the greedy is to regularly count one's property.

love of money- love for the accumulation and collection of material values, for the sake of which all spiritual values ​​are sacrificed.

Greed- a passionate desire for hoarding, when the first place is the satisfaction of the desire to acquire, and then the very amount of accumulated.

Seduction and deceit- the basic principle of achieving power in human society and mastering someone else's property or property.

Seduction- they talk about a big deed, they promise mountains of gold, a bright future that can be obtained almost without difficulty, you just need to be patient a little, perhaps tighten the belt and so on.

Deception- when the power is received or it was possible to seize someone else's property, property, then it is said about the little of the promised that can be received, often the little turns into nothing.

abomination- "I know the measure", the act of an impudent person, dressing in the clothes of a benefactor who considers others stupid, idiots, driven by money-grubbing, offers a product, a service at a price ten times higher than the face value, believing that the buyer does not know the true price.

Corruption- acts of sowing in the minds of others a complete set of vices, their careful cultivation, nutrition, training, encouragement in order to raise students even more vicious than the teacher.

2. Branch of cruelty (Fig. 27)- an act of the ruler, extremely proud, the reverse side of the Divine plan to appoint a person as the ruler of the Earth, recognizing all people as their brothers and sisters. The cruel lord recognizes only his rightness, applies harsh measures to those who disagree, makes tough decisions, tough laws, but which do not apply to him and his team of admirers.

dire heart- the deeds of an immensely evil man, the best disciple of the evil serpent.

enmity- deeds that form the opponents of the human race, gloating and not embarrassed by this, even proud of their enmity.

deceit- acts like forging shackles, fetters, with sophisticated cunning and cunning, turning a free man into his slave.

Hatred- acts that excite impatience, desire for evil, disgust for others, not seeing the interests of others.

revenge- acts associated with paying evil for evil, evil for insult, evil for censure, evil for one's failures, unreasonable deeds, blaming the innocent for them.

3. Branch of jealousy (Fig. 27)- an act associated with the desire to achieve a certain high level that others have reached, but without having the abilities, talents for this, committing atrocities that undeservedly discredit these successful and talented people.

Suspicion- acts associated with disbelief in the reasonable actions of others, a sick imagination sees in any obvious circumstances a secret malicious intent that a suspicious person tries to reveal by any means and methods, but in all his affairs he himself has an evil intent.

grumpiness- an insane act that sows quarrel, discord, reaching physical violence.

Anguish- an act associated with physical torture, causing both bodily and spiritual suffering to people who are in slavish dependence on the tormentor.

contempt- an act associated with the disregard for the opinions or interests of other people, considering them insignificant, below all respect.

Treason- acts related to the violation of loyalty to the people, family, relatives, betrayal, revealing secrets to the enemy, familiarizing him with the strategy and tactics of building relationships for twenty or thirty pieces of silver.

4. Slavery branch (Fig. 28)- acts that lead to the enslavement of a free person with his subsequent exploitation and methodological restriction of his rights, up to their complete deprivation. The main goal is to make a person think about the need to find a job himself, to want to become a slave himself. A free man, when the Father is with him, but having become prodigal in relation to the Father, is immediately enslaved by the slave owners.

eloquent- a great slave owner in comparison with low slaves, giving instructions that are not negotiable, regardless of their reasonableness, the main thing is the benefit for the slave owner.

Biytsa- the deeds of a person who suppresses by violence his own opinion of a free person, protesting against unreason, stupidity, stupidity, turning him into a working animal.

Who loves the hustle- a gifted person, but who does not know his destiny and his talents, abilities and does not try to find ways to reveal them, voluntarily becomes a slave and spends all the time of being on meaningless work or also meaningless entertainment, does not know that the meaning of being is there in the spiritual world, unable to know his soul.

Useless- the deeds of an unreasonable person, helpless, not achieving profit, benefits, better than others lend themselves to enslavement.

Harassment, oppression- an act associated with complete restrictions on freedom of thought and action, complete subordination to the conditions of the slave owner.

5. Branch stupidity (Fig. 28)- an act of an unreasonable, dull, reckless person who does not think about the next step after the wrong step. A fool at all corners shouts about his stupidity (Solomon).

Craftiness- the deeds of a crooked, two-faced, malicious person with a completely vicious mind, hiding his stupidity.

Irresponsibility- the acts of an unreasonable person, leading the case to bankruptcy, loss, but who lays responsibility on others, he himself always evades responsibility. Responsibility will come after the return from being.

deceitfulness- an act similar to turning to the left from the direct path to the truth of the truth, the deceitful one goes to the left, sells the left product, defends the left and false interests, instead of the promised right ones; "Whoever lies, he steals" (Russian proverb).

Vanity- an act aimed at the greedy search for vain glory, badges of honor, titles for their imaginary, absent dignity.

Heresy- ugly rumors, differences in opinions of faith, rejection of the spiritual meaning of the Bible, leading to apostasy from the seam and from Christian teaching.

6. Branch of iniquity (Fig. 28)- the deeds of people who neglect and do not fulfill the Laws of God, conscience and the truth of truth.

Hypocrisy- an act that does not correspond to the Divine law, but corresponds to the opinion of a superior person, duplicity consists in covering up one's decision with a false interpretation of the law.

Perjury- a mortal sin on the charge of the right in committing a crime.

slander- deeds slandering, slandering honest people with slander.

Violence- an act forcibly forcing the fulfillment of false interpretations of the law, rules, instructions, requirements under pain of a threat to health and seizure of property and property in favor of the rapist.

Idolatry- worship of an imaginary deity, the main idol - a golden calf, material wealth, which after the end of life cannot be taken with you.

7. Branch of crime (Fig. 29)- an act of thought born in a vicious part of the mind of a person who has been trained by the evil serpent, the devil, Satan, the enemy of the Lord.

rancor- the actions of a person who collects information about unreasonable actions, statements, collecting compromising evidence, in order to then blackmail and subjugate another.

Corruption- acts of bribery officials who, out of greed and acquisitiveness, trade their official rights, control, and observance of the law.

Bloodlust- acts to satisfy greedy aspirations when taking possession of someone else's property, especially if this is accompanied by the shedding of the blood of the owner, gaining confidence and peace that the owner will not try to return the stolen property.

robbery- a predatory, robbery, bestial act accompanied by the appropriation of someone else's or property belonging to the whole family.

Perfidy- acts associated with deliberate destruction, brittle faith moving hesitantly towards God, convincing of the superiority of material values ​​over spiritual ones.

Tree of good and evil (Fig. 26) gives birth to the fruit - the death of the soul in the spiritual world, after a person, having completed his existence, must answer for every branch and shoot of the grown tree of good and evil in his mind.

Tree of good and evil (Fig. 26)	Greed Cruelty Jealousy Crime Iniquity stupidity Slavery
Greed (Fig. 27)	love of money Greed abomination Corruption Seduction and deceit
cruelty (	Hypocrisy Perjury slander Idolatry Violence
Atrocity (Fig. 29)	rancor Corruption Perfidy robbery Bloodlust

The roots of the tree of good and evil

The composition of the seven roots of the tree of good and evil was listed by the Apostle Paul.

1. Root depravity (Fig. 30)- everything that is against truth and goodness (V.I. Dal); vice - an act, as a result of which fate or death of the soul appears in the spiritual world; the vicious deeds of a person are his farewell to the material and spiritual world, voluntary consent to resettlement in hell for eternal torment. N.V. Gogol in the story " Dead Souls"brought out the types of people and showed the image of their being, who doomed their souls to death after the completion of being.

Lust- the manifestation and satisfaction of the desires of the body and the complete rejection of the intuitive prompts that stop the Lord and the inability to notice His signs, listen to the edifications of the messengers.

Fornication- wandering without the Lord life path, spiritual and rational blindness, inability to see a swamp or an abyss in front of you.

fatherlessness- aggressive rejection of the Heavenly Father, to which He refuses intuitive prompts even in dangerous situations.

2. The root of adultery (Fig. 30)- corresponding to a crime against love, any combination of dissimilar principles: a disharmonious husband and wife, a mixture of two different breeds of cattle, two different types seeds in one field, and so on.

Opening nudity- is considered one of the punishable sins, the discovery of the nakedness of a man or woman excites sexual lust, the desire to obtain sexual arousal, the essence of sexual intercourse is the combination of two seeds, male and female, for fruiting.

Temptation- a descent from the good or Divine path to perfection, the main goal of the devilish temptation.

Sodomy and lesbianism- deadly sins, qualified as an abomination before the Lord, is a useless shedding of the seed, the most valuable thing that the human body produces.

3. Root debauchery (Fig. 31)- a systematic, deliberate withdrawal from the Divine path of masses of people.

idle talk- justification of life concepts with a false use of the meaning of philosophical terms, with the substitution of true moral values, false, mythical.

Atheism- godlessness, a doctrine that forms hatred for the Lord, the Heavenly Father, while ungrateful use of everything that the peoples receive from Him: nature, bowels, food, materials, solar heat, rains, children, and so on. As it is said: an ox knows his master's manger, but a man does not recognize the Father of his soul.

Materialism- the bias of all branches of science towards the study of matter, the body, which serves as a case for the living world, stored and functioning in a case, therefore psychology and biology do not know their subjects of the soul and essence of the living, electrical engineering does not know where electricity comes from, all science does not know how the Earth and all living things happened. As it is said, including about materialism: they recognize the fruits, but do not recognize the tree or recognize the tree, but do not recognize the fruits (signs).

4. The root of disobedience (Fig. 31)- acts associated with the denial of one's true roots, acceptance and agreement with the absurd idea of ​​the origin of man from a monkey and at the same time the realization of one's huge intellectual differences from it, due to one's own achievements.

Arrogance- acts associated with a high self-imposed measure, assessment, in relation to the environment, associated with the position held, place. Jesus said in your world are elected according to their clothes (occupied places), in fact, everyone is elected according to their understanding.

outrage- deliberate acts to violate even civil, not to mention Divine, laws, rules, decency, agreements, turning into corruption, theft, bribery, expropriation, privatization (translated from Latin - capture) and so on.

conceit- actions carried out on the basis of one's own opinion and refusal to receive thoughts, opinions of one's Father. A person with conceit finds a solution only by trial and error, while in trials he loses resources, money, and time.

5. Root killing (Fig. 32)- the ultimate sin, which consists in violating the Divine plan. The Lord sent his son or daughter to Earth with a task to fulfill something, leads him to his fate, and now a killer appears, who puts his goals or the goals of the customer of the murder above the Divine ones. For this, the Lord determines the highest measure of punishment - sends to eternal torment in hell. The same awaits those who train murderers, promote murders on screens, in literature, inciting lust and devaluing souls created in the image and likeness of God.

wretchedness- deeds standing next to the deeds of Cain - the murderer of his brother and at the same time not recognizing his sins, when the Lord gave him such an opportunity, called repentance - recognizing his sin by Cain. Cain refused to acknowledge his sins.

Sadism- receiving satisfaction or pleasure from the cruel violence and torment of his victim.

Rampage- acts arbitrary, insane, associated with violence indiscriminately towards one's own or others.

6. The root of greed (Fig. 32)- passion for acquisition, greed for wealth, covetousness, accompanied by an illness to store wealth, leads at the end of life to madness due to the realization that it is impossible to take what has been accumulated.

Crime- a crime of divine and civil laws due to self-interest.

Eating sacrificial- an act of a person associated with a willingness to appropriate popular shrines, victims, including legislators who pass laws, taxing sacrifices.

Lust- making a leader, deeds aimed at obtaining power by any means: crimes, bribery, perjury. The desire for power is driven by greed.

7. Root of anger (Fig. 31)- Anger is a product of the vicious nest of evil in the mind.

Fear- an emerging feeling associated with the loss of authority, loss of power, perceived as the collapse of a career, family, life. Fear generates insane actions, rage, a feeling of omnipotence in the face of weakness that is obvious to others.

Madness- inadequate acts to the circumstances that have arisen, perceived by the person himself as the most reasonable, others perceive these acts as a mental illness.

Hopelessness- extraordinary actions aimed at returning the lost, when no advice, warnings, including the restriction of freedom, are accepted.

There were many different trees in Paradise, but two special ones grew in the middle of it: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. From one of them, namely from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the Lord forbade Adam to eat the fruit. Regarding the other tree - the tree of life - there was no prohibition. About the tree of life, St. Philaret writes: “It was among the trees of paradise that a person is between animals, that the sun is between planets. The fruits of the trees of paradise served for nourishment, the fruit of the tree of life for health. Those could make up for the lack in the body caused by movement, and this one, bringing its forces into the same balance always, retained in it the ability to live forever.

As for the understanding of what the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was, and the relation of the latter to the problem of the fall, there is a real confusion even in modern "school theology". Some believe that before the fall, people did not distinguish between the concepts of good and evil, and in accordance with this, they argue that there was even some objective necessity for the fall: supposedly, people had to expand their ethical horizons. Others say that the essence of sin is that Adam and Eve began to live a carnal (sexual) life. But we read in the Bible that God commanded the first man to be fruitful, multiply, and populate the earth.

So what is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? What is the essence of the tragedy that we call the Fall?

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil symbolized, or rather - really represented - the right and priority of God to decide instead of man and for man - what is good and evil.

In other words, before the fall, man was in the light of the Divine vision of these differences - good and evil. Evil already existed in the world in the person of a fallen angel, and not only one: the devil carried with him a huge number of once bright spirits. (Some Holy Fathers claimed that the Lord created man for this purpose, in order to make up for the number of fallen celestials). There is no doubt that Adam, who gave names to the primordial animals, knew what good and evil were. St. John Chrysostom speaks about this as follows:

“Many lovers of disputes dare to say that Adam, after eating from the tree, received the ability to distinguish between good and evil. To think so would be extremely crazy. So that no one could speak like that, for this we, foreseeing this, recently talked so much about the wisdom given by God to man, proving it by giving the names that he gave to all beasts, and birds, and dumb animals, and by the fact that, beyond this high wisdom, he also received the gift of prophecy. How could the one who gave names and uttered such a wonderful prophecy about a wife not know what is good and what is bad? If we allow this (which will not happen!), then we will blaspheme the Creator. How did He give a commandment to someone who did not know that crime is evil? It is not so, on the contrary, he clearly knew it. Therefore, from the very beginning, God created this animal (man) as autocratic, otherwise he should not have been punished for the violation of the commandment, rewarded for its observance.

So what is the fall into sin? First of all, in the fact that a person arrogates to himself the right that does not belong to him to decide what good and evil is, that is, he usurps the Divine right, takes the path of the devil: he tries to make himself equal with God.

And modern world, striving for complete secularization, at each diabolical turn of departure from the Church, again and again repeats the act of the fall.

Perhaps someone will object: if the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a danger of such a temptation for a person, then why did the Lord God not remove it from Paradise, did not place it out of reach for people?

But the Lord created man in His image, endowing him with a special gift - free will. Man from the very beginning is a free being, he had to make his own choice.

“And the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasing to the eye and desirable, because it gives knowledge; and she took the fruit of it, and ate; and gave also to her husband, and he ate.”(Gen. 3:6). Saint John Chrysostom says: “The woman, having been seduced by the serpent, thought to herself: if the tree tastes good, and can so delight the eye, and there is some inexpressible beauty in it, and eating from it will bring us the highest honor, then why should we not eat from it? » From this thought of the saint, we see that Eve does not realize that, eating from this tree, she challenges the Creator, renounces the Lord. She trusts the snake more than God. What happens to Eve?

The first lust is the lust of the womb: “And the woman saw that the tree was good for food…” Man passionately desires to possess everything, to have everything around him or in himself. But once and for all we must remember that the only owner in the universe is the Lord God. Everything we have, we have from His hands. Nothing on earth belongs to us, we only use the benefits that do not belong to us.

There are three different legal concepts: owner, owner, manager. The last two are smaller than the first. A person can only have these rights: he can only be the owner and manager of property by the grace or permission of God - the Creator and Owner of the entire created world.

A person, even in his physical constitution, cannot possess everything. Some people accumulate such treasures for themselves, such riches, that one might think that they are going to live not one, not two, but several dozen lives. Somewhere I read that Rockefeller's wife, when she was dying, asked to bring her favorite dress and clung to it with her hands so much that after her death she had to cut it into pieces with scissors. A woman who had a huge fortune takes with her from this life only a small piece of matter! Verily, a man comes into this world naked, naked and leaves. Here is the fundamental truth – everything belongs to God!

The second lust is the lust of the eyes. “It is pleasing to the eye…” - the tree is said further. This is a very dangerous lust! A person's gaze constantly wanders in one direction or the other. The devil knows about it.

Now in Moscow, and in other Russian cities, we see a huge number of advertisements designed specifically for this feature of a person, for this lust of him. Walking down the street, a person sees naked bodies on advertisements, reads various calls, for example, such as: “Come to the stadium with us. There we will pray, glorify God, and you will leave from there completely healthy!” And next to it are photos of happy, healthy young people. Nearby is the following call: “Today you can be saved only with us!”…

The highest destiny of man is his deification. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself said in the Sermon on the Mount: "... be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect"(Matthew 5:48).

And man is indeed called to ascend to the fullness of the likeness of God: after all, he was created in the image and likeness of his Creator. But the devil always invites us to speed up this natural process. If you like, the devil is the first dissident revolutionary who offers, with the help of some sharp gestures, “decisive choice”, jumps, to achieve exactly the goal that a person strives for by nature. A person strives all his life to become like the Lord, and the devil offers him an immediate result. Just think about what modern sectarians tell us in their heretical sermons. (Although it is better, of course, if possible, not to listen to them at all: we must not listen to heresy.) For example, they constantly say this: if you want to be saved, you can do it immediately. Salvation is being given in their "church" right now, today! If you have any spiritual problems, then they immediately undertake to solve them. "No problems" - no problems - this is the motto of most sectarians, the main principle of Protestant religious life.

In reality, a person, communicating with heretics, loses his salvation. He loses his health, both physical and spiritual. But the worst thing is that he loses grace!

Today, the evil one is trying with all his might to lure us into various parties, lodges and sects. Heretics, pagans directly say: if you come to our sect, you will save not only yourself, but also your family, your entire family. So in a conversation with Eve, the evil one offered “salvation”, as it were, to the entire family of the first person, using the plural: “you”, “like gods”, etc.

Very often, when people fall into certain delusions, it seems to them that this is the path of "enlightenment", that this or that religious practice brings them closer to God, makes them god-like. It seems to such people that some exercises, meditations, reading various books can enrich their inner world, save their family. They do not even suspect what a terrifying abyss is hidden behind the words: "religious revival", "awakening of consciousness", "opening of the chakras", "awakening of the kundalini" and many others with which modern pagans seduce us.

The third lust, the next temptation, the lust that Eve obeys, is lust: "And the woman saw that the tree ... is lustful, because it gives knowledge."

False knowledge is a serious problem, the problem of many so-called intelligent people. Intelligence is some kind of slippery, I would even say nasty word, the meaning of which few people understand. Once, one “intellectual” explained it to me this way: to be intelligent means to be a professional in something, and to know a little about everything else. Modern man wants to know everything! He wants to read both the Bible and the Bhagavad Gita. And much, much more... I often have to visit our parishioners, who invite me to bless their home or perform some kind of prayer service at home, to commune the sick. And I am involuntarily amazed at the abundance and diversity of books that are in Orthodox homes: next to the Bible are the Koran, Bhagavad Gita, Agni Yoga, Jewish books ... The presence of such a set would be understandable in the apartment of an Orthodox missionary who must study all this in order to help people move away from certain delusions. But when a simple layman, who does not have a special blessing for that, reads everything in a row, this is very dangerous. Working with people who found themselves in various sects, I discovered a certain pattern. For example, if a person read the books of Blavatsky, the Roerichs, then he later became involved in the sect "Aum Shinrikyo" or "Hare Krishna". If a person abused the works of such "theologians" as Fr. Pavel Florensky or Fr. Sergiy Bulgakov, then he ended up in the "Bogorodichny Center". If he was overly fond of the books of the philosophers Vladimir Solovyov, Trubetskoy, Volkonsky, then he could be among the Uniates or Russian Catholics. To paraphrase a well-known proverb, you can say this: "Tell me what you read, and I will tell you which sect you might be in." There is nothing surprising! False knowledge, harmful knowledge leads a person away from the Church and causes irreparable harm to his soul.

Once I asked a friend - why does he need all these books? He replied that, as an intelligent person, he should know everything. When we then began to talk with him, I suddenly felt that these books were not at all dead weight in his house: although he considered himself Orthodox, he had serious delusions!

Indeed, a person cannot know everything, cannot possess all knowledge. If you confess that Orthodox faith is the only true faith that the Orthodox Church is the same Church about which the Lord said: "I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it"(Matthew 16:18), this means that Orthodox books should be in the first place in your house. Recall what is said in the Acts of the Apostles about how people acted who were previously engaged in magic, and then turned into Christian faith: They collected all their witchcraft books and burned them. Then there were even those who calculated how much money could be obtained for these books if they were not burned, but sold. But they could neither sell them nor give them to others. They burned them. “Many of those who believed came, confessing and revealing their deeds. And of those who practiced sorcery, quite a few gathered their books, burned them in front of everyone and added up their prices, and they turned out to be fifty thousand drachmas. With such power did the word of the Lord grow and become strong.”(Acts 19:18-20).

We should do the same with heretical literature: either hand it over to those Orthodox clergy who study heresies, or burn it so that this infection does not stick to any of our relatives and friends, could not exert its destructive influence on other people and destroy human lives. souls.

In the Ribbon we find questions that a priest must ask in confession. Among them there is one, very important, question: “My hands, child, were you not a heretic or an apostate, did you not stay with them in their temples, visiting, listening to teachings or reading their books?” If a person is somehow guilty of this, then this is a sin that he needs to confess. Apostolic rules, rules of the Ecumenical and Local Councils they forbid Orthodox Christians to attend synagogues, heretical meetings, listen to the teachings of heretics, read their books... And if we consider ourselves Orthodox, then we must firmly and resolutely move away from false knowledge: heretical and pagan.

When our foremother Eve was deceived, she ate herself and "gave also to her husband, and he ate." We have already said that if heresy, sin, or anything else that comes from the devil touches us, then through us it touches both our loved ones and our families. Eve sinned herself, believing the snake more than God, and plunges her husband into this sin.

The devil is never content with your soul alone, but uses it to influence the people around you as well. If you sin, then do not think that this is your own business. Just as the salvation of one person matters to many, so the sin of one person affects many people. Reverend Seraphim Sarovsky said: "Acquire the spirit of peace and thousands will be saved around you." The good, blessed spiritual state of one Christian extends to many people. It is the same with sin: having appeared in the heart of one person, it infects more and more people around.

Sometimes people cannot understand: why the enterprise where they work is in such a distressed situation, even if there were no visible reasons for this; why do relationships in a team always remain strained and "explosive"?.. Most likely, there is only one explanation: people's lives are poisoned by unrepentant sins - their sins and the sins of those around them. So it was in the days of Israel, and so it is now. When the sons of Israel began to commit fornication with foreign women, all the people were subjected to calamities, the punishment of God. This happened until Phinehas, a pious warrior, pierced the fornicators with a spear right during their fornication. And then the wrath of the Lord ceased (Numbers 25:7-11). AT Holy Scripture says: "... God is jealous, punishing children for the guilt of their fathers up to the third and fourth kind"(Ex. 20:5). That's how far the corrupting, foul-smelling effect of the sin of even one person extends! And when people are perplexed why their children are born sick, crippled, half-dead, they should be reminded of this. This means that they themselves or in their family had an unrepentant, unconfessed sin.

Recently I happened to visit a boarding school for underdeveloped children, children with atrophied limbs, who crawled towards us for Christmas gifts. And when I asked whose children they were, they answered me: the son of an alcoholic, the son of a drug addict, and so on ...

Sin is none of your business. And when the Church calls: “Do not sin, try to improve,” she means the following: if you yourself change, then everything around you will change. If you cannot resolve some family conflicts, go to church, go to confession, tell the priest about your problems! This will be the best help you can give to your loved ones, to your family.

Eve plucked the forbidden fruit and ate, and the infection of sin was transmitted to her husband. She gave it to him and he ate it too. And the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed together fig leaves, and made themselves aprons.(Gen. 3:7).

Saint John Chrysostom exclaims on this occasion:

“Look, from what glory and into what humiliation they fell! Those who hitherto lived like earthly angels invent clothes for themselves from leaves. Such is evil - sin. He not only deprives us of heavenly favor, but also plunges us into great shame and humiliation, steals from us those blessings that we possess, takes away all boldness.

Indescribable shame and great horror took possession of the hearts of our first parents, Adam and Eve; they realized that something irreparable had happened - something that they could no longer fix on their own. So even in the most fallen, in the most sinful state in which a person can find himself, the voice of conscience, the voice of God that lives in each of us, does not stop completely, but continues to sound.

In the Butyrka prison and in some other places of detention, I had to meet people who had committed especially serious crimes. And when I asked, for example, a thief: "Is stealing a sin?", - he answered: "Yes." I asked a murderer: “Is murder a sin?”, a fornicator: “Debauchery is a sin?” - and everyone answered me: “Yes”. It turns out that every person knows what sin is, because the Law of God is written in the heart of every person. The Apostle Paul's letter to the Romans says: “... When the pagans, who do not have the law, by nature do what is lawful, then, having no law, they are their own law: they show that the work of the law is written in their hearts, as evidenced by their conscience and their thoughts, now accusing, then justifying one another"(Rom. 2:14-15).

German philosopher Kant said: "Most of all, two things strike me and make me believe in God - the starry sky above my head and the moral law in me."

… And so, the eyes of the ancestors were opened: they realized that they were naked. What can they do now? How can they get rid of this nakedness that terrified them, of their sinfulness?!

Once the disciples, talking with the Lord Jesus, asked Him: “Who can be saved?” And they heard back: “... it is impossible for men, but not for God: for all things are possible with God”(Mark 10:27).

That is, when in our life we ​​restore the priorities and rights of God, decide instead of a person and for a person what good and evil are, that is, we obey the Will of the Creator who created us, then He can begin the work of our salvation.

Reading: “Now do not be hard-hearted, like your fathers, submit to the Lord and come to His sanctuary, which He has sanctified forever; and serve the Lord your God, and he will turn away from you the flame of his wrath. When you turn to the Lord, then your brothers and your children [will] be in favor with those who captivate them and will return to this land, for the Lord your God is good and merciful and will not turn away his face from you if you turn to Him.(2 Chronicles 30:8-9).

Reports the following about the nature and appearance of the Tree of Knowledge:

The woman hesitated at first, but curiosity and desire to be like God took over and she succumbed to the persuasion of the serpent, violating the will of the Lord: “And the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasing to the eye and desirable, because it gives knowledge; »(Gen.). Then she gave the fruit to Adam to taste (Gen.). As a result, " both of their eyes opened”, they realized their nakedness and hid from God (Gen.). Then they sewed together some fig leaves and made themselves aprons out of them.

“And the Lord God said, Behold, Adam has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, no matter how he stretched out his hand, and also took from the tree of life, and ate, and began to live forever ”(Gen.).

The misconduct was followed by punishment: the Serpent was cursed, deprived of arms and legs, and also doomed to crawl on his stomach and eat dust (Gen.); the woman was assigned bear children in sickness»and be subordinate to her husband; man was appointed with sorrow and in the sweat of his brow to work all the days of his life on earth, which "damned for him"(Gen.). Eternal enmity reigned between the serpent and the man.

After that, God made people " clothes of leather and clothed them and sent the man out of the Garden of Eden to cultivate the land from which he was taken". So that people could not taste the fruits of the Tree of Life and finally become like the gods, a cherub was placed at the entrance and "flaming sword circulating"(Gen.).

Nature of the Tree of Knowledge

What is known for sure is that these two trees must have been one of a kind, for if they were the same as all the others, Eve's longing to eat from the Tree of Knowledge and the desire to taste the fruits of the Tree of Life could be satisfied by eating the fruits of any other trees. On the other hand, judging by the fact that Adam and Eve did not die on the spot, the fruits of these trees were just as good to eat as any others. What kind of fruits they were is unknown. According to the patristic interpretation of St. Ephraim the Syrian The tree was God himself, and its fruit was the sacrament.

in the western Christian tradition based on the similarity of the Latin words "peccatum" ("sin") and "pomum" ("apple"), the Tree of Knowledge is usually symbolically depicted as an apple tree.

Tree in Christian apocrypha

Returning home, Seth found Adam dead and put a dry branch in his mouth (according to other versions, Seth put a wreath woven from this branch on Adam's head, or it was done by Adam himself, who was still alive by the time Seth returned). Then a tree sprouted from it from three fused trunks, from which the cross was subsequently made for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

Researchers believe that the purpose of such a legend was to show the origin of Christianity (which at that time was still a “young” religion) from ancient tradition literally "from Adam".

The tree of knowledge in the mythology of different peoples

Notes

Sources

• Jewish Encyclopedia, Ed. Islands for Scientific Jewish Publications. and Brockhaus-Efron. St. Petersburg: 1906-1913; reprint: M.: Terra, 1991.

"Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil"
The syntactic ambiguity of the "es hadda" at tob wara" construction, the lack of unified approaches in the tradition of church exegesis regarding the interpretation of the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil", its obvious dependence on the general exegetical problems of chapters 2-3 of Genesis, outlines the range of problems of understanding this biblical phenomenon.

Semantic difficulties in reading the expression ""es hadda" at tob wara"" are associated with the word "da" at, which can be considered both as a noun, "knowledge", "knowledge", and as an infinitive, "to know". The semantic accents that arise within the framework of these discrepancies can be arranged approximately as follows. In the meaning of the noun "da" at" will define the nature of the "tree" as "the tree of knowledge". The phrase tree of knowledge in this case becomes dominant in the whole construction, and "tob wara", "good and evil", is in the position of the subsequent addition . Then "eating the fruit" from the tree of knowledge should mean, first of all, joining in knowledge, entering the path of knowledge (which will be the knowledge of "good and evil"). In this regard, the tree of knowledge and the tree of life, in essence, symbolize two alternative paths that a person is faced with at the very beginning of his being, and, in fact, the whole subsequent story, which the biblical text tells about, starting from the 4th chapter. book. Genesis ("Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she .., and ..."), is a process of cognition. The form of the infinitive, "know", in which "good and evil" is a direct object, will mean familiarization with the realities of "good and evil" with a touch of possession. (The Hebrew verb yada, "know", "know", a derivative of which is da "at, implies that the "act of knowledge" is the inclusion of the object of knowledge in the sphere of life of the "knower", as well as the acquisition by him of a certain power over the "cognized "object.) Obviously, the semantic emphasis in this version of reading is shifted to "good and evil." At the same time, human intrusion into the forbidden and sacred (since the possession of the secret of "good and evil" is the prerogative of God the Creator) the area of ​​"good and evil", "tasting the fruit", is supposed to be a one-act act to obtain the desired. And so it happened: "And the eyes of both of them were opened" (although the result turned out to be a fiction: "and they knew ... that they were naked") (Genesis 3, 7). The fact that both possible semantic meanings of the expression "es hadda" at tob wara "" are realized in the description of the consequences of the drama of the "Fall" eliminates the dilemma of choosing between them, determining the semantic significance of the entire construction in its unity and presenting appropriate requirements for the exegesis of the tree as a tree. knowledge of good and evil.This also removes the relevance of testing two readings for better compliance with the norms of Hebrew grammar.

Patristic exegesis has not developed unified principles for understanding the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Interpretations were carried out according to two methods of reading Holy Scripture, which were determined in the patristic period of church history: literal and allegorical. Exegetes of the so-called. The "Antioch school" proceeded from the notion that paradise with its four rivers was located in a specific place on earth, and "the tree of knowledge was a real tree, called by such a mysterious name only because it gave rise to the sin of disobedience" (quoted from: Galbiati E., Piazza A. S. 138). With this approach, all the attention of the interpreters was drawn to the moral aspect of the situation that was developing in connection with the God-given commandment, and what was essential in its exegetical understanding was not the nature of the tree, but the disobedience of the commandment. The tradition of allegorical interpretation, widely represented by exegetes, both East and West, as a whole considered the narrative of 2-3 ch. book. Genesis as a metaphor for the internal structure of man and the life of the soul. As a typical exegesis of St. Ambrose of Milan, who wrote: “many people think that paradise is the soul of a person in which the sprouts of virtue have sprung up. A person assigned to cultivate and protect paradise is the mind of a person, the power of which, apparently, cultivates the soul ... heavenly, brought to Adam, these are our foolish deeds ... Therefore, no helper was found equal to our mind, except for the feeling [Eve] ... "(S. Ambrosius, De Paradiso 11, PL 14, 211, 279, 311. ) [Cit. by: Galbiati E., Piazza A. S. 135.]. The interpretation of the "ancient" paradise, carried out within the framework of such an "anthropocentric" understanding, proceeded from the general patristic concept spiritual development person. So, according to St. Gregory the Theologian, "the tree of sin is the contemplation of divine things, forbidden to the imperfect, but accessible to the perfect" (S. Gregor. Naz. Orazio 38, 12 PG 36, 324, 632). St. John of Damascus spoke of the tree of knowledge as the self-knowledge of man, where the contemplation of one's own nature reveals the greatness of the Creator, which, however, is dangerous for the inexperienced (S. Joan. Damasc., De fide orthodoxa, lid. II PG 94, 916s. 976) . Allegorical exegesis thus considered the tree of knowledge as a symbol of contemplative life, which was perceived as the center of all spiritual work. The actual biblical content of the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" remained in the shadow of the whole of patristic exegesis, and both of its main approaches, despite all their methodological differences, proved to be in solidarity with each other on this issue. The words of St. Anastasius Sinaita (VII century), who argued that "the true nature of the two trees of paradise is completely unknown and knowledge of it is not necessary for the Church" (Anastasius Syn. // Exaemeron, lid. 8 PG 89, 971 s.). [Cit. by: Galbiati E., Piazza A. S. 136 and Biblical commentaries of the Church Fathers ... S. 78-79]

In the subsequent comprehension of the biblical "tree of the knowledge of good and evil," several fundamental directions of exegesis can be distinguished. These are, first of all, interpretations, the main attention of which was focused on the violation of the divine prohibition that had occurred, and which understood "good and evil" as moral categories. By eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge, a person loses "moral innocence", becoming able to distinguish between "good" and "bad". He is also able to realize his guilt before God, whose commandment he has neglected. Here we can talk about the continuity of the "Antiochian school", which can rightly be considered the founder of this trend in Christian exegesis of the first chapters of the book. Genesis. A typical example of such an interpretation is the commentary of the "Explanatory Bible" edited by A.P. Lopukhin on Genesis 2, 9: “God chose this tree as a means to test the faith and love of Adam, as well as his gratitude to the heavenly Father, for the purposes of which He gave him the commandment not to eat from the fruits of this tree. From this commandment it , in all likelihood, and got its name [?]. "The tree of knowledge," says Metropolitan Filaret, "having been chosen as an instrument of testing, represented to man, on the one hand, the continuously increasing knowledge and enjoyment of goodness in obedience to God, on the other hand, knowledge and a sense of evil in disobedience". Since, in general, the commandment dedicated to this tree meant the development of the higher abilities of a person as a rational being, this tree itself could easily pass the name "tree of understanding" or "tree of knowledge". since, according to the Old Testament view, all knowledge in general had a moral character[?], then "good and evil" are taken here as two opposite poles of all knowledge in general. Further in the commentary on Genesis 2, 16: “For the development of the moral forces (higher) of man, God gave him a special commandment, consisting in refraining from the fruits of the tree of knowledge already known to us. God appointed this abstinence to serve as a symbol of obedience and obedience to Him on the part of man, whereby the observance of this commandment expressed on the part of a person a feeling of love, gratitude and devotion to God; while its violation, quite the opposite, testified to distrust of God, disregard for His words and black ingratitude towards the Creator, along with a desire to live according to one’s own will, and not according to the commandments of God. That is why such a seemingly insignificant crime received such a huge, moral value". It must be recognized that consideration of the history of the "fall" solely from the position of violation of the moral foundations of the relationship between God and man raises many difficult questions for both exegesis and theology. Such interpretations almost completely exclude the recognition of the "tree of knowledge of good and evil" what On the other hand, they require theodicy, since only subjective reasons are seen in the prohibition established by God. "Explanatory Bible" on Genesis 2, 16) sound clearly unconvincing.

Another widely represented trend in the "new" exegesis was the approach that regards acquired knowledge as an experience of a sexual order. Indeed, Heb. the verb yada" ("know", "know") can also be used in this sense (see Gen. 4, 1), and individual passages of chapters 2-3, with the appropriate imagination and interest, can be easily interpreted in the system of psychoanalytic symbolism. In one modern commentary that takes this approach into account, "feeding the fruit" is assessed as follows: "When Adam and Eve ate the fruit, they became aware of their sexuality.<...>The sad result of eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was that Adam and Eve lost their innocence and were alienated from God "(Big Bible Dictionary. Edited by W. Elwell and F. Comfort. SPb., 2005. P. 372). However the argumentation expressed by supporters of this understanding loses all credibility, if only because "natural" childbearing is declared to be a God-sanctioned primordial given human being(Gen 1:28).

A serious shortcoming of both of these approaches is that they are little interested in the actual biblical content of the tree of knowledge. The very nature of the tree does not matter to them, and within the framework of the proposed understanding, any physical object could appear. However, the 2nd and 3rd chapters of the book. Genesis cannot be denied the rigor of plot construction and the interconnection of all the details of their narrative. As an etiological story explaining the eternal and therefore always relevant problems of human existence, which include the mortal destiny of the human race and the dominance of sin in the human community, Genesis 2-3 rightly claims to be an authoritative position in the biblical text. Its deep essence is not in moralism or psychologism, but it proclaims, first of all, the truths of the ontological order, where the realities of the "tree of knowledge of good and evil" occupy one of the central positions.

Understanding the meaning that the sacred author put into the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" should come from both a general analysis of the subject matter of the text in chapters 2-3, and those expressive means by which the plot is built. The second chapter of the book Genesis, together with the Six Days (Gen 1), constitute two parallel creation texts. They are also based on similar ideas that are characteristic of everything ancient east. The description of creation in the Six Days implies the primary act of creation (Gen 1, 1. The Hebrew verb bara, which stands here, is used in the biblical text exclusively in connection with the activity of God, denoting the creation of something fundamentally new) and the subsequent arrangement of the "earth", the original the state of which is described as chaos (Gen 1, 2), from which the world is created by the creative deeds of the “days of creation.” The final creation is perfect, as evidenced by the assessment that God gives to His offspring: tob, “good”, “good” (Gen 1, 31) At the same time, it should be noted that the description of the chaotic state of the "earth" in Genesis 1, 2 does not contain any negative connotations. It is only a "building material". the verbs yasar and "asa) of "light" and "world" (in the meaning of state; Heb. salom), and the Creator (twice the verb bara is used) of "darkness" (hosek, as in Genesis 1, 2) and "destruction " or "evil" (ra"); He is the Creator of all things. Narration 2nd chapter. in his description of creation uses other means of expression. The "Garden of Eden" is an image symbolizing the perfection of God's creation. Within the framework of the descriptive symbolism of the 2nd chapter, the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" placed in the center of the garden should express the principles of the structure of the world, where "good" symbolizes its perfect "arrangement", and "evil" - that which poses a threat to it, then is the destructive force of chaos. In essence, the first two chapters of the book. Genesis, using different language means, harmoniously complement each other. If in the Six Days the world, creation is given in the perspective of its formation, then in the 2nd chapter the symbol of the world order presented in it, "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil", expresses the principle and dynamics of the interaction of its two principles.

With such an understanding of the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil," God's prohibition also acquires meaning, and the consequences of its violation become clear. The prohibition itself is intended to protect a person from the realization of the possibilities inherent in him in the wrong direction. A person is endowed by God with power over the world (Gen 1, 28) and has the ability to create (it is obviously manifested in the episode of naming animals in Gen 2, 19-20, where a person determines the existential essence of his wards, thereby declaring himself a co-worker with God in arranging creation ). However, man's power over the world does not extend to its "beyond", "dark" sides of chaos, from which it was erected. This is the prerogative of God the Creator. By joining the secret of the universe, eating the "forbidden fruit", a person opens access to the world of the destructive element of chaos, over which he has no power. The consequences of this act are truly catastrophic both for man and for the whole creation. The metaphorical language of Genesis 2-3 allows us to succinctly imagine the nature of what happened: this is God's punishment to the disobedient who is expelled from paradise, but these are also profound changes in the creation itself - the garden turns into a desert, the quality of life drastically deteriorates (Genesis 3, 17-19) . Such a reading removes the need for theodicy, since all the blame for what he did is imputed to Adam, who deliberately violated the boundaries of his capabilities and powers. As for both the moral and sexual aspects of the "fall", they appear to be the side effects of the accomplished global catastrophe.

Among the biblical scholars who tried to comprehend the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" as a key that gives access to the divine and universal knowledge of the secrets of the universe, one can point out: J. Wellhausen (a), P. Humbert (a), J.A. Soggin The knowledge of "good and evil" within the framework of this exegesis is considered as a universal knowledge of everything that exists in the world.

Literature:

1. Bible commentaries of the Fathers of the Church and other authors of the І-VІІІ centuries. Old Testament i. Book of Genesis 1-11. Tver, 2004.
2. Galbiati E., Piazza A. Difficult Pages of the Bible (Old Testament). M., 1992 (and other ed.).
3. Tree of knowledge // Myths of the peoples of the world. T I. M., 1987 (and other ed.). pp. 406-407.
4. Hook S.G. Mythology of the Middle East. M., 1991.
5. Clark W.W. 1969. Legal Background to the Yahwist's use of "good and evil" in Genesis 2-3. JBL (Journal of Bibical Literature) 88: 266-78.
6. Coppens J. 1948. La connaissance du bien et du mal et le peche du paradis. Contribution a l "interpretation de Gen. II-III. ALBO (Analecta lovaniensia biblica et orientalia) 11/3. Gembloux.
7. Engnell J. 1955. "Knowledge" and "Life" in Creation Story. pp. 103-19 in Winsdom in Israel. VTSup (Vetus Testamentum Supplements) 3. Leiden.
8. Gordis R. 1957. The Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Old Testament and the Qumran Scrolls. JBL 76: 123-38.
9. Krasovec J. 1977. Der Merismus im Biblisch-Hebrdischen und Nordwestsemitischen. Rome.
10. Langdon S. 1928. The Legend of the Kiskanu. JRAS (Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society) 843-48.
11. Lurcer M. 1871. Der Baum im Alten Orient. Ein Beitrag zur Symbolgeschichte. pp. 147-75 in Beitrdge zur Geschichte, Kultur und Religion des alten Orients, ed. M. Lurker. Baden-Baden.
12. Soggin J.A. 1975. The Fall of Man in the Third Chapter of Genesis. pp. 169-78 in Old Testament and Oriental Studies. BibOr (Biblica et orientalia) 29. Rome.
13. Tsevat M. 1975. The Two Trees in the Garden of Eden. EI (Eretz Israel) 12:40-43 (Hebrew). English Summary, 119.
14. Wallace H. 1992. Tree of Knowledge and Tree of Life. ABD. Vol. VI. pp. 656-660.
15. Wallace H. 1985. The Eden Narrative. HSM (Harvard Semitic Monographs) 32. Atlanta.
16. Westermann C. 1984. Genesis 1-11: A Commentary. Trans. J. Scullion. London.

http://www.portal-slovo.ru/rus/theology/9742/11494/

Tree of knowledge of good and evil

Everyone knows well after what events in Paradise began earth history humanity, full of labors, sorrows and troubles. What happened in the Garden of Eden raises a number of important issues, the comprehensive consideration of which has not been given due attention. What exactly was the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Why did Eve, and after her, Adam, encroaching on the fruits, hoped to become “like gods”? Why did the eating of the fruit lead to such a strong violation of harmony with God that its consequences could not be eliminated by simple means? And what vital lessons should we learn for ourselves from the history of the fall of our forefathers and their expulsion from paradise? The author of the article makes an attempt to delve into the essence of the questions posed and find answers to them.

“In the name of Christ, we ask:
make peace with God."
(2 Corinthians 5:20)

Introduction

As is well known to all Christians, and not only Christians, God in Paradise commanded Adam and Eve not to eat the fruits from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but our forefathers disobeyed and were eventually expelled from Paradise, which, in fact, began the earthly the history of mankind, full of labors, sorrows and troubles. However, in connection with these events, which are so crucial for all mankind, a number of rather important issues arise, the comprehensive consideration of which has not been given due attention. What was the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Was it fatal for Adam and Eve to eat these fruits themselves? If so, why did the Lord plant a “poisonous” tree in Paradise? And if not, then why did He forbid Adam and Eve to eat fruit from this particular tree, and not from any other? Why did Eve, and after her, Adam, encroaching on the fruits, hoped to become “like gods”? Why did the eating of the fruit lead to such a strong violation of harmony with God that its consequences could not be eliminated by simple means? And most importantly: what vital lessons should we learn for ourselves from the history of the fall of our forefathers and their expulsion from paradise? We will try to carefully understand, to the best of our ability to delve into the essence and find answers to the questions posed.

Adam and types of knowledge good and evil

Did God not want Adam and Eve to know good and evil, and therefore imposed a ban? This would be extremely strange. Indeed, in later times, when many more restrictions were imposed on people, and when they were deprived of the insight that Adam possessed, He Himself more than once commanded His people to know good and evil. How could this knowledge be forbidden to Adam and Eve, who freely enjoyed all the benefits in paradise? And did Adam not know what is good and what is evil before eating the fruit? St. John Chrysostom indignantly rejects this point of view: “Many lovers of disputes dare to say that Adam, after already eating from the tree, received the ability to distinguish between good and evil. To think so would be extremely crazy.<…>How could the one who gave names and uttered such a wonderful prophecy about a wife not know what is good and what is bad? If we allow this (which will not happen!), then we will again blaspheme the Creator. How did He also give a commandment to those who did not know that crime (is) evil? This is not true; on the contrary, he clearly knew it. “If we now know this, and not only we, but also the Scythians and barbarians, then all the more did man know this then, before the fall. Honored with such advantages as (creation) in the image and likeness, and other benefits, he could not be deprived of the main good. Only those who by nature do not have reason do not know good and evil, and Adam possessed great wisdom and could recognize both. “So, having known so much, tell me, did you really not know what is good and what is evil? What will it be in line with? If he [Adam] did not know before eating from the tree what was good and what was evil, but learned after eating, then, therefore, sin was a teacher of wisdom for him, and the serpent was not a deceiver, but a useful adviser, making him a man from a beast. But let it not! It's not like that, no If he did not know what was good and what was evil, then how could he receive a commandment? Law is not given to those who do not know that crime is evil. And God gave (the law) and punished for the transgression [of the law]; He would not have done either if he had not first made Adam capable of knowing virtue and vice. Do you see how it is revealed to us from everywhere that it was not after eating from the tree that [Adam] knew good and evil, but he knew it before?” Note that this point of view is confirmed in the Holy Scriptures. Wise Sirach says: “The Lord created man from the earth.<…>He gave them sense, tongue and eyes, and ears and a heart to reason, filled them with discernment of mind and showed them good and evil"(Sir. 17:1-6).

However, to avoid omissions, consider the issue in more detail. Knowledge is of three types: 1) through concepts, terms, words; 2) direct contemplation of the knowable; 3) on personal experience, i.e. through personal involvement or possession of the known, or even through the interpenetration of the knower and the known. Let's agree that it's different to hear about happiness, it's different to see happy person and communicate with him, and another thing - to be happy yourself. It is another thing to know that honey exists, another thing to see honey, and another thing to taste honey and feel its sweetness.

Of course, Adam had a conceptual knowledge of good and evil. He certainly knew that there is good and evil, "good" and "bad", good and vile. But it is by no means necessary that he at the same time know in detail, for example, all the specific types of evil. There was no need for this. After all, unlike us, Adam was completely protected from the direct suggestion of bad thoughts, feelings and desires to him. He was like a baby, whom the father leads by the hand, protecting and protecting at the same time. We agree that such an infant does not need to know all the rules for his safe movement. traffic. Similarly, Adam did not need to know the string of many commandments that we need, having the opportunity to move away from God in many ways. Thus, it cannot be ruled out that, with his knowledge of good and evil, Adam was simultaneously in some blissful ignorance, so that he had something to know even at the level of concepts. However, it is unlikely that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil gave exclusively or predominantly such knowledge. After all, the latter is not fraught with such a danger that such a strict prohibition and such a terrible warning (of imminent death) would be appropriate.

Was it possible for Adam to directly contemplate good and evil? First, let us note that when Adam gave names to animals, he did not do it in a random way, but contemplated the essence of each of them. So from the very beginning, his spiritual eye was open for contemplation. Therefore, one cannot judge him and his abilities, focusing on the vast majority of his descendants, who are in a state of spiritual blindness. Now specifically about the contemplation of good and evil. For a person who is pure in heart and free from sin, and this is exactly what Adam was before his fall, any knowledge of the good is useful, both conceptual and contemplative. Knowledge of evil, of course, is not all useful. Direct contemplation of it is fraught with many dangers. First, those who do not have the gift of discerning spirits can be deceived, mistake evil spirits for holy angels, “because Satan himself takes the form of an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14), and fall into delusion; secondly, one who does not have spiritual courage at the sight of gloomy demons from fear can be damaged by the mind; and, thirdly, contemplation can be followed by even greater rapprochement, and a person who does not have the power of the Holy Spirit and proper spiritual strength may be defeated and be enveloped in darkness, for “the devil walks like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour” ( 1 Peter 5:8). However, a man who is courageous and spiritually protected, i. who dwells in God and contemplates everything in the Holy Spirit, can, as it were, contemplate evil from afar without harm to himself. After all, such contemplation does not defile either angels or holy ascetics. And God, being all-seeing, sees evil, but is not defiled by it. There is no reason to consider Adam before his fall less pure than the saints, or less courageous than the strong ascetics. Therefore, if all the potential danger of Adam falling away from God consisted in his lack of experience of contemplating evil and evil spirits, then it would not be difficult for God, as if holding him by the hand for safety, to give him such an experience, thereby forever eliminating the danger of apostasy from Him. But, obviously, the main danger of apostasy is not the desire to see evil. And what supervaluable could Adam hope to receive from such contemplation? Nothing. This means that the motive for which he would go against the will of God, risking death, would be absent. In addition, it is impossible not to pay attention to the fact that the tree was not called "the tree of the knowledge of evil", but "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." And if in its title the understanding of the word “knowledge” as “contemplation” is taken as true, it follows that without eating its fruits, not only the contemplation of evil, but also good, was impossible. It turns out that Adam, before his fall, could not contemplate either God, or angels, or anything holy at all. But it is impossible to agree with this. Therefore, the word "knowledge" in the name of the tree does not mean "contemplation" in relation to good. Why should this word have a similar meaning in relation to evil? .. So if the fruits from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were somehow connected with contemplation, then it was still not the main thing that these fruits gave.

Perhaps the fruits from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil gave knowledge even closer than contemplation, in particular, the knowledge of evil, i.e. entering into direct contact with evil, staying in it, filling it? All of the above, indeed, leads to falling away from God. But, as noted above, the tree was not called "the tree of the knowledge of evil", but "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." Was it really impossible to contact not only with evil, but also with good without eating its fruits? What, then, could Adam have contacted before the fall? Only with that which is neither evil nor good? Hardly. In that case, how would he grow spiritually, strengthen himself in goodness? It is quite obvious that before the fall, Adam was in full contact with good, he was surrounded on all sides by good, and not eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was not at all an obstacle for him to grow in good, with which he could freely fill his soul. And if the word “knowledge” in the name of the tree in relation to good does not mean knowledge at the level of personal involvement, then why should it have such a meaning in relation to evil? .. But even if it were so, what would be Adam’s motive in violation commandments of God? Was he really not content with the fact that his soul was filled with goodness, and wanted to fill it with evil as well? This seems absurd. Adam, in his great wisdom, could not have had such a foolish desire. And we should not forget that Eve and Adam wanted to become "like gods"; and this does not involve being filled with evil, or being embraced by evil, or coming into contact with evil. After all, all of the above in no way likens a person to God.

Maybe Adam, having a purely speculative knowledge of evil, was not content with this and wanted to taste it? Perhaps there is a certain amount of truth in this, but just a part, because he still longed not for the knowledge of the taste of evil, but wanted to become "like gods, knowing good and evil." And what taste of evil would he hope to taste? And why would he need this taste? ..

Why did Eve and Adam, breaking the commandment, hope to become “like gods”?

Reading many Christian authors who expressed their views on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, as well as on the tree of life, unfortunately, you involuntarily catch yourself thinking that not all of them properly understood that God not only loved Adam infinitely, but he was also infinitely generous to him. Accordingly, the two main trees in Paradise - the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil - were supposed to give the greatest gifts that a person can perceive. And the greatest gifts, of course, are not something human, but something divine. Therefore, for example, the current opinion that the fruits from the tree of life provided Adam simply with human immortality surprises and upsets. As if if he had not eaten the fruit of this tree, he would have died. It turns out that directly in Paradise itself there was a danger of death, and it could have overtaken Adam even if he had not sinned. In fact, the fruits from the tree of life gave incomparably more: they made a person a partaker of divine life. AT Old Testament Wisdom is called the tree of life: “She (Wisdom) is the tree of life for those who acquire it, and blessed are those who keep it!” (Prov. 3:18). But Christ is Wisdom Incarnate. And in patristic tradition Orthodox Church Christ is called the Tree of Life. There is an icon "Saved the Tree of Life". In thanksgiving canon Mother of God teacher Joseph the Songwriter addressed the following words to the Blessed Virgin: “The fiery chariot of the Word, rejoice, the Lady, animated by Paradise, the Tree in the midst of the possessions of Life - the Lord, His sweetness revives those who partake and aphids bowed by faith ... ". True, spiritual and heavenly life is inseparable from God the Son - eternal Life, and He gives it to those who are hungry for this life and approach Him with reverence. It was this spiritual life that Adam partook of, eating the fruit of the tree life. Then he perceived this life in the paradise fruits of the tree; and now we perceive this heavenly life in the Eucharist, about which Christ himself said: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, you will not have life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life” (John 6:53-54). John the Theologian also testifies: “For life has appeared, and we have seen and we testify, and we proclaim this to you. eternal life which was with the Father and appeared to us” (1 John 1:2).

So, the fruits from the tree of life did not give eternal human existence, because Adam had it without it before his fall, but they raised it to Life. Similarly, there is every reason to believe that the fruits from the second tree gave a knowledge of good and evil, not such as is given to man by God through conscience or commandment. Adam from the beginning knew good and evil as a man; and, eating the fruit of the tree, he hoped to get something more; judging by the fact that for the sake of this he went to violate the commandment given by God - something much more. This means that the fruits gave knowledge such as that of God Himself. And Adam wanted to know good and evil like God, in order to become "like the gods" himself. We agree that having only human knowledge, it is impossible to become "like the gods"; To do this, you need to acquire divine knowledge.

What is the difference between human and divine knowledge of good and evil? After all, it would seem that this is one and the same good, one and the same evil. It should be noted here that many sincere people, feeling the inviolability of the laws of morality in their souls, unconsciously think about truths that reflect good and evil, i.e. delineating their boundaries, in the spirit objective idealism, as if these are some ideas that exist on their own. However, if you delve into it, it becomes obvious that these truths (boundaries) do not exist by themselves, but are the essence of God's establishment. So, God not only knows the boundaries of good and evil, but Himself constitutes them. Man is left with the knowledge of these boundaries, already established and existing. That's the difference!

Now the next question is: how does God define these boundaries? How does He decide what is good and what is evil? What is God's criterion for good or evil? This criterion is He Himself. What God pleases, what corresponds to His goodness, wisdom and holiness, that is good in His eyes; and what is not pleasing to Him, what is contrary to His goodness, that is evil in His sight.

So, the criterion of good and evil for God is He Himself, unfailingly good, wise and holy; and He is also the author of all higher laws and ordinances, good, wise and holy. So Adam had to be content with the same criterion, and keep to these very institutions. But he wanted to know good and evil like God, that is, he wanted to become for himself a criterion of good and evil, and to decide for himself what is good and what is evil. Through this, he hoped to become like God in the fastest way.

So if Adam had a desire to taste evil, it could only have this meaning, i.e. the desire to decide for yourself whether it is evil or not evil at all, but good. Are there not many people who say: “Everything in life must be tried,” implying that they are going to try just what is forbidden? But why? To decide for themselves what is good and what is evil. And by what criteria are they going to decide it? There is only one criterion - they themselves. In fact, they seem to be saying: “What my soul loves is good for me, and what it does not love is evil. My life is my business." They might well add, “I don't really care what God likes or doesn't like. The main thing for me is what I like and what I don't. And the commandments of God for such people are not a law, and often not even a guideline. They easily fall into mortal sins, and if they like any of these sins, they often make it the rule of their own lives.

Thus, the goal of Eve and Adam was not the speculative knowledge of evil, not entering into close contact with it and not tasting it. The devil seduced them with the same thing through which he himself fell: the desire to become like God. God, as King in the Kingdom of Heaven, reserved for Himself the highest legislative power - the power to establish the boundaries of good and evil; people, like thieves and rebels, decided to appropriate the same power for themselves in order to become "like gods." Initially, God gave people complete freedom within the framework of goodness. However, this was not enough for them: they wanted, like God, to have the power to set these limits themselves, and to do this not even together with God, but without God and independently of God.

It should be noted that God did not forbid Adam to become like Him. On the contrary, that is what he was created for, and that is what he was called to do. He was created from the very beginning in the image and likeness of God. He had to keep the image, and increase in likeness. God is good, wise and holy, and He is the Creator of everything and the King in the Kingdom of Heaven. And Adam possessed blessedness, wisdom, and holiness. And besides, in accordance with the plan of God, he could and was called to grow more and more in perfection. This is the meaning of the commandments to cultivate and keep the Garden of Eden (Gen. 2:15) and to eat the fruit of every tree in the garden (Gen. 2:16) except one. Living in Paradise, among a great variety of different trees that give good fruits, Adam could freely use the latter, i.e. he could freely choose any gifts and blessings, including those that bore fruit from the tree of life. Through this, he could gradually grow in God and unite more closely with Him, becoming more and more like Him with Him and in Him. But our forefather decided to take a different, faster path. He wanted to become like God without God, to know good and evil without God, to have the basis of the knowledge of good and evil not in God, but in himself. As a result, he fell away from God and fell into selfhood.

Violation of the commandment and spiritual death

God created man free, and did not bind him to Himself by force, as if by some kind of chain, just as now He does not save anyone by force. He clearly speaks of this through the prophet David: “Do not be like a horse, like a foolish hinny, whose jaws need to be bridle with a bridle and a bit, so that they obey you” (Ps. 31:9). The union of God with man was a free union, a union of mutual love. But the freedom of a person for that is freedom, which gives him not only the opportunity to live with God and in God, but also the opportunity to move away and even fall away from Him. To prevent this from happening, a commandment was given to him, for it is impossible that God, knowing that a person can fall away from Him, would not warn him and command him not to do what leads to falling away. A commandment is not so much a law, the crime of which is imputed as guilt, for which, in turn, a certain punishment is expected, but a warning, for the Lord said: “... on the day you eat from it, you will die the death” (Gen. .2:17), but did not say: "... on the day you eat from him, I will kill you." After all, many negative consequences came even before God pronounced His judgment on Adam and Eve who had sinned. St. Irenaeus of Lyon says this about it: “Separation from God is death, just as separation from light is darkness ... however, this does not mean that it was the light that imposed the punishment on the blind to remain in darkness.”

Before eating, there was only goodness and light in Adam and Eve, and after that, evil penetrated into their hearts, and darkness enveloped them. “And the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed together fig leaves, and made themselves aprons” (Gen. 3:7). Prior to this, Adam and Eve were like pure and chaste babies. And now passions blossomed in them, and all sorts of embarrassments began. So, in mind and heart, they almost immediately moved away from God. “And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in paradise in the cool of the day; And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of paradise” (Gen. 3:8). From what happened, it is clear to what extent their minds were darkened if they tried to hide from the all-seeing God “between the trees of Paradise”. The omniscient Lord, fully knowing what happened, in His mercy gives Adam the opportunity to repent, and asks: “Have you not eaten from the tree from which I forbade you to eat?” (Gen.3:11) And what does our forefather Adam answer? He does not repent, and does not even answer in simplicity of heart: “Yes, I ate,” but says: “The wife that You gave me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate” (Gen. 3:12). He directly accuses the wife, and indirectly - God, for he does not simply say "the wife gave me, and I ate", but specifically adds: "which You gave me." Alas, his heart was so darkened. So is every unrepentant sinner: whatever you ask him, everyone around is to blame, but not him. In the same vein, Eve holds an answer before God: the serpent is to blame. It should be noted that the nature of the responses of Adam and Eve, their self-justification and desire to shift the blame onto another, manifests the effect of the eaten fruit: they already judge good and evil not according to God, as they did before, but differently, in their own way, in their hearts distorting the true picture.

Let us note that up to this moment God has not pronounced His judgment on anyone, has not punished anyone, has not expelled anyone. But Adam and Eve, who previously dwelt in the Wisdom of God and in the Holy Spirit, already themselves show that now they are very far removed from both wisdom and holiness. So, it is clearly seen that it was not God who withdrew from people, being angry with them for their disobedience, but people inwardly, i.e. mind and heart, departed from God.

Death is of two kinds: spiritual and physical. Spiritual death is the falling away of the soul from God; bodily death is the separation of the soul from the body. Death first befell Adam and Eve on the same day they ate from the forbidden tree, as the Lord said to Adam: “Do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it you will die by death” (Gen. 2:17). And bodily death overtook them only a few centuries later, moreover, as a result of a completely different decree of God: “you will return to the ground from which you were taken, for dust you and to dust you will return” (Gen. 3:19). Rev. Macarius the Great teaches: "We do not say that a person is completely lost, destroyed, died: he died for God, but lives by his own nature." And blessed Theophylact Bulgarian claims that Adam, “although he was alive, nevertheless<…>died at the same time as he ate of the forbidden fruit. St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, referring to St. Gregory Palamu, writes: “The soul of Adam died, - says Saint Gregory Palamas, - separated from God by disobedience: for he lived in body after that (after his fall) until nine hundred and thirty years.

The only prohibition that God gave to Adam in Paradise was not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; and it was through this and only through this that he could fall away from God. Indeed, if he considered good what God considers good, and considered evil what God considers evil, how could he fall away from Him? It should be borne in mind that before the fall, Adam was a whole being, therefore he could not have that state of internal split and contradiction that occurs in us when a person considers something good, but does the opposite, and about which St. The Apostle Paul says: “I do not do the good that I want, but I do the evil that I do not want” (Rom. 7:19). And while Adam considered good what really is such according to God, then he adhered to it. On the other hand, if he began to consider good not what God considers as such, as well as evil not what God considers, then how could he not fall away from Him? ..

Adam fell into selfhood, began to live on his own, became a kind of completely autonomous world, no longer rooted in God. That this was indeed the case can be seen from most of his descendants: each "ordinary", i.e. an unborn again person is a completely autonomous world, with its own “truth” and its own “good”. Could Adam's mind, which became self-centered, at the same time remain rooted in God? No way. In the same way, his heart turned away from God. Could the Kingdom of Heaven be divided into itself, so that the good from God and the good from Adam existed in it? No. Therefore, Adam internally fell away from God, found himself outside of God. His body remained in Paradise for some time, and while he was there, the opportunity was open for him to repent and restore his condition. But that did not happen. And since the source of all true blessings is God, then Adam, having become a stranger to Him and being expelled from paradise, was deprived of those great heavenly treasures that he possessed as a child of God.

Tree of knowledge of good and evil and moral freedom

Why did God create the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, if the fruits from it brought death to people? Why did He plant it in Paradise? Really, even for the sake of freedom, He specially created this tree as a kind of door through which one can fall away from Him?.. Of course not. God didn't do anything wrong. The question is different. The Holy Fathers teach that for Adam the fruits from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were deadly only for a time; and after he had reached sufficient maturity and perfection, God would have canceled this commandment, and then Adam could have eaten the fruits from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil without harm to himself, and even with benefit. This would have been possible only if Adam had grown so perfect, so filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit, so "merged" with it that he would become invariably holy, god-like, grace would become, as it were, an integral part of his being, as if it were his second nature. And then he, having become a perfect vessel of God, would always strive for good, for good, never, in anything and under no circumstances would go against God, but would love Him with all his heart. And that this was not yet the case at the time of the fall of our forefathers, is clearly seen from how easily Eve preferred the words of the serpent to the words of God and believed that God deceived them and out of envy does not want people to become “like gods”, knowing good and evil; and how easily Adam chose to obey his wife rather than God. If Adam really became an eternal righteous man from becoming accustomed to good, from eating the fruits from the tree of life and being filled with grace, then he himself would not want, or even be able to go against God, so much God would be dear to him, and he - for God. From a state where he could not have sinned (but could have sinned), he would have passed, like the angels who withstood during temptation, to a state where he could no longer sin. But first, he, like the Archangel Michael and the holy angels, had to resist the temptation that the Lord allowed. And only after Adam, having been tested and proved his trustworthiness for the Kingdom of Heaven, would ascend (gradually or, perhaps, immediately) to the proper height of perfection, then the Lord would cancel the prohibitive commandment given by Him, which partially limited his freedom, for the sake of complete freedom, for the sake of complete bliss. And then he would be able to bear complete moral freedom without any harm to themselves, but with benefit, for freedom for those who rightly use it is a great blessing. And before that, the fruits from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil represented a mortal danger for him as giving him premature complete freedom. First, the fulfillment of the commandment, the habit of doing good, then freedom. After all, we also keep our children at first within certain limits, accustom them to certain rules, and when they get used to them, when these rules become a habit for them, which will become, as it were, their second nature, then we give them freedom. And if freedom comes first, then later... What happens next, we know well. To do this, it is enough to look at the modern “democratic” world: the gradual corruption of many millions of people and the multiplication of sin, the progressive moral degradation hidden behind a respectable facade. " A man in honor who is not intellect, venerate himself with senseless cattle and become like them» (Ps. 46:13). These are the fruits of premature freedom, the freedom of people who have not grown strong in the fulfillment of the commandments, perverted and mutilated freedom, turned into permissiveness. Paradise is forgotten, and mortal sin is the norm of life. Such is this false freedom, freedom from commandments, freedom from unity with God.

Freedom of the children of God and freedom of self-will

There are two fundamentally different types of human freedom: freedom of the children of God and freedom of will. The first is freedom in God; the second is freedom from God. Under the conditions of our present earthly existence, they have various degrees, and in the limit include, respectively, freedom from sin and freedom in sin. The first freedom is similar to the freedom of law-abiding citizens of a country ruled by a wise, kind and just ruler. Can these citizens be considered not free on the grounds that they love and honor the ruler, honor the law established by him and observe it? Hardly. The second freedom is similar to the freedom of criminals who do not honor the ruler, despite the fact that he is wise, kind and just, who do not respect the law and easily break it. But can they really be considered free? Again, hardly.

As the ancient Roman thinker Tacitus correctly notes, "only fools call self-will freedom." A person considers himself free on the grounds that he is guided by the principle “I do what I want”. However, every desire has its source. Natural desires flow from the very nature of man. Desires that are above natural, sublime, and holy have grace as their source. At the limit, a person feels, thinks, desires and acts in unity with God, achieves synergy with Him. "Cleave to the Lord, one spirit is with the Lord" (1 Cor. 6:17). But there are also desires that are inferior to nature, and their source is either the passion of the person himself, or an evil spirit. If you look closely, it becomes clear that many of "our" whims and lusts are in fact by no means ours, but are inspired from outside. A person takes what the demon suggests for his own thoughts and desires and fulfills them over and over again. So behind self-pleasing is often hiding the pleasing of a demon. And in fact, it turns out that a self-willed person is free only in the sense that he can freely serve his passions or fulfill the instigations of demons. But both are sins. And if a person is really free, why should he serve sin? And does he serve him freely? Or, rather, to the extent to which he is enslaved by him? The Lord puts special emphasis on this moment: “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin” (John 8:34). Ap. Peter testifies to the foolishness and deceitfulness of those who call for the freedom of self-will: “Pronouncing puffed up idle talk, they entrap into carnal lusts and depravity those who are barely behind those who are in error. They promise them freedom, being themselves slaves of corruption; For whoever is conquered by whom, that is his servant” (2 Pet. 2:18,19). Blessed Augustine calls the freedom of fallen man "perverted" (perverse) and "servile".

So, the freedom of the children of God is true and peaceful freedom, and the freedom of self-will is an illusory, false and non-peaceful freedom that keeps a person away from God and secretly or openly enslaves him to passions and vices. Therefore, freedom must be pursued wisely, not madly. The Apostle James says: “Whoever looks into the perfect law, [the law] of freedom, and abides in it, he, being not a forgetful listener, but a doer of work, will be blessed in his action” (James 1:25).

The Path of Salvation and True Freedom

The human soul cannot find true peace and bliss without God and outside of God. “Only in God does my soul rest” (Ps. 61:2). Rev. Macarius the Great says: “A meaningful and prudent soul, having bypassed all creatures, does not find rest anywhere but in the One Lord. And the Lord does not favor anyone, but only one person.

Salvation in its deepest essence is nothing but a return to God and union with Him. In order to return to the state of unity with God, the obstacles to this must first be removed. And what can be a greater obstacle than the fact that a person makes himself the criterion of goodness and truth, makes himself an idol and, in fact, a self-proclaimed god? One is the true criterion of both goodness and truth - God; and those who seek other support make themselves vessels of evil and falsehood to the extent that they depart from Him. This is the path that leads to death. The path of salvation is the opposite of it. Hieromartyr Peter of Damascus writes: “After long labors and contritions, I found this reasoning among the holy fathers: the beginning of all good and all evil is given to man reason, and according to reason - will. The Beginning of Salvation: Let Man Leave His Wills and Minds and Create God's Wills and Minds. Before the law, in the law and in grace, there are many who are saved because they preferred the mind of God and His will over their own understanding and desires; and again in all those times many lost ones are found, because they preferred their own desires and understandings to those of God. It is obvious that we are not talking here about the desires and understandings regarding all sorts of little things. We are talking about the most important, key issues. And such a question is, first of all, the question of good and evil; and all our other significant desires and understandings are connected with it. Therefore, there is only one way to God: to renounce your "goods" and "truths" and be filled with God's. Through which we fell away from God, only through this can we return to Him. And if we, being wholly full of our desires and understandings, live in our selfhood, and the basis of our life is self-indulgence, behind which, as was said above, displeasure often lurks, then we are very far from God, and our souls do not abide in harmony with the spirit of God.

The Apostle Paul writes: “So we are messengers on behalf of Christ, and it is as if God Himself exhorts through us; We ask in the name of Christ: be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20). How can a person enter into unity with God without first being reconciled to Him? No way. It is no coincidence that those approaching Holy Baptism first take an oath: "I renounce Satan, I unite myself with Christ." Let us note that we are not talking only about external recognition of the correctness and holiness of God's commandments and about intellectual agreement with them. Therefore, it is said precisely “I am united” to Christ, and not simply “I acknowledge” Christ. Harmony with the spirit of God must gradually reach the very depths human soul reconciling his mind, heart, and will completely and completely with God. The Lord compares this process with the leavening of dough, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and put into three measures of flour until it was all leavened” (Mat. 13:33). Only in this way can a person again become trustworthy for the Kingdom of Heaven, become a vessel of God, in order to live in eternity in the closest unity with Him. Therefore, the Wisdom of God says: “Put me like a seal on your heart like a ring on your hand” (Song of Songs 8:6), and indicates what is the blessed destiny of a righteous soul and what is the degree of its unity with God in mutual love: “For love is strong as death” (ibid.); at the same time, he warns against the opposite path and the bitter fate that follows it, saying: “Jealousy is fierce as hell” (ibid.).

The beginning of the path of salvation is somehow connected with some lack of freedom (because of the need to renounce self-will and the fulfillment of external commandments that have not yet become familiar and native) and fear. “The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord; a right mind in all who do [his commandments]” (Ps. 110:10). But as he progresses (if there really is such a place), a person gradually passes from the external to the internal. First he is united with God by covenant and commandment, then by Spirit and love. True freedom can only be a consequence of peace with God, love for Him and life in Him, a consequence of the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, for "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" (2 Corinthians 3:17). The one who is established in the Spirit acts according to the Spirit that is in him, and the fulfillment of external commandments becomes a natural and joyful thing for him (although, of course, temptations occur not only until the last hour of a person’s life, but even after the separation of the soul from the body). Such a person lives according to God not out of fear, but out of love for Him. Therefore, about the end of this path, John the Theologian says: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because there is torment in fear. Whoever fears is not perfect in love” (1 John 4:18). About the gradual ascent from the first state to the second writes St. Simeon the New Theologian: “Insofar as we are cleansed, so much are we elevated from fear of God to love for Him.” From this we understand the full grace of the words of Christ: “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest; take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls; for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Mat. 11:28-30).

Thus, we must renounce one freedom in order to gain another, incomparably better: we must renounce the freedom of self-will, deceitful and impure, in order to gain true and holy freedom, the freedom of the children of God.

How is it that when the mind, heart and will of a person are brought into the closest unity with God, and, it would seem, are maximally enslaved to Him, in reality it is then that a person achieves true freedom, feels its fullness and bliss? The one who has come into unity with God does not at all become a kind of puppet, completely controlled and moved from the outside, does not lose his natural will and energy. They stay. But a person thinks, feels and desires together with Him, synergistically. The energies of God give a person wisdom, bliss and strength. Of course, all this does not make it less free. On the contrary, remaining a finite being, he becomes a participant in the life of the infinite God, with all its treasures, including a participant in divine freedom. He is free in God, free as a child of God and heir to the Kingdom of Heaven.

False freedom and the path of perdition

Man was originally created as a vessel. According to his high calling, he can be a vessel of God. However, if he lives away from God, then God does not dwell in him. And, as you know, “a holy place is never empty”, and he, being in darkness, becomes a vessel of evil spirits, passions and sin (See Matt. 12:43-45). Alas, the person himself often does not realize this. And since like attracts like, he, looking for "freedom" and "understanding", as a rule, finds himself among the same as himself. And a community of similar people always creates a world corresponding to it with its own attributes and its own moral paradigm, its own understanding of what is “good” and what is “bad”. “The unfortunate sinner puts himself as a measure of his actions, he puts his subjective understanding of “what is good and what is evil” above Revelation and obedience to God, Who alone truly sees the whole essence of things, and not just their outwardly “attractive appearance” ” . Alas, for some time now this approach has become predominant in many countries that were previously Christian. And what are the results? The morals of people, having lost their unshakable foundation, are degrading step by step. What for many centuries was quite rightly treated as uncleanness and abomination, over the past few decades, at first began to be considered, although reprehensible, but requiring indulgence, then - tolerant, then - quite acceptable; and today it is already proposed to treat this as a variant of the norm, quite equal to other options. But the Lord clearly says: “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil, who consider darkness to be light, and light to be darkness, who consider bitter to be sweet, and sweet to be bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own eyes!” (Isaiah 5:20-21).

The madness of sinners comes to the point that, not wanting to be reconciled with the holiness of God, they want to reconcile God with their sinfulness. More precisely, they do not seek the will of God Himself, but try to convince themselves and others that He does not condemn and never condemned those sins that are so beloved by their impure hearts. But there is no worse liar than the one who deceives himself, his conscience. God, “with whom there is no variation and not a shadow of turning” (James 1:17), will not cancel any of His decrees regarding good and evil. And the fact that there is a decline in morals among people does not at all make the commandments of God something that should automatically adapt to these very morals. Christ Himself testified of this: “Truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or one tittle will pass from the law until everything is fulfilled” (Mat. 5:18). Sin is sin; and unenviable is the fate of stubborn sinners who have made sin and vice, as it were, their second nature. It doesn’t change anything at all that today it seems to thousands and millions of people living in their sins without repentance that they are “good”, and therefore they will be saved and go to Paradise. They are "good" only in their own eyes and in the eyes of others like themselves. But is their judgment just? Are they good for God? The Holy Apostle Paul clearly says: “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor malaks, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous men, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor predators, shall inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9,10).

Man and participation in the supreme power of God

The highest aspect of God's legislative power is to determine the boundaries of good and evil. According to God's plan, Adam, having reached maturity and perfection and confirmed his trustworthiness, could become a partaker of this power to a certain extent. Let us emphasize: I would not have gained the same power as with God, but would have become a partaker of the power of God. This did not happen because of his fall; but in Christ those who are faithful to God to the end have become and will become partakers. Not in the sense of gaining power to establish some new commandments, but in a different way. Christ says: “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Mat. 18:18). He, as King, invests His Apostles and bishops with apostolic succession with the power to “bind and loose.” This power, though inferior to God's legislative power, is adjacent to it. In addition, Christ, as Judge, will endow the saints with His judicial power: “Truly, I say to you that you who have followed Me are in everlasting life, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory, you will also sit on twelve thrones to judge the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matt. .19:28). The apostle Paul asks: “Do you not know that the saints will judge the world?” (1 Corinthians 6:2) Let us agree that the judicial power is a continuation of the legislative power, for the application of the law depends on the judge. In addition, the judge has the power to show mercy, and "mercy exalts judgment" (James 2:13). So, God, who has placed His Son as King over all creation, will make His faithful children partakers of His royal power, for “if we died with Him, then with Him we shall also live; if we endure, we will also reign with him” (2 Tim 2:11-12).

The tree of life made man a partaker of divine life. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil also gave very great gifts - communion to a certain extent with divine freedom and supreme power. All of the above, although it was supplied by means of created fruits, is itself not something created. These divine blessings are uncreated and inseparable from God. You can become a partaker of them only in an incidental way: when God is in you, and you are in God. Therefore, both the devil and Eve and Adam, having dreamed of gaining something higher without God's good will, failed.

Theomachism today

The power to set boundaries between good and evil haunts many people. Fools, filled with satanic pride and bitter envy, not being enlightened by the fate of the devil who fell from heaven, or Adam expelled from paradise, try to appropriate such power for themselves, and sometimes quite consciously. But, standing in the truth, a person cannot do anything like that. He can only deceive himself; and can also impose this deception on others. And no more. Not a person establishes what is good and what is evil. And if instead of one madman there are a thousand, a million or even a billion madmen, it does not change anything.

Alas, today we are witnessing in various countries of the world, primarily in the so-called "developed" countries, not just the adoption of not quite wise, fair and good laws, and not even just a restructuring of value systems, but a deliberate distortion of the deepest orientations of a person. Evil and vice are presented in a beautiful and attractive wrapper, subtly promoted by public organizations and state institutions, planted among young people and even children. What for? What's happening? “The mystery of iniquity is already at work” (2 Thess. 2:7). People, these small and weak creatures, imagined themselves to be gods, fully capable of establishing what is good and what is evil. “Why do the peoples rage, and the tribes plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up, and the princes confer together against the Lord and against His Anointed One. "Let us break their bands, and let us cast off their fetters." Whoever lives in heaven will laugh, the Lord will mock them” (Ps. 2:1-4). Theomachism is a hopeless and doomed thing. Ap. Paul warns: “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap” (Gal. 6:7).

Conclusion

So, the central questions of morality and morality are most directly related to the history of the fall of our forefathers. Alas, in our day, more than ever, those who swallow the same hook on which the evil one caught Adam and Eve have become more numerous. Therefore, today, more than ever, the same dilemma is facing people. At the forefront are the same questions. Who (or what) is the criterion of good and evil? Who, on the basis of this criterion, determines what is good and what is evil? God or people? Each thinking person must answer for himself what he puts at the basis of his life: a covenant with God, his subjective understanding of good and evil, or some kind of social contract. Everyone decides for himself whether to go through reconciliation with God to unity with Him, or, reveling in his own self-will, move away from God, risking forever remaining a stranger to Him. “Blessed is he who does not condemn himself in what he chooses” (Rom. 14:22).

List of sources and literature

Sources

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Literature

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Hieromonk Theognost (Pushkov). The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: An Attempt to Differentiate Theologemes // Theological Reflections. 2005. No. 5. S. 84.