Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Genesis 3:7
There are 28 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 650, footnote 11 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
Appendix: Against All Heresies. (HTML)
Ophites, Cainites, Sethites. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 8355 (In-Text, Margin)
To these are added those heretics likewise who are called Ophites: for they magnify the serpent to such a degree, that they prefer him even to Christ Himself; for it was he, they say, who gave us the origin of the knowledge of good and of evil.[Genesis 3:1-7] His power and majesty (they say) Moses perceiving, set up the brazen serpent; and whoever gazed upon him obtained health. Christ Himself (they say further) in His gospel imitates Moses’ serpent’s sacred power, in saying: “And as Moses upreared the serpent in the desert, so it behoveth the Son of man to be upreared.” Him they introduce to bless their eucharistic ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 651, footnote 3 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
Appendix: Against All Heresies. (HTML)
Ophites, Cainites, Sethites. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 8366 (In-Text, Margin)
... spark; excited whereby, he was through prudence to grow wise, and be able to understand the things above. So, again, the Ialdaboath aforesaid, turning indignant, had emitted out of himself the Virtue and similitude of the serpent; and this had been the Virtue in paradise—that is, this had been the serpent —whom Eve had believed as if he had been God the Son. He plucked, say they, from the fruit of the tree, and thus conferred on mankind the knowledge of things good and evil.[Genesis 3:1-7] Christ, moreover, existed not in substance of flesh: salvation of the flesh is not to be hoped for at all.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 34, footnote 2 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)
On the Veiling of Virgins. (HTML)
The Rule of Veiling Not Applicable to Children. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 311 (In-Text, Margin)
... begins to be self-conscious, and to awake to the sense of her own nature, and to emerge from the virgin ’s (sense), and to experience that novel (sensation) which belongs to the succeeding age. For withal the founders of the race, Adam and Eve, so long as they were without intelligence, went “naked;” but after they tasted of “the tree of recognition,” they were first sensible of nothing more than of their cause for shame. Thus they each marked their intelligence of their own sex by a covering.[Genesis 3:7] But even if it is “on account of the angels” that she is to be veiled, doubtless the age from which the law of the veil will come into operation will be that from which “the daughters of men” were able to invite concupiscence of their persons, and ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 79, footnote 16 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Tertullian: Part Fourth. (HTML)
On Modesty. (HTML)
Examples of Such Offences Under the Old Dispensation No Pattern for the Disciples of the New. But Even the Old Has Examples of Vengeance Upon Such Offences. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 771 (In-Text, Margin)
... immodesty; grant that, before Christ, the flesh may have disported itself, nay, may have perished before its Lord went to seek and bring it back: not yet was it worthy of the gift of salvation; not yet apt for the office of sanctity. It was still, up to that time, accounted as being in Adam, with its own vicious nature, easily indulging concupiscence after whatever it had seen to be “attractive to the sight,” and looking back at the lower things, and checking its itching with fig-leaves.[Genesis 3:7] Universally inherent was the virus of lust—the dregs which are formed out of milk contain it—(dregs) fitted (for so doing), in that even the waters themselves had not yet been bathed. But when the Word of God descended into flesh,—(flesh) not ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 627, footnote 10 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book VII (HTML)
Chapter XXXIX (HTML)
... before his transgression as both seeing and not seeing: seeing, when it is said of the woman, “The woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise;” and again not seeing, as when he introduces the serpent saying to the woman, as if she and her husband had been blind, “God knows that on the day that ye eat thereof your eyes shall be opened;” and also when it is said, “They did eat, and the eyes of both of them were opened.”[Genesis 3:7] The eyes of sense were then opened, which they had done well to keep shut, that they might not be distracted, and hindered from seeing with the eyes of the mind; and it was those eyes of the mind which in consequence of sin, as I imagine, were then ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 348, footnote 2 (Image)
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius
Methodius. (HTML)
The Banquet of the Ten Virgins; or Concerning Chastity. (HTML)
Domnina. (HTML)
The Allegory of the Trees Demanding a King, in the Book of Judges, Explained. (HTML)
... nourished by oil. So also the mercies of God entirely dissolve death, and assist the human race, and nourish the light of the heart. And consider whether the laws, from the first created man until Christ in succession, were not set forth in these words by the Scripture by figments, in opposition to which the devil has deceived the human race. And it has likened the fig-tree to the command given to man in paradise, because, when he was deceived, he covered his nakedness with the leaves of a fig-tree;[Genesis 3:7] and the vine to the precept given to Noah at the time of the deluge, because, when overpowered by wine, he was mocked. The olive signifies the law given to Moses in the desert, because the prophetic grace, the holy oil, had failed from their ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 276, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
Of the punishment and results of man’s first sin, and of the propagation of man without lust. (HTML)
Of the Nakedness of Our First Parents, Which They Saw After Their Base and Shameful Sin. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 743 (In-Text, Margin)
... will, but by a certain independent autocracy, so to speak, are called “shameful.” Their condition was different before sin. For as it is written, “They were naked and were not ashamed,” —not that their nakedness was unknown to them, but because nakedness was not yet shameful, because not yet did lust move those members without the will’s consent; not yet did the flesh by its disobedience testify against the disobedience of man. For they were not created blind, as the unenlightened vulgar fancy;[Genesis 3:7] for Adam saw the animals to whom he gave names, and of Eve we read, “The woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes.” Their eyes, therefore were open, but were not open to this, that is to say, were not observant ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 2, page 276, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: The City of God, Christian Doctrine
City of God (HTML)
Of the punishment and results of man’s first sin, and of the propagation of man without lust. (HTML)
Of the Nakedness of Our First Parents, Which They Saw After Their Base and Shameful Sin. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 746 (In-Text, Margin)
... their will. But when they were stripped of this grace, that their disobedience might be punished by fit retribution, there began in the movement of their bodily members a shameless novelty which made nakedness indecent: it at once made them observant and made them ashamed. And therefore, after they violated God’s command by open transgression, it is written: “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.”[Genesis 3:7] “The eyes of them both were opened,” not to see, for already they saw, but to discern between the good they had lost and the evil into which they had fallen. And therefore also the tree itself which they were forbidden to touch was called the tree ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 45, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)
The equality of the Trinity maintained against objections drawn from those texts which speak of the sending of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. (HTML)
Whether God the Trinity Indiscriminately Appeared to the Fathers, or Any One Person of the Trinity. The Appearing of God to Adam. Of the Same Appearance. The Vision to Abraham. (HTML)
... appear to human eyes through a visible creature; let him, I say, proceed to examine these things if he can, or even to express and handle them in words; but the thing itself, so far as concerns this testimony of Scripture, where God spake with man, is, in my judgment, not discoverable, because it does not evidently appear even whether Adam usually saw God with the eyes of his body; especially as it is a great question what manner of eyes it was that were opened when they tasted the forbidden fruit;[Genesis 3:7] for before they had tasted, these eyes were closed. Yet I would not rashly assert, even if that scripture implies Paradise to have been a material place, that God could not have walked there in any way except in some bodily form. For it might be ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 59, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and on the Baptism of Infants. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
Man’s State Before the Fall. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 594 (In-Text, Margin)
... dwelleth in our members.” But this sin is of such a character that it is the punishment of sin. As soon, indeed, as that transgression was effected, and the disobedient soul turned away from the law of its Lord, then its servant, the body, began to cherish a law of disobedience against it; and then the man and the woman grew ashamed of their nakedness, when they perceived the rebellious motion of the flesh, which they had not felt before, and which perception is called “the opening of their eyes;”[Genesis 3:7] for, of course, they did not walk about among the trees with closed eyes. The same thing is said of Hagar: “Her eyes were opened, and she saw a well.” Then the man and the woman covered their parts of shame, which God had made for them as members, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 250, footnote 10 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Grace of Christ, and on Original Sin. (HTML)
On Original Sin. (HTML)
Three Things Good and Laudable in Matrimony. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2025 (In-Text, Margin)
... good use of concupiscence. If, however, it were impossible for any good to arise out of evil, God could not create man out of the embraces of adultery. As, therefore, the damnable evil of adultery, whenever man is born in it, is not chargeable on God, who certainly amidst man’s evil work actually produces a good work; so, likewise, all which causes shame in that rebellion of the members which brought the accusing blush on those who after their sin covered these members with the fig-tree leaves,[Genesis 3:7] is not laid to the charge of marriage, by virtue of which the conjugal embrace is not only allowable, but is even useful and honourable; but it is imputable to the sin of that disobedience which was followed by the penalty of man’s finding his own ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 251, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Grace of Christ, and on Original Sin. (HTML)
On Original Sin. (HTML)
Lust and Travail Come from Sin. Whence Our Members Became a Cause of Shame. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2028 (In-Text, Margin)
... unaccompanied with groans and pain, or that actual birth led not to future death; yet, at the same time, if I follow the verity of the Holy Scriptures, the travail of the mother and the death of the human offspring would never have supervened if sin had not preceded. Nor would that have happened which abashed the man and woman when they covered their loins; because in the same sacred records it is expressly written that the sin was first committed, and then immediately followed this hiding of their shame.[Genesis 3:7] For unless some indelicacy of motion had announced to their eyes—which were of course not closed, though not open to this point, that is, not attentive—that those particular members should be corrected, they would not have perceived anything on ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 265, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
On Marriage and Concupiscence. (HTML)
On Marriage and Concupiscence (HTML)
The Censuring of Lust is Not a Condemnation of Marriage; Whence Comes Shame in the Human Body. Adam and Eve Were Not Created Blind; Meaning of Their 'Eyes Being Opened.' (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2074 (In-Text, Margin)
... marriage? Or was it, forsooth, as some hold (who give little heed to what they read), that human beings were, like dogs, at first created blind; and—absurder still—obtained sight, not as dogs do, by growing, but by sinning? Far be it from us to entertain such an opinion. But they gather that opinion of theirs from reading: “She took of the fruit thereof, and did eat; and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat: and the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.”[Genesis 3:6-7] This accounts for the opinion of unintelligent persons, that the eyes of the first man and woman were previously closed, because Holy Scripture testifies that they were then opened. Well, then, were Hagar’s eyes, the handmaid of Sarah, previously ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 266, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
On Marriage and Concupiscence. (HTML)
On Marriage and Concupiscence (HTML)
The Censuring of Lust is Not a Condemnation of Marriage; Whence Comes Shame in the Human Body. Adam and Eve Were Not Created Blind; Meaning of Their 'Eyes Being Opened.' (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2077 (In-Text, Margin)
... that they were then opened. Well, then, were Hagar’s eyes, the handmaid of Sarah, previously shut, when, with her thirsty and sobbing child, she opened her eyes and saw the well? Or did those two disciples, after the Lord’s resurrection, walk in the way with Him with their eyes shut, since the evangelist says of them that “in the breaking of bread their eyes were opened, and they knew Him”? What, therefore, is written concerning the first man and woman, that “the eyes of them both were opened,”[Genesis 3:7] we ought to understand as that they gave attention to perceiving and recognising the new state which had befallen their body. Now that their eyes were opened, their body appeared to them naked, and they knew it. If this were not the meaning, how, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 266, footnote 9 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
On Marriage and Concupiscence. (HTML)
On Marriage and Concupiscence (HTML)
Man’s Disobedience Justly Requited in the Rebellion of His Own Flesh; The Blush of Shame for the Disobedient Members of the Body. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2083 (In-Text, Margin)
... demonstration of the just depravation of human nature by reason of its disobedience, than in the disobedience of those parts whence nature herself derives subsistence by succession? For it is by an especial propriety that those parts of the body are designated as natural. This, then, was the reason why the first human pair, on experiencing in the flesh that motion which was indecent because disobedient, and on feeling the shame of their nakedness, covered these offending members with fig-leaves;[Genesis 3:7] in order that, at the very least, by the will of the ashamed offenders, a veil might be thrown over that which was put into motion without the will of those who wished it: and since shame arose from what indecently pleased, decency might be attained ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 288, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
On Marriage and Concupiscence. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
Concupiscence Alone, in Marriage, is Not of God. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2229 (In-Text, Margin)
... all the natural goods of procreation which he mentioned, he was, I repeat, unwilling to name this particular fact of concupiscence, over which even marriage blushes, which glories in all these before-mentioned goods. For why is the especial work of parents withdrawn and hidden even from the eyes of their children, except that it is impossible for them to be occupied in laudable procreation without shameful lust? Because of this it was that even they were ashamed who first covered their nakedness.[Genesis 3:7] These portions of their person were not suggestive of shame before, but deserved to be commended and praised as the work of God. They put on their covering when they felt their shame, and they felt their shame when, after their own disobedience to ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 289, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
On Marriage and Concupiscence. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
The Pelagians are Not Ashamed to Eulogize Concupiscence, Although They are Ashamed to Mention Its Name. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2234 (In-Text, Margin)
... appetite”? Is not both the wish to be saved and the wish to beget, nourish, and educate children, natural appetite? and is it not likewise of reason, and not of lust? Since, however, we can ascertain his intention, we are pretty sure that he meant by these words to indicate the lust of the organs of generation. Do not the words in question appear to you to be the fig-leaves, under cover of which is hidden nothing else but that which he feels ashamed of? For just as they of old sewed the leaves together[Genesis 3:7] as a girdle of concealment, so has this man woven a web of circumlocution to hide his meaning. Let him weave out his statement: “But when the man knew his wife by natural appetite, the divine Scripture says, Eve conceived, and bare a son, and called ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 297, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
On Marriage and Concupiscence. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
God Made Nature Good: the Saviour Restores It When Corrupted. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2278 (In-Text, Margin)
... luxurious and drunkards, any more than we disapprove of gold because of the greedy and avaricious. Wherefore on the same principle we do not censure the honourable connection between husband and wife, because of the shame-causing lust of bodies. For the former would have been quite possible before any antecedent commission of sin, and by it the united pair would not have been made to blush; whereas the latter arose after the perpetration of sin, and they were obliged to hide it, from very shame.[Genesis 3:7] Accordingly, in all united pairs ever since, however well and lawfully they have used this evil, there has been a permanent necessity of avoiding the sight of man in any work of this kind, and thus acknowledging what caused inevitable shame, though ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 386, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
The Aprons Which Adam and Eve Wore. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2596 (In-Text, Margin)
For they did not use for themselves tunics to cover their whole bodies after their sin, but aprons,[Genesis 3:7] which some of the less careful of our translators have translated as “coverings.” And this indeed is true; but “covering” is a general name, by which may be understood every kind of clothing and veil. And ambiguity ought to be avoided, so that, as the Greek called them περιζώματα, by which only the shameful parts of the body are covered, so also the Latin should either use the Greek word itself, because now ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 316, footnote 11 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament. (HTML)
On the words of the Gospel, Matt. xix. 28, ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden,’ etc. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2320 (In-Text, Margin)
... on thee, who in His pity saw thee that He might call thee when unworthy? Nathanael said to the Lord whom as yet he did not know, “Whence knewest thou me?” The Lord said unto him, “When thou wast under the fig-tree I saw thee.” Christ saw thee in thine own shade; and will He not see thee in His Light? For what is, “When thou wast under the fig-tree I saw thee”? What does it mean? Call to mind the original sin of Adam, in whom we all die. When he first sinned, he made himself aprons of fig-leaves,[Genesis 3:7] signifying by these leaves the irritations of lust to which he had been reduced by sinning. Hence are we born; in this condition are we born; born in sinful flesh, which “the likeness of sinful flesh” alone can cure. Therefore “God sent His own Son ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 444, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament. (HTML)
On the words of the Gospel, Luke xiii. 6, where we are told of the fig-tree, which bare no fruit for three years; and of the woman which was in an infirmity eighteen years; and on the words of the ninth Psalm, v. 19, ‘Arise, O Lord; let not man prevail: let the nations be judged in thy sight.’ (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3442 (In-Text, Margin)
1. “the fig-tree” which had its three years’ trial, and bare no fruit, and “the woman which was in an infirmity eighteen years,” hearken to what the Lord may grant me to say. The fig-tree is the human race. And the three years are the three times; one before the Law, the second under the Law, the third under grace. Now there is nothing unsuitable in understanding by “the fig-tree” the human race. For when the first man sinned, he covered his nakedness with fig-leaves;[Genesis 3:7] covered those members, from which we derive our birth. For what before his sin should have been his glory, after sin became his shame. So before that, “they were naked, and were not ashamed.” For they had no reason to blush, when no sin had gone before; nor could ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 470, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament. (HTML)
On the words of the Gospel, John i. 48,’When thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee,’ etc. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3637 (In-Text, Margin)
... the Lord Jesus Christ to Nathanael, if we understand it aright, does not concern him only. For our Lord Jesus saw the whole human race under the fig-tree. For in this place it is understood that by the fig-tree He signified sin. Not that it always signifies this, but as I have said in this place, in that fitness of significancy, in which ye know that the first man, when he sinned, covered himself with fig leaves. For with these leaves they covered their nakedness when they blushed for their sin;[Genesis 3:7] and what God had made them for members, they made for themselves occasions of shame. For they had no need to blush for the work of God; but the cause of sin preceded shame. If iniquity had not gone before, nakedness would never have been put to the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7, page 55, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Soliloquies
Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John. (HTML)
Chapter I. 34–51. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 171 (In-Text, Margin)
21. We must inquire whether this fig-tree signifies anything. Listen, my brethren. We find the fig-tree cursed because it had leaves only, and not fruit. In the beginning of the human race, when Adam and Eve had sinned, they made themselves girdles of fig leaves.[Genesis 3:7] Fig leaves then signify sins. Nathanael then was under the fig-tree, as it were under the shadow of death. The Lord saw him, he concerning whom it was said, “They that sat under the shadow of death, unto them hath light arisen.” What then was said to Nathanael? Thou sayest to me, O Nathanael, “Whence knowest thou me?” Even now thou speakest to me, because Philip ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 36, footnote 10 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm IX (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 377 (In-Text, Margin)
... he hath in abandoned wilfulness coveted: for “coveting is the root of all evil:” and therefore is the gate of death, for “the widow that liveth in pleasures is dead.” At which pleasures we arrive through desires as it were through the gates of death. But all highest purposes are the gates of the daughter of Sion, through which we come to the vision of peace in the Holy Church.…Or haply are the gates of death the bodily senses and eyes, which were opened when the man tasted of the forbidden tree,[Genesis 3:7] … and are the gates of the daughter of Sion the sacraments and beginnings of faith, which are opened to them that knock, that they may arrive at the hidden things of the Son?…
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 368, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXVIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3546 (In-Text, Margin)
... it is thus with the sayings of God which make their way to us through our bodily sense. The Creator moveth the subject creature by an invisible working; not so that the substance is changed into anything corporal and temporal, when by means of corporal and temporal signs, whether belonging to the eyes or to the ears, as far as men are able to receive it, He would make His will to be known. For if an angel is able to use air, mist, cloud, fire, and any other natural substance or corporal species;[Genesis 3:1-16] and man to use face, tongue, hand, pen, letters, or any other significants, for the purpose of intimating the secret things of his own mind: in a word, if, though he is a man, he sendeth human messengers, and he saith to one, “Go, and he goeth; and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 86, footnote 6 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
From Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, in Cyprus, to John, Bishop of Jerusalem. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1268 (In-Text, Margin)
... disobedience, and the fall from paradise, Adam speaks not in an allegory, but literally, thus: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh;” or what is the ground of the divine narrative, “And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made He a woman” for him? Or what bodies can Adam and Eve have covered with fig-leaves after eating of the forbidden tree?[Genesis 3:7] Who can patiently listen to the perilous arguments of Origen when he denies the resurrection of this flesh, as he most clearly does in his book of explanations of the first psalm and in many other places? Or who can tolerate him when he gives us a ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 7, page 210, footnote 16 (Image)
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen
Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. (HTML)
In Defence of His Flight to Pontus, and His Return, After His Ordination to the Priesthood, with an Exposition of the Character of the Priestly Office. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2611 (In-Text, Margin)
25. This is why the heathen rage and the peoples imagine vain things; why tree is set over against tree, hands against hand, the one stretched out in self indulgence,[Genesis 3:6-23] the others in generosity; the one unrestrained, the others fixed by nails, the one expelling Adam, the other reconciling the ends of the earth. This is the reason of the lifting up to atone for the fall, and of the gall for the tasting, and of the thorny crown for the dominion of evil, and of death for death, and of darkness for the sake of light, and of burial for the return to the ground, and of resurrection ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 9, page 45b, footnote 1 (Image)
Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus
John of Damascus: Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. (HTML)
An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. (HTML)
Book III (HTML)
Concerning the Divine Œconomy and God's care over us, and concerning our salvation. (HTML)
, then, was thus snared by the assault of the arch-fiend, and broke his Creator’s command, and was stripped of grace and put off his confidence with God, and covered himself with the asperities of a toilsome life (for this is the meaning of the fig-leaves[Genesis 3:7]); and was clothed about with death, that is, mortality and the grossness of flesh (for this is what the garment of skins signifies); and was banished from Paradise by God’s just judgment, and condemned to death, and made subject to corruption. Yet, notwithstanding all this, in His pity, God, Who gave him his being, and Who in His graciousness bestowed on him a life of ...