God's communal sharing and guidance

Has Adam become like one of us, knowing good and evil? And might he not ever stretch out his hand, take the fruit of the tree of life, eat, and live forever? Many take this word spoken to Adam mockingly, saying something unsuitable of God. For it is not fitting for a serious man to stumble over a trifle, much less God.

Since, they say, the serpent promised this to the woman, saying: 'For God knows that on whatever day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil' (Gen 3:5), God said to Adam after he transgressed: 'Behold, Adam has become like us,' mocking him. Therefore, we, rejecting such a notion in line with the will of the divinely inspired scriptureat is set forth.

The devil is not by nature evil or in essence, but he became good and well, having become devil, satan, and evil through a personal change; but then he was good and well when he held a place in the rank of angels, but he departed from them, cast down to earth because of the pride he conceived for himself. Thus he did not say to Adam: 'Behold, you have become like one of us,' but 'like one of us'; for from the heavenly ones this one fell, just as the psalmist teaches, saying: 'I said, you are gods and all of you are sons of the Most High, but you die like men and fall like one of the rulers' (Ps 82:6). For he too is a ruler and a god, not by essence, but by god-making, and he fell like those about whom it is said: 'I said, I begot sons and raised them, but they rejected me.'

'Behold, Adam has become like one of us,' he led on how? 'To know good and evil.' For only those not using virtue possess this, knowing only what is good and what is evil, without restraining themselves to choose the good and flee the evil. Instead, they use things in a shifting way, according to those who are debated about whom it is said: 'Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness' (Isa 5:20). And thus God says 'of us' to his own angels, just as...

He is a bodyguard to his own. But when it is known from the Scriptures that God makes himself common with his own creatures, it is learned from what was said to the disciples by the Savior: 'Rise up, let us go from here' (Matt 26:38), which also does not have a small significance in its observation; for indeed 'rise up' is toward them, but 'let us go' is with them.

Since the Savior 'did no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth' (Rom 7:7), therefore he has not become subject to it by a fall, and such a rising is not necessary for him as it is for the disciples, to whom he said, 'Rise up,' 'Arise from the human things,' and he counts in his departure himself. Since human nature alone does not have the power to use virtue without the breath of God, because of this he says, 'Let us go from here'; for he himself is both shepherd and staff, which guides over divine things.

Indeed, he also said to the thief: 'Today you shall be with me in Paradise' (Luke 23:43). But it is also said in the unholy thought directed toward men in the Tower of Babel: 'Come, let us go down and let us pour out their tongue' (Gen 11:7). For even if he does what God wills through subordinate angels—but I say his judgment is happening in the things that occur—it is said that he descends with those sent by him.

'Behold,' he says, 'Adam has become like one of us, knowing good and evil' (Gen 3:22), to whom he goes as a condemnation, yet in a nurturing way, the Philanthropist. For he performs both the threats and the inductions toward the beneficial. And what is it that he says: 'And now, perhaps one day he will stretch out his hand and take of the tree of life and live forever' (Gen 3:22)? Envy has driven him away from the divine dance; if it were this, it would be impossible for him to exist much more and superabundantly in God.

Therefore, he does not prevent them from taking the Tree of Life again out of envy, but he prevents them unsuitably. For just as the Savior commands: 'Do not throw the holy things to the dogs, neither your pearls before the swine' (Matt 7:6), and he also brings forward the reasoning, saying: 'lest they trample them and turning, tear you to pieces' (Matt 7:6), so it is not good for one having become in sins and still being in them to receive the life of the tree; for such a thing is contemptible. If the worthless one were prevented from such a guidance, not...