Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.
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Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
[Adam and Eve], who were stripped of their first garment [of innocence], deserved by their mortality garments of skin. For the true honor of man is to be the image and the likeness of God that is preserved only in relation to him by whom it is impressed. Hence, he clings to God so much the more, the less he loves what is his own. But through the desire of proving his own power, man by his own will falls down into himself as into a sort of [substitute] center. Since he, therefore, wishes to be like God, hence under no one, then as a punishment he is also driven from the center, which he himself is, down into the depths, that is, into those things wherein the beasts delight. Thus, since the likeness to God is his honor, the likeness to the beasts is his disgrace. .
Having spoken of the punishment which the tempter and those tempted received, Scripture describes how "the Lord made garments of skin for Adam and Eve, and clothed them. " [ Gen. 3:21 ] Whether these garments were from the skins of animals, or whether they were specially created, like the thorn bushes and thistles which were created after the other works of creation had been completed, seeing that it is said that "the Lord made... and clothed them," it seems likely that when their hands were laid upon their leaves they found themselves clothed with garments made of skin. Or were, perhaps, some animals killed before them, so that they could nourish themselves with their flesh, cover up their nakedness with their skins, and in their deaths see the death of their own bodies?
Were these garments from the skins of animals? Or were they created like the thistles and thorns that were created after the other works of creation had been completed? Because it was said that the “Lord made … and clothed them,” it seems most likely that when their hands were placed over their leaves they found themselves clothed in garments of skin. Why would beasts have been killed in their presence? Perhaps this happened so that by the animal’s flesh Adam and Eve might nourish their own bodies and that with the skins they might cover their nakedness, but also that by the death of the animals Adam and Eve might see the death of their own bodies. .
In the same way, when our nature becomes subject to the disequilibrium and paroxysm of disordered passions, it encounters those conditions that necessarily follow the life of the passions. But when it returns again to the blessedness of an ordered emotive life, it will no longer encounter the consequences of evil. Since whatever was added to human nature from the irrational life was not in us before humanity fell into passion, we shall also leave behind all the conditions that appear along with passion. If a man wearing a ragged tunic should be denuded of his garment, he would no longer see on himself the ugliness of what was discarded. Likewise, when we have put off that dead and ugly garment that was made for us from irrational skins (when I hear “skins” I interpret it as the form of the irrational nature that we have put on from our association with disordered passions), we throw off every part of our irrational skin along with the removal of the garment. These are the disruptions o...
In other words, take the case of a kindly father with a son of his own who was brought up with every care, who enjoyed every indulgence, had the run of a fine house, was clad in a silken tunic, and had free access to his father's substance and wealth; later, when he saw him tumble headlong from this great indulgence into an abyss of wickedness, he stripped him of all those assets, subjected him to his own authority and, divesting him of his clothes, clad him in a lowly garment usually worn by slaves lest he be completely naked and indecent. Well, in just the same way the loving God, when they rendered themselves unworthy of that gleaming and resplendent vesture in which they were adorned and which ensured they were prepared against bodily needs, stripped them of all that glory and the enjoyment they were partakers of before suffering that terrible fall. He showed them great pity and had mercy on their fall: seeing them covered in confusion and ignorant of what to do to avoid being nake...
