And the LORD God said unto the serpent,
Because you have done this, you are cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon your belly shall you go, and dust shall you eat all the days of your life:
All Commentaries on Genesis 3:14 Go To Genesis 3
Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
Only those who live for the pleasures of the stomach can be said to walk on their bellies, ' whose god is their belly and their glory is their shame,' [ Phil 3:19 ] who eat of what is earthy, and who, weighed down with food, are bent over towards what is of earth. The serpent is well called the symbol of pleasure in that, intent on food, he seems to feed on the earth: ' On your breast and on your belly shall you crawl, dust shall you eat all the days of your life.' [ Gen 3:14 ] We should not tolerate any of the excuses the Devil may make. By so doing we may, perchance, offer him an occasion to display his wickedness. We do this when we say that his iniquity resulted from his condemnation and hence that he aimed constantly to injure mankind because he was condemned for the very purpose of doing us harm. This seems to be pretty fanciful. If we regard the sentence passed on him to be in the nature of a condemnation, God did not condemn the serpent in order to cause injury to man. He pointed out what was to happen in the future. Furthermore, we have demonstrated above how that temptation can be of great service to mankind. What we are to expect can in some measure be gathered from our knowledge of what has been written: ' Whoever shall glorify me, him will I glorify and he that despises me shall be despised.' [ 1 Kings 2:30 ] God brings to pass what is good, not what is evil, as His words can teach you that He confers glory and disregards punishment. 'Whosoever shall glorify me,' He says, 'him will I glorify,' thus declaring that the glory of the good is the purpose of His work. And concerning 'him that despises me,' He did not say I shall deprive of glory, but that he shall be deprived of glory. He did not avow that injury to them would be the result of His action, but pointed out what was to come. He did not say, therefore, I shall make you crawl on your breast and belly and feed on earth all the days of your life. What He actually said was: 'You shall crawl and you shall eat,' in this way showing that He predicted what the serpent would do in the future rather than prescribe what he was to do. The earth, not the soul, He said, is your food, and this, in fact, can be of profit to sinners. Hence the Apostle ' delivered such a one for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.' [ 1 Cor 5:5 ] He says that the serpent crawls on his breast and belly. This is due not so much to the shape of his body as to the fact that he has fallen from celestial happiness because of his thoughts of earth. The breast, in fact, is frequently referred to as the seat of wisdom. And so the Apostle leans his head, not on the ground, but on Christ's breast. [ John 13:25; 21:20 ] If, therefore, the wisdom of the Devil is compared to that of the most cruel of animals whose breast is between its legs, if men, too, who, ' minding the things of the earth' [ Phil 3:20 ] and without the inner urge to rise towards heaven, have the appearance of crawling on their bellies- then we surely ought to fill the belly of our souls with the Word of God rather than with the corruptible things of this world. Fittingly, therefore, does David, assuming the character of Adam, say: ' My soul is humbled down to the dust, my belly cleaveth to the earth.' [ Ps 43:25 ] He used the word 'cleaveth' in reference to the serpent who feeds on earthly iniquities. Thus the Apostle says that we should take on the pattern of Christ, so that the virtue of Christ may extend to you. [ Phil 3:17 ] The sentence imposed on the serpent is not considered a heavy one, since even Adam, whose offense was less serious, was accorded a like sentence.
