Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, has God said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
All Commentaries on Genesis 3:1 Go To Genesis 3
John Chrysostom
AD 407
We must, however, listen to the words that have been read. Blessed Moses, remember, told us that they were naked without feeling shame (for they did not know, after all, that they were naked, clad as they were in ineffable glory, which adorned them better than any clothing), and added: "But the serpent was the wiliest of all the beasts upon the earth made by the Lord. The serpent said to the woman: 'Why is it that God said, Do not eat of any tree of the garden?'" [ Gen 3:1 ] See the evil spirit's envy and devious scheming. I mean, he saw that the human being, creature though he was, had the good fortune to enjoy the highest esteem and was scarcely inferior in any respect to the angels, as blessed David also says, "You have placed him on a level scarcely lower than the angels," [ Ps 8:5 ] and even this "scarcely lower" was the result of disobedience, the inspired author, after all, uttering this after the disobedience. The author of evil, accordingly, seeing an angel who happened to live on earth, was consumed by envy, since he himself had once enjoyed a place among the powers above but had been cast down from that pinnacle on account of his depravity of will and excess of wickedness. So he employed considerable skill so as to pluck the human being from God's favor, render him ungrateful and divest him of all those goods provided for him through God's loving kindness. What did he do? He discovered this wild animal, namely, the serpent, over coming the other animals by his cunning, as blessed Moses also testified in the words, "The serpent was the wiliest of all the beasts on the earth made by the Lord God." He made use of this creature like some instrument and through it inveigled that naive and weaker vessel, namely, woman, into his deception by means of conversation. "The serpent spoke to the woman," the text says.
Consider from this, dearly beloved, how in the beginning none of the wild beasts then existing caused fear either to the man or to the woman; on the contrary, they recognized human direction and dominion, and as with tame animals these days, so then even the wild and savage ones proved to be subdued. But perhaps in this case some may raise a difficulty and seek to find out if the wild animals also shared the power of speech. Not so perish the thought; rather, people, following Scripture, need to consider the fact that the words came from the devil, who was spurred on to this deception by his own ill will, while this wild animal he employed like some convenient instrument so as to be able to set the bait for his own deception and thus upset the woman first of all, being ever more readily susceptible of deception, l and then, through her, man the firstformed. So he employs this irrational animal for laying his plan, and by means of it he speaks to the woman in these words: "'Why is it that God said, Do not eat of any tree of the garden?'" Notice in this case the extreme subtlety of his malice: in the unfolding of his planning and inquiry he introduces words not spoken by God and acts as though motivated by care for them. This, in fact, is what emerges from his words, "'Why is it that God said, Do not eat of any tree in the garden?'" As if the evil demon were saying, Why did he deprive you of such enjoyment? Why does he not allow you to share in the good things in the garden instead of granting you the pleasure of looking at them while not permitting you to possess them and thus gain the greater enjoyment? "'Why is it that God said?'" What, he is saying, is the reason for this? What is the advantage of life in the garden when you aren't free to enjoy the things in it, but are even worse off in incurring the more intense pain of having sight of things but missing out on the enjoyment that comes from possessing them?
Do you see how he uses the words like a bait to inject his poison? The woman should have been able from his very approach to recognize the extremity of his frenzy and the fact that he deliberately said what was not the case and made a pretense of care for them as part of his plan so as to be in a position to find out the instructions they had been given by God, and thus lead them to their downfall. So he did not want her to be able to recognize his trickery immediately and thus abandon converse with him as being idle speech and so avoid being dragged down to a low level. After all, there was no need for her to get involved in conversation with him in the first place; she should rather have conversed with the person for whose sake she came into being, with whom she shared everything on equal terms, and whose helpmate she had been made.
But acting impetuously how, I know not she got involved in conversation with the serpent and through him as through an instrument she took in the devil's deadly words; so it ensued that she learnt from the devil's speech the very opposite to the words' real sense, and that whereas the Creator gave one set of directions, the devil said the opposite to the Creator about avoiding him, quitting further conversation with him and having only abhorrence for the creature presuming to sharpen his tongue against the direction given to them. In fact, through her grave negligence she not only failed to turn away but revealed the whole secret of the Lord's direction, thus casting pearls before swine and fulfilling what was said by Christ: "Don't cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under foot, turn on you and tear you to pieces," [ Matt 7:6 ] as in fact happened in this case. I mean, she exposed to swine, to that evil beast, that is, to the demon acting through it, the divine pearls; he not only trampled on them and opposed them with his words, but turned and led into the rupture of disobedience not only her but also the firstformed man with her. Such is the evil of idly and casually exposing to all and sundry the divine mysteries. Let those give heed who idly and indiscriminately open their mouths to everyone.
Christ, after all, is not talking about real swine in that verse, but referring to people who behave like swine and, in the manner of animals, roll in the mire of sin; he thus teaches us to recognize differences in people and look to the propriety of their life style whenever it is necessary to keep secret any of the divine sayings, lest we bring harm on them and ourselves. Such people, after all, not only reap no benefit from what is said, but of the times even drag down into the same depths of ruin as themselves those who incautiously offer them these beautiful pearls. Hence we must guard them scrupulously lest we suffer the same fate as those who are deceived in this regard. You see, if in the present instance also the woman had decided not to offer pearls to swine, she would not have fallen into the abyss herself nor dragged her husband down with her.
