And the serpent said unto the woman, You shall not surely die:
All Commentaries on Genesis 3:4 Go To Genesis 3
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
The conclusion is that the devil would not have begun by an open and obvious sin to tempt man into doing something that God had forbidden, had not man already begun to seek satisfaction in himself and consequently to take pleasure in the words “you shall be as gods.” The promise of these words, however, would much more truly have to pass if, by obedience, Adam and Eve had kept close to the ultimate and true source of their being and had not, by pride, imagined that they were themselves the source of their being…. Whoever seeks to be more than he is becomes less. Whenever he aspires to be selfsufficing, he retreats from the One who is truly sufficient for him.
