TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL. - Tree of the earthly paradise, appointed by the Creator to make the first parents know experimentally the good of obedience and the evil of rebellion against the divine command. God had placed a veto on its fruits, under penalty of death. The cunning tempter, equivocating on the meaning of the name, incited the woman with the promise: "When you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Eve, seduced, disobeyed and led Adam into sin. The guilty ones experienced the disorder of fallen nature (Gen. 2, 9.17; 3, 5-8).

Although the literary character of the first three chapters of Genesis does not oblige us to understand all the details in a proper sense, the interpretation of certain rabbis and Alexandrian allegorists, who see in the forbidden fruit the use of marriage (cf. St. Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram, XI, ch. 41), is entirely foreign to the text; this theory is today advocated by F. Mayrhofer, in Theologie und Glaube, 28 (1936), pp. 133-162; but it is well refuted by J. Miklík. On the nature of the fruit nothing can be said; R. Nehemiah, Theodoret and Procopius identify it with the fig (cf. Gen. 3, 7). Tradition sets in contrast the living tree of the earthly paradise that brought death, and the dead tree of Calvary that gave life: Ipse lignum tunc notavit damna ligni ut solveret (Venantius Fortunatus, Hymn Pange lingua gloriosi | lauream, etc.).

Bibliography3 works

BIBL.: Agnellus Merz, De arbore scientiae boni et mali secundum Scriptorum et Ecclesiae ac magni patriarchae Augustini doctrinam, Munich 1765; E. Mangenot, s. v. in DB. I, col. 896 ff.; F. Miklík, Der Fall des Menschen, in Biblica, 20 (1930), pp. 387-396. - On the historical character of the facts and the responses of the Biblical Commission, cf. P. Cruveilhier and L. Pirot, Genèse, in DBs. III, coll. 590-613.

Pietro De Ambroggi

@incollection{ec1_albero_della_scienza_del_bene, author = {De, Ambroggi Pietro}, title = {Albero della Scienza del Bene e del Male}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {I}, pages = {666}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1948}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/albero-della-scienza-del-bene-e-del-male} }

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Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

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