TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL. — Plant of the earthly paradise, appointed by the Creator to make the primordial parents experimentally know the good of obedience and the evil of rebellion against the divine command. God had forbidden its fruits, under pain of death. The crafty tempter, misconstruing 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 pair 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 require that every detail be understood in the literal sense, the interpretation of certain rabbis and Alexandrian allegorists, who see in the forbidden fruit the use of marriage, is wholly foreign to the text (cf. St Augustine, De Genes ad litteram, XI, chap. 41); this theory is today advocated by F. Mayrhofer, in Theologie und Glaube, 28 (1936), pp. 133-162; but it has been thoroughly refuted by J. Miklík. Nothing can be said about the nature of the plant; R. Nehemiah, Theodoret, and Procopius identify it with the fig tree (cf. Gen. 3:7). Tradition contrasts the living tree of the earthly paradise, which brought about death, with the dead tree of Calvary, which gave life: Ipse lignum tunc notavit damna ligni ut solveret (Venantius Fortunatus, hymn Pange linguu gloriosi | lauream, etc.).