For more on Hugh of St Victor go here. Translated using ChatGPT.
Gen 2:7-9 “Therefore the Lord God formed man, etc. Because there was not a man to till the earth, therefore He formed him, etc. Here for the first time He calls God ‘Lord,’ because then for the first time He was truly Lord, when He had a servant, namely man. For he makes no mention of the angel, but, as a historian concerned with visible things, he speaks of man — that is, of his body — as having been formed from slime, which is sticky earth, so that through this he might signify that man was made for mortality, that is, able to die; or through this He admonishes him to think of his own lowliness, so that he may follow humility.
“And He breathed in,” that is, into the prepared body, the soul — especially into the face, because in it the operations of the soul in bodily senses are principally present, and by it it is discerned whether a man lives or not, more than in the other parts.
Gen 2:8n“Now the Lord God had planted a paradise of pleasure from the beginning,” that is, before He created heaven and earth, as Jerome seems to think; but rather from the time of the creation, which is said to be the third day. “In which He placed man.” God wished to make him outside paradise, so that he might understand that he was placed in paradise by grace and not by nature.
Gen 2:9 These two trees, that is, the tree of life and of the knowledge of good and evil, on account of the greater sacraments which they signify, are said to have been placed in the midst, and they have these names from their causes. For the tree of life is so called because it had in itself a nature such that it would continue life if it were eaten in due manner. Man was made both mortal and immortal: immortal in this sense, that he was able not to die through the sustenance of food, which he required; mortal, because he could perish by external violence. But God so fortified him inwardly by the tree of life taken as food and by divine power, that he was able not to die.
He was guarding within the gate of negligence by human reason, and guarding outside the gate of violence by divine protection, so that unless man, by abusing reason, should open the gate, nothing harmful would ever enter through the gate of violence. But because he did not wish to guard himself so as to keep the gate entrusted to him, God justly withdrew His protection.
But the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is so called not on account of any nature which it had in itself, but because through it it was known whether man was good or evil — that is, obedient or disobedient. Or because through obedience man was to have good things to which he would pass, and through disobedience the evils with which God had threatened him. Or because through it he learned both by experience.
But what are those principal sacraments for the sake of which those trees were placed in the midst of paradise? Understand it thus: the tree of life was given to man for the sustenance of temporal life; but through the tree of knowledge, by obedience, man was to have eternal life.
Gen 2:10-14 “And a river went out.” This is the fountain mentioned above, or the river arising from that fountain, first one, afterward divided into four, from a certain place of pleasure, that is, from paradise — not that it was born there and immediately went out to other places, but going out to water paradise. “Which from there is divided,” either within paradise itself, after it had flowed as one for some time, or after it had gone out from paradise.
It is asked how these rivers both arise in paradise and have known sources in our land, as Bede says. Hence some affirm that the whole earth would have been paradise if man had not sinned, but that the whole has been made an exile through sin. But we, although it can probably be said thus, do not assert it, except what the saints commonly assert: namely, that paradise is a certain determined place in a part of the earth, and that those rivers have their origin in paradise, and likewise are absorbed by the earth there, and outside paradise rise again, whose second sources are known to us.
Gen 3:1-7 Man was permitted to be tempted, because otherwise he would not have been glorious. But note that he was not tempted through some simple beast such as a dove or a lamb, lest he might excuse the transgression by saying: “Who would suspect deceit to be present in such a species or form?”
“Why has God commanded you?” He cautiously pretends to doubt the prohibiting command, so that he may also make the woman doubt, and may show God — who forbade the fruit of so good a tree — as not loving them as much as was fitting.
“Lest perhaps we die.” Note: the Lord affirmed, saying, “You shall surely die.” The woman doubted, saying, “Lest perhaps we die.” Hence the devil, hoping that he could accomplish by himself what he wished, openly as an adversary denied it, saying: “You shall not surely die.”
“Your eyes.” He promises to her divine knowledge, by which God perfectly comprehends natures and in one glance.
“And you shall be like gods, knowing good and evil.” He promises two things: dignity and abundance of things. By the one he persuades — namely, the eating of the fruit; by the two things which he promises he induces pride and avarice. Hence the woman herself, burning, doubting, weighing the promises of the devil and the prohibition, looked at the tree, and thus she was so captured by gluttony that even without the devil’s promises she was persuaded to the tree by sight alone — rightly, that “he who is in filth, let him be filthy still.”
Yet the eating of the fruit is called the first sin, but it must be understood as the actual sin; pride and avarice preceded it.
“And the eyes of both were opened,” not because they saw things which they had not seen before, but because by sight they perceived such a thing as they had not perceived before.
“And when they knew that they were naked,” that is, they knew that nakedness was unfitting on account of that movement; therefore it was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And because the Lord came quickly, and because they could not remove it, they wished to cover those parts in which they felt the illicit movement.
This punishment was justly inflicted upon man by the Lord: that because reason did not wish to obey its superior, that is, God, neither should its inferior, that is, the flesh, obey it. Yet from the mercy of God, and so that man might be able to subsist, it was brought about that the other parts of the body stand or move at the nod of reason. But one part does not obey reason, as a sign of transgression, namely the genitals — for this reason, because the whole propagation of the human race was to pass through that part. In it, as it were in a gate, there is written a sign of the disobedience of the parents in the disobedience inflicted upon the members.
“Fig leaves.” Through this some think that the fig tree is meant in that which He said to Nathanael in the Gospel: “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you” (John 1:48).
CONTINUE
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