Memra 21: On the Tree of Adam

Memra 21: On the Tree of Adam Now then, let us begin to interpret concerning the good tree: what it is and how it stands. And concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which is evil, toil, affliction, and the ruin of the generations who tasted from it—the house of Adam—death. For by it they came to know the evil which they had not known. And when they ate from it, they came to know the evil which is death, which they had not known. And when they listened to the evil one and looked at the earth and saw this thing which is in it and loved it, evil held sway over them, and they came to know it, as it is written: "On the day you transgress my word, death shall you die." For it was only good that God taught the house of Adam when he created them. And evil they did not know, until they listened to Satan and he taught the house of Adam evil. And for this reason Satan is called "the tree": because through him the house of Adam came to know good and evil. They learned good from God, and evil from Satan. They were not knowers of good and evil. And from then on the chain of atonement was bound to Adam and his children. For this reason God said to them: "From the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat." But they did not listen to him, for he was teaching them all evils, and separating you from heavenly things and from the sweetness of your Creator.

and binds you to toils and labor and affliction and poverty, and makes you deny your Creator and destroy one another. And you become sons of curse and sons of darkness, and it becomes your lord, and it feeds you the poison of death. And behold, today the children of Adam eat with hardness of heart from this tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and it teaches them: that they be bound to the earth in toils. They are bound, then, and constrained by the affliction and misery of these passing things, because they are not emptied and sanctified and stripped of the passions that pass with the earth. And all who are bound to the earth, because they are not stripped of it, and learn either from God or from the man of God: how they were bound to the Lord in that world where there is no death, and they ate there of the fruits of the Lord, which are life-giving lives, and they ate the Lord himself, and they lived and grew and were perfected by his reasons. If you wish, then, to live from the death of the tree that killed your father Adam, and also you, and again not die, be emptied and distance yourself from Satan and from his teaching, that is, from Satan and from everything evil and from the world and from its affliction and from everything that Jesus said to be separated from: by humility and by prayer and by fasting, when the commandments are observed.

and again he interprets for you the teaching of the Evil One, which binds you to afflictions, because you are bound in this world by works and are far from the perfect ones, because you are bound in spirit to that world of light. And again, as God commanded Adam from the beginning, that he should be perfectly holy like the watchers and angels in heaven, that he should stand in body on earth, naked of everything that is in it, and dwell in spirit in heaven with the angels, while his mind is clothed in the glory of his Creator and the earth is not visible to him. The Good Tree is in that world of light, which is not seen by the eyes of flesh—the Lord Jesus—and that is the Tree of Life, which revives all by its fruits, wherever the perfect will of God is, as the Lord said: that the will of God should be on earth as it is in heaven. That is, as there is peace and tranquility and unity for the great and the small, and it equally unites, and there is no one there who is higher than the lowly, nor one who oppresses the one greater than himself. Thus, that they may be in all the living. Those are the fruits of that Good Tree: these are the fruits of the spirit, of which the Apostle said: that it should cleave to the spirit and be delivered to it, and there should not be vain glories that exalt one over another and envy one another for evil. And everything that is likened to it: these fruits give and are completed. It is fitting for us to rejoice in the beautiful things at all times.

But the fruits of the Spirit are these: that which is clothed in mercy, compassion, love, peace, and the praise of the Lord. That is, that which one gives to another in these fruits of the Spirit, in love, in spiritual kinship, in gentleness, in humility, in patience, in meekness, and in holiness without passion. These are the fruits of the Spirit which the saints tend in their times, when they separate the hard ones from the children, so that they might see these and abandon the hard ones and cleave to the humble, as the Apostle said: "You shall choose those who are humble and cleave to them." In these, then, he was not governed; his Creator commanded Adam: "When your mind is in heaven as a dweller, and your body on earth as a stranger and sojourner, and above, serve and praise in these virtues like a watcher with watchers." And thus you were from the beginning, as the Lord and his Apostles witness: that these came and showed the sons of Adam that they should do, after that barrier of enmity was raised between them, in these virtues which stood between the sons of Adam. And the Apostle confirmed when he said: "Everything is renewed in Christ anew," as he desired that Adam should be, and as he was created before he transgressed the commandment. And the final will of the Lord was consistent with that first one which I said was thus. And see how the final resembles the first.

The first, without deceit and without thoughts, the Lord made Adam. And the last, likewise, the Lord and his apostles commanded: that they be without deceit and without thoughts. The first, when God created Adam pure. And the last, likewise, he commanded: that you be pure in your heart and in your goodness. To Adam, likewise, he said to him, before he transgressed the commandment: Do not listen to the evil one, and do not desire the earth and everything in it. The witness of the last will is that which is above: that he who does not distance himself from evil, and leaves everything on earth, and looks to the heavens while crucified, does not attain that thing which Adam lost. And when the apostle says that Christ came anew and renewed everything as he wished, that he might establish the house of Adam, understand that according to these commandments of perfection which I set forth for you above, and according to these fruits of the Spirit which the apostle distinguishes from those of the flesh, God wished that you be guided in life, as he wills today. And the whole reason Christ came and humbled himself: that he might teach how one should humble himself in his likeness, and that he might reveal that truth which is from the beginning. And it is written that he approached and was healed: that he might show how Adam was healed from the beginning.

And it is written that he conquered Satan, that he showed him as Elijah desired Adam: with a word he was overthrowing him, as God overthrew him with that word, that he did not obey him, when he was casting him down to look upon the earth like Adam, that he might desire the richness of the earth and its transient beauty, as the house of Adam desired, and they exchanged heaven for earth, and left heaven and loved earth. And they exchanged that which does not pass away and is not dissolved, and they chose that which passes away and is dissolved; and they exchanged that perfect transformation for a shadow, as the Apostle said: that everything which is seen is a shadow of that which is not seen and passes away. As also the service of the Law showed Moses to the children of Israel, and the tabernacle which they had was not a perfect transformation, but a shadow, as it is written: that the true tabernacle which Jesus Christ entered first, in whose footsteps also the sinner entered, who is in the high heights. As Paul said: that a certain man knows who was snatched up above three heavens to the spiritual paradise. And the whole of what the man said: that he should not boast of his being, because it is not fitting for a man to boast that he is perfect, nor even when he is perfect, but he should condemn himself with sinners before everyone, and humble himself before everything that is on earth, that he may not be exalted and fall like Adam.

But now also that one who taught you the way to the height desires that you be in the valleys; but that perfecter of the turning, he stood. For above you did not enter, and above you did not ascend. The place where Christ sits in the high heights. See therefore that what the Lord desired in the beginning, that same desire he also had in the end. Because of this he said: I am the first I, and I am the last I, and that desire of mine is great and complete, first and last: that the earthly man should not be and should not be made on earth, but should be heavenly and with the depth of the earth his desire. As Paul died from everything that is on earth and said: Die your death from the darkness of the world, for why are you being led like living ones in taking and loosing, in receiving and giving, these things in which the man is not completed, but did the man die from the world? And if they say to him: You eat and you drink and you speak. He says to them: Those who speak thus are dead from the world. Patience and clothing from more were given to them. And this word which the man speaks: It is not the man who lives, but Christ lives in me, he who speaks in me. By his word it is that Christ stands and the man sits, and the man eats and the man drinks, and the man sleeps and the man awakens.

nor by a word of remembrance, nor by the songs of the Persian birds, nor by tales that are not fitting for perfection, nor by tales of old age and fable, nor by passing advantages, but live in me, Christ, who is seen in heaven and not on earth. See how Paul used to die to everything that is seen, which is contrary to perfection, that which runs after something that is not seen by the eyes of the flesh. For neither in his clothing nor in his conduct did he live, in that he did not care for anything that is seen, but when he was seen from above, at times he was hungry and at times he was naked from lack of clothing, as he said: that in everything he was tested in hunger and in satiety, in nakedness and in nakedness, in honor and in dishonor, in many persecutions, when half the world cursed him and half blessed him with blessings and curses, while every man loved his sin, and every man was shaved like madmen, not to me but to themselves. Thus Adam was from the beginning according to the perfect will of God, this one who came, Jesus, showed in himself what he wills to be imitated by him and to be perfected, and he looked to heaven and not to earth.

and he rejoiced with the exalted watchers: without worry and without pains, and he had no need of clothing or of endurance, but God nourished him, as was fitting for the abundance of his sweetness, with heavenly bread, as it is written: "The man of the beginning ate the bread of the angels." And now, the labors and pains of childbirth and the pains of the body did not exist, as also David distinguished: because the sons of the tree embittered the word of God, that which he said to them, "Do not transgress my commandments," and they forgot the intention of the Most High, which desired that they be like angels. Because of this, he did not break their heart with labor, and they became weary, and there is no one to help them; but if they had kept the commandments of the Lord and had entreated him, the Father would have had compassion on his son, and would have saved them for the sake of his name, and through the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. And thus the Lord was making them sons, as he made Eve from Adam: without desire and without copulation, or from the hairs of their heads or from their fingernails; if he had wished, he would have made them sons, and they would have been sons of the tree, like the death of the angels. And when he created them, he prepared for them whatever food he wished, without labor. And he himself took their burden, as the Lord said: "Do not take upon yourselves the worry of your body or of your soul." For that which he created for you is greatly wasted upon you.

Therefore, do not cast your blame upon the Lord, for it was He who raised you, nurtured you, and sustained you. Thus they were in the world, on earth in body and in heaven in spirit, until it pleased their Creator to raise them to the height. And nothing harmed them on earth—neither reptile nor wild beast, nor Satan—except that their will did not desire to obey the reptile and Satan. For on the day He created them, He said to them: "Let your fear and your trembling fall upon everything that is on earth." And the hand of the Lord was over Adam, and the hand of Adam was placed over everything on earth, beneath him, by the power of the Lord who holds all. And without the passions of the earth they were created. Now then: no weakness is attributed to God, that He willed thus and it was not according to His will as He desired. Adam and his descendants cannot overcome God; rather, by His goodness and His kindness, He gave them freedom and will, so that He did not enslave them like the rest of the other creatures that are subjugated, and they do not have the freedom that Adam has. Nor do they have signs of judgment, nor even a soul like Adam has, nor his freedom. For if He had wished to bind their freedom, as at the nod of a wink of an eye He would have brought them to His will. But He gave freedom to Adam, and set a law for the governance of his soul, that he not loosen the heavens and inherit the earth.

from toil, indeed, and from the edge of the sword, and from all evil; and not from perfection and from heaven. And it was revealed to you that the earth was not visible to them, nor did they know that their bodies were naked, but as it is written: that Adam and Eve were naked and their nakedness was not visible to them. But from the time they ate the tree, then, when they left heaven and loved earth, and their mind came from heaven to their bodies, then they saw that they were naked. For they were in heaven while walking on earth. And they spoke from their bodies as their Lord showed in this final will, when he said: "I came to do your will, O God," he who from the beginning destroyed Adam. For he spoke concerning this final will, which resembles the first: that the spirit is in place of the will, and the voice hears the woman. Thus are those who are born from spirit. And as the spirit, its voice alone the woman hears, and you do not know from where it comes, nor do you know where it goes. Thus the voice of Adam and Eve was heard from their bodies, while their mind stood before God in heaven.

as with the angels: there is a man who speaks with a man on earth, while they gaze upon the greatness of the Lord, how it was humbled; and their thought was with the Lord in heaven, and while they pray on earth, their voice goes forth from their bodies; they ascend to heaven, gazing in spirit upon that which is born from spirit, and they resemble the Lord in humility. And when they are here in heaven, because they humbled themselves and because they abandoned everything visible, their sight and thought were above their faces. And those who desire to be raised up and to turn their faces to the earth to receive and to be darkened by it, remain behind, and the door is shut in their faces, and they go out from Jerusalem of heaven, like Adam from the spiritual Eden: which is that Jerusalem of the spirit, the city of God. Thus, then, in the likeness of this illustration which is shown, was the thought of Adam in heaven, purely and sweetly, among those fruits of the spirit which the Apostle distinguishes. But when the tempter approached Eve and Adam with his cunning, he cast them down as he cast down Jesus; and he said to the Creator of all: Behold, see how fair the earth is in its smallness and its kingdoms. Hearken, and be silent, and take counsel, and do not be caught and stripped and become a stranger on the earth. And the Lord said to him: Go to your secret place, Satan. And immediately he was confounded and overthrown, and his battle and his temptation ceased.

Thus also with Adam: he cast him into error, and drew near to him like a counsellor, and took a pretext and reigned over him, and taught Eve to rule over Adam, and commanded her to say to Adam, "Eat of the tree and you will be a king. Behold, gold and treasure in the earth, and all kinds of fruits." They stood and were delighted, and they counselled, and they multiplied, and they increased. The evil one reigned. And they cast off from themselves humility and modesty and holiness, also meekness, and they knew evil things and they knew good things, and they mingled, and they were like the god who created them. And Eve reigned over Adam: "Fair is the reign of that rebel." If only, because the first was from the earth and the elder was from the earth, he knew. And Adam said to Eve, "Turn back, say to him what the Creator commanded, that he should not listen to you, and should not eat of it, and should not be joined to earthly things. That one, that he should not labour and should not acquire anything on earth." And he turned his face from her, because he did not wish and was not willing that they should be like him. And Adam said, "And if he does not wish it to be so, will he not seek you on account of what you have said?" And the evil one said, "What, if you were like him, how would he regard you? See, what thought did Adam conceive concerning that which his Creator made from dust and mixed with the watchers of heaven?" And Adam and Eve listened, on the hope that they would be like their Creator. For Paul said that creatures were enslaved to vanity, not by their own will, but because of that which enslaved them on account of hope.

This is not from his own will, but by the counsel of others. The rest of the will belongs to Adam, and if he had not willed, he would have learned the errors that were on the earth; evil would not have led him by the short path. So Adam and Eve were deceived and lowered their mind to the earth and brought it down from heaven, and their mind was on the earth like their bodies, and they cut themselves off and descended from the heavenly paradise, which is a complete transformation, and they were on the earth, which is the shadow of that thing which is invisible to the eyes of flesh. That is the shadow of the heavenly paradise. And Adam descended and stood in the earthly paradise, which is the shadow of heaven. And they became poor from the upper wealth and began to run after the lower wealth, which is something that passes and dissolves in one hour. It was not before the curse that the eyes of God labored on the earth, but at the hour they received the counsel of the Evil One and rejected the word of God, the eyes of God cursed and they went out from the spiritual paradise. And then they tilled the earth, from which they were created, because of the passing wealth. And when they saw that they were naked, from the time their mind had stripped off that upper glory, they began to seek clothing, because they knew the shame that was not visible to them when they were looking at heaven.

And they saw that the heavenly bread was withheld, and they ceased to work the earth for sustenance, and they were left to themselves. And they were stripped of the Watchers and of the great encampments—those who are bound to the guardians of the commandments, and not to those who reject the word of God. And they ceased to share in partnership and to beget like animals. And they looked upon the earth and were mingled with it, so that they were not sought in their high honor. And in their mixture and their love toward the high Watchers. And in all these things, Adam and Eve willed and were humbled by the evil mediator, and they abandoned the heavens and heavenly wealth, and they loved the earth and all that is in it. They were naked, indeed, the house of Adam from this time onward, to the shame that is seen in this world. Thus were the house of Adam before they sinned: and not that they sinned in their rebellion without knowing. In this, however, they were deceived: they thought that they would be like God. And they erred, thinking that nothing can be like the Creator of all worlds—He who is the Creator, and He who is the Lord Jesus Christ. But God was watching and waiting, and drawing out His spirit and enduring, while Adam rejected His words and loosened His commandments and sought to seize, that He might become the charcoal of God in pride and not in humility. Because of this, the apostle of Christ said: Not by seizure did He desire to become the charcoal of God, like Adam.

But his soul was empty. Also from that which Adam loved, and he desired that he be a god in the arrogance of the earthlings, and he took the likeness of a servant, while he was in the likeness of that creation of the first human, in his obedience and his love and his humility, to show us how a man might be a brother and a son and an heir and a kinsman, who desired that there be no end to the dwelling of the earthlings with him. The likeness of a servant he did not take, that he might obey his father like a servant. Not as Adam took the likeness of arrogance, that he might be in opposition and rebellion against his Lord and his Creator, and he sat in opposition to him and rebelled against him. For Adam did not slip in anything on the day he fell, but rather the arrogance that desired to be the equal of God in his arrogance. And it was his excessive servitude, and it was what expelled him from the Paradise of the Kingdom, and it brought him down to the earth. My brothers, flee from arrogance, that it may not be salt that loses its flavor, nor manure that goes to waste, for there is no taste in it to salt sacrifices, nor a field to be manured from it, nor does it improve the grain from it, as the Lord said: When one is raised up like Adam, he will be humbled. And when one is humbled like Jesus, he will be raised up, as he was raised up. By his arrogance, Adam closed the gates of Paradise before himself; by his humility, he opened the gates of heaven.

Just as through the humility of Adam, God brought him out of Paradise, so through his humility he brought him back in. That same one raised him up to the high heavens, to the place where God dwells, and he was seen there. For he said: "With what sacrifices have you brought me back after you angered me? With birds or with the blood of wild beasts? My own sacrifice, then, is my humility and my will and my meekness. Meekness and lowliness of spirit: a man lives by it and dwells by it, and it is by it that he ascends when a man ascends to the place of my meekness." And again he said that God chose Moses because he was humbler than all the sons of men. Humility was weighed against all things and it prevailed. For God weighed Moses against six hundred thousand bearers of the sword, and against their women and against their sons, and he placed that humble one on one side of the scale, and harshness and pride went up, and humility and meekness prevailed. And the Lord said to him: "Go out from among this people and destroy them in one hour." And Moses said: "If you are angry with them, my anger is with them." And He said: "No, Moses. What sin have they committed that I should be angry with them?" And Moses said: "No, my Lord. If you leave them as you left them from Egypt until now, then my anger is with them." And in this Moses erred, that he placed himself with the sinners who sin every day.

Leave them as you left them from within Egypt until today. And he loved sinners as himself and did not separate himself from them. Now again he desired through the Spirit alone, because I saw that you alone are perfect and humble from the whole earth. And the Lord said to him: Come out from among them, for I am going to destroy all the flesh that I created, because every flesh spoils its own way. And the Spirit said: Spare them, lest you destroy the whole earth. And the Lord said to him: Behold, I am going to put the whole earth in the balance with you. And if they outweigh you, I will leave them. And the Lord weighed with him, and the Spirit prevailed through his humility more than all of them. And the Lord gathered up all flesh, high and low, at that time. Thus again in the days of Job, he weighed every speech with him. And Job prevailed through his humility, and there was no one like him in his days. And the Lord of the world bears witness, saying: What servant is like Job, who is perfect and upright and turns away from evil, and there is no one like him on earth? And concerning the balance, it is written: As if all of them were in the scales of deceivers, who are weighed and empty together. What do they say? Because they alone were humble, so that they would not be led to the height and the agitation that filled the whole earth. And today, when it is said to a man: Be humble and pass from evil and do good like the ancients.

He says: There is no man who does thus today. And you came upon the water, you were not like Enoch and Job and Daniel; even he was humble like them, with whom the Lord placed his sign, but because there is no man like these. A man cannot become humble. But a man who is humbler and more excellent than these exists today, one among many. But if in that man there were no humility and gentleness, he would not be known to the humble, and God would not dwell in him, and he would not attain truth. Also Paul, very great, who loved the wicked more than himself, and says: The Lord is my witness that I desired to die, and the wicked would praise the Lord of praise, if God wills to receive me, and exchange my death for their lives, because he became like the Lord who died for sinners. And all the apostles died on behalf of sinners, by many deaths of fire and sword and crucifixion. Sin, then, as it were, pursues them; sin does not even leave sinners, and how much do they remain from perfection? Nor do they even care for themselves. How much do they condemn this, that they persecute and kill themselves, so that they become persecutors and not persecuted? Again the angel said to Mary: Peace to you, blessed among women. This is the humility of women. My Lord is with you because of your humility.

And Mary said: I confess to God that he looked upon the humility of his handmaid, and not upon beauty nor upon wealth. For if there had been another woman who was more humble than Mary, from her the Messiah would have been born—that humble one who is the friend of humility among all the living. Then Adam was on the earth; he was a lower heaven; he was a spiritual body; the taste of death was the life of the soul. And greatness was shaken and spoke with Adam. And Adam and Eve fled and hid themselves among the trees that stand in the earth. And the Lord said to Adam: Where are you, Adam, that you are not among the watchers above? And he said: I heard your voice and hid myself from before you, because I am ashamed to see you also on the earth—I who in heaven stood confidently before your face, and now you see my disgrace. That one, then, is ashamed of what I did, and your word is foolish, and you did not know that there is no dust like his boundary, and the created cannot dwell with its creator except through mercy when it humbles itself. And the Lord said to Adam: Behold, from what I warned you, you have been brought to need. That one, then, you despised heaven and chose earth. That one, then, you abandoned the good tree, that in which you knew no evil, and you descended to that in which you knew both evil and good. That one, then, you fell from heaven to earth. On what account, Adam? He said to him: Because Eve, the queen,

Eve says: The serpent deceived me. The serpent says: The rebel led me astray and sent me. For because God commanded Adam not to listen to him, neither he nor Eve, to that one who rebelled against the word of his Lord, as it went up above, he rebelled in like manner. Therefore the serpent was sent because he led him astray and he was enslaved by him. For in that he rebelled, and God overthrew him, he became a rebel, a son of darkness by his own will. And he spared him and did not kill him because of the gentleness of his spirit, and he did not repent because of his hardness and his rebelliousness. And instead of serving the Lord as the Lord said, for it is written that you shall worship the Lord your God and serve and entreat him alone, but contrary to this, he led other creatures astray and made them rebellious, as he taught the serpent and Adam and Eve the way of rebellion. And Adam fell from heaven, in that beginning which the rebel began and fell. For the rebel had the thought that he would be God. And when he was rebuked, he came and led Adam astray so that he began to fall, that he might be his son and disciple. And God did not spare him as he had intended, but he spared Adam and Eve in their repentance, and he set for them a law on earth, that whoever observes it, a human being lives by it.

And because of this, he was corrupted and corrupted others. Not sparing the mercy of Jesus upon him and upon his corruption and his affliction: for as he corrupted, he was corrupted; and every soul that rebelled and destroyed, a soul for a soul demands him; and everything that he snatched from his creatures demands him; so that the affliction of all the wicked and his own affliction will stand for eternity of eternities, and it will be sharper than all afflictions and lower than all of them. He spared the Lord of the one who would err the Gehenna of the serpent like his own, because the serpent did not corrupt like him, but rather the spirits of the deluded ones, those who were daughters to him and subjected to him, for even they were created for the service which God desired when he created them. And they obeyed Satan like the serpent, and they were turned and became Satan, and were never again sanctified. For every time that one has done evil in every generation, he has embittered. This one, however, in every generation embitters: as long as this world exists, he embitters, because it pleased Adam and his sons that they embittered the spirit of the Lord by the teaching of the evil one. Thus, as that world which is destined to be embittered and afflicted by the flood of the mountain, so the flood came upon the sons of Adam by water, through his word and his error. Then God began to have mercy on Adam and Eve.

And God made garments of skin and clothed Adam in his mercy, not according to his folly nor according to what Adam had intended for his own punishment. For if according to his folly he had been fittingly cut off, and as if he were not, he would have been made. But Adam, in his freedom, chose for himself a labor that is the opposite of perfection, and by his will he tasted the cup, something that chokes those who desire to ascend to the high height, because he heard the counsel of the king of the world, which was to him like a taker of beautiful things, and he was shorn from the celestial beauties and bound by the beauty of the earth. And Adam desired the lower beauty and was shorn from heaven. And because this passing thing is visible to the eyes of the flesh, it is very beloved to those who have no eyes of the spirit to behold the heavenly beauty. And Adam, who had eyes, saw it, but his eyes were blinded by evil, in that it was said to him, "Return, you will increase, and you will be with your Creator." End of Memra 21, On the Tree of Adam.