In baptism we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit who comes to dwell in our nature which has been renewed, but the process is not complete, we do not receive immortality and incorruptibility until like Christ we have passed through death into the new life of the resurrection.
We receive a deposit and a guarantee of what we will fully receive in the resurrection.
As for the natural mortality of our humanity as God created it, I will quote just two passages from a great many, one each from St Cyril and St Severus.
Man then is a creature rational, but composite, of soul that is and of this perishable and earthly flesh. And when it had been made by God, and was brought into being, not having of its own nature incorruption and imperishableness (for these things appertain essentially to God Alone), it was sealed with the spirit of life, by participation with the Divinity gaining the good that is above nature (for He breathed, it says, into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul). But when he was being punished for his transgressions, then with justice hearing Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return, he was bared of the grace; the breath of life, that is the Spirit of Him Who says I am the Life, departed from the earthy body and the creature falls into death, through the flesh alone, the soul being kept in immortality, since to the flesh too alone was it said, Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return.
and
So then this rational creature upon earth, I mean man, was made from the beginning after the image of Him that created him, according to the Scriptures; and the meaning of image is various. For an image may be, not after one sort, but after many; howbeit the element of the likeness to God that made him, which is far the most manifest of all, was his incorruptibility and indestructibility. But never, I conceive, would the creature have been sufficient unto himself to be so, merely by virtue of the law of his own nature; for how could he that is of the earth in his own nature have been shown to possess the glory of incorruption, unless it were from the God that is by nature both incorruptible and indestructible and ever the same, that he was enriched with this boon in like manner as with all others? For what hast thou that thou didst not receive? saith somewhere unto us the inspired Paul, with exceeding reason and truth. With intent then that what was once brought into being out of that which is not, might not, by sinking back to its own original, once more vanish into nothing, but rather be preserved evermore----for this was the aim of Him that created it----God makes it partaker of His own nature. For He breathed into his face the breath of life, i.e. the Spirit of the Son, for He is Himself the Life with the Father, holding all things together in being. For the things that are receptive of life both move in Him and live, according to the words of Paul.
and St Severus says
So if someone decides to maintain healthy and God pleasing thoughts, he would be free of sin and weaknesses. We already know that sin, which results from a defect and deterioration of health, is a thing without substance or hypostasis. Consequently, as long as he enjoyed health, that is to say, that he observed the divine precept, Adam did not bear within himself any trace of sin; but when, by a voluntary impulse, he turned his spirit towards the attractions of pleasure, he became a slave to abominable concupiscence owing to the fact that he had deviated from the right way, so we say that he was subjected to sin.
However that depended on his free will to sin, I say, and on committing sin. And thus he was also stripped of the grace of immortality, by disturbing with the shadow of sin the image of the divine likeness, in virtue of which, formed to be intelligent with regard to his soul, he had been filled with the presence of the Holy Spirit and rendered capable of all knowledge and virtue – it is this which is signified by the breath of life which, as it is said in the divine word, had been breathed into his face by his Creator.
and
Because the doctor reveals two things: that immortality, as well as the divine presence and illumination, was a grace, since he says that God secured, by a law and the choice of a place, the grace which had been granted to them.
and
Saint Cyril also establishes this point, — that it is not of nature, but of grace that the man was despoiled by his defection, -- in his instruction Of Solutions, which he composed to the address of the deacon Tiberius and his brethren. He perfectly says there as if he states a rule: [CYRIL] “For we did not lose anything of that which we possessed by nature”. And again, in the first book of the Commentary of the Gospel of John, he writes what follows: [CYRIL] “.. man is therefore a reasonable animal, but composed, we understand, of a soul and of this terrestrial and temporal flesh. Because he has been made by God and has come to a beginning, without holding of his own nature incorruptibility nor the indestructibility - these indeed belong by nature to God alone - he has been marked by the spirit of life, acquiring, by an intimate relationship with God, a blessing which exceeds nature. For “He breathed into his face the breath of life and the man became a living soul”.
and
[ATHANASIUS] “Man is mortal according to his nature, by the fact that he has become something which he was not, but thanks to the resemblance with He who is, supposing that he had conserved it by the contemplation of God, he would have suppressed the natural corruption and have remained incorruptible.
and
Equally, in the sixth book of the Commentary of John the Evangelist, he says: [CYRIL] “Indeed, all that which has been made is corruptible, even if it is not yet corrupt, because, by the will of God, he preserves it in incorruptibility. But God is incorruptible and eternal according to His nature, without acquiring it by the will of others, as is the case for creatures, because He exists always in His own properties, among which is eternity”.
and
Thus he has demonstrated that, while God is the creator of creatures and of changeable natures, and not of change itself, He is also the creator of mortal and corruptible natures and not of dissolution, of death and of corruption. Since He had conferred from the beginning that which was missing from the nature by the grace of immortality, the divine presence and illumination which he needed to preserve with care. Now Adam had not preserved this grace, because by his will, his spirit was enfeebled by the concupiscence from the forbidden fruit; by the change, the beginning of corruption and the action of sin. It had become for him, since he was composed and mortal, the cause of his return to dissolution and to natural corruption.
I hope these help.
There are lots more passages but these show the general drift of St Cyril and St Severus, as well as St Athanasius.
Although I am sure that sexuality was part of the nature with which we were created, nevertheless our own experience of sexuality is generally disordered and moved by the passions. It is only the saints who have come to that proper ordering of their human nature so that all is moved by the human spirit standing in the presence of God, rather than by the animal appetites dominating our spirit.
It would seem that we are to understand that sexuality is part of our created human nature since it is written..
Genesis 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Therefore there is a command to be fruitful and multiply BEFORE the Fall takes place, and we can imagine that it was God's plan that the human family grow in numbers and that people be born painlessly into the Garden of Eden and share with Adam and Eve the blessed life of Paradise.
But I think that personally I would say that Adam and Eve did not experience sexual desire until they had sinned against God and made themselves slaves to their appetites. I would suggest that Genesis 4:1 indicates for us the beginning of the practice of sexuality as a means of preserving the human race.
Genesis 4:1 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.
It is after the Fall that God says that part of the consequence will be that the woman desires her husband, and this word has the sense of craving; a needy, selfish longing. And the woman hears that the man will lord it over her. And such is the experience of many fallen relationships, in both primitive societies where women are treated terribly, and even in our own Western societies where battered woman still desire their husbands and believe they can change.
If there was sexual experience before the Fall then it must have been chaste, self-giving, holy and free from lust. But I wonder if the phrase 'the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked' doesn't preclude the idea that they had sexual relations before the Fall? There must surely be some sense, even in the most holy context, in which the nakedness of the other is recognised?
Both St Cyril and St Severus are clear that there is nothing sinful in itself in sexual relations and this is certainly not the means by which sin is passed from generation to generation, indeed they deny that it is passed on at all and insist that each of us are sinners because we ourselves have sinned. I think they both suggest that sexual relations after the Fall were the means by which the human race, now left in mortality, was to be saved from extinction.
But I think that personally I would say that Adam and Eve did not experience sexual desire until they had sinned against God and made themselves slaves to their appetites
See, a lot of scholars in the CoC also say the same thing. That they (Adam & Eve) only had sex AFTER the fall.
But then that leads to the next question:
God told them to be fruitful and multiply when He had created them both - BEFORE they sinned. How could God want them to multiply if the only way to multiply (have sex) would be if they sinned against Him (i.e. disobeyed Him). How exactly did God want them to multiply if the sexual desires weren't exercisable when they were innocent of corruption and sin?
Is it just me that cares about this issue, cos frankly, it is really bewildering!!!
But I think that personally I would say that Adam and Eve did not experience sexual desire until they had sinned against God and made themselves slaves to their appetites
See, a lot of scholars in the CoC also say the same thing. That they (Adam & Eve) only had sex AFTER the fall.
But then that leads to the next question:
God told them to be fruitful and multiply when He had created them both - BEFORE they sinned. How could God want them to multiply if the only way to multiply (have sex) would be if they sinned against Him (i.e. disobeyed Him). How exactly did God want them to multiply if the sexual desires weren't exercisable when they were innocent of corruption and sin?
Is it just me that cares about this issue, cos frankly, it is really bewildering!!!
QT_,
I think it is bewildering when we try to comprehend God's Ways by mans lower understanding. Man was made just a little lower than the Angels.....God is ruler of the Angels and thus of course man! As a Coptic Orthodox man you are petitioned to be "a steward of the mysteries of God" so you have to rise above your low nature and see God above it all! Was not our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God brought forth from the womb of The Holy Virgin Mary with out carnal relations? "With man nothing is possible, with God all things are possible". So, I think it is very possible Adam and Eve could have multiplyed without carnality and I also think the devil new Gods perfect plan and that is why he (the devil) tempted them to sin and try and make God a liar like he is (the devil); tried to bring God down to his low level as always!
Anyway, I'm just sayin' I don't think Adam and Eve had to have sex to be fruitful and multiply.
Let me ask you something..why are you so concerned whether they had sex before or after the fall? Will the answer to this question help you to grow spiritually by drawing you closer to God (If it does, then ASK AWAY!!)
Questions are good, when we want to understand to benefit ourselves, however this doesn't benefit any of us. Therefore there is no reason to argue about this. Think whatever you want to think, QT_PA_2T, just don't lose your main focus in life..
If a question is not answerable, just say so. But I have a right to ask. I have a right to knowledge also. No?
It NEVER occured to me before that the only way that Adam and Eve could have sex was if they had eaten from the tree. How then could God want them to be fruitful and multiply???
Perhaps I'm mistaken.. If I am that means that they had sexual desires without even knowing that they were naked. How could that possible???? How could you be attracted to something that you don't know is attractive?? Only after eating of the forbidden fruit did they realise that they are naked, and they felt some embarassement about it.
Now, I hate it when people attack me over a question that I ask in ALL sincerity and in all politeness possible.
If you dont want to know the answer, or you find this question "worthless" - fine. For me, it is a very strange issue. I really don't understand how God could expect 2 people to have sex if they didnt know what sex was???? They were so innocent...
What does the Church say about this? I havent read anything that says that they had sex after the fall - but I've heard it MANY times (from documentaries and talking with servants in the Church).
I think if you don't know the answer, its best to leave it, but it is infuriating to tell someone their questions are worthless because you personally don't see the benefit in it!!!!!
I will have a look at some of the Fathers tonight and see what they say on this particular issue.
I am not saying that they could not and did not have chaste sexual relations before the Fall, just that in my opinion (just my own opinion) I don't think that the Genesis text lends itself to thinking that they did have sexual relations before the Fall.
Yet it is clear that sexuality is not sinful, since God created Adam and Eve with the view to them sexually reproducing in a sinless manner.
[quote author=peterfarrington link=topic=7600.msg99856#msg99856 date=1233251350] I will have a look at some of the Fathers tonight and see what they say on this particular issue.
I am not saying that they could not and did not have chaste sexual relations before the Fall, just that in my opinion (just my own opinion) I don't think that the Genesis text lends itself to thinking that they did have sexual relations before the Fall.
Yet it is clear that sexuality is not sinful, since God created Adam and Eve with the view to them sexually reproducing in a sinless manner.
Peter
Thanks peter!!!
I'm not at all saying that sexuality is sinful.. NOT AT ALL!!
I feel we are justifying small things just because of the mistakes of the Catholic Church that has mis-explained everything for themselves. To us, as Coptic Christians, sex was never considered sinful.
But, it is truly remarkable that God asked Adam & Eve.. (in fact, He Commanded THEM!!) to be fruitful and multiply, and if the only way that they could have sex was to eat from the tree of knowledge, then I'd love to have an answer for this.
Well, if anyone has any literature on this issue post it. In the meantime, I'll ask, but its not the same as finding the works of the Church Fathers on this matter.
I prefer to have something in writing.
You know...
There's a picture going around the internet of 2 dolphins. The 2 dolphins are shaded in black and white. However, this picture is really interesting. Because it is a picture of 2 dolphins, yet at the VERY SAME TIME, it is also a picture of a couple making love.
Now, apparently, when you show this picture to a kid of 6 years of age and you tell him : What do you see? They all say they see a picture of 2 dolphins.
When you ask a teenager or adult, they all see the picture of the man and woman making love. (i'll try and find it and show it to you).
Anyway.... The point being that with Adam and Eve - BEFORE the fall, their vision was like these kids, they did NOT see each other in a sexual way. They were created in innocence and purity of heart. When they ate from the fruit of knowledge, they began to have sexual desires for one another. So HOW on God's good earth could they be given a commandment like "BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY" when the only way to be fruitful and multiply would be to have this knowledge and be corrupted???
They only saw themselves naked and realised it AFTER eating from the fruit of the tree!!
My only predicament is when God told them to be fruitful and multiply. He said that to them BEFORE they had sinned against Him.
Indeed, after Adam, because of the sin, had lost the grace of immortality and was destined to decompose in the ground from which he had been drawn, the support of marriage was presented in his time to preserve the race from extinction by the generation of sons. However this help had even been established in advance by God who forsees all; making man, at the beginning, he made them man and woman. Consequently there is not in marriage itself any stain of contamination resulting from sin.
and
However marriage was conceded in the second state with the mortal character of nature to put the race safe from destruction by procreation. And if the method of the generation and the coming together in marriage are common for us with the animals and if they are very defective considering the distance which separates them from the constitution in which God had first formed Adam from the earth, they are not however deprived of the blessing of He who had formed them: it is because he forsaw indeed, by a thought which has the capacity to do so, the part played by the will of Adam in the sin and his renunciation of immortality, so that in a salutary way he had provided in advance a help <<in making them male and female, by blessing them and saying: Indeed bear fruit, multiply and fill the earth>> As regards those who are mortal this mode of generation is necessary for the continuation of the race, as for all those who are born, die and become corrupts. Consequently we declare that we are also corruptible and our descendants and our offspring, as they are brought to death and the decomposition of the earthly body.
I'm trying to get hold of some other materials. I need to get the Ancient Christian Commentary volume on Genesis.
But it seems from these two, and some other similar passages I have here, that St Cyril and St Severus want to understand the command to Adam and Eve as being prophetic, and being the result of God's foreknowledge of the Fall. So they seem to want us to read the passage as..
You WILL be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth.
This is one explanation. Another way of reading the text would be to look at the later problematic passages..
Genesis 2:24-25 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. 25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
This would seem to me to speak of more than a relationship of love between Adam and Eve before the Fall, but to at least make possible the thought that we are to understand that there is a parallel between the leaving of a man and a woman and their physical union in marriage today, and the relationship which Adam and Eve had. That word therefore seems to want to make us consider that Adam and Eve, and ourselves, have the same physical relationship.
There is also that thought that they were both naked and not ashamed, which does seem to speak to a physical marital relationship.
Then we have ..
Genesis 3:7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked;
I wonder if we should not concentrate on the idea that they had not noticed that they were naked, and therefore were naive in some sense, and rather should think about the idea that knowing they were naked means that they were now ashamed, and it is the shame which is a sign of a disordered physical relationship, rather than the nakedness itself.
In one sense a man and woman in a loving marriage become unaware of their nakedness with each other. They are not ashamed. They are comfortable with each other. That does not mean of course that they are unaware of their bodies, but that they do not feel naked in the sense of shamefully exposed.
So I would be open to the idea that it is possible that Adam and Eve did have a chaste and holy physical relationship before the Fall. But this does not seem to be the view that St Cyril and St Severus took. The key thing does seem to be that human sexuality is of God and can be good, but that it has been disordered in the Fall.
But, correct me if i'm wrong, this doesnt answer why God would tell Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply when their entire nature would not have allowed it (i,e, BEFORE the fall)
It doesnt mean that when they did have sex that it was not pure, nor unholy. Not at all. We are not saying this.
I obviously was not very clear. In my last post I wanted to show that :
1. St Cyril and St Severus understood the command to be prophetic and to have in mind the situation that would take place after the fall.
2. I was suggesting that the text does not preclude a physical relationship between Adam and Eve since the idea that they did not know they were naked could refer to shamefulness and disordered relations rather than to the thought that they were unaware of each other as people with sexuality.
[quote author=QT_PA_2T link=topic=7600.msg99862#msg99862 date=1233252441] [quote author=peterfarrington link=topic=7600.msg99861#msg99861 date=1233252248] I see your issue. It is a reasonable one.
I will try and find something in writing from the Fathers on this.
Peter
Thanks a million Peter..
Phew.. at last!!! This topic just got side-tracked by people judging me and not focusing on the question.
I'm 110% certain peter that the Bible is correct, and the more we understand, the more we will enjoy the fruits from it.
Hi QT_
I would like to apologise if i seemed like i was judging u and not focusing on the question. I think I've stated before that I find your questions interesting. To me u r somewhat like a 'muse'. I guess I just do not like the word sex being used when speaking of Holy unions, which is what an Orthodox marriage is. Of course it is not the physical act I find offensive (In Holy Matrimony) it is just the word....sex! When I think of sex, i think of HBO and the real sex stuff - fornication, adultery. The word sex just does not seem holy to me. I mean I do not think sex is mentioned in the Holy Bible. Of course the Bible teachs us that Husband and Wives 'Knew' one another and then the woman became with child, etc, etc. Of course i do not think u r purposely trying to degrade a holy act, but it's just to me the word sex is degrading. I think u made this post or something similar before. I too find the story of Adam and Eve very intriguing. I have read about their story in a book called 'The lost books of the Bible and the forgotten books of Eden'. The version of the story of Adam and Eve is said in the book to be "the work of unknown Egyptians". The love Adam and Eve showed for one another through the good and bad - 'for better or worse' is very admirable. Their self discovery so holy, beautiful and pure.....for me to bring it down to the level of (what I think is) mere sex??! I don't know....it just not seem to honor a holy union like holy unions should be honored. I'm not angry or anything....I guess just a little sad at the reference.
I know God wishes us to be gentle and patient with one another, showing love always. Please forgive my weakness
I don't think that QT can be accused of diminishing the holy union of marriage by using the word sex, since in English that is a word to describe that union.
We should not be afraid of words, there are plenty of young people and other mixed up folk in the world who need us to be straight talking, and if we can't use the word 'sex' with them then we will find it very hard to give them good advice, or to be taken seriously by them. It is a word that describes an act. The task for Christians is to help those inside and outside the Church to discover the richer, deeper and more spiritual content which can be found in a Christian marriage. To discover that there is more to the Christian relationship than the act itself.
[quote author=peterfarrington link=topic=7600.msg99885#msg99885 date=1233348526] I don't think that QT can be accused of diminishing the holy union of marriage by using the word sex, since in English that is a word to describe that union.
We should not be afraid of words, there are plenty of young people and other mixed up folk in the world who need us to be straight talking, and if we can't use the word 'sex' with them then we will find it very hard to give them good advice, or to be taken seriously by them. It is a word that describes an act. The task for Christians is to help those inside and outside the Church to discover the richer, deeper and more spiritual content which can be found in a Christian marriage. To discover that there is more to the Christian relationship than the act itself.
In Christ
Peter
I agree 110% with Peter.
Elsi, there's nothing wrong with using the word "sex". I just shortened it to sexual intercourse. God created us as sexual beings. Our sexuality is quite holy and nothing wrong with it.
When Adam and Eve had sex, they were married. God blessed them, and told them to be fruitful and multiply. The problem is that there is a tendancy to corrupt what God has made. And as Peter said, unless we can use the correct terms respectfully, we cannot help others talk about this issue.
But this is another topic, and we've discussed fornication etc. What does HBO mean?
Comments
We receive a deposit and a guarantee of what we will fully receive in the resurrection.
As for the natural mortality of our humanity as God created it, I will quote just two passages from a great many, one each from St Cyril and St Severus.
Man then is a creature rational, but composite, of soul that is and of this perishable and earthly flesh. And when it had been made by God, and was brought into being, not having of its own nature incorruption and imperishableness (for these things appertain essentially to God Alone), it was sealed with the spirit of life, by participation with the Divinity gaining the good that is above nature (for He breathed, it says, into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul). But when he was being punished for his transgressions, then with justice hearing Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return, he was bared of the grace; the breath of life, that is the Spirit of Him Who says I am the Life, departed from the earthy body and the creature falls into death, through the flesh alone, the soul being kept in immortality, since to the flesh too alone was it said, Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return.
and
So then this rational creature upon earth, I mean man, was made from the beginning after the image of Him that created him, according to the Scriptures; and the meaning of image is various. For an image may be, not after one sort, but after many; howbeit the element of the likeness to God that made him, which is far the most manifest of all, was his incorruptibility and indestructibility. But never, I conceive, would the creature have been sufficient unto himself to be so, merely by virtue of the law of his own nature; for how could he that is of the earth in his own nature have been shown to possess the glory of incorruption, unless it were from the God that is by nature both incorruptible and indestructible and ever the same, that he was enriched with this boon in like manner as with all others? For what hast thou that thou didst not receive? saith somewhere unto us the inspired Paul, with exceeding reason and truth. With intent then that what was once brought into being out of that which is not, might not, by sinking back to its own original, once more vanish into nothing, but rather be preserved evermore----for this was the aim of Him that created it----God makes it partaker of His own nature. For He breathed into his face the breath of life, i.e. the Spirit of the Son, for He is Himself the Life with the Father, holding all things together in being. For the things that are receptive of life both move in Him and live, according to the words of Paul.
and St Severus says
So if someone decides to maintain healthy and God pleasing thoughts, he would be free of sin and weaknesses. We already know that sin, which results from a defect and deterioration of health, is a thing without substance or hypostasis. Consequently, as long as he enjoyed health, that is to say, that he observed the divine precept, Adam did not bear within himself any trace of sin; but when, by a voluntary impulse, he turned his spirit towards the attractions of pleasure, he became a slave to abominable concupiscence owing to the fact that he had deviated from the right way, so we say that he was subjected to sin.
However that depended on his free will to sin, I say, and on committing sin. And thus he was also stripped of the grace of immortality, by disturbing with the shadow of sin the image of the divine likeness, in virtue of which, formed to be intelligent with regard to his soul, he had been filled with the presence of the Holy Spirit and rendered capable of all knowledge and virtue – it is this which is signified by the breath of life which, as it is said in the divine word, had been breathed into his face by his Creator.
and
Because the doctor reveals two things: that immortality, as well as the divine presence and illumination, was a grace, since he says that God secured, by a law and the choice of a place, the grace which had been granted to them.
and
Saint Cyril also establishes this point, — that it is not of nature, but of grace that the man was despoiled by his defection, -- in his instruction Of Solutions, which he composed to the address of the deacon Tiberius and his brethren. He perfectly says there as if he states a rule: [CYRIL] “For we did not lose anything of that which we possessed by nature”. And again, in the first book of the Commentary of the Gospel of John, he writes what follows: [CYRIL] “.. man is therefore a reasonable animal, but composed, we understand, of a soul and of this terrestrial and temporal flesh. Because he has been made by God and has come to a beginning, without holding of his own nature incorruptibility nor the indestructibility - these indeed belong by nature to God alone - he has been marked by the spirit of life, acquiring, by an intimate relationship with God, a blessing which exceeds nature. For “He breathed into his face the breath of life and the man became a living soul”.
and
[ATHANASIUS] “Man is mortal according to his nature, by the fact that he has become something which he was not, but thanks to the resemblance with He who is, supposing that he had conserved it by the contemplation of God, he would have suppressed the natural corruption and have remained incorruptible.
and
Equally, in the sixth book of the Commentary of John the Evangelist, he says: [CYRIL] “Indeed, all that which has been made is corruptible, even if it is not yet corrupt, because, by the will of God, he preserves it in incorruptibility. But God is incorruptible and eternal according to His nature, without acquiring it by the will of others, as is the case for creatures, because He exists always in His own properties, among which is eternity”.
and
Thus he has demonstrated that, while God is the creator of creatures and of changeable natures, and not of change itself, He is also the creator of mortal and corruptible natures and not of dissolution, of death and of corruption. Since He had conferred from the beginning that which was missing from the nature by the grace of immortality, the divine presence and illumination which he needed to preserve with care. Now Adam had not preserved this grace, because by his will, his spirit was enfeebled by the concupiscence from the forbidden fruit; by the change, the beginning of corruption and the action of sin. It had become for him, since he was composed and mortal, the cause of his return to dissolution and to natural corruption.
I hope these help.
There are lots more passages but these show the general drift of St Cyril and St Severus, as well as St Athanasius.
In Christ
Peter
Let's now get back to the original subject:
Did Adam and Eve have sex BEFORE the fall or AFTER the fall? Was it possible for them to have sex BEFORE the fall anyway?? Was this at all possible??
Although I am sure that sexuality was part of the nature with which we were created, nevertheless our own experience of sexuality is generally disordered and moved by the passions. It is only the saints who have come to that proper ordering of their human nature so that all is moved by the human spirit standing in the presence of God, rather than by the animal appetites dominating our spirit.
It would seem that we are to understand that sexuality is part of our created human nature since it is written..
Genesis 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Therefore there is a command to be fruitful and multiply BEFORE the Fall takes place, and we can imagine that it was God's plan that the human family grow in numbers and that people be born painlessly into the Garden of Eden and share with Adam and Eve the blessed life of Paradise.
But I think that personally I would say that Adam and Eve did not experience sexual desire until they had sinned against God and made themselves slaves to their appetites. I would suggest that Genesis 4:1 indicates for us the beginning of the practice of sexuality as a means of preserving the human race.
Genesis 4:1 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.
It is after the Fall that God says that part of the consequence will be that the woman desires her husband, and this word has the sense of craving; a needy, selfish longing. And the woman hears that the man will lord it over her. And such is the experience of many fallen relationships, in both primitive societies where women are treated terribly, and even in our own Western societies where battered woman still desire their husbands and believe they can change.
If there was sexual experience before the Fall then it must have been chaste, self-giving, holy and free from lust. But I wonder if the phrase 'the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked' doesn't preclude the idea that they had sexual relations before the Fall? There must surely be some sense, even in the most holy context, in which the nakedness of the other is recognised?
Both St Cyril and St Severus are clear that there is nothing sinful in itself in sexual relations and this is certainly not the means by which sin is passed from generation to generation, indeed they deny that it is passed on at all and insist that each of us are sinners because we ourselves have sinned. I think they both suggest that sexual relations after the Fall were the means by which the human race, now left in mortality, was to be saved from extinction.
In Christ
Peter
But then that leads to the next question:
God told them to be fruitful and multiply when He had created them both - BEFORE they sinned. How could God want them to multiply if the only way to multiply (have sex) would be if they sinned against Him (i.e. disobeyed Him). How exactly did God want them to multiply if the sexual desires weren't exercisable when they were innocent of corruption and sin?
Is it just me that cares about this issue, cos frankly, it is really bewildering!!!
But then that leads to the next question:
God told them to be fruitful and multiply when He had created them both - BEFORE they sinned. How could God want them to multiply if the only way to multiply (have sex) would be if they sinned against Him (i.e. disobeyed Him). How exactly did God want them to multiply if the sexual desires weren't exercisable when they were innocent of corruption and sin?
Is it just me that cares about this issue, cos frankly, it is really bewildering!!!
QT_,
I think it is bewildering when we try to comprehend God's Ways by mans lower understanding. Man was made just a little lower than the Angels.....God is ruler of the Angels and thus of course man!
As a Coptic Orthodox man you are petitioned to be "a steward of the mysteries of God" so you have to rise above your low nature and see God above it all!
Was not our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God brought forth from the womb of The Holy Virgin Mary with out carnal relations?
"With man nothing is possible, with God all things are possible". So, I think it is very possible Adam and Eve could have multiplyed without carnality and I also think the devil new Gods perfect plan and that is why he (the devil) tempted them to sin and try and make God a liar like he is (the devil); tried to bring God down to his low level as always!
Anyway, I'm just sayin' I don't think Adam and Eve had to have sex to be fruitful and multiply.
Peace and Love
Questions are good, when we want to understand to benefit ourselves, however this doesn't benefit any of us. Therefore there is no reason to argue about this. Think whatever you want to think, QT_PA_2T, just don't lose your main focus in life..
If a question is not answerable, just say so. But I have a right to ask.
I have a right to knowledge also. No?
It NEVER occured to me before that the only way that Adam and Eve could have sex was if they had eaten from the tree. How then could God want them to be fruitful and multiply???
Perhaps I'm mistaken.. If I am that means that they had sexual desires without even knowing that they were naked. How could that possible???? How could you be attracted to something that you don't know is attractive?? Only after eating of the forbidden fruit did they realise that they are naked, and they felt some embarassement about it.
Now, I hate it when people attack me over a question that I ask in ALL sincerity and in all politeness possible.
If you dont want to know the answer, or you find this question "worthless" - fine. For me, it is a very strange issue. I really don't understand how God could expect 2 people to have sex if they didnt know what sex was???? They were so innocent...
What does the Church say about this? I havent read anything that says that they had sex after the fall - but I've heard it MANY times (from documentaries and talking with servants in the Church).
I think if you don't know the answer, its best to leave it, but it is infuriating to tell someone their questions are worthless because you personally don't see the benefit in it!!!!!
I am not saying that they could not and did not have chaste sexual relations before the Fall, just that in my opinion (just my own opinion) I don't think that the Genesis text lends itself to thinking that they did have sexual relations before the Fall.
Yet it is clear that sexuality is not sinful, since God created Adam and Eve with the view to them sexually reproducing in a sinless manner.
Peter
I don't understand, if you dont know, or dont care for the answer, why are you bothering this topic? Why don't u open a thread that interests you??
I will have a look at some of the Fathers tonight and see what they say on this particular issue.
I am not saying that they could not and did not have chaste sexual relations before the Fall, just that in my opinion (just my own opinion) I don't think that the Genesis text lends itself to thinking that they did have sexual relations before the Fall.
Yet it is clear that sexuality is not sinful, since God created Adam and Eve with the view to them sexually reproducing in a sinless manner.
Peter
Thanks peter!!!
I'm not at all saying that sexuality is sinful.. NOT AT ALL!!
I feel we are justifying small things just because of the mistakes of the Catholic Church that has mis-explained everything for themselves. To us, as Coptic Christians, sex was never considered sinful.
But, it is truly remarkable that God asked Adam & Eve.. (in fact, He Commanded THEM!!) to be fruitful and multiply, and if the only way that they could have sex was to eat from the tree of knowledge, then I'd love to have an answer for this.
I prefer to have something in writing.
You know...
There's a picture going around the internet of 2 dolphins. The 2 dolphins are shaded in black and white. However, this picture is really interesting. Because it is a picture of 2 dolphins, yet at the VERY SAME TIME, it is also a picture of a couple making love.
Now, apparently, when you show this picture to a kid of 6 years of age and you tell him : What do you see? They all say they see a picture of 2 dolphins.
When you ask a teenager or adult, they all see the picture of the man and woman making love. (i'll try and find it and show it to you).
Anyway.... The point being that with Adam and Eve - BEFORE the fall, their vision was like these kids, they did NOT see each other in a sexual way. They were created in innocence and purity of heart. When they ate from the fruit of knowledge, they began to have sexual desires for one another. So HOW on God's good earth could they be given a commandment like "BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY" when the only way to be fruitful and multiply would be to have this knowledge and be corrupted???
They only saw themselves naked and realised it AFTER eating from the fruit of the tree!!
My only predicament is when God told them to be fruitful and multiply. He said that to them BEFORE they had sinned against Him.
I will try and find something in writing from the Fathers on this.
Peter
I see your issue. It is a reasonable one.
I will try and find something in writing from the Fathers on this.
Peter
Thanks a million Peter..
Phew.. at last!!! This topic just got side-tracked by people judging me and not focusing on the question.
I'm 110% certain peter that the Bible is correct, and the more we understand, the more we will enjoy the fruits from it.
Indeed, after Adam, because of the sin, had lost the grace of immortality and was destined to decompose in the ground from which he had been drawn, the support of marriage was presented in his time to preserve the race from extinction by the generation of sons. However this help had even been established in advance by God who forsees all; making man, at the beginning, he made them man and woman. Consequently there is not in marriage itself any stain of contamination resulting from sin.
and
However marriage was conceded in the second state with the mortal character of nature to put the race safe from destruction by procreation. And if the method of the generation and the coming together in marriage are common for us with the animals and if they are very defective considering the distance which separates them from the constitution in which God had first formed Adam from the earth, they are not however deprived of the blessing of He who had formed them: it is because he forsaw indeed, by a thought which has the capacity to do so, the part played by the will of Adam in the sin and his renunciation of immortality, so that in a salutary way he had provided in advance a help <<in making them male and female, by blessing them and saying: Indeed bear fruit, multiply and fill the earth>> As regards those who are mortal this mode of generation is necessary for the continuation of the race, as for all those who are born, die and become corrupts. Consequently we declare that we are also corruptible and our descendants and our offspring, as they are brought to death and the decomposition of the earthly body.
I'm trying to get hold of some other materials. I need to get the Ancient Christian Commentary volume on Genesis.
But it seems from these two, and some other similar passages I have here, that St Cyril and St Severus want to understand the command to Adam and Eve as being prophetic, and being the result of God's foreknowledge of the Fall. So they seem to want us to read the passage as..
You WILL be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth.
This is one explanation. Another way of reading the text would be to look at the later problematic passages..
Genesis 2:24-25 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. 25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
This would seem to me to speak of more than a relationship of love between Adam and Eve before the Fall, but to at least make possible the thought that we are to understand that there is a parallel between the leaving of a man and a woman and their physical union in marriage today, and the relationship which Adam and Eve had. That word therefore seems to want to make us consider that Adam and Eve, and ourselves, have the same physical relationship.
There is also that thought that they were both naked and not ashamed, which does seem to speak to a physical marital relationship.
Then we have ..
Genesis 3:7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked;
I wonder if we should not concentrate on the idea that they had not noticed that they were naked, and therefore were naive in some sense, and rather should think about the idea that knowing they were naked means that they were now ashamed, and it is the shame which is a sign of a disordered physical relationship, rather than the nakedness itself.
In one sense a man and woman in a loving marriage become unaware of their nakedness with each other. They are not ashamed. They are comfortable with each other. That does not mean of course that they are unaware of their bodies, but that they do not feel naked in the sense of shamefully exposed.
So I would be open to the idea that it is possible that Adam and Eve did have a chaste and holy physical relationship before the Fall. But this does not seem to be the view that St Cyril and St Severus took. The key thing does seem to be that human sexuality is of God and can be good, but that it has been disordered in the Fall.
In Christ
Peter
But, correct me if i'm wrong, this doesnt answer why God would tell Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply when their entire nature would not have allowed it (i,e, BEFORE the fall)
It doesnt mean that when they did have sex that it was not pure, nor unholy. Not at all. We are not saying this.
1. St Cyril and St Severus understood the command to be prophetic and to have in mind the situation that would take place after the fall.
2. I was suggesting that the text does not preclude a physical relationship between Adam and Eve since the idea that they did not know they were naked could refer to shamefulness and disordered relations rather than to the thought that they were unaware of each other as people with sexuality.
Peter
[quote author=peterfarrington link=topic=7600.msg99861#msg99861 date=1233252248]
I see your issue. It is a reasonable one.
I will try and find something in writing from the Fathers on this.
Peter
Thanks a million Peter..
Phew.. at last!!! This topic just got side-tracked by people judging me and not focusing on the question.
I'm 110% certain peter that the Bible is correct, and the more we understand, the more we will enjoy the fruits from it.
Hi QT_
I would like to apologise if i seemed like i was judging u and not focusing on the question. I think I've stated before that I find your questions interesting. To me u r somewhat like a 'muse'.
I guess I just do not like the word sex being used when speaking of Holy unions, which is what an Orthodox marriage is. Of course it is not the physical act I find offensive (In Holy Matrimony) it is just the word....sex! When I think of sex, i think of HBO and the real sex stuff - fornication, adultery. The word sex just does not seem holy to me.
I mean I do not think sex is mentioned in the Holy Bible. Of course the Bible teachs us that Husband and Wives 'Knew' one another and then the woman became with child, etc, etc.
Of course i do not think u r purposely trying to degrade a holy act, but it's just to me the word sex is degrading.
I think u made this post or something similar before. I too find the story of Adam and Eve very intriguing. I have read about their story in a book called 'The lost books of the Bible and the forgotten books of Eden'. The version of the story of Adam and Eve is said in the book to be "the work of unknown Egyptians".
The love Adam and Eve showed for one another through the good and bad - 'for better or worse' is very admirable. Their self discovery so holy, beautiful and pure.....for me to bring it down to the level of (what I think is) mere sex??! I don't know....it just not seem to honor a holy union like holy unions should be honored.
I'm not angry or anything....I guess just a little sad at the reference.
I know God wishes us to be gentle and patient with one another, showing love always.
Please forgive my weakness
We should not be afraid of words, there are plenty of young people and other mixed up folk in the world who need us to be straight talking, and if we can't use the word 'sex' with them then we will find it very hard to give them good advice, or to be taken seriously by them. It is a word that describes an act. The task for Christians is to help those inside and outside the Church to discover the richer, deeper and more spiritual content which can be found in a Christian marriage. To discover that there is more to the Christian relationship than the act itself.
In Christ
Peter
I don't think that QT can be accused of diminishing the holy union of marriage by using the word sex, since in English that is a word to describe that union.
We should not be afraid of words, there are plenty of young people and other mixed up folk in the world who need us to be straight talking, and if we can't use the word 'sex' with them then we will find it very hard to give them good advice, or to be taken seriously by them. It is a word that describes an act. The task for Christians is to help those inside and outside the Church to discover the richer, deeper and more spiritual content which can be found in a Christian marriage. To discover that there is more to the Christian relationship than the act itself.
In Christ
Peter
I agree 110% with Peter.
Elsi, there's nothing wrong with using the word "sex". I just shortened it to sexual intercourse. God created us as sexual beings. Our sexuality is quite holy and nothing wrong with it.
When Adam and Eve had sex, they were married. God blessed them, and told them to be fruitful and multiply. The problem is that there is a tendancy to corrupt what God has made. And as Peter said, unless we can use the correct terms respectfully, we cannot help others talk about this issue.
But this is another topic, and we've discussed fornication etc. What does HBO mean?