Commentary on Genesis (Complete Edition). Martin Luther

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      Wherefore my testimony concerning this text is, that Moses is here giving us an historical description and informing us that there was a certain place toward the East, in which there was a most beautiful and fruitful garden. For, as I have before said, the Hebrew expression MIKKEDEM properly signifies a place, not a time, as our version improperly renders it. Hence it is usual with the Hebrews to call the East wind KADIM, a dry cold wind which parches the fields. In that region of the world therefore was paradise or a garden, in which there were no teil-trees, nor oaks, nor scarlet-oaks, nor any other trees that were barren, but the richest and noblest fruits of every kind and trees of the noblest description; such as we now deem those to be which bear cinnamon and the richest spices. And although all the rest of the earth was cultivated, for there were as yet no thistles nor thorns, yet this place had its far higher cultivation. This Eden was a delightful garden, exceeding in cultivation and fecundity the whole earth besides. Though all the rest of the earth, if compared with its present miserable condition, was itself a paradise.

      It was in this garden, which he himself had planted with such peculiar care, that the Lord placed man. All these things, I say, are historical. It is idle for us therefore to inquire at the present day, where or what that garden was. The rivers, of which Moses afterwards speaks, prove that the region of its situation comprehended Syria, Mesopotamia, Damascus and Egypt, and it is in the midst of these as it were that Jerusalem is situated. And as this garden was destined for Adam with his posterity, it is in vain for us to imagine it to have been a confined garden of a few miles extent. It was doubtless the greater and better part of the earth. And my judgment is, that this garden continued until the Deluge; and that before the Flood it was protected by God himself, according to the description of Moses, by a guard of angels. So that I believe it to have been a place well known to the posterity of Adam, though inaccessible to them. And my opinion is, that it continued thus known until the Flood utterly destroyed it and left no traces of it remaining. Such is my mind on this subject. And such is my reply to all questions which over curious men would move concerning a place, which after the sin and the Deluge had no longer any existence or trace of former existence.

      Origen however is dissatisfied with any view of the extent of the garden of Eden, corresponding to that which I have taken. His opinion is that the distance of the rivers ought by no means to determine the dimensions of the garden. But he is thinking all the time about such gardens as we now generally cultivate. Hence he has recourse in his usual way to an allegory. He makes paradise to represent heaven; the trees, angels; and the streams of rivers, wisdom. But these triflings are unworthy a divine. They may perhaps not be unbecoming an imaginative poet; but they are out of place in a theologian. Origen bears not in mind that Moses is here writing a history; and that, too, a record of things, now long ago passed away.

      After this same fashion do our adversaries absurdly dispute at the present day holding that the image and similitude of God still remain, even in a wicked man. They would, in my judgment speak much nearer the truth, if they were to say that the image of God in man has perished and disappeared; just as the original world and paradise have done. Man in the beginning was righteous; the world in the beginning was most beautiful. Eden was in truth a garden of delight and of pleasure. But all these things were deformed by sin and remain deformed still. All creatures, yea even the sun and the moon, have as it were put on sackcloth. They were all originally "good," but by sin and the curse they became defiled and noxious. At length came the greater curse of the Flood, which destroyed paradise and the whole human race, and swept them from the face of the earth. For if at this day rivers, bursting their banks, inflict by their floods such mighty calamities on men, beasts and fields, what must we suppose to have been the awfulness and horror of the calamities brought upon the earth by the universal Deluge! Whenever therefore we would speak of paradise, since the Flood, let us speak of that now historical paradise, which was once, but now has no longer existence in any trace. Let us speak of it just as we are compelled to speak of the original innocence of man. In doing so our utmost effort can effect no more than to reflect with a sigh that it is lost, and that we never can repair or regain it in this life.

      But further, as Moses had before distinguished man in various ways from the brutes, which nevertheless have the same origin as we have, brutes being formed like us from the earth; so the divine historian in this place distinguishes man from every other creature by giving a description of that peculiarly delightful garden, and that superb dwelling-place, which God had planted with great care and culture, and prepared with magnificent splendor, far beyond anything of the kind which he had bestowed on any other spot upon the face of the earth at that time.

      For the principal object of Moses in his sacred record of the creation of man was to cause it to be clearly understood that man was by far the noblest and most excellent creature, which God had made. The brute animals had the earth, on the grass of which they might feed. But for man, God himself prepared a more noble dwelling-place, in the cultivation and adorning of which he might labor with extreme pleasure, and in which he might find his food, separated from the beasts indeed, but nevertheless holding all of them throughout the whole earth under his dominion.

      Therefore Origen, Jerome and all the other allegorists are alike involved in the greatest folly, who because they can no longer find a paradise on the face of the earth think that some other sense than the natural one is to be given in its interpretation. But that there was a paradise and that there is a paradise are two very different subjects for consideration. Moses, as is the general nature of all such narrations, merely records that there was a paradise. The case is the same in reference to Adam's dominion over all the beasts. He could call the lion, and command and manage him, according to his will and pleasure; but it is not so now. All these glorious things are no more. They are simply and merely, though sacredly, recorded by Moses as having been in the beginning.

      Another question is here agitated, as to the spot of the earth where God created man. There are some who maintain with great warmth that he was created in or near Damascus; because they find it recorded that the soil of Damascus is red and fertile. But I pass by all idle and vain inquiries of this description. It is enough for us to know that man was formed out of the earth on the sixth day after all the other animals had been created, and that he was placed by God himself in the garden of Eden. But as to the very spot on which he was created, what necessity is there for our knowing that? It is certain that he was created out of paradise. For the text before us declares that he was removed to or placed in paradise, before Eve was created who, as Moses here shows, was created in paradise.

      Now let us proceed to that which follows:

      V. 9a. And out of the ground made Jehovah God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.

      The contents of this verse properly belong to the description of paradise. For although the whole earth had been so created as naturally to bring forth trees and herbs, with their fruits and seeds, yet this garden of Eden had its peculiar cultivation. A similitude illustrative of the case before us may be derived from things as they now are among us. Woods and fields bring forth their trees. But when we select a place as a garden for special cultivation, the fruits of the garden are always more excellent than those of the field. So paradise, having been created for and devoted to peculiar cultivation, beyond that which was bestowed on any other part of the earth, was adorned with trees delightful to the sight, whose fruits were sweet to the taste and for use. When therefore God said, in the first chapter, verse 29, "Behold I have given you every herb and every tree for food:" by that meat was meant necessary food. But paradise supplied food for pleasure and delight; fruits better, sweeter and more delicious than those which the trees of any other part of the earth produced. On these the beasts also fed.

      II. V. 9b. The tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge (scientiae) of good and evil.

      Moses so describes paradise that he makes God himself as it were the cultivator of it; as a cultivator, who after he has planted a garden with the greatest care according to his pleasure, selects this and that tree from the rest, which he tills and loves as СКАЧАТЬ