Humans go about their days with inclinations toward good and evil. It is used to persuade against what he would normally want to do.īut what do these poems mean for evil in general? It’s all about confusion. Just like the love of God in Genesis, love is used against the person. Satan, although very indirectly, blurs Adam’s conceptions of good and evil. Adam’s love leads him to accept death himself, simply to always be with his love. Further down, he ponders-and eventually rejects-the idea that another Eve could be made. Adam laments, “And mee with thee hath ruind, for with thee / Certain my resolution is to Die” (Bk. At that moment, Eve will die without him.

When Eve comes back to Adam and explains that she ate the fruit, and what has happened, Adam realizes for himself the consequences. It’s not so simple, as seen with Adam’s decision to eat the apple deriving from the virtue of love (for Eve) being blurred. We see the opposite angle-the worst of intentions can be exploited too. It’s important to understand that a vice is corrupted here, and not a virtue. Where it was love of God in the first poem, here Satan corrupts Eve’s pride. Satan has spoken of heights that eating the fruit has given them, which makes Eve ponder to herself, “Forbids us good, forbids us to be wise?” This coupled with the line a little later, “ This intellectual food, for beasts reserv’d?” foregrounds the jealousy in Eve’s thoughts. Her contemplation of the snake’s speech from lines 745 to 779 highlights that she is jealous of the higher rank bestowed by the fruit, of which she has been denied. Eve’s conversation with the snake concerns her desire to move above her state. Now, in Milton’s version, Eve knows eating the fruit is sinful, but confusion still plays a role. Satan can exploit even the best of intentions. Satan uses a greater appreciation for God’s work and a greater love of God as the motivation to make Eve betray God. She sees this as a reward for eating the apple. However, the vision only amplifies Eve’s love and belief in God. Her own intellect would never be able to comprehend these images of God’s work. What’s especially interesting is that the vision is ostensibly “loaned” from Satan. The immediate reaction to Eve eating the apple is an expansion of her vision to peaks she had not been able to imagine before-between lines 599 and 610 of the 1674 version. Evil slithers in, affecting the primary impulse as a secondary warping of previously good intentions.Įve’s false vision furthers this theme of deception and evil. While Eve does well alone, with Satan whispering in her ear, her previous intentions become confused in execution. With Satan’s lies, Eve loving and fearing God leads to expulsion from the garden, which is quite terrible. Without Satan’s lies, Eve loving and fearing God keeps Eve in the Garden of Eden, which is quite nice. But more importantly than that, it arises from Satan bending these to their will-Satan’s corrupting influence is pivotal. The greatest sin in the Bible arises from this dual nature of loving God and fearing God. Instead of focusing on Eve’s own ambitions, they focus on Eve’s love of God and her fear of punishment. Eat of this fruit!” Satan has flipped around the situation. Looking to lines 562 and 563, Satan says, “Consider in your heart how both of you two together can ward off punishment, as I suggest. In the Old English version of Genesis, the serpent shifts the focus onto love of God, while also highlighting his punishments. The central dynamics of each hold opposing views on the nature of evil, while also agreeing that a blurring of understanding is the root of all evil. As opposed to Genesis, this version does not stray as far from the original formula, with Eve eating the apple and pushing Adam to do the same. Second is John Milton with book 9 of his epic poem Paradise Lost. The major change is the shifting of the central dynamic, as Eve is now tricked into thinking God wants her to eat the apple. The first one never became well-known, but their work-the Old English poem of Genesis-recounts the majority of the Book of Genesis in Old English meter. Now this being the Bible and all, there’s a long history of writers taking this and other stories in their own direction, but I want to talk about two specific writers.

Why exactly did Adam and Eve eat the fruit? The original Bible goes into a little detail, saying in Genesis 3:6-7, that the snake tempted them, they ate, and their eyes were opened. By Spencer Scott, Frances Schaeffler, Jonah Valverde, and Jo Zeng

Paradise lost book 9