Metaphorical Names and the Presence of God

Having used the fifty-fold, he rose up and spoke of other things, but they did not understand that they had achieved such a thing not by using sword or any defense, but having called upon God himself and having received him leaning toward help through prayer; to whom, if they had made the prayer from anger, God would not have attended through his own exhortation, as it is fitting for the one praying to lift up holy hands without anger or disputations.

Therefore, from the virtue of the saints, the pretenders, desiring to hide their own faults by scattering leaves, think they are making a defense, just as it happened even regarding the first humans. To those using such a purpose, the Lord symbolically rebukes through the fig tree in the Gospels, having come to it and finding nothing but leaves, saying, 'No more shall fruit come from you for an age' (Matthew 21:19). And we do not say that the rebuke was spoken to the fig tree itself; for the sensible fig tree did not bear fruit not because of its own cause. But it is also said regarding Israel having fallen into impiety: 'There is no cluster in the vines, nor figs in the fig trees.' They therefore scattered fig leaves as a plausible defense, as has been said, providing it, but the word is not following the form of the history.

For since paradise was introduced and nakedness and, after this persuasion, knowledge, the word, using the cover from leaves, says it is being made for the subject of the narration according to the custom of the God-breathed Scripture. For often the soul is called at times a vine, at times a sheep, at times a bride in the divine instruction, and the word proceeds accordingly to each one after the other. For when he posits her as a vine, saying, 'A vine flourishing in Israel' (Song of Solomon 6:4), then he calls the teacher-farmers and the attackers foxes; for 'catch for us foxes, even the little foxes that spoil the vineyards' (Song of Solomon 2:15); but when she is a sheep...

He names the teachers shepherds and those who turn away wolves and lions; it has been said: 'Israel, a wandering sheep, lions drove him away' (cf. Ps 54:1/55:23). But also when he calls her a bride, he names the one leading into the truth a bridegroom and the one harming an adulterer; and all these things, even if they are different names, regarding the soul, are considered appropriate and fitting to the Divine Spirit in thought, not because this is a sheep or a bride or a vine.

Consequently, therefore, a memory of paradise having occurred, through the form of the word, he mentioned leaves, which those having fallen from virtue scattered according to the aforementioned understanding. And these themselves also heard the Lord God walking in the paradise. And before the transgression, he was not walking around them outside of them, but was with them.

For of the one guarding virtue and being in it, this is appropriate, as to say: 'I have set the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand, so that I may not be shaken' (Ps 16:8), and 'But I am with you always' (Mt 28:20). And of the man being with God, and God being with him: it has been said: 'Draw near to God and he will draw near to you' (Jas 4:8); but when some turn away from him, they hear: 'They went astray from me, and I will go to them in angry wrath' (Hos 8:1).

And just as the one leaving the sun and closing his eyes does not do anything to make the sun less—for it remains as it was, shining—so the one leaving God works harm upon himself; and he leaves him not as if in a place, but turning away from virtue, as those about whom it has been said: 'God will cast them off, because they did not listen to him, and they shall be wanderers among the nations' (Dt 32:19); for because they themselves did not listen, he cast them off. Since therefore even these through the transgression turned away from him, and he himself has become distant from them, yet because he walks through his own goodness, providing perception...