The Fall

“...A man and a woman naked together in the garden, and a serpent coiling into the garden, whispering, whispering, whispering, now this way, now that, a spirit that was no more than shadows taking the form of a creature of cunning and speaking through it.

Do not believe, do not believe, it whispered, whispered, whispered, coiling about their minds. Did God really say that? No, God did not really mean that!

Then the serpent whispered into the ear of the woman, and she believed what it told her. The woman took of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and ate of it, then she bid her husband to eat, and he too ate of it. His was the greater error, for he was the firstborn, the father of the race, the husband and shelterer.

Then they were cast out, ashamed, doubting everything, most of all themselves, driven into a world of thorns and cold and hunger and death. A cherubim was stationed at the gates of the garden with a fiery sword that flashed and revolved unceasingly, to guard the way to the tree of life.

The banishment was bitter. The exile was hard, and the man and the woman hated it. They blamed each other, and they blamed the serpent, and for a time they blamed the One who had made them. The woman said to the man, ‘It is not fair that he should punish us so, for we did not know that his word was true.’ And the man replied, ‘Remember how he loved us, and in that love we knew that he was true. See also, my wife, that love does not mix truth with untruth, nor does it divide the spirit from the flesh, nor did he intend it from the beginning that we should taste death. We brought it upon ourselves, for we are changed and unfit to live in the garden of our joy.’

‘Still, my husband, it is bitter’, replied the woman. ‘It is not just!’

‘Say rather, my wife, that is we who were not just, for we believed a lie, and through our hearts the lie came into paradise, which we have lost. Yet, see how he loves us still, for he has promised that from our seed shall come another who shall crush the serpent’s skull.’

Then the man and the woman went together into the shadows, bearing their grief and their lament, their reproach and their hope, within their own flesh.

And the serpent rustled through the thorn bushes, following them, whispering, ‘The shadows are the light, the shadows are the light, for in the union of good and evil is the fullness of the spectrum.’

‘He is mercy!’ thundered the cherubim. ‘He is all love! In him there is no darkness!’

But the shadows closed over the backs of the departing ones as they made their way into the barren lands to the east of Eden, and they did not hear the cherubim, for the sound of whispering was loud in their ears.

It was not a heartless punishment... This was no cruel blow smashing down on small defenseless creatures, for they had lived as sons of heaven, as gods, before their fall. Powerful was their love, powerful was their union. Powerful was their perfect trust until the moment it was shattered. The choirs of angels wept and sorrowed when the man and the woman fell to the deceiver’s art. And so did their Father weep, for he did not cease to be all love. He was no minor deity jealous of his power. He was love, and love would not permit eternal life for creatures who had invited eternal death into their hearts. And so the dying of their flesh was mercy. ... From the marrow of their bones to the thoughts of their minds and to the movements of their spirits, they felt weakness. And this weakness was their only strength. For if they had been permitted to live forever with the taste of good and evil on their lips, growing in the strength that is false strength, growing in the knowledge that is unknowledge, that is the engorging of truth and half-truth and untruth, they would have been filled with the spirit of lies, filled and filled with it until there was no more truth, and they would have been filled up entirely with Satan and become Satan. Which is no mercy.

Then Mercy itself took flesh and came among them, for he was love, and he felt everything that they had felt. He was love, and their descendants killed him, and to this day there are many who kill him, and also do they kill his image upon sight, for he is love, and men prefer darkness to light and fear to love.

But there are those who do not, and in their weakness they bear the ancient wound until the final sealing up of all wounds. In meekness and thanksgiving they walk, knowing cold and hunger and thirst and exile, praising God for this great gift. Praising him for his first mercy and for the greater mercy that came after and for the mercy that is yet to come.”

~Michael O’Brien (from Eclipse of the Sun)