Bede

But the serpent said to the woman: "By no means shall you die. For God knows that on whichever day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil." What is understood here except that she was persuaded to not want to be under God, but rather in her own power without God, so as not to follow His law as if He envied them, so that they themselves might govern, not needing His eternal light, but relying on their own providence as if with their own eyes to discern good and evil which He had prohibited. In these words, it is notable with what great craftiness the devil's wickedness tempted man from the beginning, who not only taught him disobedience and contempt for his Creator as if envious, but also proposed a belief in the multiplicity of gods, saying: "And you will be like gods," so that if he could not perhaps drag him into disobedience, he would nonetheless corrupt the purity of the faith with which they worshipped the one God; but if he succeeded, he would be victorious in both respects. "But when would the woman believe with these words that she had been divinely forbidden from a good and useful thing, unless the love of her own power and a certain proud presumption about herself was already in her mind, which was to be convinced and humbled through that temptation? Finally, not content with the serpent's words, she considered the tree and saw, as Scripture says, that it was good to eat, and pleasing to the eyes, and delightful to look at; and not believing that she could die from it, I think she believed that God had said for some reason of significance; if you eat of it, you shall die; and therefore SHE TOOK FROM ITS FRUIT AND ATE, AND GAVE IT TO HER HUSBAND, perhaps even with persuasive words, which Scripture leaves silent but intelligible. Or perhaps there was no need to persuade the man when he saw that she had not died from that food?"

When they realized that they were naked, they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves. "The rational soul felt shame about the bestial movement in the members of its body, and it instilled this shame, not only because it felt this sensation where it had never felt anything like it before; but also because that shameful movement came from the transgression of the commandment. For there it sensed the grace with which it was previously clothed, when in its nakedness it did not suffer anything improper. Finally, in that disturbance, they rushed to the fig leaves, which they perhaps found first in their confusion: they sewed loincloths, that is, girdles; and since they lost what was to be glorified, they covered what was shameful. Nor do I think they considered anything in those leaves suitable to cover their now prurient members, but by a hidden instinct they were compelled in that disturbance so that even the signification of such a punishment might be made clear to those unaware, which would convict the doer and teach the reader from what was written." The mystery of this tree under which the Lord saw Nathanael still placed, S. Ambrose briefly but clearly explained by saying: "Blessed are those who tie their horses under the vine and the olive, dedicating the course of their labors to the face of joy. As for me, the fig still, that is, the prurient lust of world delights, shades the lowly, fragile to work, soft to use, barren of fruit." And elsewhere he says: "What is more serious," he says, "is that Adam girded himself with this interpretation where he should have girded himself more with the fruit of chastity, for in the loins where we are girded it is said there are some seeds of generation, and therefore Adam was wrongly girded there with useless leaves, where he marked not the fruit of future generations, but certain sins."

You shall go upon your breast, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. For indeed, the serpent goes on its breast because all the steps of the devil are wickedness and deceit: for in its breast is indicated the craftiness and deceptions of its thoughts, with which it creeps to those it wishes to deceive, for which the old translation has: You shall creep on your breast and belly. He creeps with his breast when he suggests earthly thoughts to men, whom he desires to make his members. He also creeps with his belly when he excites them, overcome by gluttony, into the heat of lust. For all that creep drag their body over the earth. The body of the devil, moreover, are all the reprobates; and he creeps with his breast and belly when he lowers them by wicked thoughts or the allurements of gluttony and luxury. He devours the earth when he is nourished and delighted by the error of sinners, and by deceiving them, he snatches them into destruction. For just as the saints are often signified by the name of heaven, so by the name of the earth those who savor earthly things are indicated, as it is said to Adam in the following: You are earth, and to earth you shall go, which our translation has: For you are dust, and to dust you shall return. As a sign of this spiritual devouring, the irrational serpent itself, with which the devil used as his instrument to deceive man, is now commanded to eat material earth, to which it previously, along with other animals of the earth, was granted to eat the herbs and fruits of the trees.

He also said to the woman: "I will greatly multiply your sorrows and your conceptions. In pain you will bring forth your children." These words, spoken figuratively and prophetically, are much more properly understood as referring to the woman of God. Nevertheless, since the woman had not yet given birth, and the pain and groaning of childbirth is only from the body of death, which was conceived by the transgression of the commandment, this punishment is also referred to in the proper sense of the literal word: for it is in what follows: "And you will be under the power of the man, and he will rule over you." It is right to believe that the woman was made otherwise even before sin, except that the man should rule her, and she should live under his power; this servitude, therefore, can be interpreted correctly as one of condition rather than affection, so that even this kind of servitude, by which humans began to be servants to other humans, is found to have arisen from the punishment of sin. Indeed, the Apostle said: "By love serve one another" (Gal. 5:13); but he by no means said: "Dominate one another." Therefore, spouses can serve one another through love, but the Apostle does not allow the woman to dominate the man. This sentence rather pertains to the man, and the husband has merited dominion over the woman, not by nature, but by fault: but if this is not observed, the fault would be further corrupted and increased. These words are figuratively applicable to the Church, the spouse of Christ, whose sorrows are multiplied in this life after the guilt of the first transgression, so that she may reach eternal life purified; and her conceptions are multiplied when she strives to beget spiritual offspring for God by preaching and living rightly; hence it is said to the same offspring through an excellent preacher: "My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you" (Gal. 4:19). She brings forth children in pain, when, being solicitous, she fears, lest, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, their minds be corrupted, and they fall from the simplicity which is in Christ. She acts under the power of the man, because she serves the Lord in fear and exults before him not in security, but with trembling: to whom, if she had never sinned, she would be united in the embrace of secure love. And he will rule over her, restraining her carnal impulses, and continually advancing her to the perception of heavenly life by the exercise of higher instruction, from which if she had never departed, she would always reign with him in shared freedom.

But to Adam he said: Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree concerning which I commanded you not to eat, cursed is the ground because of you. In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life, thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field, etc. Who is ignorant that these are the labors upon the earth of the human race, and that they would not be if the happiness that was in paradise had been maintained? For by the sin of man the earth was cursed, so that it would bring forth thorns, not that it itself would feel punishment because it is without sensation, but in order that the crime of human sin might always be placed before men’s eyes, so that they might be reminded to turn away from sins at some point, and turn towards God's commandments. Indeed, poisonous herbs were created for the punishment or the discipline of mortals. And this must be noted because of sin, for we became mortal after sin. We are also mocked through unfruitful trees, so that we may understand how shameful it is to be without the fruit of good works in the field of God, that is, in the Church, and so that we may fear lest God abandon us, because they themselves abandon unfruitful trees in their fields, nor do they apply any cultivation to them. Therefore, before the sin of man it is not written that the earth brought forth anything except herb for feeding and fruitful trees; but after sin we see many horrible and unfruitful things grow, for the reason we have mentioned. Mystically indeed, the earth which is said to have been cursed in the work of Adam's transgression is better understood as the flesh. For now it brings forth thorns and thistles for us, because propagated by the lust of the flesh, we suffer the stings and incitements of sins from the flesh itself.

And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife tunics of skins, and clothed them. And this was done for the sake of significance, yet it was indeed done. For by this kind of garment, the Lord indicates that they had already been made mortal; for skins, which are not stripped from animals unless they are dead, contain the figure of death. Thus, when man sought to be God against the commandment, not by legitimate imitation, but by illicit pride, he was cast down to the mortality of beasts. And indeed, they had made for themselves girdles of fig leaves, to cover their shame: but God made for them tunics of skins, to cover their whole body: because they, having lost the glory of innocence through transgression, provided for themselves the covering of excuse, by which they transferred their guilt to the Creator: and the Creator himself, by the sentence of a just judgment, punished them with the penalty of mortality in both soul and flesh, having taken away the state of immutable life. Moreover, the Gospel parable narrates that the merciful father, among other gifts, ordered the first robe to be brought and put on his prodigal son returning to him through repentance, mystically signifying that the elect are to receive the habit of immortality, which they lost in Adam at the beginning of the world, at the end of the world in Christ, and indeed with greater grace. For Adam was made immortal in such a way that he could not die, if he kept the commandment: but the children of the resurrection will be so immortal that they can neither die ever, nor be affected by the fear of death. Regarding the reception of this robe, the Apostle says: For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality (I Cor. XV, 53): where "put on" signifies the removal of the nakedness, which Adam and Eve recognized and blushed for after sin.