Eve, communicating with the devil (this is a great evil and the beginning of the fall: communicating not with the one for whom you were created; Eve exchanged communication with God for communication with creation) and recounting to the serpent the divine commandment, made three mistakes. Eve did not hear the commandment directly from God. She heard it from Adam, he told her about it (announced, instructed her in the foundations of the Law of God, conducted catechetical conversations). And the woman said to the serpent: we may eat of the fruit of the trees, only of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God said, do not eat of them and do not touch them, lest you die (Gen. 3: 2). The first mistake of Eve lies in the fact that she does not know the topology of paradise, because in the midst of the garden was the tree of life, not the tree of the knowledge (knowledge) of good and evil (= that which is from God and that which is from the devil) (Gen. 2:9). The second mistake: Eve adds from herself to the Lord’s commandment (Gen. 2:17) the words ‘do not touch,’ thus portraying God not as love, but as a tyrant. The third mistake: Eve weakens the warning, the caution, because God did not say, ‘lest you die,’ but that ‘you shall surely die’ (Gen. 2:17). In Eve’s interpretation, the commandment sounds like a possibility of not dying, having eaten the fruit, but God said that you shall surely die, that is, that your very nature will change, becoming mortal.
All this indicates that Eve had not yet properly undergone the proclamation, catechesis. This ignorance led to the fall and allowed the devil to openly lie, slander God with phrases and words of Scripture (cf. Mt. 4: 1-11), in which the unconfirmed Eve believed as true. The analogy is obvious.
For us, it is important what happened next after accepting the incorrect axiology imposed by the devil, the father of lies (John 8:44). Eve saw what is actually not there, and this vision of the non-existent led to disaster – the fall of the foreparents.
And the woman saw that the tree was good(?!) for food(?!), and that it was pleasing(?!) to the eyes and desirable(?!), because it gives knowledge (Gen. 3:6a).
The first thing that happens after the devil’s lie: the person puts himself in the place of God, there is a usurpation of Divine authority, because Eve saw that the tree was good, but in reality only God sees what is good (cf. Gen. 1). After which there is a displacement of all cognitive powers in the person, chaos begins, complete confusion. In sin, we see what is not there, there is a substitution of concepts, what is not there seems to us good. What was not created for food (Gen. 2:17a), Eve saw as good for food (edible). For food, the Lord God grew from the ground every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food (Gen. 2:9a), and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was not grown for food (Gen. 2:9b; Gen. 2: 17a). Eve saw what was not created for aesthetic pleasure as pleasing to the eyes. For aesthetic pleasure, the Lord grew trees pleasing to the sight (Gen. 2:9a), and the tree of knowledge was not pleasing to the sight (Gen. 2:9b), and could not be such, because it guarded the entrance to the tree of life, where man could not enter at that time. This tree was frightening to the sight, caused caution, nourished in man the fear of God. Listening to the devil, Eve loses the fear of God, and shamelessly, boldly examines the sanctuary without reverence, therefore falls into delusion – sees what is not there. At the next stage of the fall of the foremother, there is a substitution of concepts. What is beautiful to the eye, in Eve becomes beautiful to the mind, and this is already the final fall into delusion (the Ukrainian translation does not convey this thought of the original), what is characteristic for the eyes, in Eve is characteristic for the mind.
As we have convinced, from incorrect vision, a person moves into an illusory world, begins to exist in what is not there, and acts according to laws that do not exist. What should have been feared became pleasant to the sight. The ability to see the beautiful became the cause of false reasoning. As a result, an illusory, false world arises. The end of this illusory world – sin, and with sin, death (ontological and existential). Thus, there is a great danger for a person – to see what is not there! Saint Ephrem the Syrian says that paradise was a temple, where in the inner temple, the sanctuary, the holy of holies, was the tree of life, and in the outer temple, which was separated from the sanctuary by the tree of knowledge, lived Adam. By the unanimous interpretation of the holy fathers: the tree of life – this is the Eucharist, the tree of knowledge of good and evil – this is baptism and chrismation. Only the one who has received the Holy Spirit and spiritual knowledge of the mysteries of God in baptism and chrismation can approach the Eucharist. For a more detailed study and analysis of the problem, we refer the reader and the imaginary opponent to the following works: St. Ephrem the Syrian: ‘Commentary on the first book, that is, on the book of Genesis’; St. Ephrem the Syrian: ‘About Paradise’; St. John Chrysostom: ‘Homilies on the book of Genesis’; E. A. Avdeyenko: ‘The book of Genesis: Genesis and Bereshit’. The conclusion can be made deeper: without thorough proclamation, detailed study of the Law of God, catechesis, one cannot not only look at the sacraments, but also approach the sacrament of baptism!