Letter 233

To the Same Person. Obedience to the divine command is by nature such as to bestow life and incorruptibility, but disobedience to bring deadness and corruption. Since, therefore, Adam, having disobeyed God in eating what was forbidden, drew death upon himself, for this reason God clothes him in a garment of skin [the "coats of skins" of Genesis 3:21], so that he might remember and not forget his own fault, and the mortality and corruption which he had drawn upon himself by his own free choice. For what else do dead skins signify but deadness and corruption?

Ἡ ὑπακοὴ τῆς θείας προστάξεως ζωὴν καὶ ἀ- φθαρσίαν χαρίζεσθαι πέφυκεν, ἡ δὲ παρακοὴ νεκρό- τητα καὶ φθοράν. Ἐπειδὴ οὖν ὁ Ἀδὰμ παρακούσας τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν τῷ φαγεῖν τὸ κεκωλυμένον, θάνατον ἐπεσπάσατο, διὰ τοῦτο ὁ θεὸς ἐνδιδύσκει αὐτὸν χι- τῶνα δερμάτινον, ὅπως ἂν μνημονεύῃ, καὶ μὴ ἐπι- λανθάνηται τοῦ οἰκείου σφάλματος, καὶ ἧςπερ αὐ- θαιρέτως ἐπεσπάσατο θνητότητός καὶ φθορᾶς. Τί γὰρ νεκρὰ δέρματα δηλοῦσι νεκρότητα καὶ φθοράν.