The Fathers, with the realism of their
understanding of Genesis, interpret this punishment as applying first of all to
the animal who was the instrument of man's fall, but then also to the devil who
used this creature. St. John Chrysostom writes:
But perhaps someone will say: If the counsel
was given by the devil, using the serpent as an instrument, why is this animal
subjected to such a punishment? This also was a work of God's unutterable love
of mankind. As a loving father, in punishing the murderer of his son, breaks
also the knife and sword by which he performed the murder, and breaks them into
small pieces-in similar fashion the All-good God, when this animal, like a kind
of sword, served as the instrument of the devil's malice, subjects it to a
constant punishment, so diat from this physical and visible manifestation we
might conclude the dishonor in which it finds itself. And if the one who served
as the instrument was subjected to such anger, what punishment must the other
be undergoing ?... The unquenchable fire awaits him (Matt. 25:41).
St. John even speculates that before the
curse the serpent, without having legs, went about in an upright position
similar to the way it now stands up when ready to strike.
Before Adam fell, he could be naked and not
notice it; afterwards, this is impossible. Before the fall, Adam had friendship
with the serpent like we have with dogs or cats or some domestic animal;
afterwards we have an instinctive reaction against snakes-which everyone has probably
experienced. This shows that our nature has somehow changed.
The "enmity" in our fallen life, of
course, much more than between man and serpent, is between man and the devil;
and in a special sense the "seed of the woman" is Christ. One
nineteenth-century Orthodox commentary on this passage says:
The first woman in the world was the first to
fall into the devil's net and easily gave herself into his power but by her
repentance she will shake off his power over her. Likewise, in many other women
also, especially in the person of the most blessed woman, the" Virgin
Mary, he will meet a powerful resistance to his wiles .... By the seed of the
woman, which is hostile to the seed of the devil, one must understand in particular
one person from among the posterity of the woman, namely He Who from eternity
was predestined for the salvation of men and was born in time of a woman
without a man's seed. He subsequently appeared to the world to "destroy
the works of the devil" (1 John 3:8), that is, the kingdom of the devil,
filled with his servants, with his seed .... The striking of the spiritual serpent
in the head by the seed of the woman signifies that Christ will completely
defeat the devil and take away from him all power to harm men .... Until the
Second Coming the devil will have the opportunity to harm men, including Christ
Himself; but his wounds will be easily healed, like wounds in the heel, which
are not dangerous because in the heel, which is covered with hard skin, there
is little blood. A wound in the heel was given by the powerless malice of the
devil to Christ Himself, against Whom he aroused the unbelieving Jews who
crucified Him. But this wound served only for the greater shame of the devil
and the healing of mankind.
Thus the "wound in the heel"
represents the small amount that the devil is able to harm us since the coming
of Christ. (Seraphim Rose, Genesis, Creation, and Early Man: The Orthodox
Christian Vision [Platina, Calif.: Saint Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 2000], 202-4)
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