1. Ancient and medieval medical texts, influenced by Aristotle and Galen, emphasize this difference between the male's naturally active nature and the female's natural passivity. See Maclean's chap. 3 ("Medicine, Anatomy, Physiology," in his Renaissance Notion of Woman ), especially 30 and 44. The active-passive dichotomy is repeated by many medieval theologians. [BACK]

2. Weitzmann and Kessler, The Cotton Genesis , 55. Examples of texts that have both Adam and Eve present at the admonition include the Vita Adae et Evae (ed. J. H. Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha , 2 vols., Garden City, N.Y., 1985, 2:270, 271, and 279) and the twelfth-century mystery play, the Jeu d'Adam (ll. 101-4 in Adam, a Religious Play of the Twelfth Century , trans. E. N. Stone, Seattle, 1928, 162-63). See also J. M. Higgins, "The Myth of Eve: The Temptress," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 44 (1976): 645-47. [BACK]

3. Tertullian, in his "Of the Flesh of Christ," chap. 17 ( The Ante-Nicene Christian Library , ed. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson, 24 vols., Edinburgh, 1868-72, 15:200-201), is one of the first to suggest that Eve's conversation with the Serpent was a type for the Annunciation and notes the importance of believing words for both. The two scenes are standardly paired in the late-thirteenth-century Biblia pauperum (see A. Henry, Biblia Pauperum , Ithaca, N.Y., 1987), and many textual accounts of the Fall stress the role of ears and speech, e.g., the Jeu d'Adam (e.g., ll. 205-42, 465-68, and stage directions following l. 292) and the Vita Adae et Evae (Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha , 2:277-81). [BACK]

4. Although the Genesis text makes no reference to the identity of or source for the Serpent, early exegesis and popular legends identified him either as Lucifer (i.e., Satan, the Devil) or as the mouthpiece for Lucifer. See J. B. Russell, Satan: The Early Christian Tradition , Ithaca, N.Y., and London, 1981, 66-67, 78-79, and 82; and Bamberger, Fallen Angels , passim. In the Vita Adae et Evae , for example, the Devil says to the Serpent, "Do not fear; only become my vessel, and I will speak a word through your mouth by which you will be able to deceive him" (Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha , 2:277). Peter Comestor explains that God does not question the Serpent following the Fall, because his actions were really the Devil's (chap. 23, PL 198:1073). [BACK]

5. The Cotton Genesis , 55. Their fig. 42 shows the remaining right half of the Cotton Genesis miniature with Eve and the Serpent in the tree; the left side is lost. [BACK]

6. Historia scholastica , chap. 21 (PL 198: 1072). In the same chapter, Comestor describes Adam as upright ( erectus ). William Caxton's translation is at the very opening of his edition of the Golden Legend ( The Golden Legend or Lives of the Saints as Englished by William Caxton , 7 vols., London, 1922, 1:173). [BACK]

7. Ibid. [BACK]

8. The Genesis text does not specify the type of fruit eaten, saying only that Adam and Eve later cover themselves with fig leaves (Gen. 3:7), but the Vita Adae et Evae states that Eve ate the fruit of the fig (Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha , 2:281). In that account, the Serpent bends over the wall of Paradise when persuading Eve to eat, and she opens the gate to him and follows him "a little" before they come to the Tree of Knowledge (ibid., 2:279). [BACK]

9. Augustine helped establish the tradition that the Tree of Knowledge was inherently good, but the first parents' act of disobedience, evil. For his and some other views, consult Evans, "Paradise Lost" and the Genesis Traditions , 79, 89, and 96. [BACK]

10. Bal, "Sexuality, Sin, and Sorrow," 328, and Higgins, "The Myth of Eve," 645-46, discuss the Hebrew text; Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 1:1, in The Works of Flavius Josephus , trans. W. Whiston, Hartford, Conn., 1919, has the Serpent speak to them both. [BACK]

11. The question of why Adam sinned and whether or not he was deceived by Eve has been discussed by numerous medieval writers. See chap. 4 nn. 18-19 below. [BACK]

13. R. Mellinkoff, "Riding Backwards: Theme of Humiliation and Symbol of Evil," Viator 4 (1973): 153-76, discusses the functions of "backwardness" in both society and art in her discussion of equestrian riders, linking such reversed figures to folly, humiliation, and evil. [BACK]

14. Bal, "Sexuality, Sin, and Sorrow," 327-28. See the further discussion of the " HIC " texts below in chap. 6. [BACK]

15. In the Introduction of Eve to Adam , she stands alongside the Creator but is passive and does not raise her right hand. She also partially parallels the Lord and Adam in the Expulsion but, unlike either of them, turns her head back and gestures with her left hand. [BACK]

16. The Vita Adae et Evae , a text that may be a source for these mosaics, explains that as soon as Eve ate, "at that very moment my eyes were opened and I [Eve] knew that I was naked of the righteousness with which I had been clothed." Only because she had sworn an oath to the Serpent that she would also feed Adam, did she then speak to and tempt Adam, but it was the Devil who was speaking through her (Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha , 2:281). [BACK]

17. See chap. 3 n. 5 above. [BACK]

18. Higgins, "The Myth of Eve," 642-44, summarizes varied explanations for why Adam sinned, as does Evans, "Paradise Lost" and the Genesis Traditions , passim. [BACK]

19. For example, Peter Comestor (PL 198:1072) and Rupert of Deutz both credit Eve's persuasiveness to speech (Higgins, "The Myth of Eve," 642-44), and the former is responsible for the wide popularity of this explanation. Augustine ( De Genesi ad litteram 11.30) had also suggested that Eve might have been persuasive with words. Others explained Eve's power as one of sexual seduction, even though the Vulgate text makes no such suggestion. See B. P. Prusak, "Woman: Seductive Siren and Source of Sin? Pseudepigraphal Myth and Christian Origins," in Religion and Sexism , ed. R. R. Ruether, New York, 1974, 89-116; and Higgins, passim, who points out that the Genesis text never even specifies that Eve was in any way coercive (Gen. 3:6: "and she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave to her husband who did eat"). The Vita Adae et Evae stresses Eve's verbal cogency: "[The Serpent] sprinkled his evil poison on the fruit which he gave me to eat which is his covetousness," and then "I [Eve] spoke to him [Adam] unlawful words of transgression.... For when he came, I opened my mouth and the devil was speaking, and I began to admonish him" (Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha , 2:279 and 281). Both of these powers—beguiling words and carnal seduction—became associated with the power of women in general. [BACK]

20. Eve's first speech is in reply to the Serpent's question ("cui respondit mulier"; Gen. 3:2) and the second in reply to God's question ("quae respondit"; Gen. 3:13). Never given the dixit or ait formulas—although the Serpent, Adam, and God all use them—she initiates speech when she bears and names Cain (Gen. 4:1; see the discussion of The Birth of Cain below) and Seth (Gen. 5:25). Pardes, Countertraditions , 49-51, discusses Eve's role in those texts, and more generally the name-bestowing role of females in the Old Testament. As she notes, when Adam "births" Eve and names her, there is a sex-role reversal. Bal, "Sexuality, Sin, and Sorrow," 320-22 and passim, discusses the significance of having a name, for many Old Testament women remain nameless. Eve remarkably receives two names in the Genesis text, both given her by Adam: "Woman" (Gen. 2:23; immediately following her forming) and "Eve" (Gen. 3:20; immediately following God's curses on them, prior to their being clothed). Bal also discusses speech as a device of characterization. Her ideas on naming and characterization are expanded in her Lethal Love: Feminist Literary Readings of Biblical Love Stories , Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1987, especially chap. 3. [BACK]

21. Both M. Pellegrino, "Il 'topos' delia 'status rectus' nel contesto filosofico e biblico," in Mullus, Festschrift Theodor Klauser , vol. 1 of Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum , Münster, 1964, 273-81, and O. K. Werckmeister, "The Lintel Fragment Representing Eve from Saint-Lazare, Autun," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 35 (1972): 23-27, discuss the meaning of erect and bent postures. The association of upright postures with moral righteousness and twisted ones with moral depravity is a commonplace in medieval writings about human souls or the Virtues and Vices. For example, Augustine ( City of God 14.11) writes that "God ... made man upright, and consequently with a good will" (trans. Dods, 457). [BACK]

22. Comestor, Historia scholastica , chap. 23 (PL 198:1073). See Evans's explication of Comestor's text, especially 171-72 and 178, in "Paradise Lost" and the Genesis Traditions . [BACK]

23. Weitzmann and Kessler, The Cotton Genesis , 56, believe that the Cotton Genesis did include the Serpent, because it appears in several other works in the recension. [BACK]

24. Once again there are similarities between the mosaics and the several versions of the narrative generally referred to as the Vita Adae et Evae . There, from the very beginning of the accounts, Eve accepts blame for the Fall, even offering to die if that would allow Adam to return to Eden (Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha , 2:258 and 259). [BACK]

25. The fact that the Deity needed to ask questions of Adam and Eve might seem to demonstrate a failure in his omniscience and is one of the distinguishing features of the J text. [BACK]

26. Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha , 2:281. [BACK]

27. Also noted by Weitzmann, in Demus, Mosaics of San Marco , 2:115. [BACK]

28. See M. Bernabò, "La cacciata dal Paradiso e il lavoro dei progenitori in alcune miniature medievali," in Congresso di storia della miniatura italiana. Atti del I Congresso, Cortona, 1978 . La miniatura italiana in età romanica e gotica , Florence, 1979, 276-77; similarly, Comestor sees the coats of skins as signs of human mortality. For Ambrose's ideas that clothing functions as a mark of sin, and Luther's that it reminded Adam and Eve of their sin, consult M. R. Miles, Carnal Knowing: Female Nakedness and Religious Meaning in the Christian West , Boston, 1989, 92-93 and 109, who also discusses other aspects of clothing. The concept of clothing in medieval Europe is complex and ambiguous. On the one hand, clothing represents civilization and order, and carries information regarding status and power; on the other, its origins were associated with sin and loss of perfection. E. Kosmer, "The 'noyous humoure of lecherie,'" Art Bulletin 57 (1975): 5-6, discusses additional Christian ideas regarding clothing and nudity, as does J. Z. Smith, "The Garments of Shame," History of Religions 5 (1966): 217-38. [BACK]

29. The discrepancy regarding the length of Eve's dress is noted by Weitzmann, in Demus, Mosaics of San Marco , 2:116. Aschkenasy, Eve's Journey , 52-53, discusses exposed legs and feet, noting that the Hebrew term regel (leg or foot) was a euphemism for intercourse. J. Williams, " Generationes Abrahae : Reconquest Iconography in Leon," Gesta 16 (1977): 8-9, discusses the provocative action of lifting one's skirt and baring a leg. [BACK]

30. On the phoenix, see H. L. Kessler, "The Solitary Bird in van der Goes' Garden of Eden ," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 28 (1965): 326-29, who notes that a variety of traditions existed concerning the color of phoenixes, and Weitzmann and Kessler, The Cotton Genesis , 58. [BACK]

31. Weitzmann and Kessler, 57, and Weitzmann, in Demus, Mosaics of San Marco , 2:116. [BACK]

32. Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha , 2:285. [BACK]

33. M. Barasch, Gestures of Despair in Medieval and Early Renaissance Art , New York, 1976, 13-14, examines similarities between Expulsions of Adam and Eve and the damned in Hell. The Jeu d'Adam (trans. Stone, 178) has Adam and Eve laboring and lamenting their fate, when several devils enter and shackle them, pushing them into Hell. [BACK]