The Fall And Time

In sudore vultus tui vesceris pane tuo, donec revertaris in terram, de qua sumptus es, quia pulvis est, et in pulverem reverteris. Illum hic panem intellige qui ait: Ego sum panis vitae qui de coelo descendi. Quo in sudore vultus nostri vescimur, quia ad conspectum divinae celsitudinis non nisi per laborem necessariae afflictionis ascendimus. Primus homo ita conditus fuit, ut manente illo decederent tempora, nec cum temporibus ipse transiret. Stabat enim momentis decurrentibus, quia nequauam ad extremum vitae per dierum incrementa tendebat. Stabat tanto robustior, quanto semper stani arctius inhaerebat. At ubi vetitum contigit, mox offenso creatore, coepit ire cum tempore. Unde et ei dictum est: Terra es, et in terram ibis; statum videlicet immortalitatis amisso, cursus eum mortalitatis absorbuit, et dum juventute ad senium, senio traheretur ad mortem, transeundo didicit stando quid fuit. Cujus nos quia de propagine nascimur, radicis amaritudinem, quasi in virgulto retinemus. Nam quia ex illo originem ducimus, ejus cursum nascendo sortimur, ut eo ipso quotidiano momento qui vivimus, incessanter a vita transeamus, et vivendi nobis spatium unde crescere creditur, inde decrescat, quia dum infantia ad pueritiam, adolescentia ad juventutem, juventus ad senectutem, senectus transit ad mortem, et in cursu vitae praesentis, ipsis suis augmentiis ad detrimenta impellitur: et inde semper deficit, under proficere se in spatium vitae credit. Fixum etenim statum hic habere non possumus, ubi transitorie vivimus, atque hoc ipsum nostrum vivere, quotidie a vita transire est. Quem videlicet lapsum primus homo ante culpam habere non potuit, quia tempora eo stante transibant. Sed postquam deliquit, in quodam se quasi lubrico temporalitatis posuit; et quia cibum comedit vetitum, staus sui protinus invenit defectum. Rabanus Maurus, Commentariorum In Genesim, Liber I Source: Migne PL 107.498c-499b

'In the sweat of your face you shall eat your bread until you return to the earth from which you were taken, because you are dust and to dust you shall return.' 1 Understand the bread as He who said: 'I am the bread of life which comes down from heaven.' 2 That which we eat in the sweat of our faces because we are not able to ascend to the presence of the Divine heavens unless by the labour of needful affliction. The first man was so established that he persisted while time passed, not passing away with time. For he stood while the moments flowed past and did not at all move to the end of life with the increase of days. He stood more strongly as much as always he adhered more strictly to his standing. But when he turned to fault, instantly offending the Creator, he began to flow with time. Thus it was said to him: 'Earth you are and to earth you shall go.' Certainly because of the loss of the state of immortality the way of mortality seized him, and being dragged from youth to old age, and from old to death, he learnt what was the passing of his stability. From which we by proceation are born, retaining as in the shoot the bitterness of the root. For because from that beginning we come, we are destined from birth for his course, that with him, every moment we live, we are relentlessly passing from life, and our span of life which is thought to grow so by that deceases; for going from infancy to childhood, childhood to adulthood, adulthood to old age, old age passes into death, and in the course of this present life as it increases so it is driven to diminish; and so it always falling way as it is thought to be advancing. We are not able to have a fixed state here, where we live in transience, but as him it is ours to live every day passing away from life. Which fault certainly the first man was not able to have before his error, because with time passing he stood firm. But after he erred he placed himself, as it were, on the slippy slope of time, and because he ate the forbidden food he swiftly discovered his own state defective. Rabanus Maurus, Commentary On Genesis, Book I 1 Gen 3.19 2 Jn 6.35