Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Now, to settle all these matters at once, let me press on to interpret and clear away the rest of the petty faults, weaknesses, and inconsistencies you allege. God cries out, 'Adam, where are you?' — as if, of course, he didn't know where Adam was, and asked in doubt, on the pretext of Adam's shame at his nakedness, whether he had eaten from the tree. But in fact he was neither uncertain of the deed nor ignorant of the place. Rather, it was fitting that Adam, cowering in the consciousness of his sin, should be summoned to come forth into the Lord's sight — not by the bare calling of his name alone, but with some rebuke of the deed already implied. Indeed, 'Where are you, Adam?' is not to be read in the plain interrogative tone, as a question, but with emphasis, as a blow, as an accusation: 'Adam — where are you!' — that is, you are in ruin, that is, you are no longer here — so that the utterance ends in reproach and lament. Besides, he who grasps the whole world in his hand as in a nest, whose throne is heaven and whose footstool is earth — could any corner of paradise possibly have escaped his eyes, so that Adam, wherever he was before being summoned, should not have been as visible to him hiding as he had been eating the forbidden fruit? A wolf or a petty thief does not escape the watchman of your vineyard or garden. I think God, looking down from the heights, can hardly miss anything beneath him. Foolish is the man who turns so great a proof of divine majesty and human instruction into a matter for a sneer. God asks as though uncertain, precisely so that here too, proving man's free will, he might give him, in the matter of either denial or confession, the chance to confess his fault of his own accord and so find relief by that very confession. Just as he inquires of Cain where his brother is — as if he had not already heard Abel's blood crying out from the ground — but so that Cain too might have, by that same power of free choice, the option of denying his crime of his own accord and thereby making it worse; and so that examples might be established for us of confessing our faults rather than denying them, so that even then the gospel teaching might be inaugurated: 'By your own mouth you will be justified, and by your own mouth you will be condemned.' For even though Adam, by reason of the law's sentence, was given over to death, his hope remained intact, since the Lord said, 'Behold, Adam has become as one of us' — meaning, of course, man's future adoption into divinity. And what follows? 'And now, lest he reach out with his hand and take fruit from the tree of life as well, and go on living without end.' By inserting 'and now,' a word of present time, he shows that he made the delay of death only temporary, only for the present. That is why he did not curse Adam and Eve themselves — as candidates for restoration, relieved by their confession. Cain, however, he both cursed and, though Cain was eager to pay for his crime by death, forbade him for the time being to die, so that, beyond his crime, he might also be burdened with the weight of his denial of it. Such was the 'ignorance' of our God — feigned for this very reason, so that the sinner might not be left ignorant of what he must do. But when he comes down to Sodom and Gomorrah, he says, 'I will go down and see if what they have done matches fully the outcry that has reached me, and if it does not, I will find out.' Was he here too, then, uncertain out of ignorance and eager to learn? Or is this the necessary tone of speech, expressing not doubt but menace, under the guise of inquiry? But if you mock God's 'coming down' too, as though he could not otherwise carry out judgment without descending — take care you are not striking a blow against your own god as well. For he too came down, in order to accomplish what he wished.
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