***
[....] "You!" said God, again. "Because you listened to your wife, you ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'Thou shalt not eat of it.' Now, therefore, cursed is the whole Earth because of you! Only through painful toil shall you eat hereafter. I curse you with work outside the home, all the days of your life – plus a worse thing" (Gen. 3:17-19),
"Labor by the sweat of my brow all the days of my life?" asked Adam, with a note of self-pity. "What thing could be worse than that?"
This was the exact moment when the Lord uttered "the Phallic Curse," a punishment not expressly mentioned in the book of Genesis but explained, at length, by Saint Augustine (and not mentioned by Saint Augustine until his mid-forties, by which time he had already worn out his own male member in brothels from Carthage to Milano, as per The Confessions): "The Phallic Curse," as explained by Augustine, is that God punished mankind, including both Adam and Saint Augustine (and John Milton, and Jimmy Swaggart, and several other men I can think of) with "an involuntary predisposition toward diabolical excitement of the organ of generation," a.k.a. "disobedience of the privy male member." That was Augustine's fancy phraseology for his insight that if you get a hard-on "when it is not meet for procreation," then a woman is probably to blame for your condition (Augustine, Opus Imperfectum, 2, 33); and if a woman is not to blame, then you're probably gay.
Adam and Eve fell to their knees and begged to be spared from their respective fates. They pledged their future obedience. "Please spare us," they begged. (Eve begged more earnestly than Adam.)
But Yahveh said, "I am an unforgiving God!"
"And a jealous God!" said the Son.
"And an holy God!" chirped the Ghost (Josh. 24:19).
"I cannot forgive those who deserve no forgiveness," explained Yahveh, "not until I have inflicted suffering and death upon someone who deserves no punishment!"
"Huh?" said Adam.
"Someone must suffer and die!" said Yahveh. "For Eve's sin! It's not just because someone must pay for the stolen fruit! It's a rule!"
"But who else is there, besides Eve, to suffer pain and death?" asked Adam, nervously.
(I thought I would be the one.)
Adam cast his eyes on a fat white lamb grazing nearby.
Yahveh cast his eyes on His Son (Jesus).
"Me?" said the Son.
"Yes, my Son."
"Must I suffer and die for the sins of the woman?"
"Yes, my Son."
The Son of God suddenly fathomed the Father's Intelligent Design for human salvation. So did we. So did the holy Ghost, who made the sound of "a great rushing of wind" (Acts 2:2). (The Ghost never usually says much, but you could just see the relief written all over his white feathers.)
Adam and I also breathed a big sigh of relief.
The Son ducked out of sight, and returned to Heaven without waiting around to see how the scene would play itself out. The Son loves humanity but he was in no rush to suffer and die, which may be one reason why he made no further appearances, in the Bible or on the planet, for the next four thousand years – not returning to Earth until nine months before the first Christmas, when Yahveh said it was finally time for him to suffer and die for Eve's sin.
(It will not have escaped your notice that, when someone had to suffer and die to make God's forgiveness possible, the Father was not the first one to raise His hand. When it comes to suffering and death, Yahveh's position is the same yesterday, today, and forever: it is more blessed to give than to receive [Acts 20:35]).
But as it turns out, Augustine's "Phallic Curse" was not actually the "worse thing" that God had in mind for Adam. The "worse thing" had to do with those leafy aprons.
The new, replacement apron that Eve sewed for Adam was forest green, quite attractive, and a snug fit, almost like modern BVDs. But when Yahveh cursed "the whole Earth," including the plants, those very leaves became what we now call "poison ivy," loaded with toxic urushiol.
Adam did not realise, at first, the danger he was in, wearing that thing. Not until he answered the call of nature, and plucked several leaves from his own knickers for use as toilet tissue, did the actual pain begin; and when the urushiol registered its full force on poor Adam, who had no immunity, front or rear, phew! Let's just say that your father Adam for the next six weeks was not a happy camper. How he suffered, both coming and going!
The front side was almost worse, in a way. But Eve, who was now a typical fallen woman, offered him little sympathy. All Eve would say is, "Sorry, husband, but you're not coming near me with that metronome of yours until the blisters are gone."
Okay: Now imagine Adam's human misery on that occasion, drawn out for a billion billion eons in Hell, with no cortisone cream in sight. You will then have some small hint of what God has in store, come Judgment Day, for people like your next door neighbours, who are not yet born again and who are destined to suffer the indescribable physical torments of Hell for all eternity. Yet the everlasting itch will be among the least of your sufferings.
– L.
(Tomorrow: Adam and Eve, evicted by their own Father!!)
