Did Adam Once Glow?

How Scripture, the Fathers, & J.R.R Tolkien Describe the Fall of Man & His Restoration

Did you know that ancient Jewish and Christian writers believed that Adam and Eve’s skin was once covered with God’s glorious light? We see this not only in the Dead Sea Scrolls¹ but also in the Church Fathers of the early church.

St. Ephrem of Syria, a Christian poet and church father, writes:

“For Adam, who had been set in authority and control over the animals was wiser than all the animals, and he who gave names to them all was certainly more astute than them all. For just as Israel could not look upon the face of Moses, neither were the animals able to look upon the radiance of Adam and Eve: at the time when they received names from him they passed in front of Adam with their eyes down, since their eyes were incapable of taking in his glory.” (Commentary on Genesis II.15 (trans. Brock, ibid., 207).

Just as the moon reflects the light of the sun, so Adam and Eve reflected the very glory of God so much so that the animals could not directly look at their luminous faces. They were His Image-Bearers within creation and governed the creatures as if they were the very children of God. Their ‘nakedness’ is actually better translated as their transparency and shamelessness. Being pure in heart, they are able to see God’s Uncreated Light, and they have nothing to hide from Him or one another. They were entirely His, and He gave them an abundant portion of His own Divine Life.

St. John Damascene writes:

‘[In Paradise, man] had the indwelling God as a dwelling place and wore Him as a glorious garment. He was wrapped about with His grace, and, like some one of the angels, he rejoiced in the enjoyment of that one sweet fruit which is the contemplation of God, and by this he was nourished.’ (On the Orthodox Faith, 2: 11).

When we read Genesis in this light, we see that the ultimate death for Adam and Eve wasn’t their eventual biological death nor the loss of physical pleasures in Paradise, but the loss of their intimacy with the Lord. The fall of Adam was ultimately a fall from his destined glory in God’s beautiful plan.

St. John Damascene continues:

‘But after the Fall, as St. John Chrysostom teaches, Adam and Eve ‘being deprived of the grace from on high for the transgression of the commandment, saw also their physical nakedness, so that from the shame that took hold of them they might understand into what an abyss they had been cast by the transgression of the Master’s commandment.’ (Homilies on Genesis, 16: 5)

Once Adam and Eve sinned against God and one another, they lost their light and longed for the darkness in order to hide their great shame and guilt. However, this was not God’s plan. Humans were meant to rest in God’s glory, and not only that, but to also ascend ‘further up & further in’ to more of God’s glory! Just as a giant Sequoia tree takes in the light of the sun through photosynthesis and grows upward century upon century, we were intended to take in God’s light and ascend to the heavens for age upon age!

This is exactly St. Paul’s point in his second letter to the Corinthians (3:7,18) when he writes,

“The people of Israel could not gaze at Moses’ face because of the glory of his face… And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.”

We were made to go from glory to greater glory! If Adam had obeyed God and fasted from the forbidden Tree in Paradise, he actually would have been clothed in greater glory. St. Ephrem writes:

God established the Tree [of Knowledge] as judge so that if Adam should eat from it, it might show him that rank which he had lost through his pride, and show him, as well, that low estate he had acquired, to his torment. Whereas, if he should overcome and conquer, it would robe him in glory. (Hymns on Paradise, 3:10 (trans. Brock))

This wasn’t a temptation by God as some have depicted, but an opportunity for Adam to grow in grace and exhibit self-control like God so He could be more like Him. God made Adam to not only enjoy the Garden but also guard it and conquer it. Instead he was mastered by it.

In The Lord of the Rings, we read a similar story of how the enchantment and light of primordial Middle Earth which soaked every leaf and blade of grass was slowly lost in one age upon another. The Two Trees that Illuvator (God) had made to fill the world with luminous light were eventually destroyed, but their enchantment lived on in the Sun and the Moon and various other forms. Melkor, one of the greatest angels, fell from his harmony and began to spoil Middle Earth. Not only did some of ‘the angels’ lose their glory by falling after him, but so did some of the elves and other creatures of Middle Earth. They traded their transfigured glory for the Shadow and preferred to live in the dark and fowl places of the earth.

But not all was permanently lost. We see the light and enchantment return through love and sacrifice. Gandalf is transfigured in light after his fall into the Shadow. Frodo defeats the Dark Lord by destroying the ring and goes to the undying lands. King Aragorn finds a sapling of the White Tree upon Mount Mindolluin, which is a descendent of the Two Trees of primordial Middle Earth. Light and grace can return even when darkness and shame have dominated for so long.

In the same way, Adam’s opportunity for glory was not permanently lost. We see it returning in Moses as he beholds God in a new paradise on Mount Sinai and in the Tabernacle. And we see it fully restored in the Person of Christ on Mount Tabor when he is transfigured and glorious light pours forth from His Face to Peter, James, and John. Here, Jesus represents both Moses and God on the mountain. He is man fully alive like Adam before the Fall, but He is also the Face of God which Adam beheld!

Now that the glory of Paradise has returned in Christ, it is once again available to us since we belong to His Mystical Body through baptism. This is why we hear of so many stories of the saints who become luminous in a cave, a mountain, the forest, or even at the site of their martyrdom throughout church history. Through the lives of the saints, we are getting a sneak peak into what awaits us when God makes all things new at the return of Christ to our world. At the final resurrection from the dead, our bodies will again glow like Adam’s once did and reflect the glory of Christ throughout a renewed universe.

Come Lord Jesus, Come!

1. https://www.marquette.edu/maqom/moses1.html “In the group of the Dead Sea Scrolls fragments known under the title the Words of the Luminaries (4Q504), the following passage about the glory of Adam in the Garden of Eden can be found:

... [ ... Adam,] our [fat]her, you fashioned in the image of [your] glory ([™ë] ©S<ë úSî©< ™úøöé) [...] [... the breath of life] you [b]lew into his nostril, and intelligence and knowledge [...] [... in the gard]en of Eden, which you had planted. You made [him] govern [...] [...] and so that he would walk in a glorious land... [...] [...] he kept. And you imposed on him not to tu[rn away...] [...] he is flesh, and to dust [...] ...[

Later in 4Q504, this tradition about Adam's former glory follows with a reference to the luminosity bestowed on another human body--the glorious face of Moses at his encounter with the Lord at Sinai:

... [...Re]member, please, that all of us are your people. You have lifted us wonderfully [upon the wings of] eagles and you have brought us to you. And like the eagle which watches its nest, circles [over its chicks,] stretches its wings, takes one and carries it upon [its pinions] [...] we remain aloof and one does not count us among the nations. And [...] [...] You are in our midst, in the column of fire and in the cloud [...] [...] your [hol]y [...] walks in front of us, and your glory is in [our] midst ([S]ëSú< ™ë©S<ëS) [...] [...] the face of Moses (™ùSî éô), [your] serv[ant]...[3]

Two details are intriguing in these descriptions. First, the author of 4Q504 appears to be familiar with the lore about the glorious garments of Adam, the tradition according to which first humans had luminous attires in Eden before their transgression. Second, the author seems to draw parallels between the glory of Adam and the glory of Moses' face.[4] The luminous face of the prophet might represent in this text an alternative to the lost luminosity of Adam and serve as a new symbol of God's glory once again manifested in the human body. It appears, therefore, that in 4Q504, traditions about Adam's glory and Moses' glory are creatively juxtaposed with each other.