After God condemned Adam and Eve for eating of the Tree of Good and Evil, but right before he casts them out of Eden, we read the following:
“The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all who live. And the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife, and clothed them.” (Genesis 3:20-21)
Jewish perspectives on the garments of skins
Interestingly, Adam and Eve had made clothes out of fig leaves to hide their shame, but God provides garments of skins, presumably from dead animals as a better alternative. This is such an interesting and obscure detail but it likely has a greater significance. There is a Jewish tradition that those same garments were passed down from Adam to his son Seth and even worn by Noah on the Ark!
The garments were also said to be given by Rebecca to Esau (another Jewish tradition says that Esau acquired the garments by killing Nimrod. Nimrod, incidentally, got the garments from Ham the son of Noah) who then gave them to Jacob who wore them to deceive Isaac. It would seem that these Jewish traditions ascribed something important to these garments, seeing them as a gift to keep and protect.
Christian perspectives on the garments of skins
The Christian tradition has a different perspective. St. Gregory of Nyssa reflects on this and comments thus:
“For since [Moses] says the first human beings came to be amid forbidden things and were stripped naked of that blessedness, the Lord puts “garments of skin” on the first-formed ones. It does not seem to me that “skins” such as these bear the meaning of the word – for from what sort of slaughtered and skinned animals was the clothing contrived for them? – but, since every skin separated from the animal is dead, I certainly think that he who heals our vice, out of forethought, has clothed men after these events with the power to be dead, which was a special characteristic of irrational nature, but not to remain so forever. For a garment is one of the things put on us externally, handing over the use for the body for a time, not having grown together with us by nature.”– Catechetical Discourse, 8.4, translated by Ignatius Green
As we have seen in previous articles in this series, the early Church Fathers such as St. Irenaeus, St. Athanasius, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. Basil the Great, and St. Gregory of Nyssa conceived of man’s pre-fallen nature, made in the image of God, as essentially good and naturally virtuous.
Our natural state is to be in communion with God and for our desires to be in conformity with the good. When man puts on the “garment of skins” after the Fall, he takes on an animal nature. This animal nature is neither good nor bad, but it can be used for either. This animal nature is not natural to man but added on.
Later Western theology has tended to emphasize the opposite. There is a tendency here to see the animal nature of man as his natural state with grace then added upon it. This perspective led to some extreme and disturbing beliefs such as John Calvin’s doctrine of total depravity.
The dilemma of the skins
The dilemma can be framed thus: “Are we essentially bad and in need of Christ to justify and save us? Or are we essentially good and in need of Christ to restore us and perfect us?”
The former position taken to an extreme can lead us into antinomianism. The latter, if taken to an extreme, can lead us into a works righteousness type of Pelagianism. My own position, in line with the Church Fathers, is that we are essentially good but because of the consequences of the Fall, we need Christ to justify, save, restore, and perfect us!
The skins as a sign of mortality
The garments of skin, then, are a sign of our mortality. If these garments represent, as St. Gregory suggests, man taking on an animal nature, then perhaps they correspond to the passions. Perhaps they represent natural reactions that belong to all mammals such as fear, anger, sorrow, and desire. These emotions are not inherently good or bad but protective. They represent a defensive posture against the threats of this world. They also represent positive emotions that ensure survival through human connection such as caring, seeking, joy, and playfulness.
The skins and parts
The garments of skins may correspond in some sense to the feelings and reactions that belong to our parts. The garments may provide our parts, both managers and firefighters, ways to help us function self-protectively in this dangerous world. They are useful and helpful, but they can also become dysregulated and burdened and lead to sin. These neutral passions can lead to pride, intemperance, jealousy, sexual sin, rage, panic, and so on. We are called to work with our parts through the process of unburdening, the exercise of loving communication, and sanctification through prayer and sacraments to bring about healing, inner harmony, and healthy integration. The garments, made from dead animals, represent a living death, a life of defending against threats.
The skins and the wisdom of the saints
St. Gregory of Nyssa identifies the skins with our irrational nature. He also describes the skins in terms of our mortality which includes birth, death, sickness, old age, and other earthly struggles (in On the Soul and Resurrection, PG 45-46).
St. Maximus the Confessor describes the post-fallen “qualities” that are mutually contradictory which pull us in different directions – which sounds a great deal like polarized and burdened parts. Maximus goes on to describe what sounds to me like the inmost self which responds to this inner confusion by saying there was “another temperament which befitted it, a temperament maintained by simple qualities compatible with each other. … free from constant change depending which quality was predominant.” (in the Ambigua, PG 91).
And yet, St. Gregory of Nazianzus reminds us that Adam was originally “naked by virtue of his simplicity” (in Orations 45, 8). In the Garden, Adam was free, light, unworried, and enjoyed an interior unity and inner harmony.
We have so much to be hopeful for! God has a plan, not just to return us to a pre-fallen state, which is a kind of innocence we will never again experience, but to a greater state. His long-range plan is for us to be enlightened, renewed, and transfigured as we participate in His divine nature. How so? Christ calls us to be clothed in Him (Galatians 3:27) and to the renewal of the mind (Romans 12:2). And so, as we begin by bringing His compassion, understanding, and consolation to our burdened parts, we relieve them of their burdens, and we help them let go of extreme protective stances.
We know that God has a plan of salvation which involves inner transformation. The prophet Isaiah proclaims, “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels” (Isaiah 61:10).
As you can see, once we abandon the garments of skin, we are not left naked, but given something greater, something that unites us to God as we become His bride, His child, His beloved. Our baptismal gown is a symbol of these new garments of salvation!
And St. Paul proclaims, “We are made new in Christ. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Galatians 3:25-27).
Let us reflect then on how we can let go of our protective stances, remove the “garments of skins” and embrace our new identity in Christ as we are clothed in Him.
Time for personal reflection
I invite you to a moment of recollection. This is a prayerful calling to mind of all your parts, becoming aware of the inmost self, our deep spiritual center, and opening of your heart to God’s presence.
As your parts rest in a kind of gentle internal quiet, notice your body relax, your shoulders drop, and your face soften. As your breathing both deepens and slows, you become more aware of that deep spiritual center, your inmost self. Notice how calm and restful that feels. Notice the presence of Jesus, the Word, who is Himself the perfect icon of the Father. Notice the presence of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, whose love flows from the Father, through the Son, and into your heart.
Allow yourself to rest in that beautiful and perfect love that comes from our God.
Adam was created in simplicity and inner unity, but the fall created a situation where his parts were at war.
Pause for a moment to reflect on our own moments of shame and, like Adam, the ways we have not lived up to our calling. Consider the ways in which we have allowed our burdened and struggling parts to be “predominant”. And just as God provided Adam and Eve, and their descendants, with garments of skin to protect them in the fallen world, God also protects us.
Our defenses, however, do not define us.
The garments of skin are not natural to being human. They are perhaps necessary for surviving in a fallen world.
Perhaps the garments represent our many ways of coping, of adapting, and of defending ourselves. In the same way our parts, both managers and firefighters, attempt to protect us from harm.
God certainly wants more for us than just protection from harm.
- In Christ, God wants to transform our rational mind (Romans 12:2).
- In Christ, God wants to raise us up to immortality.
Consider for a moment that Christ desires us to be clothed in Himself!
We are to replace our disordered passions, our reactivity, our anger, our fear, and our shame with His righteousness.
God the Father loves us in the same way as Jacob loved his son Joseph and wants to give us a coat or robe of many colors (Genesis 37:3).
As we wear that beautiful robe, perhaps imagine our baptismal gown, which fits perfectly, as we exude the fruits of the Holy Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).
His resplendent glory shines through us, and we discover our truest identity, created in His image, as a beloved child of God. We replace our garments of skins with the garments of salvation!
May God bless you on your journey this week!
Resources
If you’re interested to learn more, check out this 10-minute video by French Canadian Eastern Orthodox iconographer and podcaster Jonathan Pageau titled Explanation of the “Garments of Skin” Adam and Eve Received After the Fall discusses this topic in a most fascinating way:
For a much more extensive discussion that brings in deification/divinization/theosis, see Eastern Orthodox theologian Panyiotis Nellas’ 1987 book Deification in Christ: Orthodox Perspectives on the Nature of the Human Person.
Christ is Among us!
Dr. Gerry Crete is the author of Litanies of the Heart: Relieving Post-traumatic Stress and Calming Anxiety Through Healing Our Parts which is published by Sophia Institute Press. He is the founder of Transfiguration Counseling and Coaching, Transfiguration Life, and co-founder of Souls and Hearts.
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Dr. Gerry, expert guest on the IIC podcast
Episode 158 of Interior Integration for Catholics just released to today, titled Who is Your Inmost Self?
Who are you, deep inside, at the core of your being? Who lives in the inmost chamber of your personhood? Join us on an adventure to discover your core identity. Catholic experts Dr. Gerry Crete and Dr. Peter Martin find the convergences and synergies in Scripture, the early Church Fathers, the Eastern and Western Catholic monastic traditions, Doctors of the Church, the medieval Catholic theologians, the writings of contemplative saints, and the magisterial teachings of the Church — supplemented by attachment theory, Internal Family Systems and other parts and systems approaches in the modern era – all in the service of answering the question – “Who is my inmost self?” What do the words inmost self, heart, soul, “nous,” and the “eyes of the soul” mean from a Catholic perspective? We bring together the best of the old and new, the spiritual and the secular, to help you know who you are at your core, all grounded in an authentically Catholic understanding of your human person so you can embrace your real identity. With an experiential exercise from Dr. Gerry, too. The audio only is here.
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The Resilient Catholic Community is all about helping Catholic adults find their inmost selves on an interior pilgrimage together. Registration opens from February 1 to 28, 2025 for our ninth cohort. Find out more here: https://members.soulsandhearts.com/rcc. Join hundreds of other Catholics as we move toward greater flourishing.
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Dr. Gerry’s article on St. Maximus in Latin Mass Magazine
Congratulations to Dr. Gerry for his article titled “St. Maximus the Confessor: A Saint for our Time” in the Christmas 2024 of Latin Mass Magazine. It’s behind a paywall, but subscribers to LMM should check it out.