Fathers

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What the Fathers say

Genesis 2:15

Western Saints

Ambrose of Milan

Note, now, the person who was taken and the land where he was formed. The virtue of God, therefore, took man and breathed into him, so that man's virtue will advance and increase. God set him apart in Paradise that you may know that man was taken up, that is to say, was breathed upon by the power of God. Note the fact that man was created outside Paradise, whereas woman was made within it. This teaches us that each person acquires grace by reason of virtue, not because of locality or of race. …

On Paradise ↗

Jerome

And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of delight. For delight, in Hebrew, it is called Eden. Therefore, the Seventy have interpreted it as delight. But Symmachus, who had just before translated it as flourishing paradise, here puts it as 'in the garden of the shore', which also signifies pleasantness and luxury.

Hebrew Questions on Genesis ↗

Bede

The Lord God took the man whom He had formed and placed him in the paradise of pleasure, to work and keep it. What He said, to work and keep it, seems to refer to the place where it was said, And there was no man to till the ground. Truly we also, in exposing this word, let us place the words of the holy Father Augustine. "What was he to work or keep?" he said. "Did the Lord perhaps want the first man to do agriculture? Or is it not believable that He condemned him to labor before sinning? …

Commentary on Genesis (Hexaemeron) ↗