By St. Photius the Great
Question 14: What do the words: “their eyes were opened” mean (Gen. 3:7), and how did the crime have the power to open their eyes?
The words “their eyes were opened” do not mean that the crime opened their eyes — let there be no such thought! Nor is it written that in the very act of the crime their eyes would be opened, but after it. For it is said: “And when the woman took of the fruit and ate, and gave also to her husband with her, and they ate, and the eyes of both of them were opened” (Gen. 3:7), which means the following:
The awareness of sin usually comes with the very commission of the sin, and it is then that a person begins to grasp the magnitude of the audacity that he has committed. That is, when passion pushes forward, when the inner urge drags us towards sin, only after the lawless act, after the passion subsides and calms down, then the mind, having risen from this dense fog, and when it regains its sobriety, begins to see what has been done and what state it has fallen into. Then a person acquires a clearer awareness of what has been done, and with the remorse of conscience that eats and torments him, he begins to see clearly what he could not see before, under the influence of passion.
In any case, everyone approaches sin under the influence of what the evil one excites us with, luring us, weakening us, intoxicating us, and throwing us into confusion, giving rise to relaxed and blurred thoughts in us, and paralyzing our ability to recognize and distinguish good from evil. But after the deed is done, he brings us face to face with our own folly, and maliciously reveals what he had previously concealed with all sorts of cunning. And it is precisely by the means by which he reveals to us the full gravity of the crime that he seeks to throw the one who has sinned into despair.
Therefore the words “their eyes were opened” are not to be understood in relation to a previous time, nor before the violation of the commandment. For rather it was then that their eyes were opened – they had not yet been deceived by the whisperings of the serpent, and their minds were awake, able to discern what they should do.
Therefore it is not that they did not have sight before, and that they acquire it at the moment of the sin, on the contrary: it is precisely at the time of the sin that they are blinded, and when they have committed it and are calm, then only do they regain their sight.
So the evil one, who from the very beginning was evil and an enemy to our nature, although he himself knew from his own experience that the awareness of sin comes only after the evil deed, did not repent or change. Although he knew from his own experience that the sharp sting of conscience comes after sin, he still set about leading others into crime. For he says to them: “In the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened” (Gen. 3:5). Then he who from the very beginning was a schemer of evil and the father of lies (John 8:44), mixes with the spark of truth all the darkness of lies and says: “You will be like gods, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5). Not in the sense that they actually knew good and evil, as if they had received a divine eye; but rather, because they were blind to sin, blinded by the passionate desire for transgression, only then did they realize their audacity and “awaken” from their error after they had sinned.
And why, after their eyes are opened, do they then for the first time realize the nakedness of their sexual organs and feel ashamed? Because: the passion of lust is more violent than all others, it cannot be easily curbed even by the laws of chastity, and further: when the lustful desire awakens in a living being, usually the other passions also awaken with it.
Moreover, from that moment on, all other sins are subject to conscious evaluation and condemnation, because before that moment both the spiritual law and the civil law usually attribute sin to ignorance or mental immaturity.
