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dualism that have become endemic in popular culture.The
book of Genesis recounts something that really happened.
Writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the au-
thors seek to convey to us the truth of divine revelation
that the source of the moral evil we see around us lies in
the human will of a single moral agent who failed to em-
brace the offer of divine communion intended by God to
define the supernatural destiny of human nature. Good
and evil are not equally matched forces locked in an eter-
nal struggle. The goodness of creation and the omnipotent
goodness of God are not undone. Foreseeing the fault, God
out of love foreordained the remedy. And, for the record,
we are not born bad.
Conclusion: the harrowing of hell
In Western art, the Resurrection is typically depicted
with Christ in the very act of rising from the tomb, sur-
rounded by prone soldiers who are either asleep or amazed
at what they are witnessing. But in Eastern iconography
what is depicted is not the Resurrection as such, but Christ
at the moment when he breaks open with his cross the gates
of hell and reaches out to Adam and Eve, with Saint John
the Baptist—his precursor even here—standing to the side.
The scene is perfectly described in a passage froman ancient
homily for Holy Saturday: “[The Lord] has gone to search
for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring
to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of
death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam
and Eve, he who is both God and son of Eve. The Lord
approached them bearing the cross, the weapon that had
won him the victory.”
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Liturgy of the Hours
, vol. II, Holy Saturday, Office of Readings, 497