Their Eyes Were Opened: The Fruit in Eden and the Bread at Emmaus
Old Testament: Genesis 3:5-7
For God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil. And the woman saw that the tree was good to eat, and fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold: and she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave to her husband who did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened: and when they perceived themselves to be naked, they sewed together fig leaves, and made themselves aprons.
Old Testament, also: 4 Kings 6:17
And Eliseus prayed, and said: Lord, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the servant, and he saw: and behold the mountain was full of horses, and chariots of fire round about Eliseus.
New Testament: Luke 24:16, 30-32
But their eyes were held, that they should not know him. ... And it came to pass, whilst he was at table with them, he took bread, and blessed, and brake, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him: and he vanished out of their sight. And they said one to the other: Was not our heart burning within us, whilst he spoke in this way, and opened to us the scriptures?
The connection
The serpent's promise was about eyes: "in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as Gods" (Genesis 3:5). The woman "took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave to her husband", and the promise was kept in the worst way: "the eyes of them both were opened: and when they perceived themselves to be naked, they sewed together fig leaves" (3:6-7). Their eyes were opened onto themselves, and what they saw was shame. At Emmaus the eyes are shut first: "their eyes were held, that they should not know him" (Luke 24:16). Then comes a meal. "He took bread, and blessed, and brake, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him" (24:30-31). The first food was taken against God's word and handed from one to another; this bread is taken, blessed, broken and given by the risen Lord Himself. The first eating opened eyes onto nakedness; this one opens them onto Christ. Eliseus shows what an opening by God is: "Lord, open his eyes, that he may see", and the servant saw the mountain "full of horses, and chariots of fire" (4 Kings 6:17). Eyes God opens see what is really there. At Emmaus the Scriptures were opened before the eyes were: "Was not our heart burning within us, whilst he spoke in this way, and opened to us the scriptures?" (Luke 24:32). St Augustine sets the two verses side by side, "the eyes of them both were opened" and "in the breaking of bread their eyes were opened, and they knew Him" (On Marriage and Concupiscence I). On Emmaus he takes the hindrance to their sight to have been "caused by Satan", allowed "up to the sacrament of the bread, that by partaking of the unity of His body, the obstacle of the enemy might be understood to be removed." The one who promised open eyes in Eden is the one whose veil falls at the breaking of bread. The Catechism finds the shape of the Mass at Emmaus: the Scriptures explained on the road, then the bread taken, blessed, broken and given at table (CCC 1347).
Moral sense
Saul was struck down on the road to Damascus, "and when his eyes were opened, he saw nothing" (Acts 9:8). Three days later "there fell from his eyes as it were scales, and he received his sight; and rising up, he was baptized" (9:18). Eyes that open onto themselves find shame or nothing; eyes that God opens find Christ. Theophylact draws the lesson for every Communion: "the eyes of those who receive the sacred bread are opened that they should know Christ."
Anagogical sense
At Emmaus Christ was known and then "vanished out of their sight" (Luke 24:31). The last opening of the eyes is not taken away: "we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2), and "they shall see his face" (Apocalypse 22:4). Adam's eyes opened and he hid from God among the trees; the saints' eyes open and they look on Him without hiding.
The Fathers
St Augustine, on Luke 24 (Catena Aurea): "For we do not unfitly take this obstacle in the sight to have been caused by Satan, that Jesus might not be known. But still it was so permitted by Christ up to the sacrament of the bread, that by partaking of the unity of His body, the obstacle of the enemy might be understood to be removed, so that Christ might be known." Theophylact, on Luke 24 (Catena Aurea): "But He also implies another thing, that the eyes of those who receive the sacred bread are opened that they should know Christ."
Warrant
Interpretive. Luke does not cite Genesis, and no Father in the site's corpora reads the meal at Emmaus as the answer to the meal in Eden in so many words. The two halves are each joined by a Father, though: St Augustine sets Genesis 3:7 beside Luke 24:31 (On Marriage and Concupiscence, Book I), but to show that opened eyes need not have been blind before rather than as a type, and in the Catena Aurea he reads the hindrance at Emmaus as the enemy's, removed by the sacrament of the bread. Placing the serpent's promise and the enemy's veil in one line is the entry's own reading, from Dunk. Checked in the Greek, and the verbal match is exact: the Septuagint of Genesis 3:7 reads dienoichthesan hoi ophthalmoi, and Luke 24:31 reads dienoichthesan hoi ophthalmoi, the same verb in the same form; the serpent's promise at 3:5 uses it too. The knowing matches as well: they egnosan, knew, that they were naked (Genesis 3:7), and the disciples epegnosan auton, knew him (Luke 24:31). Luke uses dianoigo twice more in the chapter, for the Scriptures opened (24:32) and the understanding opened (24:45); Eliseus's prayer at 4 Kings 6:17 has it in the Septuagint as well. Acts 9:8 uses anoigo, a plainer form, and its words, eyes opened and nothing seen, echo Job 27:19, read in the entry on purple and fine linen. Genesis 3:7 is also the verse of the entry on the fig leaves and Nathanael, which reads the leaves and the fig tree rather than the eyes.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1347.
The verses
Genesis 3:5 · Genesis 3:6 · Genesis 3:7 · 4 Kings 6:17 · Luke 24:16 · Luke 24:30 · Luke 24:31 · Luke 24:32
