Creation and the Garden
According to Genesis, Eve was created by God from the rib (or side) of Adam to be his companion in the Garden of Eden. Some interpreters render the underlying Hebrew term as 'side' rather than 'rib.' In the Orthodox reading, Adam and Eve are described as created without any subordination of one to the other.
The name Eve is given to her as the mother of all the living. The Septuagint tradition names her Zoe, 'life,' underscoring her role as the origin of the human family.
The Fall and Expulsion
Genesis 3 relates that a serpent persuaded Eve that eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would not bring death but benefit. She ate of it and gave it also to Adam. Before they could eat from the tree of life and gain immortality, both were expelled from Eden.
Scripture records consequences that followed, including intensified pain in childbirth and subjection to her husband. In Orthodox understanding, the disobedience of Adam and Eve introduced sin into the human race, and the Church recalls Adam and Eve and the expulsion from Paradise on Forgiveness Sunday, the final day before the Great Fast.
Mother of the Human Race
Eve bore three named sons: Cain, described in Genesis as 'gotten from the LORD'; Abel, whom Cain murdered; and Seth. Genesis 5:4 records that she also had other sons and daughters who are not named. By the biblical genealogy, the line of Seth led to Noah and to all subsequent humanity.
Eve and the New Eve
In Christian tradition Eve is read in contrast to the Virgin Mary, who is called the Second Eve or New Eve, as Christ is called the Second Adam or New Adam. Orthodox theology speaks of Adam and Eve as types of Christ and of his mother, the Theotokos, the New Adam and the New Eve respectively, expressing the reversal of the fall through the Incarnation.
This typology is reflected in iconography: many Resurrection (Anastasis) icons depict Christ raising Adam and Eve from their tombs, and icons of All Saints show them haloed and worshipping at the throne of God, indicating their place among the saved.
Commemoration Among the Forefathers
Eve is commemorated among the Holy Forefathers, the cluster of Old Testament righteous remembered on the Sundays before the Nativity of Christ. The Sunday of the Holy Forefathers falls in mid-December in the Eastern Orthodox Church, the cycle beginning around December 11; the saint's record fixes her commemoration on December 14.
The Forefathers commemorated in this period include the great patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the matriarchs, prophets such as Daniel, Ezekiel and Elijah, and, in the synaxarion's reckoning, 'judges, kings, and all who lived of the flesh and under the Law.' Adam and Eve are numbered among those honored on both of the pre-Nativity Sundays.
