St Maximos the Confessor | Both trees in Scripture symbolize the intellect and the senses.

Both trees in Scripture symbolize the intellect and the senses. Thus the intellect has the power to discriminate between the spiritual and the sensible, between the eternal and the transitory.

Or rather, as the soul’s discriminatory power, the intellect persuades the soul to cleave to the first and to transcend the second.

The senses have the power to discriminate between pleasure and pain in the body. Or rather, as a power existing in a body endowed with soul and sense-perception, they persuade the body to embrace pleasure and reject pain.

St Maximos the Confessor