There is a great and unutterable difference between the tree of life and the one which is not the tree of life.
This is clear simply from the fact that the one is called the tree of life while the other is merely called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (cf. Gen. 2:9).
Unquestionably, the tree of life is productive of life; the tree that is not called the tree of life, and so is not productive of life, is obviously productive of death.
For only death is the opposite of life.
St Maximos the Confessor
