Old man and old Adam

Meaning

The old man or old Adam names the inherited corruption and intemperance to be mortified in ethical regeneration. The source explicitly denies that incorruptible life is acquired merely through bodily death: otherwise the wicked would receive the same advantage as the just. What must die is the excess that produces vice, not the person’s living body.

The apple and the serpent hidden among desirable foods connect the Fall with the author’s alimentary corruption theory. Justice becomes temperate desire and continued progress toward good; vertu here has an ethical sense rather than only physical efficacy. The later inward-sun image shows the Holy Spirit’s rays consuming the old Adam’s affections at the heart. That theological process is compared with purification without becoming a literal chemical operation.