ADAM and Eve did not become gods. They became overwhelmed with doubts and anxieties, something God had hoped to spare them. Their nakedness now shamed them, and when they heard God calling for them in the Garden, they hid.*
They soon confessed everything, and the lies of the snake were laid bare; but it was now imperative that Adam and Eve should not taste also of the Tree of Life that granted immortality, or else they would remain fixed in this wretched state forever. So God banished them from the Garden, and set guardian angels and a flaming sword at its East Gate.
Adam and Eve endured a life of sorrow and hardship, returning at last to the dust from which they had come, until One should come to open to them the gates of Paradise once again. That tale begins not with the whispered lies of a snake, but with the clear voice of an angel crying, ‘Hail, Mary, full of grace.’*
See also The Emperor and the Nun, where the tense relationship between the nun Cassiani and a young Roman Emperor takes another twist thanks to this passage.
See Cynewulf’s meditation on Adam, Eve and the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary in Annunciation.