Legum Allegoriarum Libri I-III (eng)
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105 For he (God) says: "On the day you eat of it, with death you shall die" (Gen 2,17). And yet, after having eaten (of it), not only did they not die, but they got children and became the cause of life to others. What, then, is to be said to this? That death is of two kinds: the one of the human, the other of the soul. The (death) of the human is the separation of the soul from the body, the (death) of the soul, on the other hand, is the decay of virtue and taking up of wickedness.106 That is why he does not speak of mere "dying", but, "dying the death", indicating not the common death, but the actual and prominent one, the one of the soul becoming entombed in passions and wickedness of all kinds. And this death is practically in contradiction of the other one: The latter is a separation of the combined things, the body and the soul, this one however is the coming together of them both – the worse, the body, being in control, and the better, the soul, being controlled.107 Wherever he speaks of "dying the death", observe that he means the penalty- death, not the one that takes place naturally. The natural (death) is the one in which soul is parted from the body; the penalty-( death) takes place when the soul dies to the life of the virtue, and lives only the one of wickedness.