contemplative"XXVIII. 54. "I would then sleep quietly, and my sleep would give me rest." For this reason humankind had been placed in Paradise, that if he bound himself to obedience of his Creator by chains of love, he might one day pass on to the heavenly fatherland of the angels, without undergoing bodily death. He was created immortal, you see, but in such a way that if he sinned, he could also die. He was created mortal in such a way that if he did not sin, he could also not die. So by reason of free will he would reach the happiness of that place in which he could neither sin nor die.
Where, I say, after the time of redemption arrived, the elect are transferred, having passed through bodily death, there undoubtly our first parents could have gone as well, without bodily death, if they had remained in that state in which they were created. He would sleep quietly, yes, humankind would lie down and rest when he was led to his resting place in the eternal fatherland; he would, as it were, find refuge from the noise of human frailty. After sinning, you see, humankind cries out and stay awakes; he struggles against his own flesh and endures its resistance. When the man was created, he had this restful calmness when he received a will that allowed him free choice against his enemy. He soon surrendered to the enemy by how own volition, however, and he discovered for himself the opposition to himself; in the heat of battle he had to struggle against his weakness. Although he had been created by God in peace and quiet, he was defeated by the enemy through his own volition and put up with the cries of battle.
The whispering of the flesh is itself like a kind of shout against a quiet mind; humankind did not hear it before his transgression, because he obviously had no weakness to deal with. But then he surrendered to the enemy voluntarily, and he was tied up with the chains of his own guilt; even though unwillingly, he did some service for the enemy, and he suffered from these cries in his mind, the cries of the flesh resisting the spirit. Was he not hearing interior cries who endured words of the tyrannical law against him and said, "I see another law in my body, resisting the law of my mind and making me captive of the law of sin residing in my body"? So let the holy man contemplate the sublime peace of heart in which he would rest if the man refused to listen to the serpent's speech and said, "I would then sleep quietly, and my sleep would give me rest." In other words, "I would retire to the secret place of the mind for contemplation of the Creator, if the guilt of that first consent had not put me outside myself with the uproar of temptation." Now he will add the companions of his enjoyment of this blessed quiet." pg. 282,283 Gregory the Great