(45) The serpent is true to the principle of wisdom, for it tempts man to the knowledge of himself. Therefore the knowledge of self resulted from man's disobedience to the Demiurgus, Jehovah. How the serpent came to be in the garden of the Lord after God had declared that all creatures which He had made during the six days of creation were good has not been satisfactorily answered by the interpreters of Scripture. The tree that grows in the midst of the garden is the spinal fire; the knowledge of the use of that spinal fire is the gift of the great serpent. Notwithstanding statements to the contrary, the serpent is the symbol and prototype of the Universal Savior, who redeems the worlds by giving creation the knowledge of itself and the realization of good and evil. If this be not so, why did Moses raise a brazen serpent upon a cross in the wilderness that all who looked upon it might be saved from the sting of the lesser snakes? Was not the brazen serpent a prophecy of the crucified Man to come? If the serpent be only a thing of evil, why did Christ instruct His disciples to be as wise as serpents?

(46) "I," the serpent answers, "am Satan who was stoned; I am the Adversary--the Lord who is against you, the one who pleads for your destruction before the Eternal Tribunal. I was your enemy upon the day that you were formed; I have led you into temptation; I have delivered you into the hands of evil; I have maligned you; I have striven ever to achieve your undoing. I am the guardian of the Tree of Knowledge and I have sworn that none whom I can lead astray shall partake of its fruits."

(38) Now when the Worm of Darkness saw the Command of God, it thought with itself, here thou wilt not prevail, thou art Spirit without Body, and contrariwise, Adam is corporeal, thou hast but a third Part in him, and besides, the Command is in the Way; thou wilt even slip [or creep] into the Essences, and flatter with the Spirit of this World, and take a creaturely Form upon thee, and send a Legate [or Ambassador] out of my Kingdom, clothed in the Form of a Serpent, and wilt persuade him to eat of the earthly Fruit, and then the Command destroys his Body, and the Spirit remains [to be] mine. Here now the Legate [or Ambassador,] the Devil, was very willing [and ready] at this, especially because Adam in Paradise was in his Place, where he should have been; and he thought with himself, now thou hast an Opportunity to be revenged; thou wilt mingle Lies and Truth so together, that Adam may not [observe or] understand it, [the Treachery,] and so thou wilt tempt him. Of the Tree of Knowledge [of] Good and Evil.

(24) But because the Souls of Adam and of Eve, and of all the Children of Men, were too rough, wild, and too hard kindled from the first Principle, so that they had the Source of Hell in them, being inclined to all Evil, [Malice, or Mischief,] therefore the Word and the Treader upon the Serpent did not so instantly image [or imprint] itself in the Soul of Adam, but stood opposite to the Kingdom of the Devil and of Hell, and [against] their poisonous Darts, in the Mind; and in the Mind of those Men which incline and yield themselves to the Treader upon the Serpent, it breaks the Head of the Serpent, the Devil.

(14) Why, then, is the serpent called wise? Because even in its wiles there may be found a connection, and distinction, and combination, and conjecturing of the future. And so very many crimes are concealed; because the wicked arrange for themselves so as by all means to escape punishment.

(100) This now the Devil did not understand; because God spoke of the Serpent, and cursed it to [be] a horrible Worm, and he supposed that it did not concern him; neither does he yet know his own Judgment, he knows only what he learns from Men, that declare [Things] in the Spirit of God; yet the Spirit of God does not wholly intimate his Judgment to him, but all in the Depth, afar off, so that he cannot wholly understand it. For to the enlightened Men all Prophesies (even concerning the Wickness of Men) are thus given, and they dare not set them down clearer, that the Devil may not wholly learn the Counsel of God, and strow his Sugar upon it; though in this Place there are very excellent Things, that ought not to be revealed to the World, for they remain till the Judgment of God; that the Devil may bring no new Sects into it, and lead Men into Doubt; and therefore they shall be passed over till the Time of the Lily.

The human being Adam was revealed through the bright shadow within. And Adam’s ability to think was greater than that of all the creators. When they looked up, they saw that Adam’s ability to think was greater, and they devised a plan with the whole throng of rulers and angels. They took fire, earth, and water, and combined them with the four fiery winds. They wrought them together and made a great commotion. The rulers brought Adam into the shadow of death so that they might produce a figure again, from earth, water, fire, and the spirit that comes from matter, that is, from the ignorance of darkness, and desire, and their own false spirit. This is the cave for remodeling the body that these criminals put on the human, the fetter of forgetfulness. Adam became a mortal being, the first to descend and the first to become estranged. The enlightened afterthought within Adam, however, would rejuvenate Adam’s mind. They put their tree of life in the middle of paradise. I shall teach you the secret of their life, the plan they devised together, the nature of their spirit: The root of their tree is bitter, its branches are death, its shadow is hatred, a trap is in its leaves, its blossom is bad ointment, its fruit is death, desire is its seed, it blossoms in darkness. The dwelling place of those who taste of it is the underworld, and darkness is their resting place. But the rulers lingered in front of what they call the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which is the enlightened afterthought, so that Adam might not behold its fullness and recognize his shameful nakedness. But I was the one who induced them to eat. I said to the savior, Master, was it not the snake that instructed Adam to eat? The savior laughed and said, The snake instructed them to eat of the wickedness of sexual desire and destruction so that Adam might be of use to the snake. This is the one who knew Adam was disobedient because of the enlightened afterthought within Adam, which made Adam stronger of mind than the first ruler. The first ruler wanted to recover the power that he himself had passed on to Adam. So he brought deep sleep upon Adam. I said to the savior, What is this deep sleep? The savior said, It is not as Moses wrote and you heard. He said in his first book, He put Adam to sleep. Rather, this deep sleep was a loss of sense. Thus the first ruler said through the prophet, I shall make their minds sluggish, that they may neither understand nor discern.

(99) We know, that the Devil slipt into the Serpent, and spoke out of the Serpent; for God did not mean [by it] that the Treader upon the Serpent should tread upon the Head of the bestial Serpent; but that he should destroy the Devil and the Abyss of Hell. But that was the Punishment of the bestial Serpent, that it should remain a poisonous Worm without Feet, and eat Earth, and have Communion with the Devil; for so all evil Spirits in Hell appear, in their own Form, according to their Source [or Quality,] as Serpents, Dragons, horrible Worms, and evil Beasts.

(49) For as the Tree was, so was the Fruit; and though the Tree was not wholly evil [or false,] yet as to the becoming Man, the Tincture (by the Wrestling of the two Regions) became false [or evil.] And besides, afterwards Eve (his Mother) helped him forward very much, because she sought after an earthly Lord and Treader upon the Serpent, and instructed him, [telling him,] that he was the Warrior [or Soldier to overcome] against the Devil, he must do it; and so the Wrath held him captive, and his Offering [or Sacrifice] was not acceptable to God, because (in Wrath) he built upon himself, and so his Prayer reached not the Gate of Heaven, but the Driver took it up, because it proceeded out of Self-Pride, like the proud Pharisee, out of an [evil or] false Mind.

(18) But God came at the time of evening, walking in the midst of Paradise. When Adam saw him, he hid himself. And he said, "Adam, where are you?" He answered (and) said, "I have come under the fig tree." And at that very moment, God knew that he had eaten from the tree of which he had commanded him, "Do not eat of it." And he said to him, "Who is it who has instructed you?" And Adam answered, "The woman whom you have given me." And the woman said, "It is the serpent who instructed me." And he (God) cursed the serpent, and called him "devil." And he said, "Behold, Adam has become like one of us, knowing evil and good." Then he said, "Let us cast him out of paradise, lest he take from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever."

(20) And in one place, Moses writes, "He made the devil a serpent those whom he has in his generation." Also, in the book which is called "Exodus," it is written thus: "He contended against the magicians, when the place was full of serpents according to their wickedness; and the rod which was in the hand of Moses became a serpent, (and) it swallowed the serpents of the magicians."

(70) And when he raised up his Imagination, then he kindled to himself the Source or Root of the Fire, and then when the Root of the Fire sought for the Water, (viz. the true Mother of the Eternal Nature,) it found the stern [or tart astringent] Harshness, and the Mother in the aching Death; and the bitter Sting [or Prickle] formed the Birth to be a fierce raging Serpent, very terrible in itself, rising up in the indissoluble Band, an eternal Enmity, a Will striving against itself, an eternal Despair of all Good; [the bitter Sting also formed] the Mind to be a breaking striking Wheel, having its Will continually aspiring to the Strength of the Fire, and to destroy the Heart of God, and yet could never at all be able to reach it.

(3) And God cursed the serpent, and was wroth with it for ever. . . .

(83) It is known to us, that (in Adam's Fall) we are fallen into the Anger of God, when the Spirit, or Soul of Adam, turned from the Heart of God into the Spirit of this World, where instantly the holy heavenly Image was extinguished, and the Anger in the Darkness held the poor Soul captive, and where the Devil instantly got his Entrance and Habitation in the Anger of the human Soul; and if the Treader upon the Serpent had not entered instantly into the Mark of Separation, in the Center of the Light of Life, then the Wrath would have devoured us, and we should have continued eternally to be Companions of the Devils; but when the Treader upon the Serpent thus entered into the Middle (though not so presently into the Humanity, but into the Center of the Light of Life) then the poor imprisoned Souls which turned themselves to God again, were (in the Center) bound or knit to the Deity again, till the Champion [or Saviour] came into the Humanity, where (in his Conception and Humanity) he received the whole Man again, and this we see clearly in his Baptism; for there was that one Person which was both God and Man, he had the heavenly and also the earthly Body.

(5) But the favourable Love, (that is, the only begotten Son of God, or that I may set it down so that it may be understood, the lovely Fountain where the Light of God is 1 generated,) sprung up, and grew again in Adam in the Center of the Birth of his Life, in the fifth Form of his Birth; whereby Adam perceived that he was not broken off from the divine Root, but that he was still the Child of God, and repented him of his first evil Lust: And thereupon the Lord showed him the Treader upon the Serpent, who should destroy his monstrous Birth; and so he should from the monstrous Birth be regenerated anew, in the Shape, Form, Power and Virtue of the Treader upon the Serpent, and be brought with Power again into Paradise, into the holy Birth, and eat of the mWord of the Lord again, and live eternally, in Spite of all the Gates of the Wrathfulness, wherein the Devil lives; concerning which there shall be farther mention made in its due Place.

(46) The accepted theory that the serpent is evil cannot be substantiated. It has long been viewed as the emblem of immortality. It is the symbol of reincarnation, or metempsychosis, because it annually sheds its skin, reappearing, as it were, in a new body. There is an ancient superstition to the effect that snakes never die except by violence and that, if uninjured, they would live forever. It was also believed that snakes swallowed themselves, and this resulted in their being considered emblematic of the Supreme Creator, who periodically reabsorbed His universe back into Himself.

(97) Now when no Counsel [or Remedy] was found, and Man was sunk down into Hell, to the great Triumph of the Devils, then said God to the Serpent (the Devil;) Because thou hast done thus, be thou cursed; and the Seed of the Woman shall tread upon [or break] thy Head, and thou shalt bruise [or wound] his Heel; at which the Abyss of Hell did quake and tremble, but the Devil understood not wholly what that should be; only he saw that the Word imagined [or represented itself] in Adam and in Eve, in the Center of Life, and that it opposed the Fierceness of the Kingdom of Hell, of which he stood in Fear, and his Jollity was lessened, for he did not relish that.

(96) Then the Devil mocked the Image, and Hell opened its The Soul. Jaws wide, and had the Bridle in their Essences, and continually drew them therewith towards the hellish Fire of the fierce Wrath; and then there was Trembling and Horror in the Mind, and they could not reach the Love of God. Heaven was their Enemy, no Angel came near them, but the horrible Devils, they showed themselves, and hopped, crying, Ho, ho! we have gotten the Game, we are Princes over Men, we will torment them soundly, because they would have possessed our Throne; we should have been their Footstool, and now we are their Judges; what Care we for God, he dwells not in our Kingdom; why has he thrust us out? we will be sure to wreak our Spleen upon his Image. The most pleasant, and most lovely Gate [or Explanation] of the Promise of the Treader upon the Serpent, highly to be considered.

(16) But now the Wrath of the Serpent has so brought it to pass, that Adam is fallen in the Lust, and yet the Purpose of God must stand; for Adam must rise again at the Day of the Resurrection wholly and unbroken in the first Image, as he was created. So likewise the Serpent and the Devil have brought it about, that so terrible a Rent is made in him.

(102) Now, says Reason, how could Adam and Eve know what God meant by the Treader upon the Serpent? Indeed, they did not wholly and altogether know; only they saw that the Devil must depart from them, and not show himself outwardly any more; but the Mind (in the Center of the Breaking through of the Life into the Element, into the Presence of the chaste and modest Virgin, the Wisdom of God) that understood it well: For P he lodged a precious and worthy Guest; for the Word (which God the Father spoke concerning the Treader upon the Serpent) went out of the Heart, and out of the Mouth of God, and that was the Spark of Love [proceeding] out of the Heart of God, which was from Eternity in the Heart of God, wherein God the Father had known and elected Mankind (before the Foundations of the World were laid) that they should live therein; and that the same [Spark or Promise] should stand in the Rising-up of the Life; and Adam also in his Creation stood therein.