Next, let me continue. When the rulers saw him and the woman who was with him erring in ignorance like beasts, they rejoiced greatly. When they learned that an immortal human was not going to pass them by, but that they would even have to fear the woman who had turned into a tree, they were troubled and said, “Is this, perhaps, the true human, who blinded us and taught us about this defiled woman who is like him, that we might be conquered?” Then the seven took counsel. They came to Adam and Eve timidly, and they said to him, “The fruit of every tree created for you in paradise may be eaten, but beware, don’t eat from the tree of knowledge. If you do eat, you will die.” After they gave them a great fright, they withdrew up to their authorities. Then came the one who is wiser than all creatures, who was called the beast. When he saw the likeness of their mother, Eve, he said to her, “What is it that god said to you? ‘Don’t eat from the tree of knowledge’?” She said, “He said not only ‘Don’t eat from it’ but also ‘Don’t touch it, lest you die.’” He said to her, “Don’t be afraid! You certainly shall not die. For he knows that when you eat from it your mind will be sobered and you will become like gods, knowing the difference between evil and good people. For he said this to you because he is jealous, so that you would not eat from it.” Now, Eve believed the words of the instructor. She looked at the tree and saw that it was beautiful and appealing, and she desired it. She took some of its fruit and ate, and she gave to her husband also, and he ate too. Then their minds opened. For when they ate, the light of knowledge shone for them. When they put on shame, they knew that they were naked with regard to knowledge. When they sobered up, they saw that they were naked, and they became enamored of one another. When they saw that their makers had beastly forms, they loathed them. They understood a great deal.

(20) But seeing the seed, or mass, or lump, out of which Adam was made, was somewhat infected with the corrupt disease or malady of the devil, Adam therefore longed after his mother, that is, to eat of the fruit of the corrupted earth, which then in its outward comprehensibility was become so evil, and in the wrath-fire was become so hard, palpable and comprehensible.

(39) But in its power, in which its life stands, wherewith it qualifieth, mixeth or uniteth with the word of God, this apple will, in its mother, in the power of the word at the Last Judgment Day, be set or put again into its heavenly place, and be separated from the wrathful and dead or mortal palpability, and spring up in the heaven of this world, in a heavenly form, and be a fruit for men in the other life. ["Here understand, the power of the Principle, out of which the apple and all things grow, will, in the renovation of the world, spring up again in paradise with the wonders."]

(26) Now when Adam did eat of the fruit, which was good and evil, then he suddenly gat such a body also. The fruit was corrupt or perished, and palpable, as to this day all fruits now on earth are; and so such a fleshly and palpable or comprehensible body Adam and Eve gat instantly.

(24) Then it was time that the Creator should frame a wife for him, who afterwards set the sin on work, and did eat of the false, evil or corrupt fruit. Else if Adam had eaten of the tree before the woman had been made out of him, then it would have been far worse than it is.

(3) And when she had first covered her shame with fig-leaves, she gave thereof to Adam and he ate, and his eyes were opened, and he saw thathe was naked.

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.

(3) And He was wroth with the woman, be- cause she hearkened to the voice of the serpent, and did eat; and He said unto her : " I shall greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy pains : in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, and thy return shall be unto thy husband, and he will rule over thee." 25. And to Adam also He said, " Because thou hastheark- ened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat thereof, cursed be the ground for thy sake : thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat thy bread in the sweat of thy face, till thou returnest to the earth from whence thou wast taken ; for earth thou art, and unto earth shalt thou return/'

Then the authorities were informed that their fashioned body was alive, and had risen, and they were very much disturbed. They sent seven archangels to see what had happened. They came to Adam, and when they saw Eve speaking with him, they said to one another, “What is this enlightened woman? For truly she resembles the likeness that appeared to us in the light. Now come, let us seize her and cast our seed into her, so that when she is polluted she will not be able to ascend to her light, but those whom she bears will serve us. But let us not tell Adam, because he is not from us. Rather, let us bring a stupor upon him, and suggest to him in his sleep that she came into being from his rib, so that the woman may serve and he may rule over her.” Then Eve, since she existed as a power, laughed at their false intention. She darkened their eyes and secretly left her likeness there with Adam. She entered the tree of knowledge and remained there. They pursued her, and she revealed to them that she had entered the tree and had become the tree. And when the blind ones fell into a great fear, they ran away. Afterward, when they sobered up from the stupor, they came to Adam. And when they saw the likeness of that woman with him, they were troubled, thinking that this was the true Eve. And they acted recklessly, and came to her and seized her and cast their seed upon her. They did it deceitfully, defiling her not only naturally but also abominably, first defiling the seal of her voice, which had spoken with them, saying, “What is it that exists before you?” They meant to defile those who might say at the consummation of the age that they had been born of a true human by means of the word. And they were deceived, not knowing that they had defiled their own body. It was the likeness that the authorities and their angels defiled in every way.

Then when the rulers knew that Adam and Eve had transgressed their commandment, they entered paradise and came to Adam and Eve in an earthquake and a great threat, to see the result of the help that was given. Then Adam and Eve were very much disturbed and hid under the trees in paradise. The rulers did not know where they were and said, “Adam, where are you?” He said, “I am here. But because of fear of you I hid after I became ashamed.” But they said to him, in ignorance, “Who is the one who spoke to you of the shame that you put on—unless you ate from the tree?” He said, “The woman whom you gave me, she is the one who gave to me, and I ate.” Then they said to that woman, “What is this you have done?” She answered and said, “The instructor is the one who incited me, and I ate.” Then the rulers came to the instructor. Their eyes were blinded by him so they were not able to do anything to him. They merely cursed him, since they were powerless. Afterward they came to the woman, and they cursed her and her offspring. After the woman they cursed Adam and the earth and the fruit because of him. And everything that they created they cursed. There is no blessing from them. Good cannot come from evil. Since that day the authorities knew that truly there was something stronger than they. They would not have known except that their commandment was broken. They brought a great envy into the world only because of the immortal human. Now, when the rulers saw that their Adam had acquired a different knowledge, they wanted to test him. They gathered all the domestic animals and wild beasts of the earth and the birds of the heaven, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. When he saw them, he gave names to their creatures. They were troubled because Adam had sobered up from all ignorance. They gathered together and took counsel and said, “Look, Adam has become like one of us, so that he understands the difference between light and darkness. Now perhaps he will be deceived as with the tree of knowledge and will come to the tree of life and eat from it and become immortal and rule and condemn us and regard us and all our glory as folly. And then he will pass judgment on us and the world. Come, let’s cast him out of paradise down to the earth, the place from where he was taken, so that he will no longer be able to know anything better than we can.” And so they cast Adam and his wife out of paradise. And what they had done did not satisfy them. Rather, they were still afraid. They came to the tree of life and they set great terrors around it, fiery living beings called cherubim; and they left a flaming sword in the midst, turning continually with a great terror, so that no one from among earthly beings might ever enter that place. After these things, when the rulers had become jealous of Adam, they wanted to diminish the human lifetimes, but they were unable because of fate, which was established since the beginning. For their lifetimes were determined: for each of the people one thousand years according to the circuit of the luminaries. But although the rulers were not able to do this, each of the evildoers took away ten years. So all of the remaining time amounts to nine hundred thirty years, and these are spent in grief and weakness and in evil distractions. Thus life has gone, from that day until the consummation of the age.

(3) And she said to it, " Of all the fruit of the trees of the garden God hath said unto us, Eat ; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden God hath said unto us, Ye shall not eat thereof, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die."

(21) But seeing Adam's spirit longed after that fruit which was of the quality of the corrupted earth, therefore also nature formed or framed such a tree for him as was like the corrupted earth.

(22) [paragraph continues] Of this fuller nature the mortal man has little comprehension. Just as spirit contains matter within itself and is both the source and ultimate of the state denominated matter, so Eve represents the lower, or mortal, portion that is taken out of, or has temporal existence in the greater and fuller spiritual creation. Being representative of the inferior part of the individual, Eve is the temptress who, conspiring with the serpent of mortal knowledge, caused Adam to sink into a trancelike condition in which he was unconscious of his own higher Self. When Adam seemingly awoke, he actually sank into sleep, for he no longer was in the spirit but in the body; division having taken place within him, the true Adam rested in Paradise while his lesser part incarnated in a material organism (Eve) and wandered in the darkness of mortal existence.

(2) Then to the wheels the maidens turned themselves, And the Griffin moved his burden benedight, But so that not a feather of him fluttered. The lady fair who drew me through the ford Followed with Statius and myself the wheel Which made its orbit with the lesser arc. So passing through the lofty forest, vacant By fault of her who in the serpent trusted, Angelic music made our steps keep time. Perchance as great a space had in three flights An arrow loosened from the string o'erpassed, As we had moved when Beatrice descended. I heard them murmur altogether, "Adam!" Then circled they about a tree despoiled Of blooms and other leafage on each bough. Its tresses, which so much the more dilate As higher they ascend, had been by Indians Among their forests marvelled at for height. "Blessed art thou, O Griffin, who dost not Pluck with thy beak these branches sweet to taste, Since appetite by this was turned to evil." After this fashion round the tree robust The others shouted; and the twofold creature: "Thus is preserved the seed of all the just."

(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."

(19) First, thou hast the bestial flesh, which is come to be so through the lustful longing bite of the apple, for it is the house of corruption. For when Adam was made out of the corrupted Salitter of the earth, that is, out of the seed, or mass, or lump which the Creator extracted out of the corrupted earth, he was not then at first such flesh, else his body had been created mortal, but he had an angelical powerbody, in which he should have subsisted eternally, and should have eaten angelical fruit, which did grow for him in Paradise before his fall, before the LORD cursed the earth.

(5) So he with greater strides departed from us; And on the road remained I with those two, Who were such mighty marshals of the world. And when before us he had gone so far Mine eyes became to him such pursuivants As was my understanding to his words, Appeared to me with laden and living boughs Another apple-tree, and not far distant, From having but just then turned thitherward. People I saw beneath it lift their hands, And cry I know not what towards the leaves, Like little children eager and deluded, Who pray, and he they pray to doth not answer, But, to make very keen their appetite, Holds their desire aloft, and hides it not. Then they departed as if undeceived; And now we came unto the mighty tree Which prayers and tears so manifold refuses. "Pass farther onward without drawing near; The tree of which Eve ate is higher up, And out of that one has this tree been raised." Thus said I know not who among the branches; Whereat Virgilius, Statius, and myself Went crowding forward on the side that rises.

(38) But since the wrath is in the body of the mother of the apple, this same mother cannot get the apple out of the palpable birth, and the apple must remain, as to its body, in the palpability, in death.

The authorities came up to their Adam. When they saw his female partner speaking with him, they became very excited and enamored of her. They said to one another, “Come, let us sow our seed in her,” and they pursued her. And she laughed at them for their foolishness and blindness. In their clutches she became a tree and left before them her shadowy reflection resembling herself, and they defiled it foully. And they defiled the seal of her voice, so that by the form they had modeled, together with their own image, they made themselves liable to condemnation. Then the female spiritual presence came in the form of the snake, the instructor, and it taught them, saying, “What did he say to you? Was it, ‘From every tree in the garden shall you eat, but from the tree of recognizing evil and good do not eat’?” The woman of flesh said, “Not only did he say ‘Don’t eat,’ but even ‘Don’t touch it. For the day you eat from it, you will surely die.’” The snake, the instructor, said, “It is not the case that you will surely die, for out of jealousy he said this to you. Rather, your eyes will open and you will be like gods, recognizing evil and good.” And the female instructing power was taken away from the snake, and she left it behind, merely a thing of the earth. And the woman of flesh took from the tree and ate, and she gave to her husband as well as herself, and those beings, who possessed only a soul, ate. And their imperfection became apparent in their lack of knowledge. They recognized that they were naked of the spiritual, and they took fig leaves and bound them around themselves. Then the chief ruler came, and he said, “Adam, where are you?”—for he did not understand what had happened. Adam said, “I heard your voice and was afraid because I was naked, and I hid.” The ruler said, “Why did you hide, unless it is because you have eaten from the tree from which alone I commanded you not to eat? You have eaten!” Adam said, “The woman you gave me gave me fruit and I ate.” And the arrogant ruler cursed the woman. The woman said, “The snake led me astray and I ate.” They turned to the snake and cursed its shadowy reflection, so it was powerless, and they did not comprehend that it was a form they themselves had modeled. From that day, the snake came to be under the curse of the authorities. Until the perfect human was to come, that curse fell on the snake. They turned to their Adam and took him and expelled him from the garden along with his wife, for they have no blessing, since they too are under the curse. Moreover, they threw human beings into great distraction and into a life of toil, so that their human beings might be occupied by worldly affairs and might not have the opportunity of being devoted to the holy spirit.

(22) For Adam was the heart in nature, and therefore his animated or soulish spirit did help to image, fashion or form this tree, of which he would fain eat.