Search

(78) In that Manner he also deceived our Mother Eve, saying; If she did but eat of the forbidden Tree, then she should be wise or witty, and be like God; but this Smelling or Stirring the Council likewise rejected. [Gen. 3. 5.]

(32) And there the Devil bestirred himself, and slipt into the Serpent, (which he himself is, in his own proper Form,) and laid himself at the Tree, and strewed Sugar upon it; for he saw well that Eve was a Woman, and that she was infected with the four Elements; and although she did strive a little, and objected God's command [against the Devil,] yet she suffered herself very easily to be persuaded, when the lying Spirit said, That the Fruit would make her wise, and that her Eyes should be opened, and she be as God, knowing Good and Evil; yet he told her not, that (if she eat thereof) she must die; but [he said] she should be wise and fair; which Disease [Desire or Lust] sticks still in the Brains of the Woman, that she would fain be the fairest Beast.

(92) Here it may be seen very plainly, that the Devil had lost his angelical Image; and comes now in the Form of a Serpent, with his murderous Lying, and beguiles the Woman. Because he had not been able to overthrow Adam wholly, therefore he sets upon the Woman; and promises her Wisdom, and the Riches of this World, and that she should be therein like God; the Devil mingled Lies and Truth together, and said, She shall be as God; but he meant, according to the Kingdom of this World, and according to the first Principle of the [fierce] Wrath, and let Paradise out; but Eve understood it, that she should continue in the Paradise, in the divine and pleasant Joy.

(91) So now when Adam and his Eve (after the Biting of the Apple) beheld themselves, then they perceived the monstrous Image and bestial Form, and they felt in themselves the Wrath of God, and the Fierceness of the Stars and Elements; for they took Notice of the Stomach and Guts, into which they had stuffed their earthly Fruit, which begun to a take Effect, and they saw their bestial Shame; and then they lift up their Minds towards Paradise, but they found it not; they ran trembling with Fear, and crept behind the Trees; for the Wrath had stirred their Essences in the Spirit with the earthly Fruit, and then came the Voice of God in the Center of the Gates of the Deep, and called Adam, and said; Adam, Where art thou? And he said, Here I am: And I am afraid, for I am naked. And the Lord said; Who hath told thee that thou art naked. Hast thou eaten of the Tree, whereof I said unto thee, that thou shouldst not eat thereof? And he said, The Woman gave to me, and I did eat. And he said unto the Woman, Why hast thou done so? And she said, The Serpent beguiled me, so that I did eat.

(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.

(22) And when God had created Man, then he planted a Garden in Eden towards the East, and placed him therein, and caused to spring up and grow all Manner of Fruit, delightful to behold, and all Sorts of Trees good to eat of; and the Tree of Life in the Midst of the Garden, and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. And when God had placed Man in the Garden, he commanded him, and said; You shall eat of every Tree in the Garden, but of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil thou shalt not eat; for in the Day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt die the Death. Here the Vail lies upon Moses, and they must be sharp [or piercing] Eyes that can behold the Face of Moses. God has not without Cause let Moses write this so very mystically, [hiddenly and obscurely.]

(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."

(16) But when the Wisdom of God saw that Man, from the Spirit of the World, came to lust, to mingle himself with the four Elements, then came the Commandment and said; Thou shalt not eat of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Now the Knowledge of Good and Evil is not manifest in the Paradise, and in the Kingdom of Heaven, but only in what is proceeded out of the Element, in the Fierceness, there only stands the Knowledge of Evil manifest; and there only the Essences are capable of being kindled, and so therein Death sticks; of which God said, When thou eatest thereof thou shalt die.

(57) Thus now Adam with his Wife went (in great Lust and Joy) into the Garden of Eden, where Adam told her of the Commandment concerning the Tree: But Eve (being a Woman of this World) regarded it but little, and turned her from Adam to the Tree, and looked upon it with Lust; and the Lust instantly took hold of her; and the lying Devil (when she was talking with him, whom she knew not, neither had heard of any Devil) persuaded her, and she laid hold on the Tree, and broke off [an Apple,] and did eat of the Fruit of the four Elements and Stars, and gave to Adam; and when Adam saw that Eve died not, then he eat also.

(13) Therefore God here also gave him the Command, not to lust after the earthly Matrix, nor after her Fruit, which stood in the Corruptibility, and Transitoriness, but the Spirit of Man mot. He should eat of the Fruit, but no otherwise than of the paradisical Kind and Property, [and] not of the earthly Essences. For the paradisical Essences had imprinted themselves in all Fruits, therein they were very good to eat of, after an angelical Manner, and also pleasant to behold, or corporeal, as Moses also says. Now it may be asked, What then was properly the Tempting in Adam. The Gate of Good and Evil.

(37) And the Virtue in Adam said; I am upon Earth, and dwell in this World, and the World is mine, I will use it according to my Lust, [Will, and Pleasure.] Then came the Command of God (which i was received in the Center of God, out of the Circle [or Circumference] of the eternal Life,) and said: In the Day that thou eatest of the earthly Fruit, thou shalt die the Death: This Command was comprehended or enclosed (and hath its Original in the eternal Father) in the Center, where the eternal Father continually from Eternity generates his Heart or Son.

(48) And the serpent makes answer: "Behold, O Adam, the nature of thy Adversary!" The serpent disappears in a blinding sunburst of radiance and in its place stands an angel resplendent in shining, golden garments with great scarlet wings that spread from one corner of the heavens to the other. Dismayed and awestruck, the Adam falls before the divine creature.

(5) Therefore ye would beguile mankind of happy life (upon earth) and of Immortality (beyond it), since the Evil Spirit (has ruled) you with his evil mind. Yea, he has ruled you, (ye) who are of the Demon-gods, and with an evil word unto action, as his ruler (governs) the wicked !

(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.

(4) And now when he saw and knew by that which God had told him, that he should die and perish, if he did eat of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, it made him continually imagine that he was now no more the Child of God, and that he was not created out of God's own Essence or Substance, out of the first Principle. He conceived that he was now but a mere Child of this World, when he beheld his Corruptibility, and also the monstrous Image which he was in; and that the paradisical that his Spirit and Perfection were driven out of Paradise, (that is, out of the second Principle of God, where the Light or the Heart of God is generated from Eternity to Eternity, and where the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son;) and that he now lived no more merely by the Word of God, but did eat and drink, viz. the Birth of his Life henceforward consisted, in the third Principle, that is, in the [Region,] Kingdom, or Dominion of the Stars and Elements, and he must now eat of the Virtue and Fruit thereof, and live thereby: And upon this he then supposed, that he was past Recovery, and that the noble Image of God was destroyed. And besides, the Devil also continually represented his Corruptibility and Mortality to him, and himself could see nothing else, seeing he was gone out of Paradise, that is, out of the incorruptible holy i Geniture [or Operation] of God; wherein he was God's holy Image and Child, in which God created him to continue therein for ever. And if the merciful Love of God had not appeared to him again in the Center of the Birth of his Life, and comforted him, he would have thought that he was wholly departed, or quite separated from the eternal divine Birth, and that he was no more in God, nor God any more in him, and that he was no more of God's Essence.

(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.