No [one can] know when [a husband] and wife have sex except those two, for marriage in this world is a mystery for those married. If defiled marriage is hidden, how much more is undefiled marriage a true mystery! It is not fleshly but pure. It belongs not to desire but to will. It belongs not to darkness or night but to the day and the light. If marriage is exposed, it has become prostitution, and the bride plays the harlot not only if she is impregnated by another man but even if she slips out of her bedchamber and is seen. Let her show herself only to her father and her mother, the friend of the bridegroom, and the attendants of the bridegroom. They are allowed to enter the bridal chamber every day. But let the others yearn just to hear her voice and enjoy the fragrance of her ointment, and let them feed on the crumbs that fall from the table, like dogs. Bridegrooms and brides belong to the bridal chamber. No one can see a bridegroom or a bride except by becoming one.

(35) Whereby then you see here, that God has not willed the earthly Copulation. Man should have continued in the fiery Love which was in Paradise, and generate out of himself. But the Woman was in this World in the outward elementary Kingdom, in the Inflammation of the forbidden Fruit, of which Adam should not have eaten. And now he has eaten and thus destroyed us; therefore it is now with him [the Adamical Man,] as with a Thief that has been in a pleasant Garden, and went out of it to steal, and comes again and would fain go into the Garden, and the Gardener will not let him in, he must reach into the Garden with his Hand for the Fruit, and then comes the Gardiner and snatches the Fruit out of his Hand, and he must go away in his burning Lust and Anger, and come no more into the Garden, and instead of the Fruit there remains his desirous burning Lust with him; and that he has got instead of the paradisical Fruit, of that we must now eat, and live in the Woman.

(55) Therefore God established the State of Wedlock with Adam and Eve, and bound it fast with a strong Chain, in that he said; A Man shall leave Father and Mother, and cleave to his Wife, and they two shall be one Flesh. And God tolerates their as one Body and its Members, and must aim (in the Fear of God) at the Getting of Children; or else the Wantonness [or Lust] in itself (without that true Love of the State of Wedlock) is continually a bestial Lust, [Infection,] and Sin. And if you (in the State of Wedlock) seek nothing but the Lust and Lechery, then in such a Condition, thou art not a Jot better than a Beast, And do but consider it rightly, that without this, thou standest [already] in a bestial Birth [or Generation,] contrary to the first Creation, like all Beasts. For the holy Man in Adam was not predetermined to have propagated so, but in great modest Love out of himself.

(27) But when Adam was infected from the Lust to eat of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and that the Spirit of this World pressed [or swayed] Adam, where also the subtle Devil (which in the Spirit of this World slipt in) shot mightily at Adam, so that Adam became weary, and blind to the Kingdom of God; [then] said God, It is not good for Man to be alone, for he will not now bring forth the paradisical Virgin; because he is infected from the Spirit of this World, so that the Chastity of the Modesty is quite at an End; we will make a Help for him, to be with him, out of whom he may build his Principality, and propagate himself, it cannot be otherwise now; and he let a deep Sleep fall upon Man, and he slept.

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.

(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.

(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.