(19) Now Man was to dwell upon the Earth as long as it was to stand, and manage [rule and order] the Beasts, and have his Illustrious or shining, Delight and Recreation therein: But he ought not to have eaten any earthly Fruit, wherein the Corruptibility [or Transitoriness] did stick. It is true he should have eaten, but only with the Mouth, and not into the Body; for he had no [Entrails, Stomach, or] Guts, nor any such hard dark Flesh, it was all perfect; for there grew paradisical Fruit for him, which afterwards went away, when he went out of Paradise: And then God cursed the Earth, and the heavenly Limbus was drawn from him, together with that Fruit, and he lost Paradise, God, and the Kingdom of Heaven. For before Sin, when Paradise was upon the Earth, the Earth was not bad [or evil, as now it is.]

(8) Besides, if Adam had eaten earthly Fruit, he must then have eaten it into his Body, and have had Guts [or Entrails:] And how could such a Stink [and Dung] (as we now carry in the Body) have been in Paradise in the Holiness of God? Moreover, he should by eating earthly Food, have eaten of the Fruit of the Stars and Elements, which would presently have infected [or qualified] in him, as was done in the Fall; also so his Fear over all the Beasts would have ceased. For the Essences of the Beasts would presently have been like the human Essences in Virtue [and Power,] and one would have domineered more strongly over the other.

(16) For the Fruits were also good, and their Inclination [or that which made them to be desired] proceeded out of the inward Element, out of the Paradise. Now Adam could eat of every Fruit in the Mouth, but not in the Corruptibility, that must not be, for his Body must subsist eternally, and continue in Paradise, and generate a chaste Virgin out of himself, like himself, without rending of his Body; for this could be, seeing his Body was [proceeded] out of the heavenly Element, out of the Virtue of God.

(33) So she pulled off an Apple and did eat, and gave to Adam also, and he eat of it likewise. That was a Bit at which the Heavens might well have blushed, and the Paradise have trembled, as it was indeed really done, as is to be seen at the Death of Christ, (when he entered into Death, and wrestled with Hell,) that the Earth and the Elements trembled, and the Light of the Sun was darkened, when this Bit of the Apple was to be a healed up. The Gate of the great Affliction, and Misery of Man.

(20) If Adam had continued in Innocence, then he should in all Fruits have eaten paradisical Fruit, and his Food should have been heavenly, and his Drink [should have been] out of the Mother of the heavenly Water of the Source [or Fountain] of the eternal Life. The Out-Birth touched him not, the Element of Air he had no Need of in this Manner [as now;] it is true, he drew Breath from the Air, but he took his Breath from the Incorruptibility, for he did not mingle with the Spirit of this World, but his Spirit ruled powerfully over the Spirit of this World, over the Stars, and over the Sun and Moon, and over the Elements.

(7) Now we must needs clearly [conceive, or] think, that the paradisical Fruit which was good, was not so very earthly, for (as Moses himself says) they were of two Sorts; the one good to eat, and pleasant to behold, and the other had the Death and Corruptibility in it: In the paradisical Fruit, there was no Death nor Corruptibility; for if there had been any Death or Corruptibility therein, then Adam had eaten Death in all the Fruits; but seeing there was no Death therein, therefore the Fruit could not be so altogether earthly; though indeed it sprung out of the Earth, yet the divine Virtue of the second Principle was imprinted therein, and yet they were truly in the third Principle, grown [or sprung] out of the Earth, which God cursed as to the earthly Food, that no paradisical Fruit did grow any more out of the Earth.

(11) But now if Adam had continued in Paradise, he should have been able to manifest the Wonders much better, for they should have been much nearer to the Form of Angels, and such great Sins and Abominations had not been brought to Effect with umany, as is usually done now.

(47) And seeing Adam was gone out of Paradise into the Spirit of this World, therefore now the Strife was already between the two Kingdoms (viz. the Kingdom of Heaven, and the Kingdom of Hell) about the Children of Eve; and here it is seen that the Wrath had the Victory; and the Spirit of God complains, not without Cause, [saying,] I am as a Grape-Gatherer that gleaneth, and yet fain would eat of the best Fruit.

(2) Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward. No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever.

(24) Thus it is shown us in the Light of Nature, that when Adam was thus impregnated [or possessed] from the Spirit of this World, then God built [or made] a Garden in Eden upon Earth, in the Paradise, and caused to grow up all Sorts of paradisical Fruit, pleasant to behold, and good to eat, and the Tree of Temptation in the Midst [of the Garden of Eden,] which had its Essences from the Spirit of this World; and the other [Trees and Fruits] had paradisical Essences.

(4) Here now stand the great Secrets (which we cannot see with our earthly Eyes) wholly naked and plain, and there is no Vail before it, only we are blind to the Kingdom of God; for God cursed the Earth, and said, it should now bear Thorns and Thistles, and Man should eat the Fruit of the accursed Earth. This indeed is a new Thing. He allowed them not in Paradise to eat of the earthly Herbs, but of the pleasant Fruit. And if he had eaten of the Herbs of the Fields, yet that which he had eaten, was heavenly; and when the Lord cursed the Earth, then all became earthly; and the holy Element was withdrawn, and the Fruit did grow in the Proceeding-forth of the four Elements, in the Kindling of the Fierceness, out of which Thorns and Thistles grew.

(584) But if he were taken back again he would imagine, and truly imagine, that he was descending? No doubt. All that would arise out of his ignorance of the true upper and middle and lower regions? Yes. Then can you wonder that persons who are inexperienced in the truth, as they have wrong ideas about many other things, should also have wrong ideas about pleasure and pain and the intermediate state; so that when they are only being drawn towards the painful they feel pain and think the pain which they experience to be real, and in like manner, when drawn away from pain to the neutral or intermediate state, they firmly believe that they have reached the goal of satiety and pleasure; they, not knowing pleasure, err in contrasting pain with the absence of pain, which is like contrasting black with grey instead of white—can you wonder, I say, at this? No, indeed; I should be much more disposed to wonder at the opposite. Look at the matter thus:—Hunger, thirst, and the like, are inanitions of the bodily state? Yes. And ignorance and folly are inanitions of the soul? True. And food and wisdom are the corresponding satisfactions of either? Certainly. And is the satisfaction derived from that which has less or from that which has more existence the truer? Clearly, from that which has more. What classes of things have a greater share of pure existence in your judgment—those of which food and drink and condiments and all kinds of sustenance are examples, or the class which contains true opinion and knowledge and

(92) Here it was rightly tempted, whether the Body would live in divine Virtue and Power, as Adam also should have done, while he was in Paradise in this World; and though he was there, yet he was in this World, and yet he lived not in the Source of this World, but in the paradisical Property above the World, and also above the Wrath of the Anger in the Hell; he should have lived in the Source of Love, Humility, Meekness, and Mercy, in the friendly Will of God; and so he should have ruled over the Stars and Elements, and there should have been no Death nor Frailty or Corruption in him.

(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.

(3) Now when poor fallen Man (viz. Adam and Eve) stood thus in great Fear, Horror, and Trembling, being fast bound with the Bands of the Devil, and of Hell, in great Scorn and Shame before the Heaven and Paradise, then God the Father appeared to them with his angry Mind of the Abyss, into which they were fallen; and his most loving Heart went forth through the Word of the Father in Adam and Eve, and placed itself before the Wrath, highly in the Gate of Man's Life, and enlightened the poor Soul again; yet they could not comprehend it in the Essences of the Soul; but received the Rays of the Almighty Power, whereby Adam and Eve became tglad again; and yet they stood trembling, by Reason of the Wrath [or fierce Horror or Grimness] that was in them, and heard the Sentence which God pronounced; for God said, Because thou hast eaten of the Tree whereof I told thee that thou shouldst not eat, cursed be the Ground for thy Sake; with Care thou shalt maintain thy Life thereon all thy Life long; Thorns and Thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the Herb of the Field, till thou become Earth again, from whence thou wast taken; for thou art now Earth, and to Earth thou shall return again.

(94) But because he beguiled Adam and Eve with his Sugar, therefore God has prepared such a Dwelling-House for him, as Adam lets forth (from the earthly Sugar) at the nethermost Exit; and that shall be left for him at the Corruption of the Earth, when it goes into its Ether; and then that pleasant Smell of the Stink of Sin and Abominations (in the Kingdom of the fierce Wrath) shall remain for him, and that Sugar he shall eat eternally, and frame his Will continually therein to get other Sugar in the i Furnace of the Fire, and then he may make that ready for him, as may best suit with his Palate; at which he quakes and trembles, when he hears the Spirit declare such Things. And hereby it is also signified to all the Ungodly, that they shall also eat the same Sugar eternally, which they have continually baked here, with their Blaspheming, Cursing, Covetousness, Scorn, Backbiting, [Thorny-taunting,] Murdering, Robbing, and taking the Sweat of the Needy and Miserable to maintain their haughty stately Pride.

(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.

(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/'

Before Christ came there was no bread in the world, just as paradise, where Adam lived, had many trees for animal food but no wheat for human food, and people ate like animals. But when Christ, the perfect human, came, he brought bread from heaven, that humans might be fed with human food.

(19) For the Tree of Temptation was earthly, as now all the Trees are; all the other were paradisical, from which Adam could eat paradisical Virtue in his Mouth, and had no Need of Stomach and Guts; for they [the Trees] were like his Body, and [like] the Element, and the Tree of Temptation was like the four Elements.