(7) The produce of everything welcome as food of men, that is perennial, as the date, the myrtle, the lote-plum, the grape, the quince, the apple, the citron, the pomegranate, the peach, the fig, the walnut, the almond, and others in this genus, they call fruit (mîvak).

(221) How could the fruits display their globes? When the blossoms are shed the fruits come to a head, The fruit is the substance, the blossom only its form, Blossom the good news, and fruit the promised boon. When the blossoms fall the fruit appears, Till bread is broken, how can it serve as food? Till the grapes are crushed, how can they yield wine? Till citrons be pounded up with drugs, How can they afford healing to the sick?

(23) The principal fruits are of thirty kinds (khadûînak), and ten species (sardak) of them are fit to eat inside and outside, as the fig, the apple, the quince, the citron, the grape, the mulberry, the pear, and others of this kind; ten are fit to eat outside, but not fit to eat inside, as the date, the peach, the white apricot, and others of this kind; those which are fit to eat inside, but not fit to eat outside, are the walnut, the almond, the pomegranate, the cocoanut, the filbert, the chesnut, the pistachio nut, the vargân, and whatever else of this description are very remarkable.

(4) The branches either stand as the symbol of the first food, or they are that the multitude may know that fruits spring and grow universally, remaining a very long time; but that the duration of life allotted to themselves is brief. And it is on this account that they will have it that the branches are given; and perhaps also that they may know, that as these, on the other hand, are burned, so also they themselves speedily leave this life, and will become fuel for fire.

(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.

(34) Of this you have a Similitude in an Apple, which at first is astringent, harsh, or chokey, but when the sweet Quality forces and overcomes it, then it is very soft, lovely and pleasant to eat: And thus it is also in the Divine Power.

(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.

(5) Just so our Stromata, according to the husbandman of the comic poet Timocles, produce "figs, olives, dried figs, honey, as from an all-fruitful field;" on account of which exuberance he adds: "Thou speakest of a harvest-wreath not of husbandry."

(28) But that the Fruits get another Body than the Earth is, which is much fuller of Virtue, fairer, or more beautiful, also of a better Taste, Relish and Smell; it is, because the astral Birth or Geniture receives Power or Virtue from the Word, and forms or frames another Body, which stands half in the Death, and half in the Life, and stands hidden between the Wrath of God and the Love.

(37) But thou must know, that the Apple on its Stock or Branch however, with its innermost Birth or Geniture, qualifies, mixes, or unites with the Word of God, through whose Power it is grown out of the Earth.