Fragment 14

How¹ were it possible that the serpent who was created by God without speech and understanding,² should as one reasonable and endowed with speech say anything? If of his own power he gave to himself speech and discernment and understanding and reply to those things which were spoken by the woman, then every serpent too is not hindered from doing this: but if again they shall say that by Divine counsel and œconomy did this one speak with human voice to Eve, they make God the author of sin. Nor yet were it possible for the wicked devil to give speech from not being into being to nature unendowed with speech: since then would he never have ceased discoursing in guile to men and deceiving them by means of serpents and wild beasts and birds. Whence being a wild beast too, heard he the command given by God to the man and to him alone mystically given, when not even the woman herself had learnt it? Why fell he not foul of the man rather, not of the woman? And if you should say that he attacked her as the weaker; on the contrary she was clearly the more valiant, as her husband’s helpmeet in the transgressing the commandment. For she alone by herself withstands the serpent and after a sort of withstanding and contention did she, overcome by guile, eat of the tree, but Adam not a whit striving or contradicting, partook of the fruit that was given him by his wife, which is an argument of utter weakness and unmanly mind. For the woman thrown in wrestling by the daemon, is pardonable, but Adam worsted by a woman will be unpardonable, as having received the commandment face to face from God. For the woman having heard of the command from Adam, was lightly disposed towards it, either as not being counted worthy that God should speak to her too, or even as doubting, haply supposing that the commandment was given her by Adam from his own self. The serpent found her apart by herself that he might be able to commune with her privately. And seeing her eating of the trees or not eating, he obtained her eating of the tree. And if eating, it is clear that it was as being in a body subject to decay: for all that entereth into the mouth passeth into the draught.³ If then subject to decay, clearly also mortal. If mortal, no longer was that voice of God a curse or a sentence which saith to the man,⁴ Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return, as the truth of facts is. But if again the serpent looked on the woman not eating, how did he bring over to the taking of food her that had never eaten? And who was it who told this murderous miscreant serpent that the sentence of God upon them of death would not come to pass, of God who said,⁵ In the day that ye eat ye shall surely die: and not only so but that along with the …⁶ the eyes also of them would be opened, which before saw not? with the said opening making an entry for death.