אליגוריות החוקים, ספר ג כ״אAllegorical Interpretation of Genesis, Book III 21
א׳
1[65] “And the Lord God said to the serpent, ‘Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou from among all cattle and from among all the beasts of the earth. Upon thy breast and thy belly shalt thou go, and earth shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. He shall watch for thy head, and thou shalt watch for his heel” (Gen. 3:14 f.). For what reason does He curse the serpent without giving it the opportunity to defend itself, though elsewhere, as seems reasonable, He commands that “the two parties between whom the dispute is should stand forth” (Deut. 19:17) and that credit be not given to the one till the other be heard?
ב׳
2[66] Yet you see, no doubt, that He did not thus give credit to Adam, and prejudge the case against the woman, but gives her opportunity to defend herself, when He inquires “What is this that thou hast done?” (Gen. 3:13), and she acknowledges that she failed owing to the deception practised on her by subtle serpent-like pleasure. When, then, the woman said “the serpent beguiled me,” what was there to prevent His inquiring here too from the serpent, whether he beguiled her, instead of prejudging the case and pronouncing the curse without listening to any defence?
ג׳
3[67] We have to say, then, that sense-perception comes under the head neither of bad nor of good things, but is an intermediate thing common to a wise man and a fool, and when it finds itself in a fool it proves bad, when in a sensible man, good. Reasonably then, since it has no evil nature on its own account, but halts between good and evil, inclining to either side, it is not pronounced guilty till it has owned that it followed evil.
ד׳
4[68] But the serpent, pleasure, is bad of itself; and therefore it is not found at all in a good man, the bad man getting all the harm of it by himself. Quite appropriately therefore does God pronounce the curse without giving pleasure an opportunity of defending herself, since she has in her no seed from which virtue might spring, but is always and everywhere guilty and foul.