על בריאת העולם נ״הOn the Account of the World's Creation 55
א׳
1[155] Having set up these standards in the soul, He watched, as a judge might, to see to which it would tend. And when He saw it inclining to wickedness, and making light of holiness and godly fear, out of which comes the winning of immortal life, He cast it forth, as we might expect, and drove it from the pleasaunce, giving the soul which committed offences that defy the healer’s skill, no hope of a subsequent return, inasmuch as the reason given for their deception was in a high degree blameworthy. This we must not leave unexplained.
ב׳
2[156] It is said that in olden time the venomous earthborn crawling thing could send forth a man’s voice, and that one day it approached the wife of the first man and upbraided her for her irresoluteness and excessive scrupulosity in delaying and hesitating to pluck a fruit most beauteous to behold and most luscious to taste, and most useful into the bargain, since by its means she would have power to recognize things good and evil. It is said that she, without looking into the suggestion, prompted by a mind devoid of steadfastness and firm foundation, gave her consent and ate of the fruit, and gave some of it to her husband; this instantly brought them out of a state of simplicity and innocence into one of wickedness: whereat the Father in anger appointed for them the punishments that were fitting. For their conduct well merited wrath, inasmuch as they had passed by the tree of life immortal, the consummation of virtue, from which they could have gathered an existence long and happy. Yet they chose that fleeting and mortal existence which is not an existence but a period of time full of misery.