Genesis 3:5

Sin autem malum est generatio, in malo blasphemi dicant fuisse Dominum qui fuit particeps generationis, in malo Virginera quæ genuit. Hei mihi! quot et quanta mala! Dei voluntatera maledictis incessunt, et mysterium creationis, dum invehuntur in generationera. Et hinc “Docesin” fingit Cassianus; hinc etiam Marcioni, et Valentino quoque est corpus animale; quoniam homo, inquiunt, operam dans veneri, “assimilatus est jumentis.” Atqui profecto, cum libidine vere insaniens, aliena inire voluerit, tunc revera, qui talis est, efferatur: “Equi in feminas furentes facti sunt, unusquisque hinniebat ad uxorem proximi sui.” Quod si dicat serpentera, a brutis animantibus accepta consilii sui ratione, Adamo persuasisse ut cum Eva coire consentiret, tanquam alioqui, ut quidam existimant, protoplasti hac natura usuri non fuissent: rursus vituperatur creatio, ut quæ rationis expertium animantium natura …

But this circumstance, too, will be caught at, that Scripture meant to indicate of the heaven only, and this earth of yours, that God made it in the beginning, while nothing of the kind is said of the above-mentioned specific parts; and therefore that these, which are not described as having been made, appertain to unformed Matter. To this point also we must give an answer. Holy Scripture would be sufficiently explicit, if it had declared that the heaven and the earth, as the very highest works of creation, were made by God, possessing of course their own special appurtenances, which might be understood to be implied in these highest works themselves. Now the appurtenances of the heaven and the earth, made then in the beginning, were the darkness and the deep, and the spirit, and the waters. For the depth and the darkness underlay the earth. …

To these are added those heretics likewise who are called Ophites : for they magnify the serpent to such a degree, that they prefer him even to Christ Himself; for it was he, they say, who gave us the origin of the knowledge of good and of evil. His power and majesty (they say) Moses perceiving, set up the brazen serpent; and whoever gazed upon him obtained health. Christ Himself (they say further) in His gospel imitates Moses’ serpent’s sacred power, in saying: “And as Moses upreared the serpent in the desert, so it behoveth the Son of man to be upreared.” Him they introduce to bless their eucharistic (elements). Now the whole parade and doctrine of this error flowed from the following source. They say that from the supreme primary Æon whom men speak of there emanated several other inferior Æons. To all these, however, there opposed himself an Æon who name is Ialdabaoth . …

Now let us hear what it is that he invites us to learn, that we may ascertain from him how we are to know God, although he thinks that his words are beyond the capacity of all Christians. “Let them hear,” says he, “if they are able to do so.” We have then to consider what the philosopher wishes us to hear from him. But instead of instructing us as he ought, he abuses us; and while he should have shown his goodwill to those whom he addresses at the outset of his discourse, he stigmatizes as “a cowardly race” men who would rather die than abjure Christianity even by a word, and who are ready to suffer every form of torture, or any kind of death. …

33. The judges said : He has given demonstration enough of the origin of the devil. And as both sides admit that there will be a judgment, it is necessarily involved in that admission that every individual is shown to have free-will; and since this is brought clearly out, there can be no doubt that every individual, in the exercise of his own proper power of will, may shape his course in whatever direction he pleases. Manes said : If (only) the good is from (your) God, as you allege, then you make Jesus Himself a liar. Archelaus said : In the first place, admit that the account of what we have adduced is true, and then I will give you proof about the “father of him.” Manes said : If you prove to me that his father is a liar, and yet show me that for all that you ascribe no such (evil) notion to God, then credit will be given you on all points. …

The devil, then, would not have ensnared man in the open and manifest sin of doing what God had forbidden, had man not already begun to live for himself. It was this that made him listen with pleasure to the words, “Ye shall be as gods,” which they would much more readily have accomplished by obediently adhering to their supreme and true end than by proudly living to themselves. For created gods are gods not by virtue of what is in themselves, but by a participation of the true God. By craving to be more, man becomes less; and by aspiring to be self-sufficing, he fell away from Him who truly suffices him. …

The soul, then, shall have an intellectual remembrance of its past ills; but, so far as regards sensible experience, they shall be quite forgotten. For a skillful physician knows, indeed, professionally almost all diseases; but experimentally he is ignorant of a great number which he himself has never suffered from. As, therefore, there are two ways of knowing evil things, one by mental insight, the other by sensible experience, for it is one thing to understand all vices by the wisdom of a cultivated mind, another to understand them by the foolishness of an abandoned life, so also there are two ways of forgetting evils. For a well-instructed and learned man forgets them one way, and he who has experimentally suffered from them forgets them another, the former by neglecting what he has learned, the latter by escaping what he has suffered. …

8. But as, when [both] the form and species of a body have perished, the will cannot recall to it the sense of perceiving; so, when the image which memory bears is blotted out by forgetfulness, the will will be unable to force back the eye of the mind by recollection, so as to be formed thereby. But because the mind has great power to imagine not only things forgotten, but also things that it never saw, or experienced, either by increasing, or diminishing, or changing, or compounding, after its pleasure, those which have not dropped out of its remembrance, it often imagines things to be such as either it knows they are not, or does not know that they are. And in this case we have to take care, lest it either speak falsely that it may deceive, or hold an opinion so as to be deceived. …

17. Let us now complete, so far as the Lord helps us, the discussion which we have undertaken, respecting that part of reason to which knowledge belongs, that is, the cognizance of things temporal and changeable, which is necessary for managing the affairs of this life. For as in the case of that visible wedlock of the two human beings who were made first, the serpent did not eat of the forbidden tree, but only persuaded them to eat of it; and the woman did not eat alone, but gave to her husband, and they eat together; although she alone spoke with the serpent, and she alone was led away by him: so also in the case of that hidden and secret kind of wedlock, which is transacted and discerned in a single human being, the carnal, or as I may say, since it is directed to the senses of the body, the sensuous movement of the soul, which is common to us with beasts, is shut off from the reason …

6. But as “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,” the same Wisdom which was begotten of God condescended also to be created among men. There is a reference to this in the word, “The Lord created me in the beginning of His ways.” For the beginning of His ways is the Head of the Church, which is Christ endued with human nature ( homine indutus ), by whom it was purposed that there should be given to us a pattern of living, that is, a sure way by which we might reach God. …

“But how,” asks he, “shall we separate pride itself from sin?” Now, why does he raise such a question, when it is manifest that even pride itself is a sin? “To sin,” says he, “is quite as much to be proud, as to be proud is to sin; for only ask what every sin is, and see whether you can find any sin without the designation of pride.” Then he thus pursues this opinion, and endeavours to prove it thus: “Every sin,” says he, “if I mistake not, is a contempt of God, and every contempt of God is pride. For what is so proud as to despise God? All sin, then, is also pride, even as Scripture says, Pride is the beginning of all sin.” Let him seek diligently, and he will find in the law that the sin of pride is quite distinguished from all other sins. …

When the first man transgressed the law of God, he began to have another law in his members which was repugnant to the law of his mind, and he felt the evil of his own disobedience when he experienced in the disobedience of his flesh a most righteous retribution recoiling on himself. Such, then, was “the opening of his eyes” which the serpent had promised him in his temptation, the knowledge, in fact, of something which he had better been ignorant of. Then, indeed, did man perceive within himself what he had done; then did he distinguish evil from good, not by avoiding it, but by enduring it. For it certainly was not just that obedience should be rendered by his servant, that is, his body, to him, who had not obeyed his own Lord. …