The First Bite

The rulers, high and far from where clay men can see, took counsel with one another and said:

"Come, let us cause a deep sleep to fall upon Adam. Let us cause Adam to fall upon a deep sleep."

And he slept as if the night was never changing, like black was the only color.

Now the deep sleep that they "caused to fall upon him," is Ignorance, for it is darkness without bursts of sound and night without stars.

They opened his side like a living woman. Like a living woman they opened his side and they built up his side with some flesh in place of her, in place of her they built up his side with flesh, and Adam came to be endowed only with soul.

And the spirit-endowed woman came to him and spoke softly with him, saying:

"Arise, Adam."

And when he saw her, he said:

"It is you who have given me life; you will be called, 'mother of the living,’ for it is she who is my mother. It is she who is the physician, and the woman, and she who has given birth."

Then the authorities came up to their Adam, the man they had created with mud and clay and breath. When they saw his female counterpart speaking with him, they became agitated with great bursts of heat that flowed through them, pulsing with desire that called itself anger. They became enamored of her, wishing themselves inside her, seeking a great hole in her flesh as they had done with Adam. They said to one another:

"Come, let us sow our seed in her!"

And they pursued her. Into madness and the abyss they pursued her, into the jungles of twisting vines that form the mind, through the labyrinth that they created. And she laughed at them for their witlessness and their blindness; and in their fierce clutches, in the dark pit where there was no light, she became a thick tree and left before them her shadowy reflection resembling herself; and they defiled it foully, filling its cavernous knots with warm seed. They defiled the stamp of her voice, so that by the form they had modeled, together with their own image, they made themselves liable to condemnation.

Then the female spiritual principle came in the snake from the tree which she had become in their clutches. The snake, red and black and shiny. The snake, the instructor, taught them, saying:

"What did he say to you? Was it, 'from every tree in the garden shall you eat; yet - from the tree of recognizing good and evil do not eat'?"

The carnal woman, said:

"Not only did he say 'do not eat', but even, 'do not touch it; for the day you eat from it, with death you are going to die.'"

And the snake, the instructor, said:

"With death you shall not die; for it was out of jealousy that he said this to you. Rather, your eyes shall open and you shall come to be like gods, recognizing evil and good."

And the female instructing principle was taken away from the snake, and she left it behind, merely a thing of the earth, one more shed skin.

And the carnal woman took from the tree and ate; biting past red skin into sweet white flesh, and she gave to her husband as well as herself.

And these beings that possessed only a soul, ate. And their imperfection became apparent in their lack of knowledge; and they recognized that they were naked of the spiritual element, that they were bare. They took fig leaves and bound them upon their loins, hiding their raw form.