"And I shall teach you (pl.)
what is the mystery of their life,
which is the plan which they made together,
which is the likeness of their spirit.
The root of this (tree) is bitter and its branches
are death, its shadow is hate
and deception is in its leaves,
and its blossom is the ointment of evil,
and its fruit is death and
desire is its seed, and
it sprouts in darkness. The
dwelling place of those who taste from it is
Hades, and the darkness is their place of rest.
"But what they call
the tree of knowledge of good and
evil, which is the Epinoia of the light,
they stayed in front of it in order that he (Adam) might not
look up to his fullness and
recognize the nakedness of his shamefulness.
But it was I who brought about that they ate."
And
to I said to the savior, "Lord, was it not the serpent
that taught Adam to eat?"
The savior smiled and said, "The serpent taught them
to eat from wickedness of begetting,
lust, (and) destruction, that he (Adam) might
be useful to him. And he (Adam) knew that he was
disobedient to him (the chief archon) due to light of the Epinoia
which is in him, which made him more correct in his
thinking than the chief archon. And (the latter)
wanted to bring about the power which he himself had given
him. And he brought a forgetfulness
over Adam."
And
I said to the savior, "What is
the forgetfulness?" And he said "It is not the way Moses
wrote (and) you heard. For he said in
his first book, 'He put him to sleep' [Gn 2:21], but
(it was) in his perception. For also he said through the
prophet, 'I will make their
hearts heavy, that they may not pay attention and may not
see' [Is 6:10]."
