The Literal Meaning of Genesis (continued)
BOOK ELEVEN 161 moves to persuade subtly or acutely. For this power or facility certainly does not belong to the bodily member which we call the tongue but rather to the spirit which uses it. Similarly, we also say that the pens of certain writers lie, whereas in reality the ability to lie belongs only to living and thinking agents. But a pen is said to be lying when a liar tells his lies with it; and this would be the case if the serpent were called a liar because the Devil used it like a pen for his deceitful purpose.
37. I have thought it well to insist on this point lest anyone think that irrational beings have human intellects or that they are suddenly turned into rational animals. I should not like to see anyone seduced by that ridiculous and mischievous opinion about the transmigration of human souls into beasts or of bestial souls into humans.?' The serpent, therefore, spoke to the woman just as the ass spoke to Balaam as he sat on it,%8 the difference being that in the former case it was the work of the Devil, in the latter case the work of an angel. Good and bad angels perform certain actions that are similar, just as did Moses and the magicians of Pharaoh.?? But in these wondrous works the good angels are more powerful, and the bad angels are unable to do any of even these acts except for what God permits through the good angels, so that He may give to everyone according to the disposition of the heart or according to the grace of God. In both cases He acts with justice and goodness through the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God.!
CHAPTER 30
The exchange between the serpent and the woman.
38. Therefore, The serpent said to the woman: "Why did God say, 'You shall not eat of every tree in Paradise'?" And the woman said to the serpent: "We may eat of the fruit of trees that are in Paradise, but regarding the fruit of the tree in the middle of Paradise, God said: 'You shall not eat of it nor shall you touch it, lest you die.' "'°}
The serpent, then, first asked the question, and the woman replied, so that her transgression would be inexcusable, and no