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PATROLOGOS edutainment

Without doubt the protoplasts must have been taken by fear after the threat, that God made to them. And probably they must have taken the decision to not ever touch that forbidden tree, in which it was hidden one so terrible and deadly danger. 

But their obedience towards God was going after a while to be tested. Virtue without reactions and without obstacles does not have any great value. 

And when someone has the pretension of receiving in his possession the eternal goods of Heaven and the imperishable wreath of glory, first he must struggle and prove by the facts that he is worthy to inherit them. 

The protoplasts therefore it was fair but also necessary for their spiritual progress to be tested. And there comes satan therefore in order to put them to the test. 

He seeked that criminal to provoke agitation in heaven. And now he comes to drop the sperm of the sin and of the discord and of the misfortune also on earth. 

God had created him to be a good and luminous angel. He had lifted him to great glory and honor on the heaven. He had shown him the wealth of His benevolence and of His infinite love. 

But he to this love responded with enmity and to this benevolence with malice. In the midst of the holiness and the happiness of the heavenly world, he conceives thoughts and vicious plans and obscure. 

He nurtures arrogant feelings and he takes decisions for apostasy against God, he doesn't consent any more to obey to God. He doesn't tolerate His greatness and His sovereignty. He doesn't observe without envy and without malice His glory. 

He is seeking to place his throne above the throne of God! What darkness! What absurdity! What blindness! And he revolts therefore against God and he becomes a renegade. But at the same time he stands out as the first ever tempter. 

What it means evil, nobody knew it until that time. The man yet had not been created. And in heaven where the angels lived prevails the holiness and the blessing of the good. 

First that criminal invented it and first him undertook the task to propagate it. And thus he became the father and the source of the evil and the all-black tempter, who sought to expand and to disperse the state of evil. 

Because he immediately began to urge the angels to sympathize with his plan and turn themselves also against God, by following him. And he misled many. 

And all these eventually, who imitated satan, Lucifer, the first defector and transgressor, they finally resembled him to everything and they were thinking and they were feeling and they were acting invariably, as he was acting, feeling and thinking him also. 

But God was not possible to ever tolerate one such crime and one such revolt. 

First of all what fault did they have the other angels, the still good and luminous ones, to be continually disrupted and molested by these perverted and evil and restless spirits? 

The peace therefore of the good spirits, which, it was fair, for their obedience and their faith that they showed towards God to live in happiness, that peace therefore demanded the wheat to be separated from the chaff; the good ones to be separated from the wicked, the placid from the mischievous. 

Furthermore the justice of God demanded to be punished the guilty and the wrongdoers. And who were the guilty and the wrongdoers in the present case? 

Of course the good God was not guilty. Because He created the renegade angels too as luminous and benevolent. He showed them too the same love, that He showed to the others, who remained faithful. 

Especially towards Lucifer He had showed excessive goodness, because to him He had particularly given greater glory than the others and He had lifted him in position and in a responsibility higher than many others. 

Who therefore were the guilty ones? These cunning spirits, which, while God had created them to be good and virtuous, they distorted by themselves their volitions, because they made bad usage of their freedom and by themselves they became from good, that they were, perverted and cunning. 

Therefore, in accordance with all justice God punishes them. And as first punishment He removes from them the holiness and the grace, with which He had previously endowed them, 

and then He also precipitates them from the heights of heaven condemning them to eternal sorrow and torment, which will be executed with exactness at the proper time, that is, during the second presence of the Lord, when the Lord will come in all His glory, to judge the living and the dead and give back to each one according to his deeds. 

He enters therefore into the Paradise of pleasure the sly demon. It's not enough for him that he seduced to defection so many angels. He wants to seduce the man too. He cannot tolerate the grandeur and the glory, for which God predestined the man. 

Without taking anything away from him, he envies us; And without wrongdoing him in anything, he hates us and he conspires against us. 

Why does he allegedly have so much malice? Once he got devoid of God's grace, he became all evil and he thinks and understands and always wants, the evil. 

And if, when he was good, he did bad use of his freedom and he became sly and renegade, how much more it grew to the utmost degree his wickedness, when he got stripped of every grace of God and got precipitated down from heaven? 

And he enters therefore in the garden of Eden in order to harm us. 

But what then? God doesn't see him? His enemy enters in there with evil intentions and homicidals. Why doesn't He rise to call them off? And why does He allow the tempter satan to tempt the creature of His hands? 

My reader, neither you, nor me, nor anybody else is justified to express any doubt for the benevolence of God. 

It is so great the love, which He demonstrated and continues to demonstrate towards us, so that only blind and fools and insane we must be, in order to accept even for a few moments the blasphemous thought, that God did not do well, when he allowed to satan to tempt us. 

Man, what are you saying? And what else didn't God do well, in order not to do well this too, about which it is born in your mind this question? 

Which action of God is not based on His justice and on His benevolence, for you to be justified to accuse Him, that here, in the temptation of the protoplasts He was shown unfair, indifferent and tough? 

Everything that God did He did out of benevolence, out of wisdom, out of justice. And this therefore, that He allowed satan to tempt the protoplasts, out of justice and out of wisdom and out of benevolence He allowed it. 

And in order to understand this well, my dear reader, you must not forget, that God if on one hand He was seeing satan entering in Paradise and deceiving Eve and through her afterwards also Adam, He was seeing nevertheless on the other hand that one day also that same satan would be misled by the Son of the Virgin, Who would come to heal the wound and the pain of Adam and in general of the mankind. 

Of course God could see that satan was going, in the form of a serpent, to cause a great catastrophe. But at the same time he was seeing also that His only begotten Son in the form of a slave was going to come in order to rectify this catastrophe and in order to uplift the man even higher, but what are we saying? incomparably and incalculably higher than what he was before satan would make him fall. 

And thus the man in the end not only would not come out damaged by this intrigue of satan, but on the contrary he would gain much more. 

He would toil of course and he would work hard and he would hurt and he would be depressed and he would cry more now the man. But he would also be lifted now through Christ much more, because he would become body of Christ, brother of Christ, son of God, heir together with Christ. 

After all I ask you, my brother, in what would Adam benefit and his descendants, if satan would not have tempted them? They would have received without sadness and without danger the glory of heaven, you might tell me. 

But this is fallacy. Because wouldn't it be, similarly, a consequent to also fall from his height the man as Lucifer fell? 

Within the glory of heaven wasn't he? Who forced him or who motivated him to revolt against God? Nobody, absolutely nobody. 

Likewise, the man also, if without temptation and without effort would win the heaven, it would be possible to fall from there and then, alas! Alas! because then there wouldn't be no hope of rectification for him. 

The more high up someone falls from, the more his catastrophe is bigger and the more his crushing is more terrifying and more pernicious. 

While now, although he did cheated us indeed that criminal and we have sinned, nevertheless we haven't been perverted and we haven't been corrupted like him. 

And with the mercy which has dispersed the sacrifice of Christ, we fight, we strive against sin, we are tyrannized and we moan under its blows, but every step that we gain, it remains safe benefit to us. 

Now for all those who conquest the heaven, there is no fear anymore to lose it. The test, that they have passed down here, has solidified their will, has made them to disgust and to hate forever the sin and to stick forever on Christ. 

And all those who won't conquest the heaven, even if we suppose that the protoplasts were not tempted and had not sinned, and consequently if we suppose that they would also enter into heaven, again they would fall afterwards, as Lucifer fell. Therefore them also they don't lose anything and they are not wronged by any means. 

Truly, oh Lord, in wisdom and justice and love you have made everything for us! Let it be blessed your Name and let it be blessed your Kingdom». 

Satan entering in Paradise does not present himself with the form and with the aspect of his own. Cunning and evil, as he is, he understands that he would never succeed his purpose, if he showed himself with the terrible and horrible view of his as a cunning spirit, perverted and disgusting that he is. 

What is he doing then? He presents himself with another form, the form of the serpent. How did this thing happen, it does not describe to us with detail the Holy Bible. 

Or he entered inside some serpent satan and that serpent became his instrument and he directed it where and how he wanted; or that same satan himself he transformed, that is, he changed form and aspect and presented himself as serpent. 

Both the first and the second was not difficult to happen, provided that God would allow it. 

If inside a human organism satan can enter and if a rational and free being, as is the man, satan can after concession by God to occupy it and to seize its volition and to direct its tongue in order for it to talk according to his dictation, the same way this is happening to the demonized people, much more he could enter in a serpent, which is not an image of God, but a lower creature. 

And if, as the divine Paul tells us, that even to an angel of light the devil can be transformed, why wouldn't he be able to receive also the form of a serpent? 

One question however can be born. And this question is the following: Why would the devil receive the form of a serpent and not prefer the form of any other animal or fowl? 

The reader friend must well commemorate this, that the Holy Bible says about the serpent. What does it say? «Now the serpent was the most subtle that all the other beasts that are on the earth». 

You hear serpent, my reader, and you become overwhelmed by certain horror. And by this, that you feel now, this question is born to your mind, about which we are talking about. 

However, take under consideration, that this feeling of horror and of terror, that we feel for the serpent, has entered in the heart of man since the time of the transgression and afterwards. That is, when God cursed the serpent, as we shall see subsequently. 

Before that, namely, before the serpent became an instrument of satan for the protoplasts to be deceived, to Adam and to Eve the serpent was not making a bad impression. Not only was it prudent, but very prudent. It couldn't be found any other beast so prudent, so smart, so cunning, as was the serpent. 

Eve was seeing it every day. She had seen it many times to roll in the grass, to play many times with her, to crawl with great flexibility with admirable velocity. She was therefore used to it. 

And it must have given to her a great impression its caution to the various dangers, where even up until today it protects with great dexterity its head and with the velocity of a lightning like a fast bullet and hissing escapes death. 

But even its craftiness, with which it outsmarted and still outsmarts till today the fowls and the small animals, in order to grab them and satisfy its hunger with their flesh, this also would not have attracted less the attention of Eve. 

As for the poison, which the serpent was carrying in its mouth and under its teeth, Eve was not afraid of it. 

Because provided that the protoplasts remained close to God and they had not violated His commandment, the snake would have never been able to use its poison against them, but neither it could harm them this poison. It was biting and killing the small birds and animals, but it would never have dared to byte the man, and neither would have been able to harm him. 

When satan therefore would speak afterwards as a snake towards Eve, there existed no reason for her to be scared and afraid, but on the contrary, because she considered the serpent as the most prudent among all the beasts, it was reasonable to pay attention to it more than she would pay attention to the voice of any other beast or other animal. 

But besides that, my reader, when God allowed satan as serpent to enter in the Paradise, there also existed some other very important reason, for which He allowed it. And that reason is that no other beast would not be suitable more vividly to illustrate afterwards to us, the children of Adam, the mortal and wicked enemy of ours, namely, the devil, as the serpent. 

Yes; it is a vivid image of the devil the serpent; and with the poison, which it hides in the mouth, it reminds us the deceptive lies and the fraudulent and sophistic schemes, which as another poison, that criminal is using in order to poison the souls and transmit to them the eternal death. 

With the same and incomparably greater insidiousness the devil sneaks and enters in the hearts of the careless people, as a cunning and crafty snake and pours in there the freezing cold and the bleakness of the psychic death, frosted and spiritually dead as he is also, and as cold is the serpent too. 

The satan entered in the serpent. Where he was similar and where it was suitable for him to enter. In the serpent, which from the beginning God made it this way, in order to illustrate to all of us the descendants of Adam the criminal devil. 

Satan is lurking therefore under the form of a serpent or hidden inside a serpent and is looking for the suitable opportunity in order to attempt his temptation. And the opportunity finally is given. He encounters Eve being alone, without being accompanied by her husband, near the tree of the prohibition. 

The opportunity is not small. Eve as a woman that she was she was a weaker creature. Of course, she didn't have any of the defects, which weigh down the women of today. Provided that she had come out from the hands of God, she was good and very benign. 

Nevertheless, Adam always had better judgment and more powerful will compared to his wife. As a man, that he was, as head and governor of his wife, he had been endowed with talents administrative and governmentals that were richer that those of Eve. 

This doesn't mean that Eve was some creature infantile and silly. As a creature of God she also was endowed with intelligence and innocence. But in any case Eve could not reach Adam regarding the virility and the magnificence. 

And for this reason satan is directed towards the woman and intends to deceive her first as being weaker and afterwards to use her as an instrument in order to deceive Adam as well. 

Ain't it true that also with Job afterwards, he did it in the exact same manner? After satan seduced the wife of Job to fall in the impatience and in the complaining against God, he afterwards uses her as his instrument in order to tempt Job too. 

And Job therefore is exhorted and is forced by his wife, to blaspheme against God. Him however, knowing the magnitude of the sin, he didn't obey, but on the contrary he scolded his wife for the injudiciousness which she showed. 

Oh Lord, Lord; protect us from the temptations and from the traps, which the devil through people similar to us and many times people in our own family sets up for us. Also, Lord, we implore you, do not ever allow that we also become instruments of that criminal, in order to tempt and harm any other person. 

But also the fact that he is lurking to find Eve alone, completely alone is not an accidental thing and unworthy of attention. If Adam was near there and if he was as well listening the tempting words, certainly Eve would not have dared so easily to eat the forbidden fruit. 

That solitude was disastrous. It made Eve even weaker and easier into getting carried away. Truly, «brother supported by brother they stand like a fortified city». Like a fortress, that is very hard to conquest, becomes the man, when he has near him also someone else, some virtuous man who fears God, with whom they can help each other and support each other and one to urge the other in the fight against evil. 

For this, my brother, search to find other Christians as well, who work sincerely and in God's fear for the salvation of their souls, and establish relations with them and never separate from near them. 

That relationship of yours, that will be established in the name and for the glory of the Lord, will make you more powerful against satan, who, do not forget has as his tactic to encounter alone the lambs of Christ, in order to devour them one by one easier. 

But even there where the serpent meets Eve is a very suitable place in order to succeed its purpose. As it appears from the complete narration, which is giving to us regarding this temptation the Holy Bible, the words that the serpent said to Eve, it said them next to the forbidden tree. Therefore, near there the serpent met Eve. 

Ah! Eve, what need do you have to come near to the fire? Why don't you leave away from the danger? Why do you pass near by the forbidden tree? Why doesn't it give to you fear and terror even by seeing it? Ah! Eve. That fearlessness of yours what great harm has made both to you and to us! 

At least, my brother, let us receive from the terrible misfortune of Eve the lifesaving lesson, of how to escape from the occasions and the causes of sin. 

Eve passed by near the forbidden tree and immediately satan tempted her. 

You pass by or I do or anyone else from the cause, that can make us sin, or you let your eyes free to watch the sin, or you don't close your ears when they are heard canning and blasphemous words, and certainly then you fall in temptation. What will come out from this temptation I don't know. But I know, that under it Hades is hidden and the eternal fire of hell. 

The serpent begins to talk to Eve. You consider it impossible, my dear reader, that a serpent talks? 

It is not difficult at all. And in order to understand it, I ask you; what would you say, if he would assure you some trustworthy person, that in a desert, or from the depth of a cave or from a wall a voice was heard, without being there no one person, who would talk? 

Certainly exceptional you would characterize the fact, truly marvelous, but not impossible. Some supernatural cause, you would say, some bodiless spirit, some angel or even some cunning spirit has created this voice. 

Eh! well then, that spirit is able to produce a voice and a speech from the depth of a wall or a cave and is not able this speech to produce it at the depth of a serpent? 

Isn't it able to speak this spirit and to make it seem, that its voice comes out from the mouth of the serpent? 

A parrot can mimic the speech of the man and to speak to you like a man. And the devil would not be able to talk using as instrument the tongue and the mouth of a snake? 

But let us see how it speaks and what it says the serpent. It speaks with great hypocrisy, deceitfulness and slyness. In the beginning it asks Eve shyly-shyly and it tells her: Is it true that God said you not to eat from every tree, that exist in Paradise? 

This question seems innocent and naive, but deep down it encloses great slyness. What did it want and what was it looking for the cunning snake to achieve with this question? It wanted to carry Eve away into discussion and slowly-slowly to puss her towards evil, without her even understanding it. 

And certainly if suddenly it would tell her what, it said to her at the end, that is, if it had said to her immediately and directly: «what God told you is not correct. Eat from the forbidden fruit and you will immediately become gods», Eve would leave at once, without entering in any discussion with the serpent. 

And pay attention now to the cunningness of satan. He distorts the commandment of God. He doesn't say: «Is it true therefore? While God permitted you from all the other trees to eat, He forbade you to eat from this only?». 

If he would speak to Eve in this way, he would remind her the authority that God gave to the protoplasts to eat from all the trees. And then the prohibition would not seem heavy and great. 

But, what does he say? «Don't you have, therefore, the right to eat from every tree of Paradise?» As if he would tell her: Therefore you are not lords and rulers in here, since you do not have the authority to eat of everything. 

In other words he is trying to exaggerate the prohibition and to represent it as oppressive and harmful and to put aside as insignificant and unworthy of mentioning the right, that they had to eat from all the other trees. 

Ah! criminal, the same you are doing until today. How many times you secretly come and with the thoughts, that you throw on us, you represent as impossible to us our salvation, as unachievable the achievement of virtue, as burdensome the yoke of the Lord. 

And you try with all that to paralyse our strengths, to force us to drop the weapons of the spiritual battle and to surrender our will to the sin, to surrender it to you. 

«Is it true that God said, not to eat from every fruit of the paradise?», says the sly one to Eve. Pay attention even more to this question, my reader. You can see with how much art the serpent directs it in order to throw some doubt to Eve, regarding the commandment of God? 

«What?». Is it true then? Could it be that you misunderstood? Could it be that you didn't comprehend? How is it possible God to have given to you one such commandment? Alas if God told you this. It is not possible that He has told you this. How is it possible that He has told you this? 

He is seeking to unsettle Eve. In a moment that she believes, that the commandment of God is absolutely fair and must be absolutely respected, comes he and tries to instill in her another conviction. What conviction? «Let us see, is it really, I wonder, as God says it is?». This meaning it has the tone of the question of the serpent. 

And Eve responds to him. Instead of leaving immediately, she stands there and argues. By that question, by the doubt that this question enclosed, she could have understood, that it was not good the intention of the serpent, which was asking her. Her curiosity and her surprise however, because she was seeing a snake to talk to her, makes her stay. 

Eve takes courage. And exactly for this reason she gets captured in the trap. She considers it harmless to discuss with a serpent, which obviously with the question, that it made to her, it was demonstrating distrust towards the Creator and interest for Eve. 

And exactly because she considers it harmless, she falls not only in the danger, but even also into death. She begins to argue. Although it was easy for her to leave y yendo to get saved. 

How many times the same occurs to us too, my reader, in exactly the same way! We trust ourselves too much. We don't have terror and fear. We play with the serpent of sin and we contemplate the fire of the bad desire. 

Instead of immediately driving out and without wasting time the thought of sin, we fearlessly sit down and we argue with it. And in the end, without realizing it, we find ourselves bitten by the cursed serpent and thousand times burned by that terrible fire. Oh Lord, Lord; keep us safe and protect us. 

What does she reply and what does Eva responds to this question of the serpent? 

After it said the serpent to Eve, about «what God had commanded...», Eve replied. «From the fruits of the trees in paradise we can eat. But from the fruit of the tree, that is in the centre of paradise, God said, do not eat from it, and do not even touch it, in order not to die». 

No, it's not true, the way you say it, Eve replies. God gave us the right from the fruits of all trees, that exist in Paradise, to eat. And only from the tree of the knowledge, that is in the middle od Paradise, from this tree only God has forbiden us to eat, and to not even touch it, in order not to die. 

Eve therefore well understood, what the snake was telling her. And she responds well. Nevertheless her last words show her somewhat not so steady regarding the realization of the threat of God. 

Because while in the beginning she vividly proclaims, that it is forbidden not only to eat from it, but also even to touch it the tree of the knowledge, when she comes to the threat, that God made to them, she expresses herself with some relaxation and tepidity. She doesn't say, exactly what God said to them, but simply, «in order not to die». 

While God had told them explicitly and definitely, «for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die», Eve as if it remains in her some empty space and some hesitation in the depth of her soul, she doesn't repeat these same words of God, but as if with some indifference she adds the phrase «in order not to die». 

And the cunning serpent immediately perceives this weakness of Eve regarding the realization of God's commandment. And the cunning directs his entire attack towards this weak point. 

«You will certainly not die», he immediately responds to Eve. He doesn't simply say to her «You will not die». He emphasises vividly to her that «You will certainly not die». 

Oh! my brother. A small yieldingness if he meets in our soul the criminal one, he falls upon us like a hungry wolf. 

He is cunning. He is sly. He distinguishes immediately the inclination to the weakness of the soul and there he directs his entire attack. From there he starts his battle. And the more we give him hearing, the more he becomes bolder and more shameless. 

He proceeds timidly-timidly in the beginning and then he fully attacks us unstoppable and violent and rough. For this reason do not open him the door from the beginning, my dear Christian. Right from the beginning as soon as he whispers some sinful thought in your mind chase him away with determination, without wasting time and without any discussion. 

«You will certainly not die». What a liar! As if he had not died himself the eternal death in hell because of his disobedience and for his apostasy away from God. 

As if he had not lost the blessedness and the glory, which God had given to him. As if he didn't know, how bad and how disastrous thing is when someone disobeys to God. 

And yet, can't you see how much shameless and how much insolent he is? He dares to assure Eve, that she will not die, if she eats from the forbidden fruit. 

Ah! the same thing he is going to us too, my dear reader. He hides the terrible consequences that it can have a bad act of ours. He tricks us, he deceives us, he obscures us. 

And when at the end our act has been committed, then we can see the chaos and the catastrophe, in which we have been lured. And how many afterwards like Judas are directed to the suicide, like him, obscured by the despair and dizzy by the hopelessness! 

«You will certainly not die». And about what God said? Oh! this is a lie, he says towards Eve that chief liar the devil. He defames therefore and he slanders God. God, Who is the truth, is being presented by the cunning serpent as a liar. 

Where does it end the shamelessness and the insolence of the devil! But why are we surprised and why do we wonder, my reader? Perhaps also until today doesn't he come in the depths of our souls and doesn't he submit to us horrific thoughts of blasphemy, through which it is reviled the greatness of the Highest? 

And many times we believe, that these thoughts we are producing by ourselves and we become upset because of this, and we get stressed, and we despair, because we dare such things to think and contemplate. 

My brother, in such occasion don't get agitated. These thoughts are not yours. Someone else is whispering them and someone else is guilty and responsible for them. And that other is satan. 

You have only one on the present matter responsibility; to despise and to be indifferent towards these thoughts. What will he finally do that criminal? When he is convinced, that he won't achieve anything with these thoughts either, he will get bored and he will leave you in peace. 

After the first retreat of Eve the serpent became more presumptuous and more impudent. And he doesn't only lies shamelessly, but he also speaks out in that place of delight a blasphemous and unholy calumny. 

For the first time then it was scattered in the undefiled and pure atmosphere of the earth the poison of the sin of calumny, that was going so many hearts to contaminate. And it's the devil who scatters it. 

Oh! since then until today how many mouths of Adam's descendants are being converted to lethal graves of the reputation and of the honor of the neighbour! 

How many tongues become double-edged knives in order to assassinate morally the neighbour through the calumny and in order to attribute accusations and liabilities, for which he is totally outsider and innocent! 

How many innocent doves, how many innocent people have been represented as crows and how many lambs, how many benevolent beings have been slaughtered as if they were wolves! 

Ah! you, who do not hesitate to knit the snares of calumny; you, who have the lack of conscience to invent and to produce lies against your neighbor, can't you see, of whom the example you follow and of whom you become an imitator? 

In your mouth stands he, who uttered and invented the very first of the calumny sin, and he directs your tongue and he moves your lips to lawlessness. 

Aren't you afraid? Aren't you ashamed? Don't you daunt? Ah! this is the devil, of whom the systematic work is to assassinate the souls of the humans. 

Alas! He converts your tongue in a lethal weapon, with which you don't only hurt the reputation of your neighbor, but you also assassinate your own soul. 

Because the heavy, for this terrible sin, disgrace who will sustain it? And the great responsibility for this crime by whom is going to be requested? By your miserable soul, my Christian. 

And he defames and he slanders de devil at whom? God! He adds, therefore, to the crime of the calumny also the crime of blasphemy. Because this calumny, which he acts against God, is also an insult against the benevolence and the holiness of God, that is, a blasphemy. 

Therefore from your mouth then, oh criminal, he heard it from the very beginning both the blasphemy, the man, and from you he has been taught how to show himself irrespectful towards the holy and glorious name of God defaming and disparaging it. 

You have accustomed us to revile our benefactor and to despise our Lord and our Ruler. From you we have heard it and from you we have learned it. 

And without gaining or enjoying anything by this sin, we become, even from the irrational animals more irrational and more insensible, for insignificant reasons and for vulgar interests, and also many times for no reason and without any cause turning against Him, Who in everything and always is acting for our benefit. 

Ah! Eve. Why did you open your ears at that moment to receive of that horrible slander and of that terrible blasphemy the sound? 

From your ears it entered in the depths of your soul and of your heart, and because your will did not reject it but it seemed hesitant as if it had accepted it, that sound has deeply sticked like the mark of a burning branding iron, which burns the object, with which is it being marked, and engraves forever its mark on it. 

And now your children, oh Eve, look, how easily they get carried away to the irrational sin of blasphemy and most disrespectful one and how pleasant and alleviative it seem to them during their sinful furor of the blasphemy the awful sound. 

Oh Lord, Lord; cleanse our hearts from our ancestral sin and it's stinky dirt and make happen that our tongues always bless and glorify your priceless Name. 

And what calumny is he carrying out against God? Pay attention, my reader, and you will realize without any difficulty the excessive magnitude of the injustice, which through his falsehood he dares against the divine Magnificence. 

No, he says, you shall not die if you eat from this forbidden tree. And if God has told you not to eat and He has assured you that you shall die, when you eat from the fruits of this tree, this should not seem a contradiction to you and cause confusion in you. 

God knew well, that the day, in which you shall eat from this fruit, your eyes will open and you will also become similars to Him, «like God» you too «conociendo good and evil». 

No, God didn't do it out of goodness to forbid you to eat from this fruit. He didn't do it in order to guarantee for you a blissful and happy life, as he made you believe with the words that he told you. He did it, because he wanted to remain closed your eyes. Because when your eyes open, then you will also become like him. 

This, my reader, is the meaning of the words, which the serpent told to Eve. They are terrible words and they are horrible these words, my brother. 

Why? Because with them the serpent seeks to represent the benevolent God as sinister and selfish and malicious being. He seeks to attribute to the infinite God slyness and wickedness, which only to crooked and corrupt creatures they can be found. 

According to these slanderous words, the devil defames and slanders God and pretends that God did not create out of benevolence the man. And that God neither cares for the prosperity and the happiness of the man. 

On the contrary, says the devil, that God wants the man to be with his eyes shut, submerged into the darkness of ignorance, out of fear lest he should become God himself too and rise his head against his Moulder and Creator. 

He reviles, therefore, the serpent towards God and blasphemes primarily against His benevolence, and then also against His infinite power. 

He represents him as envious, as selfish, as some tyrannical dictator, but at the same time also as some weak lord, who considers as a decrease of his prestige and of his power the progressing and the exaltation of his subjects. 

God, says the devil, does not want us to become gods. Why? On the one hand because he envies our happiness, and on the other hand because he wants to always keep us in an inferior place. 

As if we were going to deduct something from His Omnipotency and His infinitite power. As if we were capable, us, his creatures, to really raise our head and to harm Hia infinite Greatness! These slandering things speaks the serpent towards Eve. 

Eve listens to the serpent uttering such words and she doesn't bounce out of horror. The serpent insults her God, Who created her and so much He had benefited her, and she, not only she remains apathetic, but she also pays attention at these slandering words. 

For the first time the serpent talks to her. She doesn't know no kindness and no benevolence from the serpent. It is unknown to her and totally foreigner the serpent. And yet she believes to the words of the serpent and she mistrusts God, Who is no foreigner nor unknown to her, but He had shown to her repeatedly His benevolence and His love. 

If he would come, an unknown man, who for the first time speaks to you, and he insulted your beloved father and he presented to you, that this father of yours, whose the affection and the love you have experimented many times and you have felt, that this father wishes and seeks your destruction and your unhappiness, what would you do? 

The least that you would do would be, that with deep and great contempt, and if not also with unbridled anger and indignation, you would hear the words of this man. 

This way should Eve also receive the fraudulent and deceitful words of the serpent. But she listens to them, she pays attention to them, she admits them. 

And thus the sin had already started its function in the heart of Eve. The serpent sows the seed of evil and the heart of Eve does not reject it. And thus the awful and disastrous sowing took place. Would it be a paradox now, if the fruition starts? 

«And then the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired to make one wise». 

So many times you have passed by, Eve, near that tree of disobedience. Perhaps you don't see for the first time its fruits. But for the first time however so much these fruits attract your attention. For the first time one such curiosity for these fruits like unbearable fire ignites in your heart. 

For the first time you are so much captured and it's so much fascinated your desire by these fruits, so that they seem to you very nice and you imagine, that they are sweeter and tastier that any other fruit. 

For the first time, yes. Because all other times you previously had passed by this tree, your heart had not yet been infected. It was pure. While now, you yielded to the words of the serpent, you paid attention to them and it enters therefore for this reason, inside of you the seed of sin, the seed of transgression. 

Ah! us the afflicted descendants of Eve. How much scrutiny we must have for our reflections and for our thoughts! 

From the beginning, right away when the evil starts and enters in your soul, right away when the very first reflection of sin enters in your mind, be careful, my brother, to drive it out without wasting time. 

If you give in, you will fall just like Eve. You will see the tree of transgression and it will attract you. It will be presented to you the fruit of disobedience and you will not be able to detach it from you. Sin will drag you, as it has dragged Eve. 

Eve looks at the tree. She observes its fruits. She examines them. And what does she see? Now she doesn't see nothing different in this tree of disobedience than in the other trees. 

As the other trees in Paradise were «pleasant to the sight and good for food», likewise this tree as well, from which the serpent motivates her to eat, it doesn't demonstrate nothing harmful, nothing lethal. It is also «good for food». 

And she continues observing it. And the more she examines it the more she is fascinated by it. The more her eyes are fixed upon the forbidden fruit, the more her heart is captured and her volition. 

In the beginning this fruit seem to her «good for food». That is, a fruit, similar to the others that they were eating from the trees that were not forbidden. After a while this fruit seem to her «pleasant to the eyes». It brings her pleasure to see it and to observe it. And right away it also seem to her «desired to make one wise». 

The more the time passes with her looking at it, the more exceptional that fruit seem to her; the more she desires it and she imagines that its taste will be even more exceptional than the taste she was experiencing when eating other fruits. 

And therefore they turn her eyes into small windows, through which the poison of sin enters and is poured plentiful into the heart of Eve. And the more they remain open these windows, the more abundant the poison is poured in the heart of Eve. 

Why don't you better close your eyes, Eve, so that they don't see the vanity and they don't contemplate the sin? Why don't you better take them out from their sockets and rather remain blind, than having them in order to be used as servants of the transgression and as drains and pipes, through which death will descend into your soul? 

There is still time. If you close your eyes, if you distant your footsteps, if you ask for the help of your Creator through prayer, if you resort to the companion of your life Adam and tell him what is happening to you, and ask him his guidance, there is still time to be saved and to pull through. 

Ah! alas. Eve observes, she continues to contemplate. This way ourselves also, my brother, many times we fall. We observe or just allow it enter in our mind an evil thought. What bad, we say, can happen to us, if we just watch, if we meditate something evil? 

Misguided us miserable we think, that one curious glimpse or a simple thought can stay without any aftermath, without any bad consequences. 

And yet. From the eye and its observation and from the reflection of the evil thought it ignites inside our heart of the bad desire the often inextinguishable fire. You contemplate or you ponder, and after a while you desire. 

And the more you let your eyes free to look and to examine, or your mind to think of the evil, the more your heart is igniting and your volition gets tied. And then you are being drugged like an irrational animal to the sin, as Eve was also dragged. 

Don't you see how the Bible describes the first transgression? Eve looked. She examined with her eyes first the fruit. And her heart within a while got tied and got captured. 

And since with her eyes's the insatiable glance her heart got tied, without any more hesitation and without the least difficulty, she extended her hands and «receiving from that fruit she ate». 

Eve extends her hand and cuts the forbidden fruit. No; it wasn't the serpent who cut it in order to offer it to her. She cut it herself, with her own hand. 

He didn't advance it into her mouth the devil in order to oblige her her wanting or not to eat it. She brought it by herself, with her own hand, without anyone forcing her. 

No; he doesn't have any authority the devil to force the free volition creature of God. He just gave a deceitful and disastrous advice. He just did an evil urge. Nothing more than that. In the power of Eve it was for her to listen but also for her not to listen to this advice. 

It was up to her own free will to cut but also not to cut that forbidden fruit. If therefore she would cut it, as she finally did cut it, she would have no justification to accuse anyone else but only herself. Neither God would be to blame, for setting the prohibition in order to put her free will under test for the purpose of being educated, morally and spiritually, Eve. 

But neither the serpent, the devil, would be to blame, which, it's true he did urge her and he advised her to perform the evil act, but he did not force her to it nor through violence he dragged her hand in order to cut the fruit of disobedience. Her head would be to blame, which paid more attention to the words of the cunning snake than to the words of the benevolent God. 

My Christian brother, exactly the same is being repeated also to us. In the path of our life we encounter many trees, of which the fruits we must not eat. 

That is they are presented to us thousand circumstances, where the desire drags us and attracts us to the pleasure of sin and to experience the tempting but also fatal fruit of it. 

And we extend, as Eve also did once, our hand, us too, and we take the fruit of sin and we bring it to our lips in order to savor its poisonous honey. 

We do this by ourselves. Without anyone binding us. Without anyone forcing us. By ourselves and because we want it. By ourselves and because we decide it, we carry out the sin. 

Ah no; the devil does not have no authority over us, my Christian. This you must understand it well. He might urge us to the transgression, but he doesn't drag us to it. 

He tempts us, yes; but the temptation, in which he subjects us, is not superior than our strengths. We can repel it and it depends on us to avoid it. If we get defeated, we want to get defeated and for this we get defeated. If we fall, we want to fall and for this we fall. 

Look at Eve. She eats, because she decided to eat. She eats because she wants to eat. And she extends on her own, without anyone dragging it for her, her sinful hand. And she brings it on her own into her contaminated mouth the fruit of transgression. 

When Eve stood to listen to the serpent, the Cunning one, certainly she could never imagine, that she would transgress the commandment of God. And when afterwards she was standing and examined the fruit, maybe it wouldn't pass by her mind, that she would end up eating it. 

Even when, she extended her hand in order to cut it, not even by then she had not yet made her full decision to savor that fruit of the sin. Slowly slowly, with small steps she reached at the end of cliff and she slipped in it. 

In the beginning she stood to listen to the serpent. She only seemed concessive. But when she heard him to slander and to blaspheme the benevolence of her Creator, she appeared too loose. And she sat afterwards to examine the tree and its fruits. 

Observe, my reader, how slightly, slightly Eve began to slip and how, without even understanding it, because she was careless, she was suddenly found amidst the flames. Likewise ourselves too, my brother, careless and unafraid we are dragged into actions deplorable and ignominious. 

At first glance, as soon as we see these acts, it seem to us, that it's impossible ourselves to fall in them. But the sin cannot be trusted, and nor can anyone to hold back, when he reaches the point of taking its downhill. 

And certainly we won't reach all of a sudden and with an abrupt leap in carrying out that infamous and dishonest act, which for the time being we detest and we abhor. 

But if we are not careful, it will silently take place inside our soul an invisible, but great fruition of the evil, which will have as its purpose to render mature the soul, so that it will say finally the yes also for that dishonest act. 

A fermentation will take place. The evil will enter into your soul initially as a thin thought. Did you give in? Have you appeared inattentive? Immediately begins the pernicious and disastrous fermentation. And your soul gets slowly-slowly vaccinated by the evil. 

And that thought like another type of germ begins to pour poison and to give birth to multitudes of other germs, multitudes of other thoughts, and interior commotions, until finally the time will come, when that accion the terrible one will change appearance for you. 

It seemed awful to you. But now it seems to you, that it's not that awful. After a while it will be presented to you bearable enough. And then it will seem to you likeable and nice. That is, it will happen to you, exactly what happened also to Eve. 

And this will happen to you, my brother, provided of course that you permit this happening to you. That is, provided that you remain inattentive and you yield to evil and you don't repel it. For this, drive it out, my Christian, from your soul with all your might. 

That thought the thin and imperceptible one which initially tries to penetrate at the depths of your heart in order to contaminate it, be careful, to drive it out immediately, without delay and without ambivalence. Immediately. 

It is poison, and its fumes will paralyse your volition. It hides death inside and if it enters in the depths of your heart, it is impossible not to scatter in there the decaying and the necrosis. 

Since Eve violated God's commandment and ate from the forbidden fruit, she then became instrument for Adam to sin too. Her mouth now becomes mouth of serpent for her husband. And it repeats her mouth to Adam the words, which a while before she had heard from the mouth of the serpent. 

Everything the snake had told her, she says it now herself as well to her husband Adam. And with all the patience that a while ago the serpent was trying to persuade her that in that fruit was not death that was hiding but life itself, with the same insistence herself now as well is seeking the same confirmation and the same conviction to transmit it to her husband. 

For how many men also today their women become true Eves, from the mouth of which they come out the advices of the cunning serpent! For how many men the mouth of their wife is the mouth of a serpent and of a criminal viper! 

That tongue, which seems dripping honey, how many times sweetly-sweetly pours in the ear of the husband the poison of calumny against the mother in law, against the brother-in-law, against the sister-in-law, against the relatives of the husband, in general! 

And how many times this mouth advices the vanity and the prodigal spending and the foolish showing off, which lead the households to the poverty and to the corruption! 

Eve persuades Adam as well. Was it out of love or for other motive? This is the issue. That her words would have the color of love, I have no doubt about it. 

That Eve must have spoken towards Adam with concern and with affection, it shows it to me the easiness, with which Adam accepts the fruit from the hands of his wife and he is eating it. 

But Eve is mainly experiencing now a feeling of cowardice and fear and by the urge of that feeling she runs towards Adam and she seeks to drift him to sin as well. 

This is the feeling of all the guilty. It is the cowardice that is being produced in the soul of the transgressor by the sin which he has committed. It is the fear of punishment for the transgression. 

Yes, it is true, that Eve had not yet realized the bitter consequences of her transgression. Yet she could see, that the act, which she had committed, was a violation of the commandment of the great God. She wanted therefore in the condition, that she was now, to not remain alone. 

She wanted to have as companion her husband, and together with him to enjoy the sweetness of the fruit and the knowledge, if indeed the fruit was for salvation, but also the calamity, which could come to them from that act of disobedience of them. 

Therefore, Eve was conscious, of what is today also conscious every sinner and transgressor. He also wants to have if possible the more companions in his actions, and he feels better, when he sees many others also to perform and to act the same, like him. 

And as Eve back then became professor of the evil to the innocent Adam, likewise the transgressors today feel great pleasure when they seduce the innocent and when they hand over to corruption the pure and undefiled souls. 

Eve, therefore, ate first and Adam afterwards. They ate the fruit the forbidden one. And for one fruit only, you might ask, they were judged as deserving of the eternal wrath of God? 

For one fruit only, which they ate, it was judged as deserving for an entire generation of people to be exiled to that valley of the sighs, in order to wet with tears their bread and in order to irrigate with hard working sweats their path in life? 

Yes indeed, my reader. In yet another occasion we took the opportunity to give an answer to these questions. And then we said, that the easier the thing that God asks from the protoplasts, the heavier would be their guilt, if they would not comply to this demand by God. 

The simpler and easier would be the commandment of God, the more unjustified would be its offender and the more severe the punishment should be, which had to be imposed to him. 

But pay attention, my reader, to see, that it neither was so simple, as it seem to you, this transgression of the protoplasts. 

Regardless the fact that the commandment of God was easy to obey, and therefore it was by all means imperative for Adam to abide by it, think for a moment somewhat deeper and you will easily discern, what dreadful insult and what terrible attack against God hides this act of the protoplasts. 

They took and they ate from the fruit. That is, they gave more confidence to the words of the serpent that to the words of God. 

In other words it is as if they were saying to God: The words, that you told us, regarding this fruit, that will bring us death, are not true. And You therefore are not a truthful God, and neither Your promises and Your threats have any importance and any weight. And does it exist therefore other blasphemy worse than this? 

They took and ate from the fruit. They ate, because they wanted to improve their position and their condition. It wasn't enough for them all that happiness, which God gave to them and which God promised to them. 

They were not satisfied with the fortune, in which it had placed them the charity of God. They wanted to climb to a better place. 

Their heart therefore was devoid of the deep and warm gratitude, which it owed to the Benevolent Creator and it seemed likeable and agreeable to them the complaint, that the benevolent Creator had not sufficiently cared for the good conditions of living of these two creatures of His, although He had moulded them according to His image. 

They ate from the fruit. They ate, because they wanted to be gods themselves too. That is, they also envied the height and the greatness of God. 

And they said: Why remain in this humble place of the slave? Why not receive with our own hand, why not sit ourselves also in that high throne, in which God is seated? 

They ate from the fruit. They wanted to taste it. A carnal curiosity and a desire of the appetite misleaded them. 

They were not capable to subdue that desire under the will of God. They sacrificed their duty in order to satisfy temporarily the demand of their appetite, which made even more persistent their absurd curiosity. 

Behold therefore, my reader, what was hiding that act of the protoplasts. It was just one. It seems simple. And yet, if you pay attention, you will get immediately convinced, that it is complicated, that its roots are plenty and its faces are various. 

Finally do not forget, that this is about disobedience in a commandment, which God has given and therefore, regardless how small it might be the disobeyed commandment, the weight and the guilt of its transgression is so great, as great is God, Who set the commandment. 

Did Adam infringe the commandment by God? Therefore he despised God. And consequently the higher from Adam God is, the more heavy it was the contempt also, which they dared against Him. 

And as it is infinite the Greatness of God, likewise it was infinite the guilt also of Adam, since he despised that Greatness and he didn't consider His threat. 

End of chapter 3