CHAPTER LVII

"Therefore I fell "

1 But when Adam came out and saw his hideous figure, he was afraid of him, and said to him, "Who are you?"

  1. Then Satan answered and said to him, "It is I, who hid myself within

    the serpent, and who spoke to Eve, and who enticed her until she obeyed my command. I am he who sent her, using my deceitful speech, to deceive you, until you both ate of the fruit of the tree and abandoned the command of God."

  2. But when Adam heard these words from him, he said to him, "Can you

    make me a garden as God made for me? Or can you clothe me in the same bright nature in which God had clothed me?

  3. Where is the divine nature you promised to give me? Where is that

    slick speech of yours that you had with us at first, when we were in the garden?"

  4. Then Satan said to Adam, "Do you think that when I have promised one

    something that I would actually deliver it to him or fulfil my word? Of course not. For I myself have never even thought of obtaining what I promised.

  5. Therefore I fell, and I made you fall by that for which I myself

    fell; and with you also, whosoever accepts my counsel, falls thereby.

  6. But now, O Adam, because you fell you are under my rule, and I am

    king over you; because you have obeyed me and have transgressed against your God. Neither will there be any deliverance from my hands until the day promised you by your God."

  7. Again he said, "Because we do not know the day agreed on with you by

    your God, nor the hour in which you shall be delivered, for that reason we will multiply war and murder on you and your descendants after you.

  8. This is our will and our good pleasure, that we may not leave one of

    the sons of men to inherit our orders in heaven.

  9. For as to our home, O Adam, it is in burning fire; and we will not

    stop our evil doing, no, not one day nor one hour. And I, O Adam, shall

set you on fire when you come into the cave to live there."

  1. When Adam heard these words he cried and mourned, and said to Eve,

    "Hear what he said; that he won't fulfil any of what he told you in the garden. Did he really then become king over us?

  2. But we will ask God, who created us, to deliver us out of his

    hands."