The distinction between simplicity and prudence regarding evil

All these things, possessing the ferocity of malice, the devil, called a serpent, is condemned following after all things. And the sentence approaches: 'You shall go upon your belly and upon your dust' (Gen 3:19). For because he thought he had been influenced in his intellect and was deceived into thinking he would have great foods, the word interprets his fall by saying that the earth shall be food to him, having nothing divine or elevated, but being darkened around earthly things, his ruling faculty having fallen, which the breast signifies; he no longer produces something divine or heavenly because of the generative power, which is signified by the belly, having his care around matter and earthly things.

That the belly is thus understood is learned from the opposite, from the singing of the blessed David: 'And your law within my belly' (Ps 119:11), which signifies not the sensible member but the power of the soul. For those who have become men in repentance do not neglect, saying that their intellect, which ought to take divine foods, has been cast down into the earth: 'Our belly has stuck to the earth,' according to all earthly things having happened, to be fed by earth and to give birth to earth. For just as the belly is a vessel of foods, so also it is a workshop of those being formed.

Those producing vile things go crawling upon the earth, but those producing the divine say: 'From the fear of you in the belly we took and labored and brought forth' (alluding to Ps 126:6/Gen 3:16 context); the same offspring of the intellect is also its food. And it is well that it approaches: 'And you shall eat earth all the days of your life' (Gen 3:19); for he did not simply say 'life,' but 'your life,' which I have seized from your own portion, as someone might say to one living not dutifully: 'All the days which I have seized shall be a vile life, sin shall be food to you in all the sinful days you have chosen.' For each thing, in its own way, turning away from the life that is necessary, acquires life for itself.

Similar to this is what was said regarding the rich man: 'You have received your good things in your life' (Luke 16:25), and Lazarus likewise the bad. And observe that regarding the vile one he spoke of his indifferent good things, because he himself considered those very things as good and hoped in them, and for this reason also said 'your good things'; but regarding Lazarus, his own bad things were not spoken of; for not from his own...

You suffered, even if you bore it bravely. And Job, being deprived of pleasant things, since he did not reckon them as his own good, but knowing their nature, as they were given by God, they were used for him, did not say, 'If we had received my goods' (Job 1:21), but 'If we have received goods from the hand of the Lord' (Job 1:21). For he himself considered them goods, the virtues happened to be his, but for those following, by the judgment of God, indifferent, as it was fitting to be used, sufficient for those in need; so indeed he said: 'My door is open to everyone coming.'

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel (Genesis 3:15). When the simpler one understands the evil, he does not have a small harm; for the evil one approaches and subverts the harm, and the simpler soul receives it into useful things. It is therefore necessary that a division occur among these, and that it come to enmity and the non-communion, so as to make the simpler one prudent according to the salutary exhortation regarding the devil: 'For we do not ignore his schemes' (2 Cor 2:11).

Often indeed, seeing a woman's friendship toward a man occurring with simplicity, from which deception follows, making such people act shamefully, we strive not for a peace of hatred, which is the fruit of the Spirit, but for a turning away of peace, by which the Savior comes to bring a sword, saying: 'I did not come to cast peace, but a sword' (Matt 10:34), dividing and cutting off those desiring to be helped from those attempting to harm. God being good, therefore, plants enmity in those for whom peace and harmony are hostile. For when someone, through ignorance of the evil, falls into it and learns that it is disastrous and harmful, he reaps no small benefit.

Consequently, the seed also makes enmity between seed and seed, and him to her. And since what is said is not about a sensible benefit, nor is his seed to be received sensibly, but those stamped and formed and born according to him, who are twisting thoughts away from the truth and its teachings into something foreign; and the seed of the woman similarly refers to those from her—for the church holds the type—or the teachings of divine instruction, toward which the machinations of the opposing evil act.