After a short exordium, the orator approaches the story of the fall of our first parents, and proves, by the fact alone of the interview of Eve with the serpent that all the animals were subjected to the man. 2. He then refutes the opinion of those who claimed that this serpent was endowed with reason, and establishes that it was only the organ and instrument of the devil. He then describes at length the colloquy of the latter with the woman, and bitterly reproaches the latter for his imprudent confidence. - 4. It is not less severe for Adam who preferred to be compliant with his wife rather than obeying God. 5. The first effect of sin having been to make Adam and Eve aware of their nakedness, St. Chrysostom explains in what sense Scripture says that their eyes were opened; he fights on this occasion those who maintained that before his disobedience Adam did not have the knowledge of good and evil, and explains why the Scripture names the fatal tree, the tree of the science of good and evil. 6. He shows the wisdom of God in the easy defense made to man, and ends with an eloquent parallel between the tree of earthly paradise and the tree of the cross.
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