'Thus then, as we have said, the Creator fashioned the
race of men, and thus meant it to remain. But men, making light of
better things, and holding back from apprehending them, began to seek in
preference things nearer to themselves. 2. But nearer to themselves
were the body and its senses; so that while removing their mind from the
things perceived by thought, they began to regard themselves; and so
doing, and holding to the body and the other things of sense, and
deceived as it were in their own surroundings, they fell into lust of
themselves, preferring what was their own to the contemplation of what
belonged to God. Having then made themselves at home in these things,
and not being willing to leave what was so near to them, they entangled
their soul with bodily pleasures, vexed and turbid with all kind of
lusts, while they wholly forgot the power they originally had from God.
3. But the truth of this one may see from the man who was first made,
according to what the holy Scriptures tell us of him. For he also, as
long as he kept his mind to God, and the contemplation of God, turned
away from the contemplation of the body. But when, by counsel of the
serpent, he departed from the consideration of God, and began to regard
himself, then they not only fell to bodily lust, but knew that they were
naked, and knowing, were ashamed. But they knew that they were naked,
not so much of clothing as that they were become stripped of the
contemplation of divine things, and had transferred their understanding
to the contraries. For having departed from the consideration of the one
and the true, namely, God, and from desire of Him, they had
thenceforward embarked in divers lusts and in those of the several
bodily senses. 4. Next, as is apt to happen, having formed a desire for
each and sundry, they began to be habituated to these desires, so that
they were even afraid to leave them: whence the soul became subject to
cowardice and alarms, and pleasures and thoughts of mortality. For not
being willing to leave her lusts, she fears death and her separation
from the body. But again, from lusting, and not meeting with
gratification, she learned to commit murder and wrong. We are then led
naturally to shew, as best we can, how she does this.'
