The Serpent's Strike and the Curse

There is a distinction between seed and offspring, and it is stated in the Gospels: of those Jews saying, 'We are the seed of Abraham' (Matt 3:9), the Savior, while permitting this to them, forbids them to be found to be children of Abraham by saying, 'If you were children of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham' (Matt 3:9). For one who exists as a child is also seed, but not every seed and child becomes complete by being miscarried or not being brought to full development. This also applies according to the logic of the ascent. For many, having begun according to Hymenaeus and Alexander regarding faith, having shipwrecked, were not completed as children. Everything has its order and its phrasing. For it is not the serpent toward the seed, but toward her; nor is the seed of the serpent toward her, but its seed. For the extremely evil has the battle against the surpassingly good, and the lesser against the equal. For God gives even the outcome of being able to endure without becoming immeasurable according to some temptation: 'If the Lord had not been with us, we would have been swallowed up' (Ps 54:5). And since the Lord of all is good, He exposes the schemes of the adversary and reveals the attacks against Him; while the devil watches the progress of the man and the crossings upon virtue, which are revealed through the wing, the man's head of evil he watches; for when this is removed, the whole is removed as well. Pay attention to how the word shifted from one genus to another; for regarding the woman all those things were said: 'I will put enmity between you and the woman' (Gen 3:15) and the following, but now he says: 'He shall guard the head and you his wing.' For it was necessary to speak regarding the weaker one, 'I will put enmity,' so that the pure might not have place for deception, but regarding the man, so that, not having been deceived according to the apostolic voice, it should be said: 'He shall guard your head.' For being strong and being able to fight, he is more fit to guard the attacks of the adversary, not allowing him to introduce the beginning of deception to himself as to the Woman, who, as we previously said, accompanied him, since he himself also said: 'The woman whom you gave with me' (Gen 3:12), whom He also did not abandon because of her usefulness. It has been joined together.

For it is not for their own sake; just as the saints who followed those being taken captive in Babylon had done nothing worthy of captivity, but so that they might become physicians of those taken captive, like Daniel and Hezekiah and the three youths in the furnace.

Therefore, what is said to the serpent, 'He shall strike your head' (Gen 3:15), shows that, even if you deceived the woman as a weaker one, the man will fight against the head of your wickedness, which is impiety, which the wise man casts out, so that the devil does not reach the head of the wise man, but rather the wing, which would be the extremities of those contributing to virtue. For often, being unable to fight something of the former, he sits in wait regarding human needs, so that through these he might trip them up.

This same thing is said in the Psalms: 'They shall guard my wing' (Ps 91:4); and this 'to guard' means the same as 'to keep' in the present context; for 'to watch over' shows that we are not ignorant that the words lie toward preservation, and to cover, as in 'You, Lord, will guard us and preserve us' (Ps 121:7), and in 'Holy Father, keep them' (III, 16–19).

And to the woman he said: 'In multiplying I will multiply your sorrows and your groaning; in sorrows you shall bear children, and your turning toward your husband, and he shall rule over you' (Gen 3:16). And to Adam he said: 'Because you heard the voice of your woman and ate from the tree, of which I commanded you alone not to eat, from it you ate, cursed is the earth because of your works; in sorrows you shall eat it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring up for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat your bread, until you turn to the earth from which you were taken, for earth you are and to earth you shall return' (Gen 3:17-19).

It is not unbelievable to take the histories from these words. For it appears as if the woman is heavily and continuously afflicted by sorrows and groans, undergoing not a little toil both in conceptions and in parturition and also in nursing, just as the one of the blessed Job says that 'Your memorial is blotted out from the earth, sons and daughters, the pangs and labors of my womb, which I toiled for in vain...'