ble of
talking and haranguing, and only lost his speech for the crime of having
corrupted the faith of Eve, certainly Moses would have been far from
passing over in silence this sort of punishment, and only mentioning the
curse of licking the dust. Besides this, will you have the particular
species of serpents, or all the beasts in Paradise, to have been imbued
with the faculty of speaking, like the trees in Dodona's grove? If you
say all, pray what offence had the rest been guilty of, that they also
should lose the use of their tongues? If only the serpent enjoyed this
privilege, how came it about that so vile an animal (by nature the most
reverse and remote from man) should, before all his other fellow brutes,
deserve to be master of so great a favor and benefit as that of speech?

"Lastly, since all discoursing and arguing includes the use of reason,
by this very thing you make the serpent a rational creature. But
I imagine you will solve this difficulty another way; for (say the
sticklers for a literal interpretation) under the disguise of a serpent
was hid the Devil, or an evil spirit, who, using the mouth and organs
of this animal, spoke to the woman as though it were a human voice. But
what testimony or what authority have they for this? The most literal
reading of Moses, which they so closely adhere to, does not express
anything of it; for what else does he seem to say, but that he
attributes the seducing of Eve to the natural craftiness of the serpent,
and nothing else? For these are Moses's words:--'Now the serpent was
more cunning than any beast of the field that the Lord God had made.'
Afterwards, continues he:--'The serpent said to the woman, yea, hath God
said,' etc.--But besides, had Eve heard an animal, by nature dumb, speak
through the means of some evil spirit, she would instantly have
fled with horror from the monster.--When, on the contrary, she very
familiarly received it; they argued very amicably together, as though
nothing new or astonishing had taken place. Again, if you say that all
this proceeded from the ignorance or weakness of a woman, it would on
the other side have been but just, that some good angels should have
succoured a poor, ignorant, weak woman; those just guardians of human
affairs would not have permitted so unequal a conflict; for what if
an evil spirit, crafty and knowing in business, had, by his subtlety,
overreached a poor, weak, and silly woman, who had not as yet, either
se