did not dare to put it to their lips.  Now, as she had listened attentively to the lessons of the serpent, Eve despised these empty terrors, and wished to taste the fruit which gave the knowledge of God.  But, as she loved Adam, and did not wish him to be inferior to her, she took him by the hand and led him to the wonderful tree.  Then she picked one of the burning apples, bit it, and proffered it to her companion.  Unfortunately, Iaveh, who was by chance walking in the garden, surprised them, and seeing that they had become wise, he fell into a most ungovernable rage.  It is in his jealous fits that he is most to be feared.  Assembling all his forces, he created such a turmoil in the lower air that these two weak beings were terrified.  The fruit fell from the man’s hand, and the woman, clinging to the neck of her luckless husband, said, “I too will be ignorant and suffer with him.”  The triumphant Iaveh kept Adam and Eve and all their seed in a condition of hebetude and terror.  His art, which consisted only in being able to make huge meteors, triumphed over the science of the serpent, who was a musician and geometrician.  He made men unjust, ignorant, and cruel, and caused evil to reign in the earth.  He persecuted Cain and his sons because they were skilful workmen; he exterminated the Philistines because they composed Orphic poems, and fables like those of AEsop.  He was the implacable enemy of science and beauty, and for long ages the human race expiated, in blood and tears, the defeat of the winged serpent.  Fortunately, there arose among the Greeks learned men, such as Pythagoras, and Plato, who recovered by the force of genius, the figures and the ideas which the enemy of Iaveh had vainly tried to teach the first woman.  The soul of the serpent was in them; and that is why the serpent, as Dorion has said, is honoured by the Athenians.  Finally, in these latter days, there appeared, under human form, three celestial spirits—­Jesus of Galilee, Basilides, and Valentinus—­to whom it was given to pluck the finest fruits of that tree of knowledge, whose roots pass through all the earth, and whose top reaches to the highest heaven.  I have said all this in vindication of the Christians, to whom the errors of the Jews are too often imputed.

Dorion.  If I understood you aright, Zenothemis, you said that three wonderful men—­Jesus, Basilides, and Valentinus—­had discovered secrets which had remained hidden from Pythagoras and Plato, and all the philosophers of Greece, and even from the divine Epicurus, who, however, has freed men from the dread of empty terrors.  You would greatly oblige me by telling me by what means these three mortals acquired knowledge which had eluded the most contemplative sages.

Zenothemis.  Must I repeat to you, Dorion, that science and cogitation are but the first steps to knowledge, and that ecstasy alone leads to eternal truth?