But why does Moses, in this history, perpetually make mention of the serpent, but nowhere of the devil, who was nevertheless the architect and effecter of that crime? We answer that Moses acted as a writer of the deed done, not as an interpreter; and therefore, of what sort the thing appeared, of that sort it was described by him—not, however, explained how it really was. Now Eve saw the serpent, and heard the serpent speaking with her; the devil, although he lurked within the serpent, was yet hidden from Eve, escaping the sense of her eyes and ears. This, then, Moses set down in his writing: just as also, in this very book of Genesis below, chapter 18, he named as 'men' the three men whom Abraham saw and received in hospitality, although they were not men but Angels; and in chapter 32, he likewise called 'a man' the Angel who wrestled with Jacob.²

But if Paul, who followed Moses at so great an interval of time, when the matters had by then been explained, attributed the imposture to the serpent and not to Satan—writing thus in chapter 11 of the latter Epistle to the Corinthians: 'I fear lest, as the serpent seduced Eve by his craft, so your senses be corrupted and fall away from the simplicity that is in Christ'—why should not Moses, who preceded Paul by so many ages, with reason seem to have ascribed the fraud to the serpent? For it belongs to a writer to narrate the deeds done; but the task of an interpreter is to explain the things set forth by the writer. Wherefore Moses, who wished to be a writer, not an interpreter, rightly narrated that the serpent conversed with Eve; but did not say that Satan was hidden within the serpent. But, the explanation of those questions and difficulties being now completed, which we had undertaken to treat concerning the serpent and the devil upon those words of Moses, 'The serpent...'³

...'The serpent was more cunning than all the living creatures of the earth,' we must now return again to the interpretation of the history and words of Moses.⁴