9. Moses doth therefore purposely attribute speech to the Serpent which tempted Evah, to the end we (knowing by experience that speech cannot properly accord with a natural Serpent) might the rather be induced to believe that the same must metaphorically be understood of the spiritual Serpent. For we may with like absurdity imagine that the olive, the fig, the Vine-trees and the Bramble did vocally and articulately speak one to another; as to suppose that either the Serpent, or the Devil in the Serpent did use an articulate voice and discourse unto Evah; they are both alike credible, and both alike absurd.
10. The punishment inflicted by God, hath no conveniency at all with the natural, but with the spiritual and mystical Serpent, which is the Devil. For neither can the going upon her belly, nor the eating of dust be any punishment at all to the natural Serpent, because (before the tentation) both those properties were peculiarly allotted unto her, she taking her name from her creeping condition, for Serpens is derived à serpendo, and in the Hebrew she is called רֶמֶשׂ reptile à רָמַשׂ, reptavit, serpsit. Neither yet may we imagine that the said Serpent being of some better form before the tentation, was then (by the just judgment of God) transformed into a viler proportion, property or shape, she being in the History of the Creation accompted amongst the creeping Creatures.
Exod. 4. 3.
Aug. ad Gen. lib. 11. cap. 1.
Greg. in Moràl.
Pet. Martyr in Gen. 3. 1.
11. Moses maketh no mention at all of the Serpents coming to Evah about that business, nor of her departure after the action, nor of any one special property whereby she might be essentially discerned to be (indeed) a true natural Serpent, nor of any manner of amaze, or suddain fear in Evah at her suddain approach and extraordinary speech: whereas yet Moses himself was afterwards horribly afraid at the only sight of a Serpent. And where it is said, Thou art cursed above all the beasts in the field; there the very bruit beasts (to the horrible confusion of Satan) are preferred before him; not in absolute power, but in an especial regard of that happy continuance and timely conservation of their original nature. For, the beasts of the field, they do not forgo any heavenly happiness, which they never yet had: But they continue forth their course in that self same primary estate they took at the first. But Satan is accursed because he kept not his first estate, but fell from it, and therefore is worse than the beasts of the field. Neither is this way of expounding the Scriptures metaphorically, where the literal sense includeth an apparent absurdity, either singular or novel, for both Antients and Moderns have allowed the same course, for S. Augustine saith: “When any thing is found in the Scriptures which cannot (without an absurdity) be possibly interpreted literally, That thing without doubt is spoken figuratively, and must receive some other signification, than the bare letter doth seem to import.” And Gregory saith: “When the order of the History becometh defective of it self in the literal sense, then some mystical sense as it were with wide open doors doth offer it self: yea and that mystical sense must be received instead of the literal sense it self.” And therefore (saith Peter Martyr) “that malediction or curse which the Lord did cast on the Serpent, must be Allegorically understood of the Devil, and those things which seem properly to accord to the Serpent indeed, must metaphorically be transferred to Satan understood in the Serpent.” So then, by all the premises it is very apparent, that it was the Devil himself, and no natural Serpent, who set upon Evah in that tentation, he being only metaphorically set forth by the name of a Serpent: And therefore had no need in that action essentially to assume to himself the Body of a natural Serpent, for the better accomplishment of the intended business.
The next is to lay down positive Arguments to prove that the Devil did not essentially enter into the body of the Serpent and if he did, that yet neither he by himself, nor the Serpent, and he joyned, could thereby make any articulate sound or discourse. Which if the Devil in the Serpent be supposed (as it is) to perform any such matter, it must be either by considering him as an incorporeal or as a corporeal creature, but we affirm he could perform neither way, and that for these reasons.
Reas. 1.
1. If the Devil be considered as an incorporeal creature simply and absolutely, then it will follow, that he cannot act upon any corporeal matter, because an incorporeal substance can make no contact upon a body, unless it were it self corporeal; for, quicquid agit, agit per contactum, vel mediatum, vel immediatum. But both those are caused by the touch of one body upon another, as when ones hand by touching a straw doth immediately move it forth of its place, or else by blowing doth remove it, which is by the mediation of the air; but that which is meerly incorporeal can perform neither: Because that which is meerly incorporeal hath no superficies, whereby to touch the body to be removed; and therefore can make no motion of it at all; and where there is no motion, there can be no alteration, and consequently no speech nor articulation at all. And therefore the Devil (if incorporeal) could not, move the Organs of the Serpent at all, and so could not speak in the Serpent nor move his organs, if they had been fit for articulate prolation, which they were not. Which was the thing required to be proved.