1
If you receive these things and listen carefully, you will know how much Elohim grants to those who love rightly.
2
They become like a garden of delight, a flourishing tree bearing many kinds of fruit within themselves.
3
In this garden stand a tree of knowledge and a tree of life.
4
Knowledge itself does not kill; disobedience kills.
5
The writings are not without meaning when they say that Elohim planted the tree of knowledge and the tree of life in the middle of the garden.
6
Life was shown through knowledge, but the first humans did not use that knowledge purely and were stripped through the serpent's deception.
7
There is no true life without knowledge, and no secure knowledge without true life.
8
For this reason the two trees are planted near one another in the argument of the homily.
9
The emissary's saying is invoked: knowledge puffs up, but love builds.
10
Whoever imagines that he knows while his knowledge is not confirmed by true life does not really know and is deceived by the serpent.
11
But the one who receives knowledge with reverence and seeks life plants in hope and waits for fruit.
12
Let knowledge be in your heart, and let your life embody the true Word you have received.
13
If you bear this tree and gather its fruit, you will continually harvest what is desired before Elohim.
14
The serpent cannot touch that fruit and deception cannot corrupt it.
15
The homily then turns to renewed Edenic imagery: Chavah is spoken of in purity, deliverance is manifested, the emissaries are instructed, and the Master's Pesach goes forward.
16
Appointed times are gathered and ordered.
17
The Word rejoices while teaching the set-apart ones.
18
Through the Word the Father is glorified.
19
To Him be glory through the ages. Amen. Layer note. This chapter continues the appended homiletic layer and uses Edenic/tree imagery not organically connected to Diognetos's original questions. HaSefarim Provenance Ledger Original …