Memra 15: On Adam's Marital Desire

Memra 15: On Adam’s Marital Desire Now then, he interprets this desire for marriage that was in Adam, how it was in him and when it was taken away from his children. After he erred, was confirmed, and the law of the lower one was imposed on him from that first one: in it, when in that law he ceased to marry. And because he loved that he might be corporeal and not spiritual, that is, earthly and not heavenly, then the desire of passion was in him, because Adam desired partnership. Through the teaching of the Evil One, who was inflamed that his sister might fall from the holiness of the angels and be likened to the beasts. These things, however, before he ceased to marry, Adam was instructed by the Evil One, when there was no passion in him. And Adam and Eve supposed that everything that the accursed Evil One taught would be. For if God had not had mercy on Adam, by the casting out that the Evil One cast him, that Satan might be like him, as he wished, and that he might enslave him under his hand. Blessed is the Good One who opened the door for all who repent. In the beginning, therefore, they received the evil thought of the house of Adam, and they lusted after the beauty of the earth.

He saw the woman, and he desired to eat from the tree; and that was a desire for the members, just as today people know that desire is for gold and silver and possessions and garments and the fruits of the earth. And these first ones desired on the expectation that they would be like their Creator, by the taste of death which the Evil One cast into their ears. And after these, their mind ran. For there was no desire in them for the union of partnership; but they wished, however, to be able to delay the Evil One from the beast. And because of this, David said: That man, in his honor, it was not fitting that he should be holy like the angels and minister like the heavens; and he looked at the animals and desired to be like them in the coupling of partnership. And there was no desire in them for the discipline of partnership until they were deceived by the Evil One to become earthly and to acquire earthly labor and wealth. And God permitted them to marry and to labor after he cursed them; and there was in them desire and discipline for seed, because they sinned and transgressed his commandment, and they despised holiness and loved partnership. And it was not that they desired from desire, but on that expectation that they would increase like God. But show from this that there was no desire in Adam and Eve before they sinned.

It is written, then, that Adam and Eve were naked, and their nakedness was not visible. That is like infants of milk who are naked and do not know what nakedness is. In this, they are not ashamed in their pure thought. For if they had known, they would have covered themselves. What man or woman, then, stands before one another when they are naked, and their desire is not stirred in their heart, and they see that they are naked? But rather those whose heart is pure from desire and who are holy in their heart and in their bodies, as they were in the house of Adam before they sinned. Because of this, our Lord said: Unless you turn and become like those children, you do not have that first creation of Adam, which before he transgressed the commandment of his limit. Adam and Eve, before they sinned, were naked like infants of milk, and in that desire was not stirred in their heart, they were not ashamed, just as infants of milk are not ashamed. But when they sinned, and sin was in their heart, and the eye of their desire for union was delayed, they saw that they were naked. That is, they knew the shame which they did not know.

And just as when sin was in their heart, the children of Adam desired partnership, and God prevented their union, and there was in them rebellion and desire for partnership, so when the children of Adam are tested today, those who love holiness and kill sin from the heart by humility and love, they then abandon the desire of the body and flee from it, and rise to the desire of God. And then God commands that desire be removed from the heart and rebellion from the body completely. And then they become holy like infants, as the Lord said: "Unless you turn and become like those children, you will not be as you were before you sinned, in that purity in which I created your father, before he transgressed my commandments. And if you are not thus, you are not worthy that you be perfected and praised with me." Children of milk, however, do not desire, do not weep, and are not ashamed, and are able to weep at any time. But those who are purified weep and are ashamed, and are not able to weep at any time, because the Lord is with them, since they remain with him. For the Lord said that those who are worthy of that resurrection are like angels of God and cannot die. But for us, those who know the words and keep them become like angels.

How then do they say that desire is not separable from human beings? Why then is there desire in angels? For the Lord said, "Be like them." And if you say that in that world you will be like angels, yet hear that the Lord said, "As you are found, so you will be governed." For the more you excel in that new world. And if you say that there is a human in whom desire remains until he departs from this world, does desire indeed remain in him on that day of judgment? Not thus does the Lord say, but that if a human is not like the death of angels, these who have no lusts of the flesh and no bodily desire from this world, he will not be in that world like them, as the Lord said. But the Lord confessed: "Everything you ask, you will receive, and there is nothing you will ask while you believe in me that will not be yours." Why then do they not ask the Lord this: that they be like angels, without lusts and without bodily desire? And would they be according to the Lord's perfect will? And you already tell me that the Lord rejoices that I asked him and he gave me this question, which is a great gift given through love, and through prayer, and through fasting, and through humility.

You ask and do not take, because you do not fulfill the complete will of the Lord, in that you do not keep his great commandments, and you do not humble yourselves and do not become lowly as the Lord became lowly. For this reason, that perfect request is not given to you. But when you die to the world, and your bodies are dried up and your bones are cut off, because of the sin that dwells in you, until you kill it. Those who clothed themselves in Christ crucified their flesh against all their requests and desires, and yet they put him on. See how their bodies became a garment that clothed Christ, and they did not give themselves to enjoy and take delight in the pleasures of this world and its commandments and its desires, and yet their bodies died from sin, and they put on Christ. For this reason he said: "If Christ is in you, the body died because of sin, but the spirit lives because of righteousness." Paul said that foods do not raise you up before God, because those who walked in them were not helped, but they angered God by eating and being filled, and the Lord's wrath rose up against them. See how foods and commandments do not leave you to stand before God.

On this account, then, the evil one taught Adam’s household this expectation: that you would not increase as God, and that there is no limit for you to be fruitful and multiply, and that you would do everything you desire, like the Creator. And Adam desired to rebel and to be joined, that he might be in the likeness of the partnership of the animals. And Adam did not know that they were fruitful and multiplying until they kept the commandment, just as Eve was formed by the word of the Lord without desire. Moreover, even these hands of yours could not do anything without the word of the Lord, but they thought that something could exist apart from the Lord, something that the evil one said. In this sin Adam erred and was foolish, that he was joined to the counsel of the evil one; he was not able to accomplish anything in deed apart from the Creator, but he was humbled and went out from the Paradise of the Kingdom. And now it will be said: Since he was not able to accomplish anything in deed apart from the Creator, why did he expel him and take hold of the gate of Paradise so that he would not enter? For that folly of his was small: that he desired to be an opponent to his Creator, and to sit in opposition to him and to resist him, as he thought that he would be his equal, and he showed him by force. For if not, the arm that does not consider itself, would it have feared his commandment and also obeyed him? But even without desire, he was defiled, and they were in something that the evil one cast into their hands.

Immediately, then, they were deceived and gave their hearing to the cause of the evil thought, the taste of death, and it was fixed in their heart. And if you say, "Behold, these members were not for partnership; you, however, if you do not desire that partnership, then you would be separated from them; do as your Creator did." How long will you transgress his commandments, day by day, as he said to you, "Come to the perfection that destroyed Adam"? And behold, he has taken desire from you. When you came to that which fell from Adam, and when you were holy, without desire, you see that these members are for procreation and not for partnership, because desire will no longer arise in your mind when you were holy, and you do not yearn for partnership, just as a dead person who has taken his own soul does not yearn for it. But you, on the contrary: your freedom also was heard by the evil one, and you desired it like Adam, and your Creator gave it to you in anger, as to Adam; and he is angry because you abandon the holiness of angels and liken yourself to a beast. And he has compassion on you, as on Adam, and you preserve sorrow and you live while you are in partnership. And if you say, "Why did he make male and female?" Go, ask him why he made male and female. And he will say to you: "Nothing was lacking for you; if you had not wished to be like a beast and not like angels.

Look, then, at the man who looked upon the beast and desired to become like it, and who rejected the holy state of the angels. That one, I say, hoped to increase from the angels and to become like his Lord. And the Watchers were in distress over the fall of Adam and over the wrath that he received from the Evil One. And at that time there was enmity between the upper ones and the lower ones, because Adam rejected the word of his Creator. Thus, then, I say: when he transgressed the words of his Lord, he was shepherded along with the upper ones. When, however, Jesus was revealed, he showed to whom he wished to be like the first creation of Adam. For before the coming of his Lord, the kingdom of heaven was constrained in that it was not revealed to every person. And those who constrained themselves and humbled themselves and did the will of God attained it. That one, I say: behold, it is revealed today to all who desire it. When, then, the house of Adam left heaven and desired earth, and those things that are visible, and transgressed the law of the Creator, God came, their head, and had compassion on them and set for them another law after they had transgressed the first one. And God gave them that they might be partners. Thus was the discipline of the desire for marriage in Adam and Eve, and thus at the end of all his folly he became a partner.

It is written, for after God created Adam and gave him permission to desire whatever he loved, Adam went out from Paradise and tilled the earth that was taken from it, and he knew Eve and she bore Cain. Now there is desire and there is desire. The desire for another kind of partnership is one thing, and the desire that does not covet anything that belongs to your companion is another. So also today: when the sons of Adam loved the heavens and left the earth and everything in it, and turned their minds and bodies away from transient profit, and their mind was humbled, as one who knows that he might be exalted and leave the heavens and inherit the earth. What then? When they were emptied and humbled, as they were exalted from the beginning, now the discipline of desire is uprooted from them. For just as when their mind loved the earth and everything in it, God gave them permission that desire should be in them, so also today: when they left the earth and everything in it, and looked to their Lord in heaven, and attained that which Adam lost, and knew what truth is, and height and depth and length and breadth, now they are freed from the discipline of desire, and God removes it from them, and they become like the angels in heaven, who do not desire. For the Apostle says that these say, "I am," that just as your members are made ready for sin, so be ready to hear the voice of purity.

Now, just as it is known that he left the heavens and inherited the earth, so too he left the earth and inherited the heavens. And behold, he is victorious over the toil of evil, because even in the partnership of chastity, evil erred. From her, marriage increased and added pettiness, and something evil again from pettiness: something that God hated, that just as the sons of Adam fell, so also from chastity. Those, therefore, who turn away from the earth and look to the heavens in their Lord and worship their God, and love all, are holy and dwell with the Lord in the high height. And those who take and marry in the world, and buy and sell, and stand in chastity and labor for the righteous, while they do no harm to anyone, are chaste after the perfect ones. For chastity in the righteous does not harm the one who harms her, but destroys her desires and flees from evil, just as Isaac left the wells of water of his father when they commanded him, and he called their names Sotana and 'Asaqa because they commanded and were commanded with him, and he departed from there. And just as Abraham and Isaac gave their gifts, and David did not command, nor did he command, but God commanded their hands.

Those, then, who labor and strive in the place of place, and who cause harm to man in time, do not incline toward chastity nor toward wickedness; they are equipped in both, as the days show us, the men who work beneath the priests, those who are beneath the perfect. The priests, however, are those who are equipped with good things, while they do not harm man. Those, on the other hand, who do half good things and half evil things are also cast down; God has mercy on them, because they had mercy on the children of men. But those whose good deeds are fewer than their evil deeds—God does not wrong them by confounding their works, just as he repays them for their evil deeds, so also for their good deeds. Those, however, who were without good deeds and without evil deeds, and did not labor for man nor harm him, do not descend to Gehenna nor inherit the kingdom; they are honored by Gehenna and are in a place that befits them, and the Lord does with them whatever he wills. Just as they did not harm man, so they withheld their mercy from everyone. But they kept that word: that when one harms, he is oppressed; and they abandoned that word: that when one labors, he inherits eternal life. Therefore, they deprived themselves of pleasure and kept themselves from freedom.

The nature of this labor is that it is straight in itself and causes harm to every man in its hands, while not doing evil to man. This is after perfection, because it was not emptied from the earth and did not attain height and depth and length and breadth. But these men who did not labor and did not do evil to man are between those who are oppressed by those who are in the land of the living, just as they were in this world among those who do good deeds for those who do evil deeds, and they did not do good with those who did good, nor did they do evil with those who did evil. And thus these are those: there are many regions between the fathers. For the Lord said: He who sins a little sins much, and he who believes a little believes much. But this word, without distinguishing, either justifies the whole creation in it or condemns the whole creation in it, except for those who are perfected without being bound under it, because they are all released in their own limits. And not those who are wicked and cut off from all good are bound under it, nor are the righteous bound under wickedness, but they are diminished from the perfect. And because they were not emptied and sanctified, they were not able to do the complete and receptive will of God.

Because of this, the perfect ones are completed in this matter, and there are no deficiencies in them, nor even a little after they were perfected; and the wicked ones, not even a little were justified after they sinned. These are beyond this matter. But everyone who has a little righteousness or a little iniquity, this matter includes him, and it does not give him to ascend above, nor does it give him to descend to the wicked ones. These, then, who dispute—that there is one place of life that has hell, and one Gehenna—these are a little iniquitous and a little righteous. In which place do they set them? For behold, the word of the Lord does not leave them to ascend to the high place where there are no deficiencies, nor does it give them to descend to Gehenna, the place where there is no life? But rather, when he sends all of them with deficiencies, and afflicts all of them with evil and good passions, he does not reach the degree of perfection. For when one is lacking, he is less than the perfect ones. Every man, therefore, is rewarded according to his deeds. For the one who kills a hundred murders is not equal to the one who kills one murder; but if the one gives one life, the one gives a hundred; and if the one is tormented with one torment, the one is tormented with a hundred. And do not say that they are tormented as one; but when the torment of the one who killed one murder is completed, then after that the one who killed a hundred is tormented with a hundred other torments.

The prophets, all of them, and the priests and the righteous who arrived at perfection and fell asleep before the coming of our Lord, while not perfected: the labor of the apostles perfected them, as Paul said: that without them they would not be perfected. For neither did the Paraclete, who teaches the consolation that is before all, and the love that is toward all, go forth to them as it went forth to the apostles; and all their days were spent hoping that there would be peace in their days, but it was not. They knew, indeed, that the Savior would come to the world, by the Spirit that was in them and that sets all in order. Also Adam, when he wept and besought and was distressed, confessed to him that a father would come and perfect a father for those who run after love and after perfection, which fell from him. Because, therefore, there was no peace in their days, they were not perfected; because through the suffering and the crucifixion of his Son, the Father and Lord willed to make a dispensation. And if the whole world had willed that before the coming of our Lord they should be like Moses and like Elijah, our Lord would have been pleased for them to be perfected, and it would not have been necessary for him to come to the birth and to the smallness of the crucifixion; and he would have closed the boundary of enmity that came from the transgression of the commandment, while he sat in heaven in the honor of his greatness; and the prophets would have been free from the sword of the deniers and the wicked, and they would have been perfected.

If it were not for the first covenant, which was imperfect, why then would the perfect one be required, that is, the second covenant? For in the later covenant the Lord closed the gate of enmity which was open before. Those first imperfect ones, who walked by the word of the Lord, were priests. But the perfect ones do not take wives, nor do they work the land, nor do they build buildings, and they have no fixed abode on earth, like their teachers. The priests and the righteous, however, were necessary on earth, and there are some who attained perfection, when they were purified and sanctified, and when they walked in virginity from their youth. They increased greatly, but they were not perfected, because even from priesthood the Lord restrained them, when he sent them to kill his enemies. But in priesthood and in faith all these lay down and did not receive their reward. And to the apostles, who were greater than them, he saw beforehand. The apostle said that without them they would not have been perfected. These, then, who went forth imperfect, the Lord perfected through the labor of the apostles, because he himself was the one who restrained them from perfection. For this reason, he did not take offense, but perfected them through the labor of the apostles, and raised them up to God after he perfected them; and they appeared with him in the upper circles, he and the apostles.

The rest of the righteous, those whom the Lord did not hinder from perfection, just as he hindered the prophets—rather, he hindered them because they wished to remain in sorrow, like the sorrowful of today, and not like the perfect, who were not perfected, like the prophets with whom the Lord perfected the apostles, because they did not run after love and after perfection as they did. The apostles, however, when they departed from their bodies from this world, were with the Lord; and the prophets, when Jesus perfected the apostles, went up and dwelt with them in the upper chambers and rejoiced with the apostles with the Lord, because the Lord himself had hindered them from perfection, so that it was fitting at that time, as it is written: that after the resurrection of the Lord, the righteous who were buried arose and were seen in the upper chambers. Today, however, whoever wishes to go to the prophets is not guided by the ways of the apostles, as the prophets are, because the prophets and the righteous, those who ran after perfection, the Lord hindered them greatly, after he perfected them, and God did not cease his servants today from being guided like the prophets. This, however, is written in the Gospels: that from among the righteous who were buried, they arose and were seen in the upper chambers with the Lord.

He did not say “all of them,” because it was not the bodies of all the righteous that the Lord raised with him from the house of the dead, but rather those who were running after perfection. He brought them up with him to show to the upper and lower beings the resurrection that is to come, and the glory that is prepared for their bodies and their souls—of all who have slept and who sleep in the love of the Lord, and of all his heralds, both the first and the last. For it was fitting that their bodies and their souls be perfected together, just as the apostles were perfected when their bodies were clothed. And so that you may know how Paul said that all the prophets, the priests, and the righteous who did the perfect will of the Lord and did not take their reward are perfected, he spoke thus: “You have come to perfection; you have arrived at the mountain of your thirst and at the city of the living God, at Jerusalem in heaven, and at the camps of the myriads of angels, and at the church of the firstborn who are written in heaven, and at the God who judges all, and at the spirits of the priests who were perfected, and at Jesus, the mediator of the New Covenant.” And he shows by this that there is also a change for their souls, in that he shows that they were perfected. And that with the Lord are the prophets and the apostles today.

Paul again made known, in that he said: When he ascends with the body with the Lord, until that day of judgment comes, and the bodies of all of them, the perfect ones, rise in glory, and are swallowed up in the radiance of their spirits, and are glorified with the Lord forever and ever. For just as they suffered with him, so now they are glorified with him. If he did not suffer with him, he would not be glorified with him. Paul said: Even with him he will be glorified, just as with him he was humbled. If, however, he keeps the day of righteousness and attains it, the coming of the Lord is revealed to him, how it was, and the deeds of the apostles, and he distinguishes the commandments that were fulfilled in them, the apostles, and he knows also these things that are happening in the world through them. And if again the deeds of the apostles come to them, he receives the Paraclete and is perfected, and goes to the prophets and apostles and dwells there, just as he humbled himself here. And if he increases in humility, the Lord is revealed to him in this world, and he hears the voice of God, and distinguishes the voice of God from that of Satan. And when he knows the whole truth, the voice of the Lord is known to him from that of Satan.

If then he remains in that priesthood of the first ones, and does not leave the earth as the apostles left it and sealed it for the whole world, he cannot receive the Paraclete, nor is the whole truth revealed to him, nor does he hear the voice of God like the prophets, but there is in him the approach of the Holy Spirit, and he knows how the apostles left the earth and sealed it for the world, and yet they had received the Paraclete, he cannot attain it. But he knows the power of these commandments of the priesthood: that you love the Lord your God with all your heart and your fellow men as yourself, and that you do not do to your companion what you would not have done to you, and as you wish that others do to you among your fellow men, so also you do to them. And he knows that in these four commandments the whole priesthood consists. And he knows also that these are a sign for a sign, and evil for evil; not for him are they spoken, and he does not do them, but he goes out from this world in the priesthood, and is reckoned to the place of the priests. This again, know among the men of Jesus, that the whole of what the Lord spoke with them of the prophets at that time when they were not perfect, because he was restraining them from perfection at that time, and because he knew that they were destined to be perfected, and with the rest of the righteous.

And the day when he does not speak with a person openly, concerning the imperfect, and until he comes to perfection, and he knows that he is able to hear him, he does not speak with him. As it says: "He who loves me, keep my commandments, and I will love him and reveal myself to him and disclose to him the power of my mysteries, so that he may walk upon them without stumbling." And with the righteous who were not destined to be perfected, he spoke with them, because the way of the Lord was not yet trodden in his footsteps; for this reason he spoke with them at that time, to show them that they should not lose or stray from anything that was fitting for them to walk in at that time. But now, it is written: "Look at the footsteps of the righteous before your eyes," and the way of the Lord and his apostles is trodden, and it is not necessary for God to speak openly with a person; rather, it is fitting that God call him to his way. As for the rest, until a person comes and enters into the commandments of the Lord and walks in them and strives to reach the house of the Lord, like a bird that flies from its nest, then he goes out to his way and receives him, like a gentle father who receives his repentant son. When he is able to hear from the Lord, the Lord himself calls him to enter his way; and when he is not able to hear from the Lord, the perfect image of the Lord shows him the way of the Lord.

But if a person is able to hear from the Lord, from the beginning of his instruction He reveals to him His truth; and if He delays for him and does not reveal Himself to him, he knows that when the human being is perfected, he is able to hear the truth. And there is a person who, by the will of his own soul, is able to hear the word of the Lord from the form of the image, and he humbles himself and calls the Lord Yeshua, until the Lord answers him and shows him where His complete and receptive will is. For not everyone is sufficient to be called from God, and not everyone is able to hear from the Spirit. Because of this it is written: "There are believers who called the Lord 'Lord' and did 'Lord'." And there are those who called the Lord 'Lord', and there are those who humbled themselves and sought and were bold in their humility, until they were sufficient for the Lord and He revealed Himself to them and showed them where His receptive and complete will is. And thus it is that the first human being walks in the path of the Lord, either by the calling of the human being or by the humility of the person's stature, and then the Lord reveals Himself upon him. It is clearly explained by David: "Shall I walk in your path without stumbling until you come to me?" And again he said: "My soul is thirsty for you, O living God. When will you come and I see your face?" And he who loves me, my commandments he keeps, and he comes, I come to meet him—I, the Father and the Holy Spirit.

He sees how the two of them go, one toward the other, until the thought of man passes from the place of evil and reaches the place of peace where the Lord dwells. And just as the son left that place where he used to pasture swine, and when he reached his father's house, his father went out to meet him and received him, so also when man leaves the earth in his thought, which is the place where man pastures evil things, the agitations that he commits, and he hungers for the sake of chastity and holiness, and man does not give it to him, but if his thought ascends to heaven, the peaceful place of his father's house, where the rewards of the hired ones increase, there chastity and beauties. So when the repentant one ascends and reaches there in his thought, the Lord goes out to meet him and says: This is my son who went out from me and tasted death, and now lives and has come.

Then holiness satisfies his hunger, and perfection clothes him, the first step of the high rank. And while he stands on earth in the body, his thought is always in heaven in spirit, and there he speaks with his Lord as a father with his son, and he distributes to others heavenly riches, the food of the spirit, instead of what he used to see here for his hunger when he was made of flesh and looked upon the earth without knowledge and truth, which he sought to fill his belly here with life. And he did not give him any rest. That one, then, sought to know also the righteousness of this world, or how it was created, and for what reason it was made, and for what purpose the deed was done for sin, and he did not give him any revelation. And that one who then hungered and had nothing, that one who knew nothing, teaches others something of which they are unaware, and leads them to the house of life. If, therefore, he is in marriage while he is in the order of priests, there is in him the approach of the Holy Spirit; and if he separates from marriage while he is in the order of priests, he again increases from marriage. And those who have separated from marriage will separate from the communion of the apostles' ways; much is he perfected and receives the Paraclete and hears the voice of God.

And if he comes in virginity to the ranks of the apostles, he is very abundant and receptive, a paraclete and perfect, and he hears the voice of God. And if the marriage is sanctified and humbled, he is very much from the virginity of the body; he learns from her, and then a little before her in humility, he becomes like her. Then the virginity of the body will be in spirit and will be stripped and humbled more than all; there is none before her among the living, except the marriage that is like her, humbled and sanctified in spirit, going towards her while he is less than her. If, however, a man is seen from the high rank in that world, among the ranks that are below him, they are made as if nothing in his eyes. And if from the small ones a man is seen towards the high ones, he is as if nothing in their eyes. Everyone in the place that is good for him dwells according to his ability, and it is fitting for him to strive to keep the commandments, that he may be mixed in the great eyes in his new world of the Lord Jesus Christ, the king of all worlds. To him is praise, amen. Completed the memra of fifteen: on the discipline of marriage.