is disobedience that proves destructive. Nor truly are those words without significance which are written, how God from the beginning planted the tree of hfe in the midst of paradise, reveal- ing through knowledge the way to life,' and when those who were first formed did not use this [knowledge] properly, they were, through the fraud of the Serpent, stripped naked.- For neither can hfe exist without knowledge, nor is knowledge secure without life. Wherefore both were planted close together. The Apostle, per- ceiving the force [of this conjunction] , and blam- ing that knowledge which, without true doctrine, is admitted to influence life,^ declares, " Knowl- edge puffeth up, but love edifieth." For he who thinks he knows anything without true knowledge, and such as is witnessed to by life, knows nothing, but is deceived by the Serpent, as not ^ loving life. But he who combines knowl-