14. But Holy Scripture refutes this, for it
teaches us that pleasure was suggested to Adam and Eve by the craft and
enticements of the serpent. Since, indeed, the serpent itself is
pleasure, and therefore the passions of pleasure are various and
slippery, and as it were infected with the poison of corruptions, it is
certain then that Adam, being deceived by the desire of pleasure, fell
away from the commandment of God and from the enjoyment of grace.
How then can pleasure recall us to paradise, seeing that it alone
deprived us of it?