Serpent

The tree of knowledge is where the reason of man begins for man in his vanity and greed may be deceived. But the tree of life shows us right reason and how the reason of men by itself may fall short of truth and wisdom.
Living in the Age of Reason does not make you reasonable. You cannot wave the flags of fallacies and claim to be logical or profess critical thinking to be in your personal skill sets. Only the sacrifice required by true love and charity may feed the righteousness of social virtue that will remove the scales and give sight to the blind.

The serpent in the garden spoke the words of truth but misled with those words of vanity and pride. The draw of Babylon entices because it presents many of the same ideas presented by the serpent and the Pharisees we see in the gospels. The Levite, Korah, drew a following by presenting his version of logic and evaluation, his private interpretation. (see Numbers 16, verse 3 and the whole chapter.)

Genesis 3:2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:... 13 And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. 14 And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:

Sophistry is the first tool of the “devil” used to deceive the whole world under a strong delusion. He often used the rulers of the world and the fathers of the earth to provide deceitful meats to snare them and make them merchandise with their tables filled with benefits.

Isaiah 14:29 Rejoice not thou, whole Palestina, because the rod of him that smote thee is broken: for out of the serpent’s root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent.