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Fragments from the Lost Writings of Irenæus
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14:
HOW IS IT POSSIBLE TO SAY THAT THE SERPENT: created by God as mute and irrational, was given reason and speech? For if it had the ability in itself to speak, understand, and respond to the woman, nothing would have stopped every serpent from doing so.
However, if it is claimed that it spoke to Eve with a human voice according to God's will and arrangement, then God is made the author of sin. Nor was it possible for the evil demon to grant speech to a speechless creature and create something from nothing; if that were possible, the demon would not have ceased trying to mislead people through serpents, beasts, and birds.
Moreover, how did it, being a beast, know about the command God gave only to the man, in secret, with even the woman unaware? Why did it attack the woman instead of the man? And if you say it attacked her because she was weaker, I reply that she was actually stronger, as she was the man's helper in breaking the commandment. She alone resisted the serpent for a time and ate from the tree only after being cunningly deceived; whereas Adam, without any resistance, ate the fruit given by the woman, showing extreme weakness and lack of resolve.
The woman, having been defeated by a demon, is deserving of pardon; but Adam deserves none, for he was overcome by a woman—the same man who had directly received God's command. The woman, having heard the command from Adam, ignored it, either because she thought it unworthy of God or had doubts, perhaps even thinking the command came from Adam himself. The serpent found her working alone and was thus able to converse with her. Seeing her either eating or not eating from the trees, he offered her the fruit of the forbidden tree.
If he saw her eating, it shows that she had a mortal, corruptible body, for “everything going in at the mouth is cast out.” If corruptible, she was mortal, so there was no curse, nor was there condemnation when God told the man, “For dust you are, and to dust you shall return,” which has always been the natural order. If the serpent saw her not eating, how did he persuade her to eat who had never eaten? Who informed this cursed, man-deceiving serpent that the death sentence from God would not immediately occur when God said, “For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die”? Not just that, but that with their sin's impunity, the eyes of those who hadn't seen would be opened? Yet with the opening of their eyes came the beginning of the path of death.