Part III of The Flower and The Nettle (in 3 parts)

“A word or a smile is often enough to put fresh life in a despondent soul.” – St. Thérèse of Lisieux

Although few names are listed in the Bible from Adam to Noah, it is estimated that even before the murder of Abel around 130 years after Adam’s creation, through the human reproductive process, there were upwards of four hundred thousand male descendants of Adam, in addition to women and children. If a tradition of Abyssinia speaks truly, they were descended from Shem, the son of Noah.

One legend that engaged the minds of the ancients of Abyssinia asserts that the devil or Satan, the head hunter from the garden, was not yet done with just the fall of Eve and Adam. That episode in the garden was only the beginning – a foretaste. Hiding in the serpent for that first time, the devil’s initial attempt was to attribute the prohibition on the fruit of the tree of knowledge in the midst of the garden to envy. Thus, by planting the seeds of doubt in the mind of the woman, the evil one had secured a sparkling victory by inducing disobedience in Adam through Eve which led to their punishment.

Thereafter, God had questioned Adam and his woman but didn’t question the devil: because it’s a non-issue. The devil is confirmed as who he is. He doesn’t just act evil for he is the evil one, at times a fire out of control. The devil cannot be other than he is. His success in this episode, no doubt, had opened the pathway for the evil one to continue with his fiendish stratagem.

In spite that Adam and Eve realised that the Satan impersonated as a serpent had deceived them at so great a price, yet with a singleness of purpose, the devil had ventured to deceive those human mortals once again with his deceptive ways. As we believe, his satanic force of will favoured special and privileged footing in terms of continuity and high advantages in exercising his misdemeanours which was his known forte since a constant endeavour to do evil always exhales and ascends from hell.

The devil is not a literary invention. The Abyssinian version of the Fall of Man of the Old Testament was that jealousy is the prevailing root of all evil and it descended with other sins from our first parents. And so, there are temptations everywhere. The devil will always do his best to tempt you into sin until you get to that place where you fall in love with sin, ungodliness and worldly lusts. He wants you down there with him – like his everlasting inheritance.

One day, Eve was in the cave waiting for Adam to return from the field. At the set of sun, the devil, the hater of all good, decided to approach her.

Eve spent most of her time in their dwelling place in a cave in a rock on the western border of the garden where the earth was very broad. She often thought about how very peaceful and distinct their charmed life of comfort, as they knew it, having lived in that Garden. She knew of the values of that period, of life that knows no Death; and an important lesson about loss.

Unlike their times inside the Garden of Eden when a certain glory rested on them, the punishment inflicted by God on them to work on the uninhabited expanse of land surface for agricultural crop yields to meet their daily bread, often kept Adam away from the presence of Eve. Besides, Adam used to visit a sacred place for his daily prayer – part of his normal course of activities on any given day.

The dusk was falling and Eve, while working with her spindle, wondered what kept Adam away such long time. Even though the devil had picked her lonely moment to take advantage of her, he didn’t expect Eve’s mind would be a strange hard shell to infiltrate.

When Eve came to the mouth of the cave and to the delicious outside air, the evil one, disguised as the accursed serpent, made his apparition, “sorrowfully licking the dust, wiggling on its breast on the ground and venomous, by reason of God’s curse,” which implied that originally the serpent’s physical form walked erect.

With its eyes blood-red, it swelled its head and stood on its tail near the mouth of the cave because the devil could not enter into the cave due to their prayers. With a display of pomp, he said that he hoped what he was going to tell her would meet with her approbation.

The insidious tempter asserted that Eve was a deceived wife and nothing could make him so miserable as to find her unhappy. Adam merits much greater attention from her – for he could be seeing another woman elsewhere during his absence from Eve.

So far, she had no reason to be suspicious of Adam even though, after their expulsion from the Garden, many things have changed. Adam was not the similitude of his Creator – the man of original state of innocence and happiness which he was when God breathed the breath of life into him and pronounced him good.

As devil’s words, warm and sympathetic, set the dogs onto her mind, the tempter craftily proposed to show to her the other woman if only Eve would give credit to his words. He had vouched that she could ask the leaves of the trees for the truth, ask the stars of the night sky, or ask the calmness of the universe, carefully avoiding any mention of the Sun, now about to set, but which dazzles and beautifies.

Heeding to Eve’s request, the devil went ahead of her to the river bank. She followed him until they came to the still waters of the river, the place where he had declared Eve could see her rival. Looking down into the fresh waters of the sun-flecked mountain watercourse, Eve could make out the woman staring back at her – the life in the water. Eve felt dashed and low.

Although the devil didn’t give her to know at that time, her own reflection was sufficient to corroborate her of the other woman’s existence. Although the devil had started out with zeal, now finding himself unable to keep still looking severe, the evil one, animated by infectious evil spirits, eased out of the serpent and hid away from Eve.

His spirit soared at his devil’s luck in deceiving her. He could hardly contain his satanic laughter. That is all that matters and that is always the case. Then, as now, mankind had not been free from the wiles of the devil – the cause of many troubles.

It is difficult to clothe in adequate illustration the ghastly attributes with which painting and writings have invested this horrendous evil character – the devil or Satan. Years later, the Africans of the Guinea Coast would come to an understanding on the issue at hand – learn how to tame the evil, a cognitive achievement that is properly creditable to a legend of their ancestors.

The influences of such a legend have been subject of various interpretations. However, it is not a competition. It asserted that the only defence one would require against the hideous devil and his minions unnumbered, is a mirror. If anyone will keep a mirror beside the Devil, he must see himself in it, and he at once rushes away in terror of his own ugliness.

Jo                                                         (Concluded)

Notes: This Part Three is based on folk-tale.

(© Joseph Sébastine/Manningtree Archive)