31. IV. THE FOURTH STATE OF THIS CHURCH, WHICH WAS ITS END, OR NIGHT, AND IS CALLED CONSUMMATION, is described by these words, also in the third chapter of Genesis:

Jehovah God called unto the man, and said unto him, Where art thou? and he said, I heard Thy voice in the garden, therefore I was afraid. Then Jehovah said, Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat of it? And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And Jehovah God said unto the woman, Wherefore hast thou done this? And the woman said, The serpent deceived me, and I did eat. Then Jehovah God cursed the serpent, and afterwards the woman, and after her the man. Whereupon Jehovah God sent the man forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken (Gen. 3:9-23).

From the literal, or historical, sense of the description of Adam's life, it is manifest that he was cursed because he believed the serpent, that he should be as God; and he who believes this, at length does not acknowledge God. And as the natural man separated from the spiritual is in such faith at heart, however he may talk otherwise with his mouth, therefore, when from spiritual he became natural, he was cursed, and he was cursed as to his Sensual, his Voluntary, and his Intellectual; for his Sensual is signified by the serpent, his Voluntary by the woman, and his Intellectual by the man: these three were cursed, because one follows the other. (In the ARCANA COELESTIA, every expression, and every meaning of the expressions, is laid open by the spiritual sense, which has been revealed to me by the Lord; which explanation, being published, may be consulted.)