To Slay a Dragon II: The Serpent

One day, Eve saw something putrid green flash past her as she picked ripe pears from a tree. She ran to tell Adam. "Adam, something terrible is in the garden."

"What is it?" asked Adam. He could barely grasp the concept of "something terrible," because their lives could certainly be no more perfect than they were.

"I saw something that was an ugly green flash by me. It made my blood turn cold and my skin had prickles all over it. It was scaly like those snakes you have been seeing, but it was much larger. My gosh, the trees barely hid it."

Adam held Eve tight. "Sweetheart, God wouldn’t put anything bad in the garden."

"I know, but it really scared me. I dropped the pears and everything."

That evening, the couple talked with God.

God listened patiently as Eve poured out her fears to Him. Then he said, "Eve, my daughter, my darling, you know that I am always here. You need fear nothing. Should anything at all scare you, you need only call to me, and I will send a hundred angels to your rescue—a thousand if need be. You know nothing of evil, nor do you want to. I have filled your life with good things. Don’t let the serpent trouble your mind."

"So you know about this serpent?" said Adam, thoughtfully. "Did you create him?" he added wondering how anything could exist without God yet not understanding how God could create anything terrible.

Eve, wide-eyed, watched God, wondering the same things.

"In a matter of speaking, yes, I created him, but he did not look like that when I created him. You see, his name is Lucifer, the light-bearer. He was an angel, the most beautiful of all I had created. Look around in the Garden, you see beauty everywhere. Look at your spouse—beautiful. But Lucifer was my special creation. I focused all of my powers of beauty into him."

"Why did you do that?" Eve wanted to know. "And what happened to him? I’ve never seen anything so ugly!"

"Well, as I’ve explained before, every single living thing I create is completely unique. That means there is nothing like it anywhere, any time. I created angels and humans to be most like me, so animals or plants or non-living things cannot even begin to be compared to the unique gifts and talents of angels and people. Angels are much like humans, except they have no physical bodies and they have more power. I created them so they might live with me and do my bidding.
Lucifer’s special gift from me was his unique beauty." God formed an image of Lucifer for Adam and Eve so they could see him. Yes, indeed, Lucifer radiated beauty from his hands with their long delicate fingers to his golden hair to his aristocratic face and all the way down to his sculptured feet.

"Lucifer never appreciated the fact that I gave him these gifts. He loved to simply stare at himself in the mirror all the time. A good many of the other angels loved to be around him. They followed him around wherever he went, telling him how beautiful he was and hoping some of his beauty would somehow transfer to them. I took him for a long walk one day and explained that he was falling into sin. He was not using his gifts and talents for good, but only feeding the root sin of vanity. But Lucifer did the unthinkable, almost the unspeakable. He said, `Listen. I’m tired of taking orders from you. Just look at me. I have youth and beauty, and everybody loves me. Just leave me alone, and we will get along fine.’"

"Of course I was deeply saddened that he would talk to me that way. He walked away. I knew he was going to try to usurp me. Nothing can even exist without me. I AM life itself, but his vanity was clouding his judgment. I spoke with Michael, the archangel, whom I knew would defend me no matter what the cost.

Lucifer gathered together all who would believe him. He lied to them. Not one of them noticed how he was changing with every word. They gathered up weapons and stormed my very home."

Eve was crying. She could not imagine anyone doing anything against God. She touched the skin on her own arm and her own lovely hair, thinking of how beautiful he had made her.

"The battle raged furiously as angel after angel defended me. Of course Lucifer and his army could not win. The loyal angels drove Lucifer and his followers completely out of heaven, separating them from me forever. That’s when, I’m sure, Lucifer and the other angels realized just how much their appearance had changed." God showed Adam and Eve what the bad angels looked like now. They looked more horrible than anything either Adam or Eve had ever seen.

"You see, the Angels are pure spirit. The good angels reflect the light of love, and they are beautiful. The bad angels committed something called `sin.’ Sin blackens the spirit. It putrefies. Lucifer is no longer ‘the light bearer’. He is Satan, the Father of Lies and the Prince of Darkness." The Lucifer they now beheld oozed with a thick, black liquid. His scaly skin seemed much like Adam’s snakes. His hollow eyes burned with an evil fire. Adam and Eve had never seen anything like this before. "He retains all the powers of an angel. You have every reason to have nothing to do with him. I am sure he is fascinated with you, because you have everything he doesn’t: plentiful food, beauty, love, and a close relationship with me. If he bothers you, call to me. I will always hear you, and I will always come."

Adam and Eve talked long into the night about Satan, the creature Eve saw, and all that God said. They were both frightened.

Trepidation filled Adam and Eve’s hearts over the following days. They could not seem to relax at all, and they kept looking around everywhere they went for the evil Satan creature, but nothing happened. Day after day went by, and they began to let down their guard. They still had their evening walks with God. They still enjoyed finding new plants and animals and naming everything. Soon they were following their own interests and not staying right next to each other all the time.

One day, Eve went out to gather some fruits and vegetables for dinner. She never even realized how easy everything was. She just did it. As she picked some blueberries from the bushes, she heard an evil scratching sound, as if scales were scratching against scales. She turned around and dropped her basket. Peaches she had gathered earlier and blueberries spilled all around her feet, but she barely noticed.

A dragon twice her height stood not ten feet from her. She stared into its hollow, black eyes that burned with fire. She smelled its putrid breath. Her ears were riveted to the scratching scales all over its body. She glanced at the dagger-like talons that jutted from the dragon’s feet. She cringed as a large drop of putrid black liquid oozed from him onto the ground, choking the plant life to death. This creature breathed in the clean air and fouled it with its breath. Evil. Evil. Evil.

Eve opened her mouth to cry out, but no sound came. (Continued in part 3 of 4: To Slay a Dragon: The Temptation)