Epistle to Diognetus 12

1Confronted with these truths and listening to them attentively, you will know how much God bestows on those who love him rightly. They become a paradise of delight, a flourishing tree that grows within them, bears every kind of fruit, and is adorned with various fruits. For in this garden a tree of knowledge and a tree of life have been planted. Yet the tree of knowledge does not kill; disobedience kills. For the Scriptures state clearly that from the beginning God planted a tree [of knowledge and a tree] of life in the midst of Paradise, revealing life through knowledge. Because our first parents did not use it genuinely, they were made naked through the serpent’s deceit. For there is neither life without knowledge nor sound knowledge without true life. Therefore, one tree is planted near the other. Discerning the force of this, and blaming the knowledge practiced apart from the truth of the injunction that leads to life, the apostle says, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” For the person who supposes that he knows anything without the true knowledge testified by life is ignorant. He is deceived by the serpent because he did not love life. But the one who recognizes and desires life with fear plants in hope, expecting fruit. Let your heart be knowledge, and your life true reason, properly understood. If you bear the tree and pluck its fruit, you will always gather the harvest God looks for—a harvest which the serpent does not touch and deceit does not infect. Eve is not corrupted but is believed on as a virgin, and salvation is set forth, and the apostles are filled with understanding, and the Passover of the Lord goes forward, and the congregations are gathered together, and [all things] are arranged in order. As He teaches the saints, the Word is gladdened, through whom the Father is glorified. To him be glory forever and ever. Amen.