Mark here the manner in which sin diffuses itself through all the five senses. For what did Eve neglect that could be used in the service of sin when once she had believed Satan contrary to the Word of God, and had listened to his lies in telling her that she would not surely die, but that her eyes would be opened and that she would know both good and evil. Her eyes could not be satisfied with seeing. It was nothing to her now that she possessed the knowledge of God, and that she had a sound and perfect mind. She was not content without the addition of the knowledge of evil also. And this was the very essence of Satan's poison; her desire to be wise above that which God had spoken to her as his command. For such wisdom was death and the very enemy of that wisdom of God, which had been delivered to her in his Word. For this wisdom caused her to consider that to be righteousness, which was really sin, and to look upon that as most desirable wisdom which was utter madness. The whole point therefore lies in this which the Latin version has omitted to express: that the tree was a tree to be desired, because it made the eaters thereof wise. And this is the very aim of the devil, to cause a man to think his knowledge and wisdom the greater, the further he departs from the Word. Hence the Sacramentarians think it the sum of all wisdom to assert that bread is bread, and that wine is wine; but that bread is not the body, nor wine the blood of Christ. So Arius considers that he has carried off the palm of all wisdom, when he asserts, from certain Scriptures evilly distorted from their manifest sense, that the Logos was indeed before all creatures; but that still he was created. In like manner the Anabaptists imagine that they trumpet forth the very height of wisdom, when they declare aloud with full-swollen cheeks that water cannot reach the soul or the spirit, but that it washes the naked skin only, and that therefore baptism avails nothing to the remission of sins. Hence we have known fanatical spirits to baptize here and there without any water at all, who nevertheless continued to boast that they never dissented from us or our doctrine. And truly, this is wisdom. But it is the wisdom of the devil; and directly contrary to the Word and wisdom of God. And it is the peculiar and proper temptation of the devil thus to render us wise in our own conceits contrary to and above the Word of God. Just as he himself was once in heaven, and then fell. And this high wisdom is a temptation of his, far exceeding in destructive efficacy all the grosser temptations of lust, avarice, pride, etc.