[De contemptu mundi]

children, as Basil says in his Hexameron Six Days of Creation. Similarly, Ambrose. From that lake, as if from a single fountain, proceed those four rivers, Phison, which is also called the Ganges; Gion, which is also called the Nile; the Tigris and the Euphrates, of which special mention is made in the books of Genesis. And these things said concerning paradise for the present shall suffice.

The third chapter follows: concerning the life and misery of man in this valley of tears.

Our parents, indeed, once cast out of paradise because of their transgression into the field of Damascus, in which Adam was also first made, were transferred. There, among thorns and thistles, Adam ate his bread. Eve, in the pain of her childbirth, felt to what purpose the eating of the apple had profited her. And it is no wonder if Adam and Eve, who had been created by the word of God and not from the seed of man, should have had greater stings of conscience, and should have led a more miserable life. For they had already seen and tasted the pleasantness of paradise, and the sweetness of its fruit. And because they were not yet condemned to mortality, it is piously to be believed that even the angels themselves face to face