Image Details

Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY

Eve undulates with serpentine grace along the outer wall of the Cathedral of Saint Lazarus in Autun, France. Apple in hand, she slithers toward Adam (whose portrait has not survived). As in the pseudepigraphic Apocalypse of Moses, Eve, and not the serpent, will be Adam’s tempter. The sculptor’s curious conflation of Eve with the serpent illustrates their comparable moral culpability; indeed, in the Apocalypse of Moses, the serpent is to Eve what Eve is to Adam: The devil speaks through her, tempting Adam to partake of the fruit.