15 James now goes on to trace the potentially deadly consequences into which man’s evil desires can lead him. The language he employs is the language of childbearing. Desire (as if it were a woman) experiences a “conception” (syllabousa: when [desire] has conceived) and subsequently gives birth (tiktei) to sin. If we analyze the experience of temptation, James’s words are instructive. Desire, he says, is the mother of sin. Perhaps we might even suggest that such conception occurs when desire, or