A Prophecy of Esau and Jacob

The Book of Adam and Eve Book 4

4:10.

After him Manasseh his son reigned twelve years in Jerusalem. He did much evil, and made the people of Jerusalem worship idols.

Then when he had so transgressed the law of God, Isaias the prophet came to him and rebuked him for the wickednesses he had wrought.

Then Manasseh was angry with him, and commanded valiant and wicked men to take Isaias the prophet, and to saw him asunder with a saw of wood, from his head down to his feet, among the trees of the wilderness; and then to cast him to the beasts (of the field) to devourr him.

And they did so to him. Isaias was then one hundred and twenty years old. His raiment was of shaggy goats hair upon his body; and he fasted regularly every second day (of the week) all the days of his life.

Then Manasseh died; and after him reigned his son Amots, who did evil before God; for he offered sons and daughters in sacrifice unto idols.

Then Amots died; and after him reigned Yusias his son. He was twenty years old when he (began) to reign, and continued twenty-two years in his kingdom in the city of Jerusalem.

He did justice and right before God; and kept the Passover of the Lord, such as the children of Israel never were able to keep, except the one Moses kept for them in the wilderness.

This king [Yusias] purified Jerusalem of all wickedness.

Pharhon the lame, king of Egypt, killed Yusias in Carmelos. Then after Mm Akaz reigned three months.

But Pharhon bound Akaz in chains and sent him into the land of Egypt; and he died in that place.

After his death Yuakem his brother reigned fourteen years; in the third year of his reign, Nabukadanatsor came to the city of Jerusalem, and God delivered Yuakem into his hands; and Yuakem was under his orders, bowed unto him, and paid him tribute; he then sickened and died.

After him reigned his brother Yekonias three months; then came Nabukadanatsor who took captive Yekonias and all his army, and sent them to Babylon.

On the way there, Daniels mother gave him birth. Anania, Azaria, and Misael, sons of Yekonias, were also born on the first transportation of Yuakem.

Then Yekonias died, and after him Zedekias reigned twelve years.

This was the end of kings that reigned over the children of Israel, and all Judah; after them no king was left to them.

And at the end of the fourteenth year of Zedekias, Nabuka danatsor came and transported all the people of Jerusalem, as far as the west, as far as the river Euphrates, as far as the great river.

He laid waste Tyre, and burnt Hiram king of Tyre with fire, who had reigned five hundred years.

Then after this Nabukadanatsor went into Egypt, and put to death Pharhon; destroyed his army, and laid waste the land of Egypt) and then took the city of Jerusalem.

And God delivered Zedekias into his hands, whom he took, and brought out before idols, and set him before the people, and slew his children before him, without pity.

He then put out his eyes, bound his hands with chains and his feet with fetters; and sent him to Babylon, because of his folly, and of the evil he had done to Isaias the prophet, by casting him into springs of water in a marsh.

After this Nabuzaradan captain of the kings army, destroyed the walls of Jerusalem, burnt the House of God with fire; and did all manner of evil to Jerusalem.

Simeon the priest, found favourr and grace with the captain of the kings army, and requested him to give him the house of records; and he gave him a command accordingly.

Then Simeon the priest came in and gathered together the ashes of the books, and laid them in a pot in a vault, and he took a censer of brass, and put fire therein, and threw pure incense upon it, and hung it in the vault over the place in which the ashes of the books lay.

(Nebuzaradan) laid waste Jerusalem, like a wilderness.

And Jeremiah the prophet sat weeping and mourning over Jerusalem twenty years, after which this prophet Jeremiah went into the land of Egypt, and died there.

Then writers and the interpreters destroyed the writings, and the Hebrews changed the writings; and the Syrians and the Greeks rejected many sections of those writings.

So that the children of the people could not ascertain (their kindred), neither could men or women hear who were their fathers or their mothers, except very few of them;

And this was because of the laying waste of Jerusalem; so that until this day, nothing certain is found among the writings, except the chief writings alone, which writings had been translated before the ruin of Jerusalem.

Then again since some of the writings were altered, people could not ascertain how they were married, and could not know who were their wives or daughters; they did not know their names or their kindred; nor the order of generations; neither did they know that of the priesthood.

And Jechonias remained twenty-seven years bound in prison at Babylon.

After that he was released by Marzuk king of Babylon, who gave him to wife, a woman called Dalilah daughter of Eliakim, by whom he had Salathiel in Babylon. Jechonias, Salathiel’s father, died at Babylon.

Then Salathiel took to wife Hadast, daughter of Elkanah; and had by her Zerubbabel.

And Zerubbabel married a woman whose name was Malka, daughter of Ezra the scribe; he had no child by her in Babylon.

Then in the days of Zerubbabel, who was elder among the children of Israel, a Persian king, called Cyrus, who reigned over Babylon, took to wife a woman called Meshar, sister of Zerubbabel, elder among the children of Israel; and he made her queen after the manner of the queens of Persia.

And when she became queen, she found favour with the king, and asked him to show mercy to the children of Israel, and to send them back to the city of Jerusalem.

Cyrus loved much Meshar, sister of Zerubbabel, (even) as his own soul.

So he gave an urgent order that they should go about the whole land of the Chaldaeans, and gather together the children of Israel into Babylon, the house of the kingdom; and they gathered them according to the kings order.

Then Cyrus said to Zerubbabel, his wifes brother: Take your people and go to your city Jerusalem; and rebuild it as it was at first.

Then when dutiful Cyrus had given this order concerning the return of the children of Israel to Jerusalem, in the land of the sanctuary; God appeared unto him in a vision during sleep, and said unto him:

Because you have done this, they shall call you Cyrus the Messianic; and this name, Messianic, shall be given you, because you have sent back strangers to their own city; and because you have given commandment concerning the rebuilding of Jerusalem.

Then the children of Israel returned from the captivity of Babylon, Zerubbabel was elder over them; and Josiah, son of Zadok, of the sons of Aaron, was high priest over them;

As the angel of God spake to the prophet Zachariah saying, Those two sons that stand before the Lord of the whole earth shall minister unto them, as becomes their service.

Cyrus had assumed the kingdom two years, when the captivity returned from Babylon; and at the end of that year, the five thousand years (spoken ofJ to Adam were fulfilled.

When the children of Israel returned from Babylon they had not the law, neither was there a book in their hands; inasmuch as the voices of the prophets had departed from among them.

So, when they came to Jerusalem and were settled in it, Ezra the scribe came to the vault in which were the ashes of the books, which Simeon the priest, had gathered together.

And Ezra found the censer that was full of fire, hanging with (smoke of) incense rising from it on high.

Then Ezra prayed to God, wept abundantly, and spread his hand towards the ashes of the books of the law and of the prophets, and all of them three times.

Then came the Spirit of God upon him, and the (same) Spirit spake through him that had spoken through the prophets.

And he wrote the law and the prophets, and made them new a second time.

And the fire which he found in the censer, is the divine fire that was all the time in the House of God.

Then Zerubbabel settled in Jerusalem as king over the children of Israel, and Josiah son of Zadok as high priest, with Ezra the scribe of the law and the prophets also, as chief over the children of Israel.

And the children of Israel kept a solemn Passover unto the Lord, when they returned from their captivity at Babylon.

These were the three great, full and solemn feasts of the Passover, which the children of Israel kept during their existence.

The first Passover was in Egypt, in the days of Moses; the second Passover was in the days of king Josiah; and the third Passover was when they returned from their captivity in Babylon.

4:12.

From the first transportation to Babylon, when they carried away Daniels mother, and she brought him forth, unto the second year of Cyrus the Persian, are seventy years, during which the children of Israel were captive, according to the prophecy of holy Jeremiah the prophet.

And the children of Israel began to build the House of God, in the days of Zerubbabel, of Josiah the son of Zadok, and of Ezra the scribe.

And they were forty-six years building it, until it was finished, as it is written in the holy Gospel, that they were forty-six years building it.

Moreover, scribes arranged tables of genealogy, and recorded the names of the men; they could not record the names of the women because they knew them not, except very few.

But, my brethren, I have watched much, and I have searched long in the books of the Greeks and of the ancient Hebrews, and I have found the name of the women written in them.

For I found that when the children of Israel came from Babylon, that Zerubbabel begat Abiud of Maukabf the daughter of Ezra the scribe; and that Abiud took to wife Tsamita the daughter of Zadok the high priest, and she bare Eliakim.

And Eliakim married Hasbia, the daughter of Aram, and brought forth Azar. And Azar begat Zadok of Lebaida.

And Zadok took to wife Kalem, the daughter of Waikam, who gave birth to Akim.

And Akim married Asbaidi, who gave birth to Eliud. And Eliud married Awad, the daughter of Gasulius, who gave birth to Azar.

And Azar married Hayat, daughter of Walha, who brought forth Mattan; and Mattan married Sabartyal the daughter of Phulius, who brought forth twins, namely, Jacob and Joachim.

And Jacob married Gadat, the daughter of Eleazar, who gave birth to Joseph the betrothed of Mary.

And Joachim, the brother of Jacob, married Hannah the daughter of Makah; and she brought forth the pure Virgin Mary; and of her was born Christ.

The former scribes, however, could not find a good lineage for the Virgin and her father, or kindred; Wherefore did the Jews crucify Christ, and taunt Him, and mock Him, and say to Him, Show us the fathers of Mary the Virgin and her people, and what is her genealogy.

Therefore did they blaspheme her and Christ; henceforth shall the mouth of those unbelieving Jews be closed; and they shall know that Mary is of the seed of David the king, and of that of the patriarch Abraham.

Moreover, the unbelieving Jews had no registers to guide them aright, neither did they know how the lines of kindred ran at first, inasmuch as the law and the prophets were three times burnt (out) from them.

The first time in the days of Antiochus, who burnt down the whole House (of God); the second time they burnt those books in the days of Qablar the great king of Mosul;

And the third time they burnt the books was at the transportation by king Nabukadanatsor when Abumirdan came and burnt the House of God, and destroyed the walls of Jerusalem; when Simeon the priest asked of him the store of books, and he gave them to him.

4:13.

We will make known to you all the genealogies in detail.

Judah begat Pharez, and Pharez married Barayah, the daughter of Levi, and begat Esrom.

And Esrom married Kanita, the daughter of Zebulun, and he begat Aram.

And Aram married Phozib the daughter of Judah; and he begat Aminadab.

And Aminadab married Thehara, the daughter of Esrom, and he begat Naason.

And Naason married Simar, the daughter of Yuhanas, and he begat Salmon; and Salmon married Saphila, the daughter of Aminadab, by whom he had Booz.

And Booz married Ruth the Moabitess, of the seed of Lot, and begat Obed; and Obed married Abalit, the daughter of Sonas, and begat Jesse.

Jesse married Habliar, the daughter of Abrias, and begat David the king.

And king David took to wife Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, and begat Solomon.

And Solomon married Nan, the same as Makiya, the daughter of Dan king of Ammon, of the seed of Lot, and begat Rehoboam.

And Rehoboam married Makin, the daughter of Bilos, and begat Abia.

And Abia married Malkit, the daughter of Absalom, and begat Asaph.

And Asaph married Nirona, the daughter of Sala, and begat Joshaphat.

And Joshaphat married Malkiya, the daughter of Abiud, and begat Jovam.

And Joram married Phitalia, the daughter of Naphrim, and begat Osias; and Osias married Sophia, the daughter of Habralias, and begat Jotham.

And Jotham married Hadast, the daughter of Elkanah, and begat Ahaz.

And Ahaz married Bikaz, the daughter of Zachariah, and begat Hezekiah;

And Hezekiah married Basyar, the daughter of Bartenas, and begat Manasseh;

And Manasseh married Amasisan, and begat Amos; and Amos married Nadyas, and begat Josias.

And Josias married Dalilah, the daughter of Kermias, and begat Joachim.

And Joachim married Phurdia, the daughter of Phulek, and begat Jechonias and his brother during the captivity of Babylon.

And Marsas who reigned over Babylon, released Jechonias from prison, and gave him to wife, a woman whose name was Dalilah, the daughter of Ehakim, by whom he had Salathiel.

Jechonias died at Babylon; where Salathiel continued forty-nine years after him, and married Hadast, the daughter of Bikanah, and begat Zerubbabel.

And Zerubbabel married Maukab, the daughter of Esdras the scribe, and had by her Abiud.

And Abiud married Hadast, the daughter of Zadok the high priest, and begat Eliakim.

And Eliakim married Kwebedai, the daughter of Aram, and begat Azar.

And Azar married Salambeta, the daughter of Zadok.

And Zadok married Kalim, the daughter of Waikan, and begat Akim.

And Akim married Zasbaidi, and begat Eliud.

And Eliud married Awad, the daughter of Gasalias, and begat Eleazar.

And Eleazar married Hayat, the daughter of Thalka, and begat Matthan.

And Matthan married Sabartia, the daughter of Phunius, and had by her twins, namely, Jacob and Joachim.

And Jacob married Gadat, the daughter of Eleazar, and begat Joseph the betrothed (husband) of Mary.

Joachim married Hannah, the daughter of Makah, and begat the pure Mary; Here ends the genealogy of pure Mary.

4:14.

And here my brother, I have settled for you that which is true, and I have revealed unto you the genealogy, and laid for you the firm foundation, which not one of the writers and of the wise men, could make known.

But, my brother, give me your heart and make it clean, that I may tell you what things remain, and how the reckoning of generations come all round to reach unto and to stand firm by the birth of Christ.

After the birth of Christ there remained no more trustworthy reckoning to the Jews; for Christ was the end of the generations; He took it and gave it to us.

Let me tell you, my brother, that the five thousand years from Adam, did not end before the days of Cyrus, king of Persia.

Then from Cyrus to the sufferings of our Saviourr Jesus Christ, even as the faithful Daniel prophesied, saying, After seven weeks Christ shall come, and shall be put to death.

Now seven weeks are four hundred and ninety years; for a great week is of seventy years; in that the prophet said: After seven years, he pointed to the ten years;

For he did not say, Christ shall come at the end of the seven weeks. He said: After seven weeks; and be put to death. The meaning here of after, is, those ten years, that make up the five hundred years.

And that is the fulfilment of the promise that God made to Adam, that He would save him at the end.

Henceforth are the mouths of the Jews struck dumb, and to them belongs shame, because they blaspheme and say that Christ is not yet come.

While they say so, they, of necessity, believe the first statement to be true and the last to be a lie.

If they say Christ came, believing, as they do, the prophecy of the prophet Daniel, they now see that the prophecy of Daniel is fulfilled, and that the House of God is laid waste from them; that the priesthood is abolished, and that the seven weeks were fulfilled, and that Christ came, and was put to death; and that the Holy City was laid waste by king Vespasian and his son Titus.

Let me also tell you, my brother, that in the thirty second year of the reign of Augustus Caesar, Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judah, as it is written in the Gospel.

And, behold, it is made plain to us, that Christ came when the prophecy was fulfilled.

As Micah the prophet said: you Bethlehem, land of Judah, you are not lower than the kings of Judah; for from you shall come a king, that shall feed my people Israel.

Let the Jews now feel ashamed of themselves; for if they make Daniel a liar, they cannot again make the prophet Micah a liar; yet if they will make them liars still, behold, Christ was born in Bethlehem, the land of Judah.

And when He was born at Bethlehem, the land of Judah, a star in the East made it known, and was seen by Magi.

That star shone in heaven, amid all the other stars; it flashed and was like the face of a woman, a young virgin, sitting among the stars, flashing, as it were carrying a little child of a beautiful countenance.

From the beauty of His looks, both heaven and earth shone, and were filled with His beauty and light above and below; and that child was on the virgin woman’s arms; and there was a cloud of light around the childs head, like a crown.

It was a custom of the Chaldeans to observe the stars of heaven; to take counsel from them; and they were numbered by them.

So when they saw the star of the figure we have just mentioned, they were greatly troubled, and said among themselves: Surely the king of the Heloneans is putting himself in battle array against us!

And they inquired among soothsayers and philosophers, until they ascertained the fact and discovered that the king of the children of Israel was born.

As to this matter of the stars, the Chaldeans used to work it out, and to take counsel from the power of the stars; so that they knew every event that should be, before it happened.

Likewise the captains of large ships, when they went on a voyage upon the seas, (knew beforehand) the signs of winds, of whirlwind, of gloom, and of thick darkness.

So the Magi when they read in their books, knew from them, that Christ should be born in the land of Judah.

So they went upon a high mountain in the east, while coming westward; and they took with them the presents they had prepared before they set of on their journey; that is, gold, frankincense and myrrh, that had been with Adam in the Cave of Treasures.

Gold, namely as unto a king; frankincense, as unto God; and myrrh, as for His death.

4:15.

When Hor, king of Persia, heard who it was they called King of kings, he prepared his chariot and mounted it.

Basantar also, king of Saba, came out; and Karsundas, king of the East, got himself ready and came out also.

They were all in great tribulation, and also all other kings in the borders of the West trembled with them, and every country in the East was in great alarm at the sight of that glory.

Then the Magi while on their journey said: This star has not risen for some great event.

And they went on their way until they came to Jerusalem.

When Herod heard of it, he was troubled, and called the Magi to him, and communed with them; and they rehearsed unto him the (whole) thing.

Then he and all his hosts trembled; and he said to the Magi: Go and inquire diligently concerning this Child; and when you have found Him, come and tell me, that I also may go and worship Him.

Then the Magi went forthwith to Bethlehem, and found Christ, and offered Him their gifts. they did not return to Herod; they went back to their own country.

After they were gone, Herod was wroth, and commanded all children of two years and under, to be put to death.

Then an angel of the Lord appeared unto Joseph and said to him: Arise and take the Child and His mother, and go to the land of Egypt; and abide there until I tell you.

And Joseph went into the land of Egypt.

Then Herod began to slay all children, until he had not left one. And he died of an evil death.

After his death an angel of the Lord appeared unto Joseph in the land of Egypt.

And Joseph came up out of Egypt, and dwelt at Nazareth, he, the child, and Mary His mother.

And they abode at Jerusalem until Christ was thirty years of age, and was baptized by John.

This John lived all his days in the wilderness, and his food was locusts and wild honey.

And in the nineteenth year of Tiberius, our Lord Christ was crucified. He died in the body, and was buried, and rose again from among the dead on the third day; as it is written.

And He went down into hell, and saved Adam and Eve, and all their righteous seed, according to His first and firm promise.

And so He fulfilled all that the prophets had prophesied concerning Him. He then went up into heaven; whence He will come again with His holy angels, to judge the quick and dead.

Unto Him be glory, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power and worship for ever. Amen.

~~~ THE END ~~~

Posted in Books of Ancients

The Book of Adam and Eve Book 4

4.1

THEN when Terah was two hundred and thirty years old, he fell sick, and called his son Abraham and said unto him: O my son, I wish to die.

Abraham stood up and comforted him, paid him all due honour, and did not aggrieve him about his being a maker of idols.

For Abraham his son, was a righteous man, and could not bear idols; he paid him all due respect, as being his father.

Then Terah died; and Abraham and Nahor buried him in a mountain. when Abraham was grown up, God said unto him: Abraham, come out; of your land, of your kindred, and of your fathers house; and go to the land that I will show you.

Then Abraham arose, and took Sarah his wife, and Lot his brothers son, and they came to the land of the Amorites.

And Abraham was seventy years old when he saw this vision; and this was his first wandering from the land of the east, to the western side of the river Euphrates.

So Abraham came, and dwelt among kings; and those kings rose up against his brothers son, and carried him away captive.

Then Abraham took his servants, and all those who were about him, and came to his brothers son, and delivered him out of their hands.

At that time Abraham was eighty years old, and no son was born to him, because that Sarah his wife, was barren.

Then as he was returning from the war with those kings, the grace of God drew him, until he had passed over the hill of Nablus; and from the hill of Nablus, he came near to Jerusalem, before it was built.

Then Melchisedec, priest of the Most High God, came out, and welcomed him with joy. And Abraham, when he saw Melchisedec, made haste and bowed to him in worship, and kissed him on the face; and Melchisedec gave him a good blessing.

Then Abraham gave Melchisedec a tenth of all he had with him.

After that Abraham communed with Melchisedec of the holy mysteries which Melchisedec had consecrated with his own hand. For that was an exalted place, not by mans hand, God Himself had anointed it.

After Abraham had communed with Melchisedec, God said unto Abraham: Fear not, great is your reward with Me; and in like manner as Melchisedec My high priest blessed you, and made you partaker with himself of Holy Mysteries, so will I make you partaker with him of heavenly grace.

Again did God say to Abraham, In blessing will I bless you, and in multiplying will I multiply your seed upon the face of the earth.

4:2.

AFTER this there was a famine in the land of Palestine; and Abraham went down into the land of Egypt. 

— the name of the land was initially called the land of Canaan, but the Romans, after expelling the Jews sometimes around AD135, Hadrain renamed it from Judean province to “the land of Palaestina” so this fourth portion of the Book of Adam and Eve could well be added by Christians living after this era;

And Sarah his wife was with him, and she was good-looking.

So Abraham said to her: Do not say, I am Abraham’s wife, lest they kill me and take you from me. say, I am his sister.

Then when they came into the land of Egypt, men spake to Pharoh king of Egypt, and said to him: Behold a man has come here; and with him is his beautiful sister.

Then Pharoh sent and took her from Abraham, who remained weeping. God in His mercy sent an angel who smote Pharoh and said to him: Send back to Abraham his wife, lest God kill you.

Then in the morning, Pharoh called Abraham and said unto him: Forgive me. He then gave him his wife Sarah; and gave to Sarah, Hagar the Egyptian, and gave her many presents.

After this Abraham took Sarah his wife, with Hagar her maid-servant, and returned to Palestine.

And after that, Abraham took to himself Hagar to wife, who bare him Ishmael, when Abraham was eighty-seven years old. In that Abraham said: Sarah is my sister.

He did not lie; inasmuch as Terah, his father, married two wives; one of which was called Tona, the mother of Abraham, who died shortly after he was born.

Then Terah married again another wife whose name was Tahdif, who bare him Sarah, whom Abraham married, and for that reason said: She is my sister, on my father’s side, not on my mother’s.

After this, when Abraham was dwelling in tents, the Lord came to him with angels of His, and gave him a sign of the birth of his son Isaac, who was born to him when he was a hundred years old.

The Lord showed him also many mysteries.

Then days after this, God said to Abraham when Isaac was fourteen years old: Offer unto me your son Isaac, in oblation.

Then Abraham fortified himself and took courage for this trial; and brought his son to offer him in oblation to God. God redeemed Isaac with a lamb that was tied to a bush.

And the bush to which the lamb was tied, is the very place into which the tree of the Cross was planted.

And the lamb that saved Isaac from death, was a figure of the Lamb of God who saved us all from death.

That mountain also, on which king David saw an angel standing with a sharp sword of fire in his hand, as if going to smite Jerusalem with it, is the place where Abraham saw with the eye of the Holy Ghost, the Son of God, hanging on it.

For this reason did the Lord say to the Jews, Abraham, your father, rejoiced and longed to see my day, and he did see it, and was glad.

Again this is the place, as the blessed Paul said: For the sake of Jesus Christ my Lord, I am minister of the circumcision, where Christ was circumcised on the eighth day; that is also the place where the patriarch Abraham offered up an oblation to God.

And again, as it was in the days of Moses, when they offered up a lamb for the sins of the people, to cleanse them from their sins, so also did the Lamb of God offer up Himself in oblation for us, to set us free from our sins.

4:3.

After this Melchisedec showed himself to men, who saw him, and who were comforted by his words, everywhere. The kings of the earth and peoples, when they heard his voice, did gather together; a multitude of creatures and of kings; that numbered twelve hosts.

They came to him and bowed to him in worship, and were blessed by him, and asked him, saying, Come, let us make you king over us. Melchisedec king of Salem, and priest of the Most High God, would not.

And the kings wondered at his beauty; their hearts were drawn to him by his discourse, and they fell down at his feet in worship; and they asked God, that Melchisedec might dwell among them in their palaces.

Melchisedec would not, and said unto them: I cannot leave this place, and go to another one.

So those kings said among themselves: Let every one of us who can, come, and let us build a city on this mountain for Melchisedec.

They all took pleasure in the work, brought together materials in abundance, and built the City of Jerusalem, that means the middle of the earth.

Then Melchisedec continued to dwell in it, at that place; and the kings came, and were blessed by him, until the day of his departure, when his life ended in this world.

4:4.

After this, Abraham ordered one of his servants, to take a wife for his son Isaac; and adjured him not to marry Isaac, to one of his own kindred.

And Abraham entered into rest when one hundred and seventy-five years old; and Isaac and Ishmael his sons buried him.

Then Isaac married when he was forty years old; and Esau and Jacob his sons, were born unto him when he was about sixty years of age.

And God blessed Isaac greatly.

Then after this Jacob went to the land of Haran, to Laban, his mothers brother, and married his two daughters Leah and Rachel.

He had by Leah, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun; and by Rachel he had Joseph and Benjamin.

Then he had also by Zilpah, Leah’s maid-servant, Gad and Aser; and by Bilhah, Rachel’s maid-servant, he had Dan and Naphtali.

And about twenty years after Jacob’s return from the land of Haran, before his father Isaac died, Joseph was sold by his brothers, because they were jealous of him.

When Isaac died, his two sons Esau and Jacob came to him, embalmed him, and laid him in the sepulchre of his father.

Then six years after the death of Isaac, Rebecca died; and they buried her by Sarah, Abraham’s wife.

And when, after that Leah, Jacob’s wife died, they buried her by the side of them.

Then after this Judah took to himself a wife whose name was Habwadiya, that means, house-wife; in the law her name is Sewa.

She was of a Canaanite family, and Jacobs heart suffered much on that account; and he said to Judah his son who had married that wife: The God of Abraham and of Isaac will not allow the seed of this Canaanite woman to mingle with my seed.

Some days after this, Sewa bare three sons unto Judah, whose names were Er, Onan, and Selah.

And when Er was grown up, Judah married him, his first-born son, unto a woman named Tamar, daughter of Kadesh Levi.

And Er continued with her a long time, and behaved after the manner of the men of Sodom and Gomorrah.

God looked down upon his evil deeds and killed him.

Then Judah married his son Onan to Tamar, saying, He shall raise seed unto his brother. him also did God kill because of his evil deeds; on account of Jacobs curse, that no Canaanitish seed should mingle with his own.

So God would not let any of it mingle with that of Jacob the righteous.

Therefore did Tamar go to Judah her father-in-law, who had intercourse with her, not knowing she was his sons wife; and she bare unto him twins, Pharez and Zarah.

4:5.

After this Jacob went to Joseph, and continued fourteen years in the land of Egypt, where he died at the age of one hundred and fifty-seven; when the good Joseph was fifty-three years old.

Then when he was dead, Joseph called cunning Egyptian embalmers, who embalmed him beautifully; and then Joseph carried his body to the land of Canaan, and buried him in the sepulchre of his fathers Abraham and Isaac.

After this Pharez begat Judah, and Judah begat Ezrom, and Ezrom begat Aram; and Aram begat Aminadab; and Aminadab begat Naason.

And this Naason was great among the sons of Judah; and the daughter of Aminadab married Eleazar the son of Aaron, who prayed to God, until His wrath abated.

So, O my son, have I told you in detail the genealogies from the first until now.

4:6.

After this, there began to issue a race from Naason, who was great among the sons of Judah; and from him began a kingdom and a priesthood, and the Jews became celebrated through him.

Then Naason begat Salmon, and Salmon begat Boaz of Rahab.

And you must know that from Boaz and Ruth the Moabitess, began the kingdom whereby Lot, the son of Abraham’s brother, obtained a share (in the generations) of the kingdom (of Judah).

For God denied not seed to Lot, neither would He cut it short. For this Lot was righteous, and shared all Abraham’s troubles with him; and received the angels of God in Sodom and Gomorrah.

Therefore did God give to Lots children fellowship in the kingdom, and that was (reckoned) for righteousness unto Lot the righteous.

For this reason also were (Lots children) mentioned among the genealogies of the kingdom of Abraham and of Lot; for Christ was born of their seed.

Then again, Obed, Ruths son, was of Lots seed, on his mothers (side); and Obed begat Jesse; and Jesse begat David the king.

And king David begat Solomon; all these are of Ruth the Moabites.

Again, Amnan, the daughter of (Dan), king of the Ammo nites, was of Lots seed; and Solomon the king took this daughter of Dan to wife; and had by her, Rehoboam, who reigned after Solomon.

King Solomon took to himself many wives, seven hundred daughters of kings, three hundred concubines, one thousand in number.

Although Solomon took to himself these many wives, they did not bare him a single male child, Rehoboam, of Amnan, the daughter of Dan, king of Ammon; who was of a blessed race.

So, again, God would not allow the seed of Canaanites to mingle with that of strange peoples, which God had made strangers.

And this shows that Christ came of the seed of Abraham the blessed father, and of Lot his brothers son.

And all the families of the children of Israel in the land of Egypt, were Levi, Amram, Moses, Joshua, and Caleb, son of Jephunneh; all these were great chiefs over their peoples.

4:7.

As to Moses, when they had thrown him into the river, Sephorah, the daughter of Pharoh, took him up thence, and brought him up.

She it is, whom the Hebrews call Mariam, the mother of Moses.

And Moses abode forty years in Pharoh’s house; and other forty years in the land of Midian, before God spake to him.

Then again, when God spake to Moses from within the bush his tongue faltered; and (his) tongue was, as God said: From the time that I spake to My servant Moses, he was of a faltering tongue.

And Moses dwelt forty years in the land of Egypt, and forty years in the land of Midian, with the priest Jethro, his fatherin-law; then forty years more in the wilderness; when Moses died, aged one hundred and twenty years.

Then after him arose Joshua, the ton of Nun. He was twenty-seven years judge over the children of Israel, and exercised judgment over them; he was prophet among them, and kept them, and led them in the right way; and he entered into rest and died, when sixty years old.

Then after him arose Kusarat the judge, eight years, and he died; and after him Phutamiral, the son of Kaba, judged the children of Israel forty years, and died.

After him Naod, son of Phuru, judged the children of Israel eighty years.

In the twenty-fifth year of Naod, ended fourr thousand years since Adam.

Naod died, and Sikar judged the children of Israel. in his days a king of Canaan rose against Sikar, wishing to make war against him.

God gave Sikar victory over him, whom he defeated; and Sikar judged forty years.

After him Tarod was judge over the people of Israel, forty years; and after him Abimelec judged ten years, and died.

And after him Banu, son of Tuorani, judged twenty-three years, and died.

After him Yar of Phila, judged twenty-two years, and died.

After him the son of Aminadab, judged fifty-eight years, and died.

And after him the daughter of Nasyamu judged seven years, and died.

After her, Ansyus judged seven years, and died; and after him the Philistine judged forty years.

God gave him into the hands of the champion Samson, who slew him.

Then the champion Samson arose and was judge over the children of Israel twenty years, and then died.

Then the children of Israel were left without a judge twelve years, when Eli the priest began to judge; and judged them forty years, and then died.

After him Samuel was judge over the children of Israel forty years, and died.

Then after him, Saul reigned over them forty years, and died.

Then after him, David reigned over the children of Israel forty years, and then died.

And after him, his son Solomon arose, who also reigned forty years over the children of Israel, and then died.

He wrought more wonders in the earth than all other kings, who were before him. For he was the first whom God filled with wisdom.

So that he made (and did) many things peculiar to him; so far as to make a ship, and go in it to the city of Saphir; (where) he wrought gold in ornaments, and brought it to Jerusalem.

During his reign, there was great peace; there was no trouble; there was peace between him and Hiram king of Tyre; who reigned five hundred years over the city of Tyre, and whose kingdom lasted from the reign of Solomon, to that of Zedekiah;

Until, from the length of his days and of his years, and from the greatness of his kingdom, he exalted himself and said: I am a god, and no man.

God was wroth against him because of his evil deed;

And God looked down upon it, and delivered him into the hands of king Nebuchadnezzar who put him to death; removed his army, and took his spoil.

4:8.

We will inform you of the things king Solomon gave every day in his house.

On account of his many wives, they made bread in his house of thirty cores of fine flour; one hundred cores of wheat flour, which hardly sufficed.

And they slaughtered in his house daily, ten bullocks well-fatted, and twenty fat oxen, and one hundred sheep; besides what they slew of buffaloes, gazelles and wild deer, which they hunted every day.

And in Solomon’s house they drank daily fourr hundred basins of wine. And many other things did they.

And Solomon reigned over his large kingdom with the greatest wisdom ever found. He did not keep his soul; but inclined his heart to the love of women, and forsook God who had created him, and who had given him this kingdom.

And he died in his denial of Him, and in his sins.

After him reigned Rehoboam, his son, seventeen years, and did evil. He defiled Jerusalem with abominable sacrifices, and sacrificed to satan; and adultery increased greatly in his days.

Wherefore God cut of his kingdom swiftly; and took it from the house of David.

In the fifth year of Rehoboam, a king whose name was Susakim came up against Jerusalem.

He took all the spoil of the temple, and spoiled all Rehoboam had, and spoiled all the house of David, and removed them and took them to his own country.

And he boasted, and said to the Jews: The things I have taken from you as spoil, are goods that belonged to my fathers, of which your fathers spoiled them, when they came out of the land of Egypt, and which they brought unto this place; and behold, I have taken them from you.

And Rehoboam died in his denial (of God);

And after him, his son Abius, reigned twenty years over the children of Israel. He, too, walked in his fathers ways, by reason of Makia his mother, the daughter of Absalom; wherefore, did he many wicked things, and then died.

After him arose Asaph his son, who reigned forty-one years over the children of Israel.

He did what was right, just and good before God; he brake down the idols that were in his day, and removed their images from the face of the land; and he took his wicked mother Anna, and threw her down from the roof (of her house) and she died, because of her adulteries.

After that, came Eleazar a black king, who was king of Endena, to fight Asaph.

God delivered him into the hands of Asaph, who defeated him.

Then Asaph died; and his son Jehoshaphat reigned in his stead. He also did that which is just and good before God, and pleased God all his days, and then died.

Then his son Aram reigned in his stead; he transgressed the commandments of God, and forsook His law, and sacrificed unto idols.

Then Zambri rose up against him, made war against him, and he died in his denial (of God).

Then Yusia, his son, reigned (after him); on account of his transgressions, God delivered him into the hands of his enemies, who put him to death.

When he was dead, his mother rose up against all the royal children and put them to death, and said: I will take the kingdom from the house of David.

Then Yusabet daughter of the king of Aram, arose, took Agragarina, and slew him before the eyes of the royal children that were left.

When she had put him to death, she feared, and hid herself and those with her, under a bed.

And Gotholia was queen over the children of Israel, and died.

Then the whole people of Israel said: Whom shall we make king over us.

Then when Yuda the high priest heard they spake so, he gathered together the whole of the Jews within the Temple, and waited until the messengers of thousands and the messengers of hundreds came;

And then Yuda the high priest, said to them: What do you require of me, and who is he whom you will make king over the house of David.

Then they said to him: You have authority.

Then Yuda rose and took Barsia, and brought him before them, and said to them: Does this one suit you for a king.

The people were pleased with him; so Yuda brought him into the house of God, and set him over the kingdom; then all the people rejoiced, and the whole country was quiet in his days; and he was king in Jerusalem forty years.

Barsia did not bear in mind all the good things Yuda the priest had told him; he took him and put him to death.

After this, enemies rose up against Barsia and put him also to death.

4:9.

After him his son Amazias reigned twenty-nine years, and put to death those who had killed his father; he did not put to death their children, so as to fulfil the law of Moses, that says, You shall not put to death children for the sins of their fathers.

Then Amazias died;

And after him Ozia reigned fifty-two years, and in his reign exercised justice and judgment, and right before God.

Yet did he do one wicked act, and that was that, without due orders, he offered sacrifices unto God, and oblations that did not become him.

So he died. After him Yonathan his son, reigned sixteen years. during his reign, he did evil before God, and angered his Creator, and forsook His commandment and His law; and burnt incense to idols, and sacrificed unto them.

For this reason did God deliver him to death, into the hands of Caran, king of Elmosal.

And when the king of Elmosal led him away (captive), he (Yonathan) took all the vessels he found in the house of God, and sent them all to the great king of Elmosal; and left nothing in the house of God.

In the days of this king, did the children of Israel, go the first time into captivity.

He removed them to his own country, and the land of Israel remained bare.

Then the king of Elmosal, sent people to dwell in the land and to till it, instead of the children of Israel who had left it.

When those people came to dwell in that land, (wild) beasts rent them asunder and devoured them, and prevailed against them in all the borders of the land.

Then they sent word to the king in their own tongue, and asked him to send them Urias the priest, to give them the law, so that wild beasts should no longer come near them, and hurt them.

When the king heard this he sent them Urias the priest, and commanded him to give them a law, for them to keep, so that the wild beasts hurt them not.

Urias the priest came, and did as the king had commanded him, and he gave the people the law of the Jews; it was in their hands, they recited it and ruled themselves after it.

And those were the Samar; whom the king, of whom we have just spoken, had sent to till the land of Israel.

Then Yunathan died, and after him reigned Akaz his son, who did well before God, and then died.

After him reigned his son Hezkias, when he was twenty-five years old; and he reigned twenty-two years; and did good, and judgment, equity and justice; and he pleased the Lord; he kept His law and His commandments; he brake down the idols, and destroyed their houses.

In the fourth year of his reign, came Sanakreb king of Assarium, and took away captive all that were left and sent them to Babylon.

Hezkias served the Lord God, and fulfilled His law, until he fell sick and became very weak, and was in great distress by reason of his sickness; his heart suffered, and he said to himself: Woe is me! I shall die without a son to reign after me.

And in his sickness he wept before God and said: Woe is me, Lord! behold, I die without a son; and behold the promise You made unto David, shall fail in me; and the kingdom shall pass from the house of David.

Then God looked upon his sorrow of heart, and upon his sickness, for his sickness was sore.

And God had pity on him and gave him fifteen years over and above the rest of his days; and he recovered from his sickness.

Then three years after he had recovered, and God had raised him from his sickness, he begat Manasseh.

And he died, rejoicing greatly at having a son born unto him, to sit upon his throne.

Posted in Books of Ancients

The Book of Adam and Eve Book 3

3:21.

Then Melchisedec praised God; and he and Shem made an offering.

And Shem stayed with him that day, to rest from the toil of the journey. When the day dawned, it seemed good to Shem to depart.

Then Melchisedec wished him God speed, and blessed him, and said unto him: The Lord God who led us to this place, be with you; and guide you until you come to your own place.

Melchisedec said also to him: When they inquire of you about me, direct them not in the way; that they come not to me. And when my father and my mother ask you about me, say to them: He has departed and I do not know the place of his pilgrimage.

So that when you say so to them, their hope of me will be cut short, and they will feel it is of no use thinking of me; they will not press you and make you come to me.

Then Shem departed and returned to his kindred, while Melchisedec remained standing before the body of our father Adam, ministering unto God and worshipping Him evermore.

An angel abode with him, who protected him and brought him food, until the time of Abraham the patriarch. The raiment of this Melchisedec was of skins, with a leathern girdle around his loins. And he ministered unto God, with much praying and fasting.

3:22.

Shem and his brothers multiplied abundantly upon the earth and begat sons and daughters; it went on this way until Shem was five hundred and fifty years old when he died.

Then they embalmed him, and continued mourning for him forty days.

After this, Arpachshad son of Shem, lived fourr hundred and eighty-five years and died; they embalmed him and mourned for him forty days.

After him was Cainan, son of Arpach shad, father of Melchisedec, who lived five hundred and eighty-nine years, then died.

After him, Selah son of Cainan, brother of Melchisedec, lived fourr hundred and eight years, then died.

After him, Eber his son, lived fourr hundred and thirty-fourr years, then died.

Peleg was born when his father was two hundred and seven years old. In the days of Peleg, the earth was divided a second time among the three sons of Noah; Shem, Ham, and Japhet.

Wherefore were they much aggrieved through this division among themselves; because during their fathers life-time, they were gathered together.

Now they were divided asunder, and on that account much affliction befell them.

Peleg died and they buried him in his own city, Peleg; for they had built a city, and had called it after his name.

After his death, which happened when he was fourr hundred and thirty years old, there were great disturbances, and men gathered together within fenced cities.

After this, tongues were divided; for God divided them when men built the tower in Sennaar, it was destroyed over them.

And God divided their languages; and what remained of them He dispersed over the earth; because they built without a fixed plan.

Therefore God dispersed them and scattered them, and brought upon them the division of their languages; until if one of them spake, no other understood what he said.

And the number of languages is seventy-two. And when they were so divided, they had over them seventy two rulers, one to every tongue, and to every country, by way of a king.

And of the seed of Japhet were six peoples.

3:23.

Then Rehu, Peleg’s son, lived two hundred and thirty-two years and died.

When Rehu, Peleg’s first-born son, was one hundred and thirty years old, there reigned one of the first kings that ever reigned on the earth, whose was a giant named Nimrod (grandson of Ham).

That Nimrod saw a cloud of light under heaven; a mere apparition of satan. And he inclined his heart to it, and coveted its beauty; and then called to one whose name was Santal, a carver, and said to him: Carve me a crown of gold, after the pattern of that cloud.

Then Santal made him a crown which Nimrod took and placed upon his own head.

Wherefore was it said that a cloud had come from heaven, and overshadowed him. And he became so wicked, as to think within himself that he was God.

And in those days Rehu was one hundred and eighty years old, and in his one hundred and fortieth year.

Then Yanuf reigned over the land of Egypt; he is the first king that reigned over it. He built the city of Memphis and named it after his own name; that is Misr; whose name is rendered Masrin.

This Yanuf died and in his stead, in the days of Rehu, one from the land of Indi reigned, whose name was Sasen, who built the city of Saba.

And all the kings who reigned over that country were called Sabaeans after the name of the city.

And it was so until the days of Solomon son of David.

Then again Pharan reigned over the children of Saphir, and built the city of Saphir with stones of gold; and that is the land of Sarania. and because of these stones of gold, they say that the mountains of that country and the stones thereof are all of gold.

Then the children of Lebensa of the country of Indi, made king over them one named Bahlul, who built the city of Bahlu. Then Rehu died in his two hundred and eighty-ninth year.

3:24.

After came Seroug his son, in whose days idol-gods of stone, were openly worshipped in the world.

The children of men began to make idols of stone, the first of which were Kalithon and Helodon.

And the children of men multiplied upon the earth, and their wickedness increased also; for they had neither law nor order; and no teachers to guide them in the way of righteousness; nor any one to be judge among them.

Wherefore they grew worse and worse, and wandered farther from the way of God; every one of them did what he himself listed; and they made for themselves idol-gods, which they worshipped.

They had no hope in the resurrection of the dead. Whenever one of them died, they buried him, and set up an idol over his grave and said that was his god that would show him mercy in his grave.

As regards the dead, they said also that when his god was set up over his grave, the remembrance of him would not be cut of from the face of the earth.

This was a common saying brought out by satan; and so the earth was filled with idols; and those idols were of divers kinds, men and women.

After this Seroug died two hundred and thirty years old; and they embalmed him in Sarania his city, that was built in his name.

After that, Nahor, then twenty -nine years old, begat Terah.

And when Nahor was eighty-six years of age, God looked down upon the children of men, (and saw) that they were ruined and worshipped idols.

Then God sent forth winds, and the whirlwind, and earth quakes on the earth, until the idols were broken one against another.

Yet the children of men did not repent of their sins, neither did they turn to God from their iniquities that He might save them; rather increased in wickedness.

And in the twentieth year of Terah’s life, the worship of idols spread over the earth in the city of Aarat, which Barwin (i.e. Jokthan) the son of Eber had built.

At that time there was a rich man living in it, who died; and his son made an idol of gold in the likeness of his father, and set it up on his grave.

He then ordered one of his servants, to stand by the idol, and to minister unto it; to sweep the ground around it, to pour water to it and to burn incense.

When satan saw this he entered into the idol of gold, and talked to the servant, like his master’s father that was dead; and said to him: You do so.

After this a thief took by surprise the house of the youth, son of the man who was dead; who then came to his fathers grave, weeping.

He said: O my father, they have carried away all my goods.

Then satan answered him from within the idol and said: Do not stay here, go and bring your son, and offer him up in oblation to me, and then I will return to you all your goods.

Then that youth went, and did with his son, as satan had commanded him.

And at that time satan entered into him and taught him to practise enchantments, magic, mixture of drugs, and divination.

That was the first evil example set to men, to take their children and to offer them up in sacrifice to idols and to devils.

3:25.

Then in the hundredth year of Nahor, God looked down upon the children of men (and saw) that they sacrificed their children to idols.

Then God commanded the stores of winds to open, and to send forth the whirlwind, storms, and darkness, upon the whole face of the earth, until all the idols, images, and figures, were brought together, mountains upon mountains.

The idols remained buried under them until this day.

Many wise men have written about this wind, that it was the wind of the Flood; and many of them say it was the water of the Flood that so brought together these mountains (of idols).

They erred to say that is false concerning it. For before the water of the Flood came upon the earth, there were no idols in it.

The Flood came upon the men at that time because of their adulteries and the sins which they committed among themselves; both the children of Cain and those who followed them.

Moreover at that time, the whole earth was not filled with people; only the land of the garden in which dwelt the children of Seth, and the place inhabited by the children of Cain.

Besides that, the whole earth was uninhabited.

When the Flood came, it bare the ark and brought it to this land of trouble. That land was laid waste.

When in those days, king Nimrod saw a flaming fire in the east which arose from the earth, Nimrod said: What is that fire?

He went towards it and when he saw it, he bowed to it in worship and appointed a priest to minister before it, to burn incense to it and to sacrifice victims to it.

From that day the men of Fars began to fill the earth.

Then satan the worker of idols saw a fountain of water near the fire-pit, and he came to it, and looked at it, and made a horse of gold, and set it up on the edge of the fountain of water;

And it so happened that all those who came to wash in that fountain of water, bowed in worship to that golden horse; and from that time, the people of Fars began to worship horses.

The priest whom Nimrod appointed to minister to the fire and to burn incense to it, wished to be a teacher, and wise of the same wisdom as Nimrod, whom Barwin, Noah’s fourth son had taught.

That priest, therefore, kept on asking satan, while standing before the fire, to teach him this evil ministry and abominable wisdom.

So, when satan saw him doing his best in the service (of the fire), he talked to him and said: No man can become a teacher, wise or great before me unless he hearkens to me, and goes and weds his mother, his sister, and his daughter.

That priest hearkened to satan, in all that he said: he taught him all manner of wickednesses.

And from that time, the people of Fars have committed alike sins unto this day.

And Nimrod built great cities in the east and wrought all manner of iniquities in them.

~~~~ The End ~~~

Posted in Books of Ancients

The Book of Adam and Eve Book 3

3:11.

In the six hundred and seventh year of Noahs life, on the second day of the month Barmudeh, the water dried from of the earth.

And in the next month, which is Gembot, on the twenty-seventh day thereof, which is the day on which Noah went into the ark, on that self-same day did Noah also come out of the ark, on a Sunday.

When Noah, his wife, his sons and their wives went out of the ark, they again came together, and did not part asunder one from another;

At first, when they went into the ark, the men and the women remained apart, Noah fearing lest they should come together, when the Flood was over, they again came together, the husband with his wife.

God also had sent great quietness over the beasts, the lions that were in the ark, and over the birds and creeping things, not to disagree among themselves.

Then Noah came out of the ark, and built an altar upon the mountain. And he stood, and requested the Lord to show him of what sacrifices he should to take, and bring them unto Him in offerings.

Then God sent His Word to Noah, saying, Noah, take of the clean kind, and offer of them upon the altar before me; and let the animals go out of the ark.

Then Noah went into the ark, and took of clean birds as many as God had commanded him; and offered them up in offerings upon the altar before the Lord.

3:12.

Pattern of the covenant God made with Noah, when He showed him the bow on the cloud in heaven.

And God smelled the smell of Noahs offerings, and He made a covenant with him, that the waters of the flood should not again come upon the earth, henceforth and for ever.

And this is the covenant God made with Noah. God said unto Noah: I will make the bow of My covenant come out in the cloud; and when it appears, then men shall know that it is done in truth.

And if I was wroth, when the bow was seen in the cloud, then that My anger and the punishment I meant to bring upon men were over.

Then again, Noah, I have made this bow of My covenant to be seen in heaven, in order that all creatures should see it, and think of the trials and afflictions that came upon them at first, and repent, and turn from their evil ways.

And God accepted Noahs offering, and blessed him and his sons, and said unto them: Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the face of the earth.

Then God commended the earth to bring forth herb as it did of old, for beasts, for birds, and for all that moves on the earth. Then Noah worshipped before God, with his sons and their wives; and they praised Him for the salvation He had wrought for them.

3:13.

After this Noah took his sons, and built them a city and called it Semanan; as they were eight souls that came out of the ark.

And Noah and his sons dwelt on that mountain about a hundred years, until he had children and childrens children.

And Noah took a root of vine and planted it, and dressed it until it yielded fruit. It was sweet, and Noah took some of it, and pressed wine out of it, and took it one night and drank of it, and was drunk. And he came in to his wife unawares.

Then Ham, his son, came into the house in the morning and saw his father uncovered, and drunk with wine, and without sense to know anything.

Then Ham his son kept on laughing at him, and said: What is this you have done, you old man? the old man understood not what he said; only Noah’s wife understood it well.

Then Ham went out laughing at his father, and told his brothers Shem and Japhet what his father had done; and laughed at his parents.

His brothers were angry with him, and rebuked him well for so doing; because they were -afraid of him, as regards the old man; for Ham was rough and hard in his talk.

Then Shem and Japhet rose quickly, and took with them a coverlet, and put behind their backs that coverlet that reached unto their feet; and they walked backwards, and turned their face towards the way they had gone, until they came to their parents.

Then they threw the coverlet over them, and went from them in haste, so as not to see them.

On the morrow after this, Noah’s wife told him what Ham had said and what he had done. Then was Noah very angry with his son Ham for what he had done; and he cursed him, and made him servant of his brothers.

Noah blessed Shem and Japhet, his sons, because they had behaved well to him. Then Noah married another wife, who bare him seven children. And he continued to dwell on that mountain until the days drew near when he must depart (this life).

And Noah lived three hundred and fifty years after he came out of the ark.

Then he called his first-born son Shem, and conversed with him, saying, my son, hearken unto what I commend you. Behold (what) I commend you now (is), to hold good until I die and you bury me.

Then when you have ended mourning for me, go into the ark in which we were saved from the flood; then bring out of it the body of our father Adam; let no one know of it one that is of your seed. Then make a beautiful case for it, and lay it therein.

Then take with you some bread to be for provision unto you by the way, and wine whereof to drink on your way; for the land to which you shall go is rough and hungry.

Then take Melchisedec the youngest son of Cainan, your son; for God has chosen him from all generations of men, to stand before Him to worship and to minister unto Him, by the body of our father Adam.

Then lay the body of Adam in the midst of the earth; and set Melchisedec to stand by it; and show him how to fulfil his ministry before God.

Moreover Noah said unto Shem his son:, If you will keep my commandment and go, an angel of the Lord will go with you and show you the way, until you come to the place where you shall lay the body in the midst of the earth; for in that self-same place God shall work salvation for the whole world.

My son, I know that our children forsook this good commandment, and went down the Holy Mountain, and mingled with the children of Cain, and that they perished with them in the waters of the Flood.

Know my son, that from Adam until this day, every one of the ancients, gave commandments to one of the rest, at the time of his resting from the flesh, and that they taught (these commandments) among themselves.

The first, my son, who taught this commandment and made it plain, was our father Adam; he gave it to his son Seth, who received it. Then Seth handed it to his son Enosh who kept it. And Enosh gave it to his son Keinan who kept it.

Then Keinan gave it to his son Mahalaleel, who kept it, and handed it to his son Jared. And Jared kept it and gave it to his son Hanoc, who also kept this commandment and gave it to his son Metuselah, who kept it, and gave it to his son Lamech who kept it, and who gave it to me, his son; and I have kept it.

My grandfather Metuselah also gave me a great commandment which I have kept; and which I give you likewise.

So, then receive my commandment, and hold fast my words; and hide this mystery within your heart; reveal it not to one of all your kindred.

Go, and lay the body of our father Adam in the earth; and let it remain there unto the day of salvation.

3:14.

The ark was closed during the days of Noah; neither was anyone allowed to touch it. Yet they went to it, blessed themselves in it, and talked about it.

Noah, however, went into it every evening, to light the lamp which he had made before our father Adam, and blessed himself in that body.

And he did not neglect his ofice regarding the lamp, as it was at first in the Cave of Treasures, as Noah knew that after him, the ark would not remain whole, and that his children would part asunder and not return to look after the body of our father Adam;

And that wickedness would increase in the earth and abominations among men, therefore did he command his son Shem to hasten to take the body of our father Adam, and to remove it unto the middle of the earth; according to God’s order.

3:15.

Then when Noah had ended giving orders to his son Shem, concerning the body of our father Adam, Noah said to his son Shem: Bring here to me your brothers; make them come near me.

Then when they came to Noah, he looked at them and said unto them: After my death, my sons, you shall part asunder and sore troubles shall happen to your race.

From now I will divide among you the earth into three portions; as every one of you shall be settled in his own portion.

Unto my first-born son, Shem, his lot shall be from Jerusalem which is a great city, as far as Qardaiun and Andika. It takes in the border mountain that reaches unto Gefur, between the land of Egypt and that of the Philistines.

Unto my next son Ham, his portion shall be from Aris towards the south, unto Fardundan and unto Gaduriun, and unto the borders of the west.

And unto my third son Japhet, his portion shall be from the corner of the west towards the south unto Damatha, a large tract of country; and all the north also as far as Aris.

He then said to them: Let every one of you take a portion different from that of his brothers; and let every one of you dwell in his own portion.

And they settled in it, as he commanded them. And they all had sons and daughters during their father Noahs lifetime.

And Noah divided the earth among them by God’s order, in order that there should be no enmity between the three brothers.

Then when Noah had ended his commandments to Shem and to his brothers, his hands dropped, his tongue became dumb, his eyes closed and he died, like his fathers.

He died aged nine hundred and fifty years, on a Wednesday, the second day of the month Gembot, on the mountain on the which was the ark; and there he will remain until the day God reveals (his resting-place).

And they mourned for him forty days.

3:16.

After they had ended mourning for Noah, an angel of God appeared unto Keinan father of Melchisedec and said unto him in a vision, Know you me? Keinan answered: No, my Lord.

Then the angel said to him: I am the angel whom God has sent unto you to give you this commandment. Transgress not the command of God.

When Keinan heard this from the angel of God, he wondered and said unto him: Speak my Lord.

And the angel of God said unto him: I am the angel who brought gold to your father Adam, when he was below the garden; I am the angel who entreated God together with him, when he offered his own blood upon the altar.

I am Michael the angel who received the soul of Abel the just; I am the angel who was with Seth when he was born in the cave. I am the angel who was with Enosh and Cainan, and Mahalaleel and Jared and Hanoc, and Metuselah and Lamech, and with Noah since he entered into rest, I stand by his first-born son Shem.

And, behold, God has sent me to you, to take your son Melchisedec, and to remove him to the land, in which God shall lay the body of our father Adam, and that he may be high exalted before God. Let not your heart be grieved at his going away.

When Keinan heard these words from the angel, he worshipped before him; and said unto him: The will of God be done!

Behold, I and my son are in His hands; let Him do what He pleases. This angel appeared unto Cainan, not on account of Keinan’s righteousness and purity, but on account of Melchisedec, of his righteousness and purity.

Then the angel said unto Cainan: Commit not this mystery to anyone but to Shem alone. Then the angel departed from him.

3:17.

Then the angel of God came unto Melchisedec that night while he was lying on his bed.

And he appeared unto him in the figure of a youth like him, who smote him on the side, and awoke him out of his sleep.

When Melchisedec heard it, he rose up, and saw the house full of light, and a figure standing before him.

And he was afraid, for he was not accustomed to see angels, this once only.

The angel prevented fear from overcoming him, and anointed him on the head and on the breast, and said unto him: Fear not, I am an angel of God; and He has sent me to you with this message, that you fulfil it unto your God.

Melchisedec then said unto him: What is that message? For he was a youth of a perfect heart.

And the angel said unto him: It is that you go with the body of our father Adam, unto the middle of the earth; and that you stand ministering before it there; and that you serve God; for He has chosen you from your childhood. For you are of the seed of the blessed.

Then Melchizedec said unto him: Who will bring the body of my father Adam, me with it, unto the middle of the earth?

And the angel said unto him: Shem the son of Noah, your father’s grandfather.

Then the angel strengthened his heart, and comforted him tenderly one whole hour, and then said unto him: Commit not these hidden words to any but to Shem only, lest the report of it spread abroad and they hang on to the body of Adam, and not let it go to the land, to which God has commanded.

And the angel departed from him.

3:18.

Then the angel went to Shem the son of Noah and said unto him: Arise and take the body of Adam, as your father Noah gave you commendment. Take with you Melchisedec and go with them to the place ordered by God; tarry not!

When it was day, Shem made a beautiful case and hid it close to the ark. Then he prepared bread and wine and provisions, and came to Keinan to inquire for his son Melchisedec.

Then Keinan began to tell him all that the angel had said unto him; and he gave him up his son Melchisedec, with a good heart.

Then Shem said to Cainan: Keep this mystery secret and reveal it to no one. Then Shem took Melchisedec and they saddled an ass between them, and they went to the ark. They had no key wherewith to open the ark; for Noah had fastened it with a padlock, after he had come out of it.

When, therefore, they came to the ark, they bethought themselves how to open it. Then came Shem to the door and said to Melchisedec: Come, open it, you great God.

Then came Melchisedec to the door when he heard him, and seized the padlock; and at once the door was opened.

Lo! A voice cried from within the ark and said: Rejoice, you priest of the Most High God, for that you have been found meet to enter upon the ofice of priest of God; the first created by Him in the world. This voice was from the Holy Ghost.

And Melchisedec knew that voice when it breathed into his face; he knew it also through great grace that was in him.

He then marvelled, and said to Shem: My Lord, I know by the breathing in my face; though I saw no form and heard no voice speaking to me; for I saw no one. This voice is from the body of our father Adam.

And Shem remained trembling, not knowing what to say to him.

While they were wondering at the door of the ark, the Word of God came, that said: I am He that made you priest and that breathed of My Spirit into you; now you are My righteous priest, you are worthy to bear the body of Adam whom I created, and into whom I breathed of My Spirit. And I made him a priest, and a king, and a prophet. Go in first and bring out his body.

Then Melchisedec went into the ark, and bowed in worship to the body of our father Adam; he blessed himself in it, and brought it out; the angel Michael, helping him the while to carry it.

And Shem went in also, and brought out the gold, the incense and the myrrh, and laid them together with the body of our father Adam; he then placed the body within the case, and shut it upon the body. And then he shut the door of the ark, as it was at first.

3:19.

Then Shem and Melchisedec took the body of Adam, and went on their way; and the angel of God went with them and showed them where to go.

And so they went on that day until the evening; and alighted at a certain place to rest.

Then Shem and Melchisedec stood up to pray; and while they prayed there came a voice from inside the cofin of Adam that said: Glory to God who created me, who gave me life, who made me die, and who again returns me to the earth out of which He took me.

And the voice blessed the youth Melchisedec and said unto him: of all our race, God chose no one but you, neither did He anoint any one of them priest with His own hand, you; neither did He breathe into the face of any one His pure Spirit, as He breathed it into you.

And I rejoice, my son, that you have been found worthy of such honourr from God. Then the voice withdrew from Melchisedec who wondered at this voice that came forth from a dead man.

It was done by the power of God. when Shem saw this first wonder wrought on Melchisedec, he kissed his face and rejoiced greatly on his account.

As for Melchisedec, he tasted nothing that night, for the joy that filled his heart; he continued standing before the coffin of Adam, praising God and praying until morning.

This vision happened to Melchisedec in the fifteenth year of his age.

Then Shem and Melchisedec put the coffin upon the ass, and went on their way; and the angel of God went with them. And it was so that when they came to rough places, the angel bare them up by the power of God, and made them pass over them, whether they were lands or mountains.

And so they went on their way until the evening of the second day, when they alighted to rest, after their custom.

Then Shem and Melchisedec stood up to pray; As they were praying, behold a great light shone over them, Wherefore Melchisedec did not feel aught of fatigue, by reason of the strength of God, that was in him; he rejoiced like one that is going to his wedding.

They stood praying as they were wont before the coffin of our father Adam. Then came a voice from the top of the coffin, that said to Melchisedec and to Shem: Behold, we are drawing near to the place our Lord has decreed for us.

And the voice said unto Melchisedec: Upon the land to which we are going, shall the Word of God come down, and suffer, and be crucified on the place, in which my body is laid.

The crown of my head shall be baptized with His blood; and then shall my salvation be wrought; and He shall restore me to my kingdom, and shall give me my priesthood and my gift of prophecy.

Then the voice was silent by the power of God. Melchisedec and Shem marvelled at the voice that talked with them. And Melchisedec remained the whole of that night praying joyfully until the day dawned.

Then they put the body of Adam on the ass, and went on their way.

And the angel of God went with them, until they neared the place.

Then he went before them, and stood before the ass, and took down from her the coffin, himself alone; and not as on the two former occasions, when Melchisedec took it down (from the ass). when the coffin reached the rock, the rock split asunder into two parts,, that was the place for the coffin;

And Melchisedec and Shem knew thereby that it was the place God had appointed.

Then the angel went up from them into heaven, while saying unto God, Behold, the body of our father Adam has arrived, and is come to the place You did choose. I have done that which You did command me.

Then came the Word of God to the angel, saying, Go down to Melchisedec and strengthen his heart; and commend him to abide by the body of Adam.

And when Shem enters into rest, tell Melchisedec to go, and to take from Shem the bread and wine he has with him, and to preserve them.

3:20.

Then the angel came down from God, in the figure of a man, who appeared to Melchisedec and to Shem, and strengthened their hearts.

He then laid the body of our father Adam in its place; and said to Melchisedec: Take from Shem the bread and the wine. And he took them, as the angel told him.

Melchisedec and Shem stood praying by the body of our father Adam until the evening, when a great light came down upon the body, and angels ascended and descended in that place upon the body of our father Adam.

They were rejoicing, and praising, and saying, Glory be to You, God, who did create the worlds; and made men of the dust of the earth, to exalt them above heavenly beings.

And the angels so praised God over the body of our father Adam, the whole of that night, until the dawn of day.

As the sun rose, the Word of God came to Melchisedec, and said to him: Arise and take twelve of these stones; make of them an altar and offer upon it of the bread and wine that was with Shem: offer them, you and he.

Then when Melchisedec heard the Word of God, he worshipped between his hands; and he hastened, and did as God commended him.

And at the time he was offering the gift upon the altar, and asked God to sanctify it, the Holy Ghost came down upon the offering; and the mountain was filled with light.

The angels said unto him: This offering is acceptable unto God. Glory be to him who created earthly men, and has revealed great mysteries unto them!

Then the Word of God appeared to Melchisedec, and said unto him: Behold I have made you priest; you and Shem shall offer this offering you did make first; and in like manner as you did, set up these twelve solid foundation stones; for I will raise twelve apostles to be the pillars of the world; and they are firm.

In like manner also, as you did make this altar, will I make you an altar in the world; and like as you did make an offering of bread and wine, will I also present the offering of My Body and Blood, and make it unto forgiveness of sins.

And this place on which you are standing and in which the body of Adam is laid, will I make a holy place; all creatures ou earth shall be blessed in it; and in it I will grant forgiveness unto all who come here.

Then the Word of God blessed Melchisedec, named him priest, and then went up from him into heaven in glory and rejoicing with His angels.

Posted in Books of Ancients

The Book of Adam and Eve Book 3

Noah’s Ark

3.1.

NOAH noticed from his youth up, how sin had multiplied, how wickedness prevailed; how generations of men perished, how sorrow increased, how righteous men diminished. Therefore did he afflict his soul; he restrained his members, and retained his virginity; and grieved over the ruin wrought by the generations of men.

And this Noah habitually mourned and wept and was of a sad countenance; and so he held his soul in fasting, so that the enemy had no advantage over him, and did not come near him.

This Noah also, ever since he was a child with his parents, never made them angry, never transgressed against them; nor ever did a thing without their advice.

And when he was away from them, if he wished to pray or to do aught else; he would ask of God, to guide him aright therein; Wherefore God watched over him.

And while he was on the mountain, he did not transgress against God in any one evil thing, nor did he wilfully depart from what pleased God; neither did he ever anger God.

Many were the wonderful things which happened to him, more than to any of his fathers before him, about the time of the Flood.

And Noah continued in his virginity and in his obedience to God five hundred years; after that it pleased God to raise him a seed; He therefore spake unto him, saying, Arise, Noah, and take unto yourself a wife, that of her you may have children that may be a comfort to you; for you are left alone, and you shall go out of this country unto a strange land; for the earth shall be peopled with your posterity.

Then when Noah heard this from God, he did not transgress His commendment, took unto himself a wife, whose name was Haikal, the daughter of Abaraz, who was of the children of Bnoss children, that went into perdition. And she bare unto him three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japhet.

3:2.

After these things, God spake unto Noah about the Flood; that it should come upon the
earth, and destroy all creatures, so as not to let one of them be seen.

God said unto Noah: Guard your children; commend them and make them understand not to have intercourse with the children of Cain, lest they perish with them. And Noah hearkened to God’s words, and kept his children on the mountain, and would not let them go down to the children of Cain.

Then God spake again unto Noah, saying, Make unto yourself an ark of wood that will not rot; to be a deliverance to you and to the men of your house; begin to build it in the low land of Eden, in presence of the children of Cain, that they may see you working at it;

And if they will not repent they shall perish; and the blame shall rest on them; cut on this holy mountain, the trees whereof you shall make the ark; let the length of the ark be three hundred cubits, the breadth thereof fifty cubits, and the height thereof thirty cubits.

And when you have made and finished it, let there be in it one door above, and three compartments; and every compartment ten cubits high. The first story shall be for lions, and beasts, animals and ostriches all together.

The second story shall be for birds, and creeping things. And the third story shall be for you and your wife, and for your sons and their wives. And make in the ark wells for water, and openings to them, to draw water thereat, for drink to you and to those that are with you.

And you shall line those wells with lead, both in and out. And make in the ark store-houses for corn; for food to you and to those that are with you. Then make also unto yourself a trumpet of ebony wood, three cubits long, one and a half cubit wide, with a mouth piece of the same wood.

And you shall blow it three times; the first time in the morning, that the workmen (working) at the ark may hear it, and gather to their work. Then you shall blow it the second time, and when the workmen hear it, they will gather to their meal.

And you shall blow it a third time in the evening, for the workmen to go and rest from their labour. God said unto Noah: Go about among the people and tell them that a flood shall come and shall overwhelm them; and make the ark before their eyes.

And when they question you about the making of the ark, tell them: God has commended me to make it, that we may get into it, I and my children, and be saved from the waters of the Flood.

When Noah went about among them and told them, they laughed at him, and only committed adultery and revelled together all the more, and said: that twaddling old man!

Whence will ever the waters come, above the tops of high mountains? We never saw water rise above mountains; and this old man says, a flood is coming! Noah did all his works, as God had told him concerning them.

3:3.

And Noah begat his three sons, during the first hundred years he worked at the ark. During these hundred years he ate no food, whence blood flows; the shoes on his feet were neither changed, nor worn, nor grown old.

During these hundred years also, he did not change his garments from of him, neither did they wear out, in the least; he did not change the staff in his hand, nor did the cloth about his head grow old; and the hair of his head neither increased nor grew less.

As to those three sons of Noah, the first of them is Shem; the next is Ham; and the third is Japhet. They married wives from among the daughters of Metuselah; as the wise 72 interpreters have told us; as it is written in the first (sacred) book of the Greeks.

The life also of Lamech, Noahs father, was five hundred and fifty-three years; and when he drew near unto death, he called unto him his father Metuselah and his son Noah, and he wept before his father Metuselah and said unto him: Dismiss me my father, and bless me.

Then Metuselah blessed his son Lamech and said: Not one of all our fathers died before his father, the father before his son, in order that there should be his son to bury him in the earth.

Now however, my son, you die before me, and I shall drink (the cup of) sorrow on your account, before I go out of the flesh.

Henceforth, my son, behold the world is changed, and the (order) of deaths of men is changed: for from to-day the son shall die before his father; and the father shall not rejoice in his son, nor be satisfied with him.

So also shall the son not be satisfied with his father, nor rejoice in him. Lamech died, they embalmed him and laid him in the Cave of Treasures. His death took place seven years before the Flood came; and his father Metuselah and his son Noah remained alone on the Holy Mountain.

Noah went down every day to work at the ark, and came up at eventide. He instructed his sons and their wives not to come down after him, and not to hold intercourse with the children of Cain.

Noah was anxious about his sons, and said in his mind: They are young and might be overcome by passion. So he went down by night; and gave old Metuselah directions about them.

3:4.

NOAH preached repeatedly to the children of Cain, saying, The flood will come and destroy you, if we do not repent. they would not hearken to him; they only laughed at him.

When the children of Seth went down from the Holy Mountain, and dwelt with the children of Cain, and defiled themselves with their abominations, there were born unto them children called Garsina, who were giants, mighty men of valour, such as no other giants were of equal might.

Certain wise men of old wrote concerning them, and say in their (sacred) books, that angels came down from heaven, and mingled with the daughters of Cain, who bare unto them these giants. those (wise men) err in what they say.

God forbid such a thing, that angels who are spirits, should be found committing sin with human beings. Never; that cannot be. And if such a thing were of the nature of angels, or satans, that fell, they would not leave one woman on earth, undefiled.

For satans are very wicked and infamous. Moreover, they are not male and female by nature; they are small, subtle spirits, that have been black ever since they transgressed. Many men say, that angels came down from heaven, and joined themselves to women, and had children by them.

This cannot be true: they were children of Seth, who were of the children of Adam, that dwelt on the mountain, high up, while they preserved their virginity, their innocence and their glory like angels; and were then called angels of God. when they transgressed and mingled with the children of Cain, and begat children, ill-informed men said that angels had come down from heaven, and mingled with daughters of men, who bare them giants.

3:5.

Then the ancient old man Metuselah who remained on the mountain with Noahs sons, lived nine hundred and eightyseven years and then sickened; and his sickness was such that, on account of it, he must depart (from this world).

When Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japhet, became aware of it, they came to him with their wives, and wept before him, and said: Ourr father and elder, bless us, and pray God to have mercy on us when you are gone from us.

Then Metuselah said to them with a sorrowful heart: Hear me my dear children, for none of our fathers are left, you, eight souls.

The Lord God created our father Adam and our mother Eve, and from them filled the earth of people in the neighbourhood of the garden, and multiplied their seed; they have not kept His commendment, and He will destroy them. Had they kept His commendment, He would then have filled heaven and earth with them.

Yet I will ask the Lord my God to bless you, to multiply you, and to spread your race in a strange land to which you shall go. And now my children, behold God will bring you inside an ark, unto a land to which you have never been.

The Lord God of all our pure fathers, be with you May God bestow the glorious gifts He bestowed on our father Adam, from the garden in this blessed Cave of Treasures, on you also! These are the three glorious gifts which God made to Adam.

The first is kingship, wherein God made Adam king over His works. The second glorious gift is priesthood, in that God breathed into his face a spirit of life. And the third glorious gift is prophecy; for Adam prophesied concerning what God thought. I will ask the Lord my God, to bestow those three glorious gifts on your posterity.

Then Metuselah said also to Noah: Noah, you are blessed of God. I warn you and tell you that I am going from you to all our fathers that have gone before me. You, who shall be left alone with your children on this holy mountain, keep the commendment I give you, and forsake not anything of what I have told you. Behold my God shall quickly bring a flood upon the earth; embalm my body, and lay it in the Cave of Treasures.

Then take your wife with your sons and their wives, and go down from this holy mountain, and take with you the body of our father Adam; go into the ark and lay it there, until the waters of the Flood are assuaged from of the face of the earth.

My son, when about to die, commend your first-born son Shem, to take Melchisedec, son of Cainan, and grandson of Arpach-shad; for that Melchisedec is priest of the Most High God; and to take with them the body of our father Adam from within the ark, and remove it and lay it in the earth.

And Melchisedec shall stand ministering on that mountain that is in the middle of the earth, before the body of our father Adam for ever.

For from that place, Noah my son, God shall work salvation for Adam and for all of his seed that believe in God. Metuselah said also to Noah and to his sons: The angel of God will go with you, until you come to that place, in the middle of the earth.

Again Metuselah said to Noah: My son, let him who ministers unto God, and before the body of our father Adam; have a clothing of skin, and be girt with leather about his loins. Let him wear no ornament, let his raiment be poor; let him be alone, and stand praying our Lord God, to watch over the body of our father Adam; for it is a body of great value before God.

And let him continue in his ministry, be the priest of the Most High God; for he is well pleasing unto God, and so is the ministry he fulfils before God. After this Metuselah commended Noah: Mind all these commendments and keep them.

Then Metuselah’s hands were loosened; he ceased speaking; gradually closed his eyes, and entered into rest like all his fathers; his tears streaming down his cheeks at the time, and his heart grieving at being separated from them; mostly because of that mountain of the garden, on which not one of them was left.

For God was purposed to destroy all creatures, and to blot them out from the face of the earth. The rest of Metuselah took place when he was nine hundred and sixty-seven years old, on the twelfth of Magabit on a Sunday.

Noah and his sons embalmed him, weeping and sorrowing over him, and laid him in the Cave of Treasures. And they wailed over him with a great wailing, they and their wives, forty days. And when mourning and grief over Metuselah were ended, Noah and his sons began to do as Metuselah had commended them.

3:6.

After his death, Noah, his sons, and their wives came to the bodies of our fathers, worshipped them, and blessed themselves in them, weeping and being in the deepest grief.

Noah had finished the ark, and not one workman was left in it. And he, with his sons, continued in prayer to God, asking Him to show them the way of safety.

When Noah and bis sons had ended their prayers, God said unto him: Go you into the Cave of Treasures, you and your sons, and take the body of our father Adam and lay it in the ark; likewise take the gold, the incense, and the myrrh, and lay them in the ark together with his body.

And Noah hearkened to God’s voice, and went into the Cave of Treasures, he and his sons; they worshipped the bodies of our fathers, and then Noah took the body of our father Adam, and carried it in the strength of God, not requiring the help of anyone.

Then Shem his son, took the gold with him, and Ham carried the myrrh, and Japhet carried the incense; and they brought them out of the Cave of Treasures, their tears the while streaming down their cheeks.

But as they were bringing them out, the bodies among which Adam had been laid, cried out: Are we then to be separated from you, our father Adam? Then Adams body answered, Oh, that I must part from you my sons, from this holy mountain!

Yet do I know O my sons, that God will gather all our bodies together another time. Wait patiently until our Saviourr have pity on us. And the other bodies went on talking together, by the power of God’s Word.

Then Adam asked God that the divine fire might remain in the lamp, before his sons, until the time when bodies shall rise again. And God left the divine fire by them, to shed light on them.

He then closed the cave upon them, and left not a trace to show (where it is) until the day of the Resurrection, when He will raise them up, like all other bodies. The discourse Adam held, and that too, he being dead, was by the commend of God, who would show His wonders among the dead and the living.

After this let none of you say, that Adams soul had already been under satans judgment. It was not so; God commanded the souls of the dead, to come from under His hand; and to speak of the wonders of God from within their bodies. Then they returned to their places until the day of the sure deliverance that shall be unto them all.

3:7.

When Noah and his sons heard these voices from those dead bodies, they wondered greatly, and their faith in God was strengthened. Then they went out of the cave and began to go down from the Holy Mountain, weeping and wailing with a fervent heart, for their being so parted from the holy mountain, the abode of their fathers.

And Noah and his sons went back and sought the cave, could not find it. Then they broke out into bitter
lamentation and deep sorrow; for they saw that from that day forth, they should have neither existence nor abode in it.

Then once more they raised their eyes and looked at the garden and at the trees (that were) in it, and they lifted up their voices in weeping, and in loud crying, said: We salute you in worship, garden of joy! abode of brilliant beings, a place for the righteous!

We salute you, place of joy that was the abode of our father Adam, the chief of creation; who, when he had transgressed, fell from you; and then saw his body in life, naked and disgraced. And we, behold, we depart from the Holy Mountain to the lower side of you; neither shall we dwell in it, nor yet behold you so long as we live.

We wish God would remove you with us to the country to which we shall go; God would not remove you into a cursed land. God will take us, and will bring us into that land with our children, until He has ended the punishment for our transgression of His commandment.

Noah and his sons said also: We salute you; cave, abode of the bodies of our holy fathers; we salute you; pure spot, hidden from our eyes, yet fit to have those bodies laid within you! The Lord God preserve you for the sake of the bodies of our fathers!

Again they said: We greet you our fathers, righteous judges, and we ask you to pray for us before God that He will have pity on us, and deliver us out of this passing world. We ask you to pray for us, for us, the only ones left of your seed; We give you a greeting of peace!

Seth, great master, among the fathers, we greet you with peace! Holy Mountain abode of our fathers, we give you a greeting of peace! Then Noah and his sons wept again and said: Alas, eight souls that are left for us!

Behold we are taken away from the sight of the garden. As they were coming down the mountain they greeted the stones, took them in their hands and put them upon their shoulders; they stroked down the trees, and did so weeping. And they continued coming down from the mountain, until they came to the door of the ark.

Then Noah and his sons turned their faces to the east, and requested the Lord to have mercy on them, to save them, and to command them where to lay the body of our father Adam. Then the Word of God came to Noah, saying, Lift up the body of Adam to the third story (of the ark) , and lay it there on the eastern side; and the gold, the incense and the myrrh together with him.

And you and your sons shall stand before him praying. Your wife, and the wives of your sons, shall be on the western side of the ark; and they and their wives shall not come together. Then when Noah heard these words from God, he and his sons went into the ark, and laid the body of our father Adam on the eastern side, and the three offerings together with him.

And Noah brought into the ark the body of Adam, on a Friday, at the second hour, on the twenty-seventh of the month of Gembot.

3:8.

Then God said unto Noah: Go upon the top of the ark and blow the trump three times that all beasts gather together unto the ark. Noah said: Shall the sound of the trump reach unto the ends of the earth to gather together the beasts and the birds?

Then God said unto him: It is not the sound of this trump alone that shall go forth, My power shall go with it, to make it come into the ears of the beasts and of the birds.

And when you blow your trump, I will command My angel to blow the horn from heaven; and all these animals shall be gathered unto you. Then Noah made haste and blew the trump, as God had told him. Then the angel blew the horn from heaven, until the earth quaked, and all creatures on it trembled.

Then all the beasts, birds and creeping things were gathered together at the third hour, on a Friday; when all the beasts, lions and ostriches went into the lower story at the third hour.

Then at midday, came the birds and creeping things into the middle story; and Noah and his sons went into the third story, at the ninth hourr of the day.

And when Noah, with his wife, his sons and their wives came into the upper story, he commanded the women to dwell on the western side; Noah and his sons, with the body of our father Adam, dwelt on the eastern side.

3:9.

And Noah stood asking God to save him from the waters of the Flood. Then God talked to Noah and said to him: of every kind of birds, take one pair, male and female of the clean; and of the unclean also one pair, male and female; also of the clean take six pairs, male and female.

And Noah did all this. Then when they all had got into the ark, God shut to the door of the ark upon them by His power.

He then commanded the windows of heaven to open wide, and to pour down from them cataracts of water. And so it was; by God’s order. And He commanded all fountains to burst open, and the depths to pourr forth water, upon the face of the earth. So that the sea all round rose above the whole world, and surged, and the deep waters arose.

When the windows of heaven opened wide, all stores (of water) and depths were opened, and all the stores of the winds, and the whirlwind, thick mist, gloom and darkness spread abroad. The sun and moon and stars, withheld their light. It was a day of terror, such as had never been.

Then the sea all round, began to raise its waves on high like mountains; and it covered the whole face of the earth. When the sons of Seth, who were fallen into wickedness and adultery with the children of Cain, saw this, they then knew that God was angry with them; and that Noah had told them the truth.

Then they all ran round the ark, to Noah, begging and entreating him to open for them the door of the ark; inasmuch as they could not climb the Holy Mountain, by reason of the stones thereof, that were like fire. As to the ark, it was closed and sealed by the power of God.

An angel of God sat upon the ark, and was like a captain to Noah, to his sons, and to all inside the ark. And the waters of the flood increased on the children of Cain and overwhelmed them; and they began to sink, and the words of Noah were fulfilled, which he preached to them (saying), the waters of the Flood should come and drown them.

And the waters continued above and below over Noah and his sons, until they were suspended in the ark; and by the strength of the water, the ark rose from the earth; and the flesh of every moving thing perished.

And the water rose until it covered the earth, and until it covered all high mountains; and the waters rose above them, and above the tops of high mountains fifteen cubits, by the cubit of the Holy Ghost, which is equal to three cubits (of man). So that the number of these were forty-five cubits (above the highest mountains).

And the water increased and bare the ark, and brought it to the lower side of the garden, which the waters, the rain, the whirlwind and all that went about on the earth, did worship. As did also Noah and his sons and all that was in the ark, they bowed in worship to the holy garden.

And the water returned to its former state, and destroyed every thing that was upon the earth and under heaven; the ark was floating on the waters and rose up before the winds; while the angel of God steered and led it from east to west.

And the ark so moved about on the face of the waters a hundred and fifty days. After that, the ark stood upon the mountains of Ararat, on the twenty-seventh day of the month of Tkarnt.

3:10.

Then God sent again His order to Noah, saying, Be quiet and wait until the waters are assuaged.

Then the waters parted asunder and returned every water to its own place, where it was at first; the fountains ceased to pour forth over the earth; the depths that are on the face of the earth, ceased to rise; and the windows of heaven were closed.

For floods of rain fell from heaven at the beginning of the Flood forty days and forty nights.

On the first day of the eleventh month the tops of high mountains were seen; and Noah waited yet forty days, and then opened the window he had made on the western side of the ark, and let go a raven, to see if the waters were assuaged from the face of the earth or not.

Then the raven went forth, returned no more to Noah; for the harmless dove is the sign of the mystery of the Christian Church. Noah waited yet a little while after the waters were assuaged, and then sent out a dove, to see if the water had retired or not.

When the dove went out; she found not a place whereon to rest her foot, and no abode; and she returned to Noah. Then Noah waited seven days more, and sent out the dove to see if the water had retired or not. And the dove came back to Noah, about eventide; and in her mouth was an oliveleaf.

The meaning of the dove is, that she is taken as a figure of the old and of the new (covenants). The first time when she went out, and found nowhere to rest her feet, that is, a place of rest (is a figure of) the stiff-necked Jews, in whom no grace remained, nor any mercy whatever.

Wherefore Christ, the meek one, who is figured in the dove, did not find among them rest for the sole of His feet. The second time when the dove found a place of rest (is a figure of) the nations that have received the glad tidings of the holy Gospel, and among whom Christ has found a resting place.

Posted in Books of Ancients

Chapter XI

Seth becomes head of the most happy and just tribe of people who ever lived.

¹ AFTER the death of Adam and of Eve, Seth severed his children, and his children’s children, from Cain’s children. Cain and his seed went down and dwelt westward, below the place where he had killed his brother Abel.

² But Seth and his children dwelt northwards upon the mountain of the Cave of Treasures, in order to be near to their father Adam.

³ And Seth the elder, tall and good, with a fine soul, and of a strong mind, stood at the head of his people; and tended them in innocence, penitence, and meekness, and did not allow one of them to go down to Cain’s children.

⁴ But because of their own purity, they were named “Children of God,” and they were with God, instead of the hosts of angels who fell; for they continued in praises to God, and in singing psalms unto Him, in their cave–the Cave of Treasures.

⁵ Then Seth stood before the body of his father Adam, and of his mother Eve, and prayed night and day, and asked for mercy towards himself and his children; and that when he had some difficult dealing with a child, He would give him counsel.

⁶ But Seth and his children did not like earthly work, but gave themselves to heavenly things; for they had no other thought than praises, doxologies, and psalms unto God.

⁷ Therefore did they at all times hear the voices of angels, praising and glorifying God; from within the garden, or when they were sent by God on an errand, or when they were going up to heaven.

⁸ For Seth and his children, by reason of their own purity, heard and saw those angels. Then, again, the garden was not far above them, but only some fifteen spiritual cubits.

⁹ Now one spiritual cubit answers to three cubits of man, altogether forty-five cubits.

¹⁰ Seth and his children dwelt on the mountain below the garden; they sowed not, neither did they reap; they wrought no food for the body. not even wheat; but only offerings. They ate of the fruit and of trees well flavoured that grew on the mountain where they dwelt.

¹¹ Then Seth often fasted every forty days, as did also his eldest children. For the family of Seth smelled the smell of the trees in the garden, when the wind blew that way.

¹² They were happy, innocent, without sudden fear, there was no jealousy, no evil action, no hatred among them. There was no animal passion; from no mouth among them went forth either foul words or curse; neither evil counsel nor fraud. For the men of that time never swore, but under hard circumstances, when men must swear, they swore by the blood of Abel the just.

¹³ But they constrained their children and their women every day in the cave to fast and pray, and to worship the most High God. They blessed themselves n the body of their father Adam, and anointed themselves with it.

¹⁴ And they did so until the end of Seth drew near.

Chapter XII

Seth’s family affairs. His death. The headship of Enos. How the outcast branch of Adam’s family fared.

¹ THEN Seth, the just, called his son Enos, and Cainan, son of Enos, and Mahalaleel, son of Cainan, and said unto them:–

² “As my end is near, I wish to build a roof over the altar on which gifts are offered.”

³ They hearkened to his commandment and went out, all of them, both old and young, and worked hard at it, and built a beautiful roof over the altar.

⁴ And Seth’s thought in so doing, was that a blessing should come upon his children on the mountain; and that he should present an offering for them before his death.

⁵ Then when the building of the roof was completed, he commanded them to make offerings. They worked diligently at these, and brought them to Seth their father who took them and offered them upon the altar; and prayed God to accept their offerings, to have mercy on the souls of his children, and to keep them from the hand of Satan.

⁶ And God accepted his offering, and sent His blessing upon him and upon his children. And then God made a promise to Seth, saying, “At the end of the great five days and a half, concerning which I have made a promise to thee and to thy father, I will send My Word and save thee and thy seed.”

⁷ Then Seth and his children, and his children’s children, met together, and came down from the altar, and went to the Cave of Treasures–where they prayed, and blessed themselves in the body of our father Adam, and anointed themselves with it.

⁸ But Seth abode in the Cave of Treasures, a few days, and then suffered–sufferings unto death.

⁹ Then Enos, his first-born son, came to him, with Cainan, his son, and Mahalaleel, Cainan’s son, and Jared, the son of Mahalaleel, and Enoch, Jared’s son, with their wives and children to receive a blessing from Seth.

¹⁰ Then Seth prayed over them, and blessed them, and adjured them by the blood of Abel the just, saying, “I beg of you, my children, not to let one of you go down from this Holy and pure Mountain.

¹¹ Make no fellowship with the children of Cain the murderer and the sinner, who killed his brother; for ye know, O my children, that we flee from him, and from all his sin with all our might because he killed his brother Abel.”

¹² After having said this, Seth blessed Enos, his first-born son, and commanded him habitually to minister in purity before the body of our father Adam, all the days of his life; then, also, to go at times to the altar which he Seth had built. And he commanded him to feed his people in righteousness, in judgment and purity all the days of his life.

¹³ Then the limbs of Seth were loosened; his hands and feet lost all power; his mouth became dumb and unable to speak; and he gave up the ghost and died the day after his nine hundred and twelfth year; on the twenty-seventh day of the month Abib; Enoch being then twenty years old.

¹⁴ Then they wound up carefully the body of Seth, and embalmed him with sweet spices, and laid him in the Cave of Treasures, on the right side of our father Adam’s body, and they mourned for him forty days. They offered gifts for him, as they had done for our father Adam.

¹⁵ After the death of Seth Enos rose at the head of his people, whom he fed in righteousness, and judgment, as his father had commanded him.

¹⁶ But by the time Enos was eight hundred and twenty years old, Cain had a large progeny; for they married frequently, being given to animal lusts; until the land below the mountain, was filled with them.

Chapter XIII

“Among the children of Cain there was much robbery, murder and sin.”

¹ IN those days lived Lamech the blind, who was of the sons of Cain. He had a son whose name was Atun, and they two had much cattle.

² But Lamech was in the habit of sending them to feed with a young shepherd, who tended them; and who, when coming home in the evening wept before his grandfather, and before his father Atun and his mother Hazina, and said to them, “As for me, I cannot feed those cattle alone, lest one rob me of some of them, or kill me for the sake of them.” For among the children of Cain, there was much robbery, murder, and sin.

³ Then Lamech pitied him, and he said, “Truly, he when alone, might be overpowered by the men of this place.”

⁴ So Lamech arose, took a bow he had kept ever since he was a youth, ere he became blind, and he took large arrows, and smooth stones, and a sling which he had, and went to the field with the young shepherd, and placed himself behind the cattle; while the young shepherd watched the cattle. Thus did Lamech many days.

⁵ Meanwhile Cain, ever since God had cast him off, and had cursed him with trembling and terror, could neither settle nor find rest in any one place; but wandered from place to place.

⁶ In his wanderings he came to Lamech’s wives, and asked them about him. They said to him, “He is in the field with the cattle.”

⁷ Then Cain went to look for him; and as he came into the field, the young shepherd heard the noise he made, and the cattle herding together from before him.

⁸ Then said he to Lamech, “O my lord, is that a wild beast or a robber?”

⁹ And Lamech said to him, “Make me understand which way he looks, when he comes up.”

¹⁰ Then Lamech bent his bow, placed an arrow on it, and fitted a stone in the sling, and when Cain came out from the open country, the shepherd said to Lamech, “Shoot, behold, he is coming.”

¹¹ Then Lamech shot at Cain with his arrow and hit him in his side. And Lamech struck him with a stone from his sling, that fell upon his face, and knocked out both his eyes; then Cain fell at once and died.

¹² Then Lamech and the young shepherd came up to him, and found him lying on the ground. And the young shepherd said to him, “It is Cain our grandfather, whom thou hast killed, O my lord!”

¹³ Then was Lamech sorry for it, and from the bitterness of his regret, he clapped his hands together, and struck with his flat palm the head of the youth, who fell as if dead; but Lamech thought it was a feint; so he took up a stone and smote him, and smashed his head until he died.

Chapter XIV

Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears away another generation of men.

¹ WHEN Enos was nine hundred years old, all the children of Seth, and of Cainan, and his first-born, with their wives and children, gathered around him, asking for a blessing from him.

² He then prayed over them and blessed them, and adjured them by the blood of Abel the just saying to them, “Let not one of your children go down from this Holy Mountain, and let them make no fellowship with the children of Cain the murderer.”

³ Then Enos called his son Cainan and said to him, “See, O my son, and set thy heart on thy people, and establish them in righteousness, and in innocence; and stand ministering before the body of our father Adam, all the days of thy life.”

⁴ After this Enos entered into rest, aged nine hundred and eighty-five years; and Cainan wound him up, and laid him in the Cave of Treasures on the left of his father Adam; and made offerings for him, after the custom of his fathers.

Chapter XV

The offspring of Adam continue to keep the Cave of Treasures as a family shrine.

¹ AFTER the death of Enos, Cainan stood at the head of his people in righteousness and innocence, as his father had commanded him; he also continued to minister before the body of Adam, inside the Cave of Treasures.

² Then when he had lived nine hundred and ten years, suffering and affliction came upon him. And when he was about to enter into rest, all the fathers with their wives and children came to him, and he blessed them, and adjured them by the blood of Abel, the just, saying to them, “Let not one among you go down from this Holy Mountain; and make no fellowship with the children of Cain the murderer.”

³ Mahalaleel, his first-born son, received this commandment from his father, who blessed him and died.

⁴ Then Mahalaleel embalmed him with sweet spices, and laid him in the Cave of Treasures, with his fathers; and they made offerings for him, after the custom of their fathers.

Chapter XVI

The good branch of the family is still afraid of the children of Cain.

¹ THEN Mahalaleel stood over his people, and fed them in righteousness and innocence, and watched them to see they held no intercourse with the children of Cain.

² He also continued in the Cave of Treasures praying and ministering before the body of our father Adam, asking God for mercy on himself and on his people; until he was eight hundred and seventy years old, when he fell sick.

³ Then all his children gathered unto him, to see him, and to ask for his blessing on them all, ere he left this world.

⁴ Then Mahalaleel arose and sat on his bed, his tears streaming down his face, and he called his eldest son Jared, who came to him.

⁵ He then kissed his face, and said to him, “O Jared, my son, I adjure thee by Him who made heaven and earth, to watch over thy people, and to feed them in righteousness and in innocence; and not to let one of them go down from this Holy Mountain to the children of Cain, lest he perish with them.

⁶ “Hear, O my son, hereafter there shall come a great destruction upon this earth on account of them; God will be angry with the world, and will destroy them with waters.

⁷ “But I also know that thy children will not hearken to thee, and that they will go down from this mountain and hold intercourse with the children of Cain, and that they shall perish with them.

⁸ “O my son! teach them, and watch over them, that no guilt attach to thee on their account.”

⁹ Mahalaleel said, moreover to his son Jared, “When I die, embalm my body and lay it in the Cave of Treasures, by the bodies of my fathers; then stand thou by my body and pray to God; and take care of them, and fulfil thy ministry before them, until thou enterest into rest thyself.”

¹⁰ Mahalaleel then blessed all his children; and then lay down on his bed, and entered into rest like his fathers.

¹¹ But when Jared saw that his father Mahalaleel was dead, he wept, and sorrowed, and embraced and kissed his hands and his feet; and so did all his children.

¹² And his children embalmed him carefully, and laid him by the bodies of his fathers. Then they arose, and mourned for him forty days.

Chapter XVII

Jared turns martinet. He is lured away to the land of Cain where he sees many voluptuous sights. Jared barely escapes with a clean heart.

¹ THEN Jared kept his father’s commandment, and arose like a lion over his people. He fed them in righteousness and innocence, and commanded them to do nothing without his counsel. For he was afraid concerning them, lest they should go to the children of Cain.

² Wherefore did he give them orders repeatedly; and continued to do so until the end of the four hundred and eighty-fifth year of his life.

³ At the end of these said years, there came unto him this sign. As Jared was standing like a lion before the bodies of his fathers, praying and warning his people, Satan envied him, and wrought a beautiful apparition, because Jared would not let his children do aught without his counsel.

⁴ Satan then appeared to him with thirty men of his hosts, in the form of handsome men; Satan himself being the elder and tallest among them, with a fine beard.

⁵ They stood at the mouth of the cave, and called out Jared, from within it.

⁶ He came out to them, and found them looking like fine men, full of light, and of great beauty. He wondered at their beauty and at their looks; and thought within himself whether they might not be of the children of Cain.

⁷ He said also in his heart, “As the children of Cain cannot come up to the height of this mountain, and none of them is so handsome as these appear to be; and among these men there is not one of my kindred–they must be strangers.”

⁸ Then Jared and they exchanged a greeting and he said to the elder among them, “O my father, explain to me the wonder that is in thee, and tell me who these are, with thee; for they look to me like strange men.”

⁹ Then the elder began to weep, and the rest wept with him; and he said to Jared: “I am Adam whom God made first; and this is Abel my son, who was killed by his brother Cain, into whose heart Satan put to murder him.

¹⁰ “Then this is my son Seth, whom I asked of the Lord, who gave him to me, to comfort me instead of Abel.

¹¹ “Then this one is my son Enos, son of Seth, and that other one is Cainan, son of Enos, and that other one is Mahalaleel, son of Cainan, thy father.”

¹² But Jared remained wondering at their appearance, and at the speech of the elder to him.

¹³ Then the elder said to him, “Marvel not, O my son; we live in the land north of the garden, which God created before the world. He would not let us live there, but placed us inside the garden, below which ye are now dwelling.

¹⁴ “But after that I transgressed, He made me come out of it, and I was left to dwell in this cave; great and sore troubles came upon me; and when my death drew near, I commanded my son Seth to tend his people well; and this my commandment is to be handed from one to another, unto the end of the generations to come.

¹⁵ “But, O Jared, my son, we live in beautiful regions, while you live here in misery, as this thy father Mahalaleel informed me; telling me that a great flood will come and overwhelm the whole earth.

¹⁶ “Therefore, O my son, fearing for your sakes, I rose and took my children with me, and came hither for us to visit thee and thy children; but I found thee standing in this cave weeping, and thy children scattered about this mountain, in the heat and in misery.

¹⁷ “But, O my son, as we missed our way, and came as far as this, we found other men below this mountain; who inhabit a beautiful country, full of trees and of fruits, and of all manner of verdure; it is like a garden; so that when we found them we thought they were you; until thy father Mahalaleel told me they were no such thing.

¹⁸ “Now, therefore, O my son, hearken to my counsel, and go down to them, thou and thy children. Ye will rest from all this suffering in which ye are. But if thou wilt not go down to them, then, arise, take thy children, and come with us to our garden; ye shall live in our beautiful land, and ye shall rest from all this trouble, which thou and thy children are now bearing.”

¹⁹ But Jared when he heard this discourse from the elder, wondered; and went hither and thither, but at that moment he found not one of his children.

²⁰ Then he answered and said to the elder, “Why have you hidden yourselves until this day?”

²¹ And the elder replied, “If thy father had not told us, we should not have known it.”

²² Then Jared believed his words were true.

²³ So that elder said to Jared, “Wherefore didst thou turn about, so and so?” And he said, “I was seeking one of my children, to tell him about my going with you, and about their coming down to those about whom thou hast spoken to me.”

²⁴ When the elder heard Jared’s intention, he said to him, “Let alone that purpose at present, and come with us; thou shalt see our country; if the land in which we dwell pleases thee, we and thou shall return hither and take thy family with us. But if our country does not please thee, thou shalt come back to thine own place.”

²⁵ And the elder urged Jared, to go before one of his children came to counsel him otherwise.

²⁶ Jared, then, came out of the cave and went with them, and among them. And they comforted him, until they came to the top of the mountain of the sons of Cain.

²⁷ Then said the elder to one of his companions, “We have forgotten something by the mouth of the cave, and that is the chosen garment we had brought to clothe Jared withal.”

²⁸ He then said to one of them, “Go back, thou, some one; and we will wait for thee here, until thou come back. Then will we clothe Jared and he shall be like us, good, handsome, and fit to come with us into our country.”

²⁹ Then that one went back.

³⁰ But when he was a short distance off, the elder called to him and said to him, “Tarry thou, until I come up and speak to thee.”

³¹ Then he stood still, and the elder went up to him and said to him, “One thing we forgot at the cave, it is this–to put out the lamp that burns inside it, above the bodies that are therein. Then come back to us, quick.”

³² That one went, and the elder came back to his fellows and to Jared. And they came down from the mountain, and Jared with them; and they stayed by a fountain of water, near the houses of the children of Cain, and waited for their companion until he brought the garment for Jared.

³³ He, then, who went, back to the cave, put out the lamp, and came to them and brought a phantom with him and showed it them. And when Jared saw it he wondered at the beauty and grace thereof, and rejoiced in his heart believing it was all true.

³⁴ But while they were staying there, three of them went into houses of the sons of Cain, and said to them, “Bring us to-day some food by the fountain of water, for us and our companions to eat.”

³⁵ But when the sons of Cain saw them, they wondered at them and thought: “These are beautiful to look at, and such as we never saw before.” So they rose and came with them to the fountain of water, to see their companions.

³⁶ They found them so very handsome, that they cried aloud about their places for others to gather together and come and look at these beautiful beings. Then they gathered around them both men and women.

³⁷ Then the elder said to them, “We are strangers in your land, bring us some good food and drink you and your women, to refresh ourselves with you.”

³⁸ When those men heard these words of the elder, every one of Cain’s sons brought his wife, and another brought his daughter, and so, many women came to them; every one addressing Jared either for himself or for his wife; all alike.

³⁹ But when Jared saw what they did, his very soul wrenched itself from them; neither would he taste of their food or of their drink.

⁴⁰ The elder saw hint as he wrenched himself from them, and said to him, “Be not sad; I am the great elder, as thou shalt see me do, do thyself in like manner.”

⁴¹ Then he spread his hands and took one of the women, and five of his companions did the same before Jared, that he should do as they did.

⁴² But when Jared saw them working infamy he wept, and said in his mind,–My fathers never did the like.

⁴³ He then spread his hands and prayed with a fervent heart, and with much weeping, and entreated God to deliver him from their hands.

⁴⁴ No sooner did Jared begin to pray than the elder fled with his companions; for they could not abide in a place of prayer.

⁴⁵ Then Jared turned round but could not see them, but found himself standing in the midst of the children of Cain.

⁴⁶ He then wept and said, “O God, destroy me not with this race, concerning which my fathers have warned me; for now, O my Lord God, I was thinking that those who appeared unto me were my fathers; but I have found them out to be devils, who allured me by this beautiful apparition, until I believed them.

⁴⁷ “But now I ask Thee, O God, to deliver me from this race, among whom I am now staying, as Thou didst deliver me from those devils. Send Thy angel to draw me out of the midst of them; for I have not myself power to escape from among them.”

⁴⁸ When Jared had ended his prayer, God sent His angel in the midst of them, who took Jared and set him upon the mountain, and showed him the way, gave him counsel, and then departed from him.

Chapter XVIII

Confusion in the Cave of Treasures. Miraculous speech of the dead Adam.

¹ THE children of Jared were in the habit of visiting him hour after hour, to receive his blessing and to ask his advice for every thing they did; and when he had a work to do, they did it for him.

² But this time when they went into the cave they found not Jared, but they found the lamp put out, and the bodies of the fathers thrown about, and voices came from them by the power of God, that said, “Satan in an apparition has deceived our son, wishing to destroy him, as he destroyed our son Cain.”

³ They said also, “Lord God of heaven and earth, deliver our son from the hand of Satan, who wrought a great and false apparition before him,” They also spake of other matters, by the power of God.

⁴ But when the children of Jared heard these voices they feared, and stood weeping for their father; for they knew not what had befallen him.

⁵ And they wept for him that day until the setting of the sun.

⁶ Then came Jared with a woeful countenance, wretched in mind and body, and sorrowful at having been separated from the bodies of his fathers.

⁷ But as he was drawing near to the cave, his children saw him, and hastened to the cave, and hung upon his neck, crying, and saying to him, “O father, where hast thou been, and why hast thou left us, as thou wast not wont to do?” And again, “O father, when thou didst disappear, the lamp over the bodies of our fathers went out, the bodies were thrown about, and voices came from them.”

⁸ When Jared heard this he was sorry, and went into the cave; and there found the bodies thrown about, the lamp put out, and the fathers themselves praying for his deliverance from the hand of Satan.

⁹ Then Jared fell upon the bodies and embraced them, and said, “O my fathers, through your intercession, let God deliver me from the hand of Satan! And I beg you will ask God to keep me and to bide me from him unto the day of my death.”

¹⁰ Then all the voices ceased save the voice of our father Adam, who spake to Jared by the power of God, just as one would speak to his fellow, saying, “O Jared, my son, offer gifts to God for having delivered thee from the hand of Satan; and when thou bringest those offerings, so be it that thou offerest them on the altar on which I did offer. Then also, beware of Satan; for he deluded me many a time with his apparitions, wishing to destroy me, but God delivered me out of his hand.

¹¹ “Command thy people that they be on their guard against him; and never cease to offer up gifts to God.”

¹² Then the voice of Adam also became silent; and Jared and his children wondered at this. Then they laid the bodies as they were it first; and Jared and his children stood praying the whole of that night, until break of day.

¹³ Then Jared made an offering and offered it up on the altar, as Adam had commanded him. And as he went up to the altar, he prayed to God for mercy and for forgiveness of his sin, concerning the lamp going out.

¹⁴ Then God appeared unto Jared on the altar and blessed him and his children, and accepted their offerings; and commanded Jared to take of the sacred fire from the altar, and with it to light the lamp that shed light on the body of Adam.

Chapter XIX

The children of Jared are led astray.

¹ THEN God revealed to him again the promise He had made to Adam; He explained to him the 5500 years, and revealed unto him the mystery of His coming upon the earth.

² And God said to Jared, “As to that fire which thou hast taken from the altar to light the lamp withal, let it abide with you to give light to the bodies; and let it not come out of the cave, until the body of Adam comes out of it.

³ But, O Jared, take care of the fire, that it burn bright in the lamp; neither go thou again out of the cave, until thou receivest an order through a vision, and not in an apparition, when seen by thee.

⁴ “Then command again thy people not to hold intercourse with the children of Cain, and not to learn their ways; for I am God who loves not hatred and works of iniquity.”

⁵ God gave also many other commandments to Jared, and blessed him. And then withdrew His Word from him.

⁶ Then Jared drew near with his children, took some fire, and came down to the cave, and lighted the lamp before the body of Adam; and he gave his people commandments as God had told him to do.

⁷ This sign happened to Jared at the end of his four hundred and fiftieth year; as did also many other wonders, we do not record. But we record only this one for shortness sake, and in order not to lengthen our narrative.

⁸ And Jared continued to teach his children eighty years; but after that they began to transgress the commandments he had given them, and to do many things without his counsel. They began to go down from the Holy Mountain one after another, and to mix with the children of Cain, in foul fellowships.

⁹ Now the reason for which the children of Jared went down the Holy Mountain, is this, that we will now reveal unto you.

Chapter XX

Ravishing music; strong drink loosed among the sons of Cain. They don colorful clothing. The children of Seth look on with longing eyes. They revolt from wise counsel; they descend the mountain into the valley of iniquity. They can not ascend the mountain again.

¹ AFTER Cain had gone down to the land of dark soil, and his children had multiplied therein, there was one of them, whose name was Genun, son of Lamech the blind who slew Cain.

² But as to this Genun, Satan came into him in his childhood; and he made sundry trumpets and horns, and string instruments, cymbals and psalteries, and lyres and harps, and flutes; and he played on them at all times and at every hour.

³ And when he played on them, Satan came into them, so that from among them were heard beautiful and sweet sounds, that ravished the heart.

⁴ Then he gathered companies upon companies to play on them; and when they played, it pleased well the children of Cain, who inflamed themselves with sin among themselves, and burnt as with fire; while Satan inflamed their hearts, one with another, and increased lust among them.

⁵ Satan also taught Genun to bring strong drink out of com; and this Genun used to bring together companies upon companies in drink-houses; and brought into their hands all manner of fruits and flowers; and they drank together.

⁶ Thus did this Genun multiply sin exceedingly; he also acted with pride, and taught the children of Cain to commit all manner of the grossest wickedness, which they knew not; and put them up to manifold doings which they knew not before.

⁷ Then Satan, when he saw that they yielded to Genun and hearkened to him in every thing he told them, rejoiced greatly, increased Genun’s understanding, until he took iron and with it made weapons of war.

⁸ Then when they were drunk, hatred and murder increased among them; one man used violence against another to teach him evil taking his children and defiling them before him.

⁹ And when men saw they were overcome, and saw others that were not overpowered, those who were beaten came to Genun, took refuge with him, and he made them his confederates.

¹⁰ Then sin increased among them greatly; until a man married his own sister, or daughter, or mother, and others; or the daughter of his father’s sister, so that there was no more distinction of relationship, and they no longer knew what is iniquity; but did wickedly, and the earth was defiled with sin, and they angered God the Judge, who had created them.

¹¹ But Genun gathered together companies upon companies, that played on horns and on all the other instruments we have already mentioned, at the foot of the Holy Mountain; and they did so in order that the children of Seth who were on the Holy Mountain should hear it.

¹² But when the children of Seth heard the noise, they wondered, and came by companies, and stood on the top of the mountain to look at those below; and they did thus a whole year.

¹³ When, at the end of that year, Genun saw that they were being won over to him little by little, Satan entered into him, and taught him to make dyeing-stuffs for garments of divers patterns, and made him understand how to dye crimson and purple and what not.

¹⁴ And the sons of Cain who wrought all this, and shone in beauty and gorgeous apparel, gathered together at the foot of the mountain in splendour, with horns and gorgeous dresses, and horse races, committing all manner of abominations.

¹⁵ Meanwhile the children of Seth, who were on the Holy Mountain, prayed and praised God, in the place of the hosts of angels who had fallen; wherefore God had called them “angels,” because He rejoiced over them greatly.

¹⁶ But after this, they no longer kept His commandment, nor held by the promise He had made to their fathers; but they relaxed from their fasting and praying, and from the counsel of Jared their father. And they kept on gathering together on the top of the mountain, to look upon the children of Cain, from morning until evening, and upon what they did, upon their beautiful dresses and ornaments.

¹⁷ Then the children of Cain looked up from below, and saw the children of Seth, standing in troops on the top of the mountain; and they called to them to come down to them.

¹⁸ But the children of Seth said to them from above, “We don’t know the way.” Then Genun, the son of Lamech, heard them say they did not know the way, and he bethought himself how he might bring them down.

¹⁹ Then Satan appeared to him by night, saying, “There is no way for them to come down from the mountain on which they dwell; but when they come to-morrow, say to them, ‘Come ye to the western side of the mountain; there you will find the way of a stream of water, that comes down to the foot of the mountain, between two hills; come down that way to us.'”

²⁰ Then when it was day, Genun blew the horns and beat the drums below the mountain, as he was wont. The children of Seth heard it, and came as they used to do.

²¹ Then Genun said to them from down below, “Go to the western side of the mountain, there you will find the way to come down.”

²² But when the children of Seth heard these words from him, they went back into the cave to Jared, to tell him all they had heard.

²³ Then when Jared heard it, he was grieved; for he knew that they would transgress his counsel.

²⁴ After this a hundred men of the children of Seth gathered together, and said among themselves, “Come, let us go down to the children of Cain, and see what they do, and enjoy ourselves with them.”

²⁵ But when Jared heard this of the hundred men, his very soul was moved, and his heart was grieved. He then arose with great fervour, and stood in the midst of them, and adjured them by the blood of Abel the just, “Let not one of you go down from this holy and pure mountain, in which our fathers have ordered its to dwell.”

²⁶ But when Jared saw that they did not receive his words, he said unto them, “O my good and innocent and holy children, know that when once you go down from this holy mountain, God will not allow you to return again to it.”

²⁷ He again adjured them, saying, “I adjure by the death of our father Adam, and by the blood of Abel, of Seth, of Enos, of Cainan, and of Mahalaleel, to hearken to me, and not to go down from this holy mountain; for the moment you leave it, you will be reft of life and of mercy; and you shall no longer be called ‘children of God,’ but ‘children of the devil.'”

²⁸ But they would not hearken to his words.

²⁹ Enoch at that time was already grown up, and in his zeal for God, be arose and said, “Hear me, O ye sons of Seth, small and great–when ye transgress the commandment of our fathers, and go down from this holy mountain–ye shall not come up hither again for ever.”

³⁰ But they rose up against Enoch, and would not hearken to his words, but went down from the Holy Mountain.

³¹ And when they looked at the daughters of Cain, at their beautiful figures, and at their hands and feet dyed with colour, and tattooed in ornaments on their faces, the fire of sin was kindled in them.

³² Then Satan made them look most beautiful before the sons of Seth, as he also made the sons of Seth appear of the fairest in the eyes of the daughters of Cain, so that the daughters of Cain lusted after the sons of Seth like ravenous beasts, and the sons of Seth after the daughters of Cain, until they committed abomination with them.

³³ But after they had thus fallen into this defilement, they returned by the way they had come, and tried to ascend the Holy Mountain. But they could not, because the stones of that holy mountain were of fire flashing before them, by reason of which they could not go up again.

³⁴ And God was angry with them, and repented of them because they had come down from glory, and had thereby lost or forsaken their own purity or innocence, and were fallen into the defilement of sin.

³⁵ Then God sent His Word to Jared, saying, “These thy children, whom thou didst call ‘My children,’–behold they have transgressed My commandment, and have gone down to the abode of perdition, and of sin. Send a messenger to those that are left, that they may not go down, and be lost.”

³⁶ Then Jared wept before the Lord, and asked of Him mercy and forgiveness. But he wished that his soul might depart from his body, rather than hear these words from God about the going down of his children from the Holy Mountain.

³⁷ But he followed God’s order, and preached unto them not to go down from that holy mountain, and not to hold intercourse with the children of Cain.

³⁸ But they heeded not his message, and would not obey his counsel.

Chapter XXI

Jared dies in sorrow for his sons who had gone astray. A prediction of the Flood.

¹ AFTER this another company gathered together, and they went to look after their brethren; but they perished as well as they. And so it was, company after company, until only a few of them were left.

² Then Jared sickened from grief, and his sickness was such that the day of his death drew near.

³ Then he called Enoch his eldest son, and Methuselah Enoch’s son, and Lamech the son of Methuselah, and Noah the son of Lamech.

⁴ And when they were come to him he prayed over them and blessed them, and said to them, “Ye are righteous, innocent sons; go ye not down from this holy mountain; for behold, your children and your children’s children have gone down from this holy mountain, and have estranged themselves from this holy mountain, through their abominable lust and transgression of God’s commandment.

⁵ “But I know, through the power of God, that He will not leave you on this holy mountain, because your children have transgressed His commandment and that of our fathers, which we had received from them.

⁶ “But, O my sons, God will take you to a strange land, and ye never shall again return to behold with your eyes this garden and this holy mountain.

⁷ “Therefore, O my sons, set your hearts on your own selves, and keep the commandment of God which is with you. And when you go from this holy mountain, into a strange land which ye know not, take with you the body of our father Adam, and with it these three precious, gifts and offerings, namely, the gold, the incense, and the myrrh; and let them be in the place where the body of our father Adam shall lay.

⁸ “And unto him of you who shall be left, O my sons, shall the Word of God come, and when he goes out of this land he shall take with him the body of our father Adam, and shall lay it in the middle of the earth the place in which salvation shall be wrought.”

⁹ Then Noah said unto him, “Who is he of us that shall be left?”

¹⁰ And Jared answered, “Thou art he that shall be left. And thou shalt take the body of our father Adam from the cave, and place it with thee in the ark when the flood comes.

¹¹ “And thy son Shem, who shall come out of thy loins, he it is who shall lay the body of our father Adam in the middle of the earth, in the place whence salvation shall come.”

¹² Then Jared turned to his son Enoch, and said unto him, “Thou, my son, abide in this cave, and minister diligently before the body of our father Adam all the days of thy life; and feed thy people in righteousness and innocence.”

¹³ And Jared said no more. His hands were loosened, his eyes closed, and he entered into rest like his fathers. His death took place in the three hundred and sixtieth year of Noah, and in the nine hundred and eighty-ninth year of his own life; on the twelfth of Takhsas on a Friday.

¹⁴ But as Jared died, tears streamed down his face by reason of his great sorrow, for the children of Seth, who had fallen in his days.

¹⁵ Then Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech and Noah, these four, wept over him; embalmed him carefully, and then laid him in the Cave of Treasures. Then they rose and mourned for him forty days.

¹⁶ And when these days of mourning were ended, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech and Noah remained in sorrow of heart, because their father had departed from them, and they saw him no more.

Chapter XXII

Only three righteous men left in the world. The evil conditions of men prior to the Flood.

¹ BUT Enoch kept the commandment of Jared his father, and continued to minister in the cave.

² It is this Enoch to whom many wonders happened, and who also wrote a celebrated book; but those wonders may not be told in this place.

³ Then after this, the children of Seth went astray and fell, they, their children and their wives. And when Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech and Noah saw them, their hearts suffered by reason of their fall into doubt full of unbelief; and they wept and sought of God mercy, to preserve them, and to bring them out of that wicked generation.

⁴ Enoch continued in his ministry before the Lord three hundred and eighty-five years, and at the end of that time he became aware through the grace of God, that God intended to remove him from the earth.

⁵ He then said to his son, “O my son, I know that God intends to bring the waters of the Flood upon the earth, and to destroy our creation.

⁶ “And ye are the last rulers over this people on this mountain; for I know that not one will be left you to beget children on this holy mountain; neither shall any one of you rule over the children of his people; neither shall any great company be left of you, on this mountain.”

⁷ Enoch said also to them, “Watch over your souls, and hold fast by your fear of God and by your service of Him, and worship Him in upright faith, and serve Him in righteousness, innocence and judgment, in repentance and also in purity.”

⁸ When Enoch had ended his commandments to them, God transported him from that mountain to the land of life, to the mansions of the righteous and of the chosen, the abode of Paradise of joy, in light that reaches up to heaven; light that is outside the light of this world; for it is the light of God, that fills the whole world, but which no place can contain.

⁹ Thus, because Enoch was in the light of God, he found himself out of the reach of death; until God would have him die.

¹⁰ Altogether, not one of our fathers or of their children, remained on that holy mountain, except those three, Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah. For all the rest went down from the mountain and fell into sin with the children of Cain. Therefore were they forbidden that mountain, and none remained on it but those three men.

~~~ THE END ~~~

Posted in Books of Ancients

Chapter I

The grief stricken family. Cain marries Luluwa and they move away.

¹ WHEN Luluwa heard Cain’s words, she wept and went to her father and mother, and told them how that Cain had killed his brother Abel.

² Then they all cried aloud and lifted up their voices, and slapped their faces, and threw dust upon their heads, and rent asunder their garments, and went out and came to the place where Abel was killed.

³ And they found him lying on the earth, killed, and beasts around him; while they wept and cried because of this just one. From his body, by reason of its purity, went forth a smell of sweet spices.

⁴ And Adam carried him, his tears streaming down his face; and went to the Cave of Treasures, where he laid him, and wound him up with sweet spices and myrrh.

⁵ And Adam and Eve continued by the burial of him in great grief a hundred and forty days. Abel was fifteen and a half years old, and Cain seventeen years and a half.

⁶ As for Cain, when the mourning for his brother was ended, he took his sister Luluwa and married her, without leave from his father and mother; for they could not keep him from her, by reason of their heavy heart.

⁷ He then went down to the bottom of the mountain, away from the garden, near to the place where he had killed his brother.

⁸ And in that place were many fruit trees and forest trees. His sister bare him children, who in their turn began to multiply by degrees until they filled that place.

⁹ But as for Adam and Eve, they came not together after Abel’s funeral, for seven years. After this, however, Eve conceived; and while she was with child, Adam said to her “Come, let us take an offering and offer it up unto God, and ask Him to give us a fair child, in whom we may find comfort, and whom we may join in marriage to Abel’s sister.”

¹⁰ Then they prepared an offering and brought it up to the altar, and offered it before the Lord, and began to entreat Him to accept their offering, and to give them a good offspring.

¹¹ And God heard Adam and accepted his offering. Then, they worshipped, Adam, Eve, and their daughter, and came down to the Cave of Treasures and placed a lamp in it, to burn by night and by day, before the body of Abel.

¹² Then Adam and Eve continued fasting and praying until Eve’s time came that she should be delivered, when she said to Adam: “I wish to go to the cave in the rock, to bring forth in it.”

¹³ And he said, “Go and take with thee thy daughter to wait on thee; but I will remain in this Cave of Treasures before the body of my son Abel.”

¹⁴ Then Eve hearkened to Adam, and went, she and her daughter. But Adam remained by himself in the Cave of Treasures.

Chapter II

A third son is born to Adam and Eve.

¹ AND Eve brought forth a son perfectly beautiful in figure and in countenance. His beauty was like that of his father Adam, yet more beautiful.

² Then Eve was comforted when she saw him, and remained eight days in the cave; then she sent her daughter unto Adam to tell him to come and see the child and name him. But the daughter stayed in his place by the body of her brother, until Adam returned. So did she.

³ But when Adam came and saw the child’s good looks, his beauty, and his perfect figure, he rejoiced over him, and was comforted for Abel. Then he named the child Seth, that means, “that God has heard my prayer, and has delivered me out of my affliction.” But it means also “power and strength.”

⁴ Then after Adam had named the child, he returned to the Cave of Treasures; and his daughter went back to her mother.

⁵ But Eve continued in her cave, until forty days were fulfilled, when she came to Adam, and brought with her the child and her daughter.

⁶ And they came to a river of water, where Adam and his daughter washed themselves, because of their sorrow for Abel; but Eve and the babe washed for purification.

⁷ Then they returned, and took an offering, and went to the mountain and offered it up, for the babe; and God accepted their offering, and sent His blessing upon them, and upon their son Seth; and they came back to the Cave of Treasures.

⁸ As for Adam, he knew not again his wife Eve, all the days of his life; neither was any more offspring born of them; but only those five, Cain, Luluwa, Abel, Aklia, and Seth alone.

⁹ But Seth waxed in stature and in strength; and began to fast and pray, fervently.

Chapter III

Satan appears as a beautiful woman tempting Adam, telling him he is still a youth. “Spend thy youth in mirth and pleasure.” (12) The different forms which Satan takes (15).

¹ AS for our father Adam, at the end of seven years from the day he had been severed from his wife Eve, Satan envied him, when he saw him thus separated from her; and strove to make him live with her again.

² Then Adam arose and went up above the Cave of Treasures; and continued to sleep there night by night. But as soon as it was light every day he came down to the cave, to pray there and to receive a blessing from it.

³ But when it was evening he went up on the roof of the cave, where he slept by himself, fearing lest Satan should overcome him. And he continued thus apart thirty-nine days.

⁴ Then Satan, the hater of all good, when he saw Adam thus alone, fasting and praying, appeared unto him in the form of a beautiful woman, who came and stood before him in the night of the fortieth day, and said unto him:–

⁵ “O Adam, from the time ye have dwelt in this cave, we have experienced great peace from you, and your prayers have reached us, and we have been comforted about you.

⁶ “But now, O Adam, that thou hast gone up over the roof of the cave to sleep, we have had doubts about thee, and a great sorrow has come upon us because of thy separation from Eve. Then again, when thou art on the roof of this cave, thy prayer is poured out, and thy heart wanders from side to side.

⁷ “But when thou wast in the cave thy prayer was like fire gathered together; it came down to us, and thou didst find rest.

⁸ “Then I also grieved over thy children who are severed from thee; and my sorrow is great about the murder of thy son Abel; for he was righteous; and over a righteous man every one will grieve.

⁹ “But I rejoiced over the birth of thy son Seth; yet after a little while I sorrowed greatly over Eve, because she is my sister. For when God sent a deep sleep over thee, and drew her out of thy side, He brought me out also with her. But He raised her by placing her with thee, while He lowered me.

¹⁰ “I rejoiced over my sister for her being with thee. But God had made me a promise before, and said, ‘Grieve not; when Adam has gone up on the roof of the Cave of Treasures, and is separated from Eve his wife, I will send thee to him, thou shalt join thyself to him in marriage, and bear him five children, as Eve did bear him five.’

¹¹ “And now, lo! God’s promise to me is fulfilled; for it is He who has sent me to thee for the wedding; because if thou wed me, I shall bear thee finer and better children than those of Eve.

¹² “Then again, thou art as yet but a youth; end not thy youth in this world in sorrow; but spend the days of thy youth in mirth and pleasure. For thy days are few and thy trial is great. Be strong; end thy days in this world in rejoicing. I shall take pleasure in thee, and thou shall rejoice with me in this wise, and without fear.

¹³ “Up, then, and fulfil the command of thy God,” she then drew near to Adam, and embraced him.

¹⁴ But when Adam saw that he should be overcome by her, he prayed to God with a fervent heart to deliver him from her.

¹⁵ Then God sent His Word unto Adam, saying, “O Adam, that figure is the one that promised thee the Godhead, and majesty; he is not favourably disposed towards thee; but shows himself to thee at one time in the form of a woman; another moment, in the likeness of an angel; on another occasions, in the similitude of a serpent; and at another time, in the semblance of a god; but he does all that only to destroy thy soul.

¹⁶ “Now, therefore, O Adam, understanding thy heart, I have delivered thee many a time from his hands; in order to show thee that I am a merciful God; and that I wish thy good, and that I do not wish thy ruin.”

Chapter IV

Adam sees the Devil in his true colors.

¹ THEN God ordered Satan to show himself to Adam in plainly, in his own hideous form.

² But when Adam saw him, he feared, and trembled at the sight of him.

³ And God said to Adam, “Look at this devil, and at his hideous look, and know that he it is who made thee fall from brightness into darkness, from peace and rest to toil and misery.

⁴ And look, O Adam, at him, who said of himself that he is God! Can God be black? Would God take the form of a woman? Is there any one stronger than God? And can He be overpowered?

⁵ “See, then, O Adam, and behold him bound in thy presence, in the air, unable to flee away! Therefore, I say unto thee, be not afraid of him; henceforth take care, and beware of him, in whatever he may do to thee.”

⁶ Then God drove Satan away from before Adam, whom He strengthened, and whose heart He comforted, saying to him, “Go down to the Cave of Treasures, and separate not thyself from Eve; I will quell in you all animal lust.”

⁷ From that hour it left Adam and Eve, and they enjoyed rest by the commandment of God. But God did not the like to any one of Adam’s seed; but only to Adam and Eve.

⁸ Then Adam worshipped before the Lord, for having delivered him, and for having layed his passions. And he came down from above the cave, and dwelt with Eve as aforetime.

⁹ This ended the forty days of his separation from Eve.

Chapter V

The devil paints a brilliant picture for Seth to feast his thoughts upon.

¹ AS for Seth, when he was seven years old, he knew good and evil, and was consistent in fasting and praying, and spent all his nights in entreating God for mercy and forgiveness.

² He also fasted when bringing up his offering every day, more than his father did; for he was of a fair countenance, like unto an angel of God. He also had a good heart, preserved the finest qualities of his soul: and for this reason he brought up his offering every day.

³ And God was pleased with his offering; but He was also pleased with his purity. And he continued thus in doing the will of God, and of his father and mother, until he was seven years old.

⁴ After that, as he was coming down from the altar, having ended his offering, Satan appeared unto him in the form of a beautiful angel, brilliant with light; with a staff of light in his hand, himself girt about with a girdle of light.

⁵ He greeted Seth with a beautiful smile, and began to beguile him with fair words, saying to him, “O Seth, why abidest thou in this mountain? For it is rough, full of stones and of sand, and of trees with no good fruit on them; a wilderness without habitations and without towns; no good place to dwell in. But all is heat, weariness, and trouble.”

⁶ He said further, “But we dwell in beautiful places, in another world than this earth. Our world is one of light and our condition is of the best; our women are handsomer than any others; and I wish thee, O Seth, to wed one of them; because I see that thou art fair to look upon, and in this land there is not one woman good enough for thee. Besides, all those who live in this world, are only five souls.

⁷ “But in our world there are very many men and many maidens, all more beautiful one than another. I wish, therefore, to remove thee hence, that thou mayest see my relations and be wedded to which ever thou likest.

⁸ “Thou shalt then abide by me and be at peace; thou shalt be filled with splendour and light, as we are.

⁹ “Thou shalt remain in our world. and rest from this world and the misery of it; thou shalt never again feel faint and weary; thou shalt never bring up an offering, nor sue for mercy; for thou shalt commit no more sin, nor be swayed by passions.

¹⁰ “And if thou wilt hearken to what I say, thou shalt wed one of my daughters; for with us it is no sin so to do; neither is it reckoned animal lust.

¹¹ “For in our world we have no God; but we all are gods; we all are of the light, heavenly, powerful, strong and glorious.”

Chapter VI

Seth’s conscience helps him. He returns to Adam and Eve.

¹ WHEN Seth heard these words he was amazed, and inclined his heart to Satan’s treacherous speech, and said to him, “Saidst thou there is another world created than this; and other creatures more beautiful than the creatures that are in this world?”

² And Satan said, “Yes; behold thou hast heard me; but I will yet praise them and their ways, in thy hearing.”

³ But Seth said to him, “Thy speech has amazed me; and thy beautiful description of it all.

⁴ “Yet I cannot go with thee to-day; not until I have gone to my father Adam and to my mother Eve, and told them all thou hast said to me. Then if they give me leave to go with thee, I will come.”

⁵ Again Seth said, “I am afraid of doing any thing without my father’s and mother’s leave, lest I perish like my brother Cain, and like my father Adam, who transgressed the commandment of God. But, behold, thou knowest this place; come, and meet me here to-morrow.”

⁶ When Satan heard this, he said to Seth, “If thou tellest thy father Adam what I have told thee, he will not let thee come with me.

⁷ But hearken to me; do not tell thy father and mother what I have said to thee; but come with me to-day, to our world; where thou shalt see beautiful things and enjoy thyself there, and revel this day among my children, beholding them and taking thy fill of mirth; and rejoice ever more. Then I shall bring thee back to this place to-morrow; but if thou wouldest rather abide with me, so be it.”

⁸ Then Seth answered, “The spirit of my father and of my mother, hangs on me; and if I hide from them one day, they will die, and God will hold me guilty of sinning against them.

⁹ “And except that they know I am come to this place to bring up to it my offering, they would not be separated from me one hour; neither should I go to any other place, unless they let me. But they treat me most kindly, because I come back to them quickly.”

¹⁰ Then Satan said to him, “What will happen to thee if thou hide thyself from them one night, and return to them at break of day?”

¹¹ But Seth, when he saw how he kept on talking, and that he would not leave him-ran, and went up to the altar, and spread his hands unto God, and sought deliverance from Him.

¹² Then God sent His Word, and cursed Satan, who fled from Him.

¹³ But as for Seth, he had gone up to the altar, saying thus in his heart. “The altar is the place of offering, and God is there; a divine fire shall consume it; so shall Satan be unable to hurt me, and shall not take me away thence.”

¹⁴ Then Seth came down from the altar and went to his father and mother, where he found in the way, longing to hear his voice; for he had tarried a while.

¹⁵ He then began to tell them what had befallen him from Satan, under the form of an angel.

¹⁶ But when Adam heard his account, he kissed his face, and warned him against that angel, telling him it was Satan who thus appeared to him. Then Adam took Seth, and they went to the Cave of Treasures, and rejoiced therein.

¹⁷ But from that day forth Adam and Eve never parted from him, to whatever place he might go, whether for his offering or for any thing else.

¹⁸ This sign happened to Seth, when he was nine years old.

Chapter VII

Seth marries Aklia. Adam lives to see grand children and great-grand-children.

¹ WHEN our father Adam saw that Seth was of a perfect heart, he wished him to marry; lest the enemy should appear to him another time, and overcome him.

² So Adam said to his son Seth, “I wish, O my son, that thou wed thy sister Aklia, Abel’s sister, that she may bear thee children, who shall replenish the earth, according to God’s promise to us.

³ “Be not afraid, O my son; there is no disgrace in it. I wish thee to marry, from fear lest the enemy overcome thee.”

⁴ Seth, however, did not wish to marry; but in obedience to his father and mother, he said not a word.

⁵ So Adam married him to Aklia. And he was fifteen years old.

⁶ But when he was twenty years of age, he begat a son, whom he called Enos; and then begat other children than him.

⁷ Then Enos grew up, married, and begat Cainan.

⁸ Cainan also grew up, married, and begat Mahalaleel.

⁹ Those fathers were born during Adam’s life-time, and dwelt by the Cave of Treasures.

¹⁰ Then were the days of Adam nine hundred and thirty years, and those of Mahalaleel one hundred. But Mahalaleel, when he was grown up, loved fasting, praying, and with hard labours, until the end of our father Adam’s days drew near.

Chapter VIII

Adam’s remarkable last words. He predicts the Flood. He exhorts his offspring to good. He reveals certain mysteries of life.

¹ WHEN our father Adam saw that his end was near, he called his son Seth, who came to him in the Cave of Treasures, and he said unto him:–

² “O Seth, my son bring me thy children and thy children’s children, that I may shed my blessing on them ere I die.”

³ When Seth heard these words from his father Adam, he went from him, shed a flood of tears over his face, and gathered together his children and his children’s children, and brought them to his father Adam.

⁴ But when our father Adam saw them around him, he wept at having to be separated from them.

⁵ And when they saw him weeping, they all wept together, and fell upon his face saying, “How shalt thou be severed from us, O our father? And how shall the earth receive thee and hide thee from our eyes?” Thus did they lament much, and in like words.

⁶ Then our father Adam blessed them all, and said to Seth, after he had blessed them:–

⁷ “O Seth, my son, thou knowest this world–that it is full of sorrow, and of weariness; and thou knowest all that has come upon us, from our trials in it. Therefore now command thee in these words: to keep innocency, to be pure and just, and trusting in God; and lean not to the discourses of Satan, nor to the apparitions in which he will show himself to thee.

⁸ But keep the commandments that I give thee this day; then give the same to thy son Enos; and let Enos give it to his son Cainan; and Cainan to his son Mahalaleel; so that this commandment abide firm among all your children.

⁹ “O Seth, my son, the moment I am dead take ye my body and wind it up with myrrh, aloes, and cassia, and leave me here in this Cave of Treasures in which are all these tokens which God gave us from the garden.

¹⁰ “O my son, hereafter shall a flood come and overwhelm all creatures, and leave out only eight souls.

¹¹ “But, O my son, let those whom it will leave out from among your children at that time, take my body with them out of this cave; and when they have taken it with them, let the oldest among them command his children to lay my body in a ship until the flood has been assuaged, and they come out of the ship.

¹² Then they shall take my body and lay it in the middle of the earth, shortly after they have been saved from the waters of the flood.

¹³ “For the place where my body shall be laid, is the middle of the earth; God shall come from thence and shall save all our kindred.

¹⁴ “But now, O Seth, my son, place thyself at the head of thy people; tend them and watch over them in the fear of God; and lead them in the good way, Command them to fast unto God; and make them understand they ought not to hearken to Satan, lest he destroy them.

¹⁵ “Then, again, sever thy children and thy children’s children from Cain’s children; do not let them ever mix with those, nor come near them either in their words or in their deeds.”

¹⁶ Then Adam let his blessing descend upon Seth, and upon his children, and upon all his children’s children.

¹⁷ He then turned to his son Seth, and to Eve his wife, and said to them, “Preserve this gold, this incense, and this myrrh, that God has given us for a sign; for in days that are coming, a flood will overwhelm the whole creation. But those who shall go into the ark shall take with them the gold, the incense, and the myrrh, together with my body; and will lay the gold, the incense, and the myrrh, with my body in the midst of the earth.

¹⁸ “Then, after a long time, the city in which the gold, the incense, and the myrrh are found with my body, shall be plundered. But when it is spoiled, the gold the incense, and the myrrh shall be taken care of with the spoil that is kept; and naught of them shall perish, until the Word of God, made man shall come; when kings shall take them, and shall offer to Him, gold in token of His being King; incense, in token of His being God of heaven and earth; and myrrh, in token of His passion.

¹⁹ “Cold also, as a token of His overcoming Satan, and all our foes; incense as a token that He will rise from the dead, and be exalted above things in heaven and things in the earth; and myrrh, in token that He will drink bitter gall; and feel the pains of hell from Satan.

²⁰ “And now, O Seth, my son, behold I have revealed unto thee hidden mysteries, which God had revealed unto me. Keep my commandment, for thyself, and for thy people,”

Chapter IX

The death of Adam.

¹ WHEN Adam had ended his commandment to Seth, his limbs were loosened, his hands and feet lost all power, his mouth became dumb, and his tongue ceased altogether to speak. He closed his eyes and gave up the ghost.

² But when his children saw that he was dead, they threw themselves over him, men and women, old and young, weeping.

³ The death of Adam took place at the end of nine hundred and thirty years that be lived upon the earth; on the fifteenth day of Barmudeh, after the reckoning of an epact of the sun, at the ninth hour.

⁴ It was on a Friday, the very day on which be was created, and on which he rested; and the hour at which he died, was the same as that at which he came out of the garden.

⁵ Then Seth wound him up well, and embalmed him with plenty of sweet spices, from sacred trees and from the Holy Mountain; and be laid his body on the eastern side of the inside of the cave, the side of the incense; and placed in front of him a lamp-stand kept burning.

⁶ Then his children stood before him weeping and wailing over him the whole night until break of day.

⁷ Then Seth and big son Enos, and Cainan, the son of Enos, went out and took good offerings to present unto the Lord, and they came to the altar upon which Adam offered gifts to God, when he did offer.

⁸ But Eve said to them “Wait until we have first asked God to accept our offering, and to keep by Him the Soul of Adam His servant, and to take it up to rest.”

⁹ And they all stood up an prayed.

Chapter X

“Adam was the first….”

¹ AND when they had ended their prayer, the Word of God came and comforted them concerning their father Adam.

² After this, they offered their gifts for themselves and for their father.

³ And when they had ended their offering, the Word of God came to Seth, the eldest among them, saying unto him, “O Seth, Seth, Seth, three times. As I was with thy father, so also shall I be with thee, until the fulfilment of the promise I made him-thy father saying, I will send My Word and save thee and thy seed.

⁴ But as to thy father Adam, keep thou the commandment he gave thee; and sever thy seed from that of Cain thy brother.”

⁵ And God withdrew His Word from Seth.

⁶ Then Seth, Eve, and their children, came down from the mountain to the Cave of Treasures.

⁷ But Adam was the first whose soul died in the land of Eden, in the Cave of Treasures; for no one died before him, but his son Abel, who died murdered.

⁸ Then all the children of Adam rose up, and wept over their father Adam, and made offerings to him, one hundred and forty days.

Posted in Books of Ancients

Chapter LXXI – Adam is troubled by the thought of marrying Eve.

¹ But when Adam heard these words from Satan, he sorrowed much, because of his oath and of his promise, and said, “Shall I commit adultery with my flesh and my bones, and shall I sin against myself, for God to destroy me, and to blot me out from off the face of the earth?

² Since, when at first, I ate of the tree, He drove me out of the garden into this strange land, and deprived me of my bright nature, and brought death over me. If, then, I should do this, He will cut off my life from the earth, and He will cast me into hell, and will plague me there a long time.

³ But God never spoke the words that you have said; and you are not God’s angels, and you weren’t sent from Him. But you are devils that have come to me under the false appearance of angels. Away from me; you cursed of God!”

⁴ Then those devils fled from before Adam. And he and Eve got up, and returned to the Cave of Treasures, and went into it.

⁵ Then Adam said to Eve, “If you saw what I did, don’t tell anyone; for I sinned against God in swearing by His great name, and I have placed my hand another time into that of Satan.” Eve, then, held her peace, as Adam told her.

⁶ Then Adam got up, and spread his hands before God, beseeching and entreating Him with tears, to forgive him what he had done. And Adam remained thus standing and praying forty days and forty nights. He neither ate nor drank until he dropped down on the ground from hunger and thirst.

⁷ Then God sent His Word to Adam, who raised him up from where he lay, and said to him, “O Adam, why have you sworn by My name, and why have you made agreement with Satan another time?”

⁸ But Adam cried, and said, “O God, forgive me, for I did this unwittingly; believing they were God’s angels.”

⁹ And God forgave Adam, saying to him, “Beware of Satan.”

¹⁰ And He withdrew His Word from Adam.

¹¹ Then Adam’s heart was comforted; and he took Eve, and they went out of the cave, to prepare some food for their bodies.

¹² But from that day Adam struggled in his mind about his marrying Eve; afraid that if he was to do it, God would be angry with him.

¹³ Then Adam and Eve went to the river of water, and sat on the bank, as people do when they enjoy themselves.

¹⁴ But Satan was jealous of them; and planned to destroy them.

Chapter LXXII – Adam’s heart is set on fire. Satan appears as beautiful maidens.

¹ Then Satan, and ten from his hosts, transformed themselves into maidens, unlike any others in the whole world for grace.

² They came up out of the river in presence of Adam and Eve, and they said among themselves, “Come, we will look at the faces of Adam and Eve, who are of the men on earth. How beautiful they are, and how different is their look from our own faces.” Then they came to Adam and Eve, and greeted them; and stood wondering at them.

³ Adam and Eve looked at them also, and wondered at their beauty, and said, “Is there, then, under us, another world, with such beautiful creatures as these in it?”

⁴ And those maidens said to Adam and Eve, “Yes, indeed, we are an abundant creation.”

⁵ Then Adam said to them, “But how do you multiply?”

⁶ And they answered him, “We have husbands who have married us, and we bear them children, who grow up, and who in their turn marry and are married, and also bear children; and thus we increase. And if so be, O Adam, you will not believe us, we will show you our husbands and our children.”

⁷ Then they shouted over the river as if to call their husbands and their children, who came up from the river, men and children; and every man came to his wife, his children being with him.

⁸ But when Adam and Eve saw them, they stood dumb, and wondered at them.

⁹ Then they said to Adam and Eve, “See all our husbands and our children? You should marry Eve, as we have married our husbands, so that you will have children as we have.” This was a device of Satan to deceive Adam.

¹⁰ Satan also thought within himself, “God at first commanded Adam concerning the fruit of the tree, saying to him, ‘Eat not of it; else of death you shall die.’ But Adam ate of it, and yet God did not kill him; He only decreed on him death, and plagues and trials, until the day he shall come out of his body.

¹¹ Now, then, if I deceive him to do this thing, and to marry Eve without God’s permission, God will kill him then.”

¹² Therefore Satan worked this apparition before Adam and Eve; because he sought to kill him, and to make him disappear from off the face of the earth.

¹³ Meanwhile the fire of sin came over Adam, and he thought of committing sin. But he restrained himself, fearing that if he followed this advice of Satan, God would put him to death.

¹⁴ Then Adam and Eve got up, and prayed to God, while Satan and his hosts went down into the river, in presence of Adam and Eve; to let them see that they were going back to their own world.

¹⁵ Then Adam and Eve went back to the Cave of Treasures, as they usually did; about evening time.

¹⁶ And they both got up and prayed to God that night. Adam remained standing in prayer, yet not knowing how to pray, by reason of the thoughts in his heart regarding his marrying Eve; and he continued so until morning.

¹⁷ And when light came up, Adam said to Eve, “Get up, let us go below the mountain, where they brought us gold, and let us ask the Lord concerning this matter.”

¹⁸ Then Eve said, “What is that matter, O Adam?”

¹⁹ And he answered her, “That I may request the Lord to inform me about marrying you; for I will not do it without His permission or else He will make us perish, you and me. For those devils have set my heart on fire, with thoughts of what they showed us, in their sinful apparitions.

²⁰ Then Eve said to Adam, “Why need we go below the mountain? Let us rather stand up and pray in our cave to God, to let us know whether this counsel is good or not.”

²¹ Then Adam rose up in prayer and said, “O God, you know that we transgressed against you, and from the moment we transgressed, we were stripped of our bright nature; and our body became brutish, requiring food and drink; and with animal desires.

²² Command us, O God, not to give way to them without Your permission, for fear that You will turn us into nothing. Because if you do not give us permission, we shall be overpowered, and follow that advice of Satan; and You will again make us perish.

²³ If not, then take our souls from us; let us be rid of this animal lust. And if You give us no order respecting this thing, then sever Eve from me, and me from her; and place us each far away from the other.

²⁴ Then again, O God, if You separate us from each other, the devils will deceive us with their apparitions that resemble us, and destroy our hearts, and defile our thoughts towards each other. Yet if it is not each of us towards the other, it will, at all events, be through their appearance when the devils come to us in our likeness.” Here Adam ended his prayer.

Chapter LXXIII – The marriage of Adam and Eve.

¹ Then God considered the words of Adam that they were true, and that he could long await His order, respecting the counsel of Satan.

² And God approved Adam in what he had thought concerning this, and in the prayer he had offered in His presence; and the Word of God came to Adam and said to him, “O Adam, if only you had had this caution at first, before you came out of the garden into this land!”

³ After that, God sent His angel who had brought gold, and the angel who had brought incense, and the angel who had brought myrrh to Adam, that they should inform him respecting his marriage to Eve.

⁴ Then those angels said to Adam, “Take the gold and give it to Eve as a wedding gift, and promise to marry her; then give her some incense and myrrh as a present; and be you, you and she, one flesh.”

⁵ Adam obeyed the angels, and took the gold and put it into Eve’s bosom in her garment; and promised to marry her with his hand.

⁶ Then the angels commanded Adam and Eve to get up and pray forty days and forty nights; when that was done, then Adam was to have sexual intercourse with his wife; for then this would be an act pure and undefiled; so that he would have children who would multiply, and replenish the face of the earth.

⁷ Then both Adam and Eve received the words of the angels; and the angels departed from them.

⁸ Then Adam and Eve began to fast and pray, until the end of the forty days; and then they had sexual intercourse, as the angels had told them. And from the time Adam left the garden until he wedded Eve, were two hundred and twenty-three days, that is seven months and thirteen days.

⁹ Thus was Satan’s war with Adam defeated.

Chapter LXXIV – The birth of Cain and Luluwa. Why they received those names.

¹ And they lived on the earth working in order to keep their bodies in good health; and they continued so until the nine months of Eve’s pregnancy were over, and the time drew near when she must give birth.

² Then she said to Adam, “The signs placed in this cave since we left the garden indicate that this is a pure place and we will be praying in it again some time. It is not appropriate then, that I should give birth in it. Let us instead go to the sheltering rock cave that was formed by the command of God when Satan threw a big rock down on us in an attempt to kill us with it.

³ Adam then took Eve to that cave. When the time came for her to give birth, she strained a lot. Adam felt sorry, and he was very worried about her because she was close to death and the words of God to her were being fulfilled: “In suffering shall you bear a child, and in sorrow shall you bring forth a child.”

⁴ But when Adam saw the distress in which Eve was, he got up and prayed to God, and said, “O Lord, look at me with the eye of Your mercy, and bring her out of her distress.”

⁵ And God looked at His maid-servant Eve, and delivered her, and she gave birth to her first-born son, and with him a daughter.

⁶ The Adam rejoiced at Eve’s deliverance, and also over the children she had borne him. And Adam ministered to Eve in the cave, until the end of eight days; when they named the son Cain, and the daughter Luluwa.

⁷ The meaning of Cain is “hater,” because he hated his sister in their mother’s womb; before they came out of it. Therefore Adam named him Cain.

⁸ But Luluwa means “beautiful,” because she was more beautiful than her mother.

⁹ Then Adam and Eve waited until Cain and his sister were forty days old, when Adam said to Eve, “We will make an offering and offer it up in behalf of the children.”

¹⁰ And Eve said, “We will make one offering for the first-born son and then later we shall make one for the daughter.”

Chapter LXXV – The family revisits the Cave of Treasures. Birth of Abel and Aklia.

¹ Then Adam prepared an offering, and he and Eve offered it up for their children, and brought it to the altar they had built at first.

² And Adam offered up the offering, and asked God to accept his offering.

³ Then God accepted Adam’s offering, and sent a light from heaven that shown on the offering. Adam and his son drew near to the offering, but Eve and the daughter did not approach it.

⁴ Adam and his son were joyful as they came down from on the altar. Adam and Eve waited until the daughter was eighty days old, then Adam prepared an offering and took it to Eve and to the children. They went to the altar, where Adam offered it up, as he was accustomed, asking the Lord to accept his offering.

⁵ And the Lord accepted the offering of Adam and Eve. Then Adam, Eve, and the children, drew near together, and came down from the mountain, rejoicing.

⁶ But they returned not to the cave in which they were born; but came to the Cave of Treasures, in order that the children should go around in it, and be blessed with the tokens brought from the garden.

⁷ But after they had been blessed with these tokens, they went back to the cave in which they were born.

⁸ However, before Eve had offered up the offering, Adam had taken her, and had gone with her to the river of water, in which they threw themselves at first; and there they washed themselves. Adam washed his body and Eve hers also clean, after the suffering and distress that had come over them.

⁹ But Adam and Eve, after washing themselves in the river of water, returned every night to the Cave of Treasures, where they prayed and were blessed; and then went back to their cave, where their children were born.

¹⁰ Adam and Eve did this until the children had been weaned. After they were weaned, Adam made an offering for the souls of his children in addition to the three times every week he made an offering for them.

¹¹ When the children were weaned, Eve again conceived, and when her pregnancy came to term, she gave birth to another son and daughter. They named the son Abel and the daughter Aklia.

¹² Then at the end of forty days, Adam made an offering for the son, and at the end of eighty days he made another offering for the daughter, and treated them, as he had previously treated Cain and his sister Luluwa.

¹³ He brought them to the Cave of Treasures, where they received a blessing, and then returned to the cave where they were born. After these children were born, Eve stopped having children.

Chapter LXXVI – Cain becomes jealous of Abel because of his sisters.

¹ And the children began to grow stronger and taller; but Cain was hard-hearted, and ruled over his younger brother.

² Often when his father made an offering, Cain would remain behind and not go with them, to offer up.

³ But, as to Abel, he had a meek heart, and was obedient to his father and mother. He frequently moved them to make an offering, because he loved it. He prayed and fasted a lot.

⁴ Then came this sign to Abel. As he was coming into the Cave of Treasures, and saw the golden rods, the incense and the myrrh, he asked his parents, Adam and Eve, to tell him about them and asked, “Where did you get these from?”

⁵ Then Adam told him all that had befallen them. And Abel felt deeply about what his father told him.

⁶ Furthermore his father, Adam, told him of the works of God, and of the garden. After hearing that, Abel remained behind after his father left and stayed the whole of that night in the Cave of Treasures.

⁷ And that night, while he was praying, Satan appeared to him under the figure of a man, who said to him, “You have frequently moved your father into making offerings, fasting and praying, therefore I will kill you, and make you perish from this world.”

⁸ But as for Abel, he prayed to God, and drove away Satan from him; and did not believe the words of the devil. Then when it was day, an angel of God appeared to him, who said to him, “Do not cut short either fasting, prayer, or offering up an offering to your God. For, look, the Lord had accepted your prayer. Be not afraid of the figure which appeared to you in the night, and who cursed you to death.” And the angel departed from him.

⁹ Then when it was day, Abel came to Adam and Eve, and told them of the vision he had seen. When they heard it, they grieved much over it, but said nothing to him about it; they only comforted him.

¹⁰ But as to the hard-hearted Cain, Satan came to him by night, showed himself and said to him, “Since Adam and Eve love your brother Abel so much more than they love you, they wish to join him in marriage to your beautiful sister because they love him. However, they wish to join you in marriage to his ugly sister, because they hate you.

¹¹ Now before they do that, I am telling you that you should kill your brother. That way your sister will be left for you, and his sister will be cast away.”

¹² And Satan departed from him. But the devil remained behind in Cain’s heart, and frequently aspired to kill his brother.

Chapter LXXVII – Cain, 15 years old, and Abel 12 years old, grow apart.

¹ But when Adam saw that the older brother hated the younger, he endeavored to soften their hearts, and said to Cain, “O my son, take of the fruits of your sowing and make an offering to God, so that He might forgive you for your wickedness and sin.”

² He said also to Abel, “Take some of your sowing and make an offering and bring it to God, so that He might forgive you for your wickedness and sin.”

³ Then Abel obeyed his father’s voice, took some of his sowing, and made a good offering, and said to his father, Adam, “Come with me and show me how to offer it up.”

⁴ And they went, Adam and Eve with him, and they showed him how to offer up his gift on the altar. Then after that, they stood up and prayed that God would accept Abel’s offering.

⁵ Then God looked at Abel and accepted his offering. And God was more pleased with Abel than with his offering, because of his good heart and pure body. There was no trace of guile in him.

⁶ Then they came down from the altar, and went to the cave in which they lived. But Abel, by reason of his joy at having made his offering, repeated it three times a week, after the example of his father Adam.

⁷ But as to Cain, he did not want to make an offering, but after his father became very angry, he offered up a gift once. He took the smallest of his sheep for an offering and when he offered it up, his eyes were on the lamb.

⁸ Therefore God did not accept his offering, because his heart was full of murderous thoughts.

⁹ And they all thus lived together in the cave in which Eve had brought forth, until Cain was fifteen years old, and Abel twelve years old.

Chapter LXXVIII – Jealousy overcomes Cain. He makes trouble in the family. How the first murder was planned.

¹ Then Adam said to Eve, “Behold the children are grown up; we must think of finding wives for them.”

² Then Eve answered, “How can we do it?”

³ Then Adam said to her, “We will join Abel’s sister in marriage to Cain, and Cain’s sister to Abel.

⁴ The said Eve to Adam, “I do not like Cain because he is hard-hearted; but let them stay with us until we offer up to the Lord in their behalf.”

⁵ And Adam said no more.

⁶ Meanwhile Satan came to Cain in the figure of a man of the field, and said to him, “Behold Adam and Eve have taken counsel together about the marriage of you two; and they have agreed to marry Abel’s sister to you, and your sister to him.

⁷ But if it was not that I love you, I would not have told you this thing. Yet if you will take my advice, and obey me, I will bring to you on your wedding day beautiful robes, gold and silver in plenty, and my relations will attend you.”

⁸ Then Cain said with joy, “Where are your relations?”

⁹ And Satan answered, “My relations are in a garden in the north, where I once meant to bring your father Adam; but he would not accept my offer.

¹⁰ But you, if you will receive my words and if you will come to me after your wedding, you shall rest from the misery in which you are; and you shall rest and be better off than your father Adam.”

¹¹ At these words of Satan Cain opened his ears, and leaned towards his speech.

¹² And he did not remain in the field, but he went to Eve, his mother, and beat her, and cursed her, and said to her, “Why are you planning to take my sister to wed her to my brother? Am I dead?”

¹³ His mother, however, quieted him, and sent him to the field where he had been.

¹⁴ Then when Adam came, she told him of what Cain had done.

¹⁵ But Adam grieved and held his peace, and said not a word.

¹⁶ Then on the next morning Adam said to Cain his son, “Take of your sheep, young and good, and offer them up to your God; and I will speak to your brother, to make to his God an offering of corn.”

¹⁷ They both obeyed their father Adam, and they took their offerings, and offered them up on the mountain by the altar.

¹⁸ But Cain behaved haughtily towards his brother, and shoved him from the altar, and would not let him offer up his gift on the altar; but he offered his own on it, with a proud heart, full of guile, and fraud.

¹⁹ But as for Abel, he set up stones that were near at hand, and on that, he offered up his gift with a heart humble and free from guile.

²⁰ Cain was then standing by the altar on which he had offered up his gift; and he cried to God to accept his offering; but God did not accept it from him; neither did a divine fire come down to consume his offering.

²¹ But he remained standing over against the altar, out of humor and meanness, looking towards his brother Abel, to see if God would accept his offering or not.

²² And Abel prayed to God to accept his offering. Then a divine fire came down and consumed his offering. And God smelled the sweet savor of his offering; because Abel loved Him and rejoice in Him.

²³ And because God was well pleased with him, He sent him an angel of light in the figure of a man who had partaken of his offering, because He had smelled the sweet savor of his offering, and they comforted Abel and strengthened his heart.

²⁴ But Cain was looking on all that took place at his brother’s offering, and was angry because of it.

²⁵ Then he opened his mouth and blasphemed God, because He had not accepted his offering.

²⁶ But God said to cain, “Why do you look sad? Be righteous, that I may accept your offering. Not against Me have you murmured, but against yourself.

²⁷ And God said this to Cain in rebuke, and because He abhorred him and his offering.

²⁸ And Cain came down from the altar, his color changed and with a sad face, and came to his father and mother and told them all that had befallen him. And Adam grieved much because God had not accepted Cain’s offering.

²⁹ But Abel came down rejoicing, and with a gladsome heart, and told his father and mother how God had accepted his offering. And they rejoiced at it and kissed his face.

³⁰ And Abel said to his father, “Because Cain shoved me from the altar, and would not allow me to offer my gift on it, I made an altar for myself and offered my gift on it.”

³¹ But when Adam heard this he was very sorry, because it was the altar he had built at first, and on which he had offered his own gifts.

³² As to Cain, he was so resentful and so angry that he went into the field, where Satan came to him and said to him, “Since your brother Abel has taken refuge with your father Adam, because you shoved him from the altar, they have kissed his face, and they rejoice over him, far more than over you.”

³³ When Cain heard these words of Satan, he was filled with rage; and he let no one know. But he was laying wait to kill his brother, until he brought him into the cave, and then said to him:—

³⁴ “O brother, the country is so beautiful, and there are such beautiful and pleasurable trees in it, and charming to look at! But brother, you have never been one day in the field to take your pleasure in that place.

³⁵ Today, O, my brother, I very much wish you would come with me into the field, to enjoy yourself and to bless our fields and our flocks, for you are righteous, and I love you much, O my brother! But you have alienated yourself from me.”

³⁶ Then Abel consented to go with his brother Cain into the field.

³⁷ But before going out, Cain said to Abel, “Wait for me, until I fetch a staff, because of wild beasts.”

³⁸ Then Abel stood waiting in his innocence. But Cain, the forward, fetched a staff and went out.

³⁹ And they began, Cain and his brother Abel, to walk in the way; Cain talking to him, and comforting him, to make him forget everything.

Chapter LXXIX – A wicked plan is carried to a tragic conclusion. Cain is frightened. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The seven punishments. Peace is shattered.

¹ And so they went on, until they came to a lonely place, where there were no sheep; then Abel said to Cain, “Behold, my brother, we are tired from walking; for we see none of the trees, nor of the fruits, nor of the flourishing green plants, nor of the sheep, nor any one of the things of which you told me. Where are those sheep of thine you told me to bless?”

² Then Cain said to him, “Come on, and you shall see many beautiful things very soon, but go before me, until I catch up to you.”

³ Then went Abel forward, but Cain remained behind him.

⁴ And Abel was walking in his innocence, without guile; not believing his brother would kill him.

⁵ Then Cain, when he came up to him, comforted him with his talk, walking a little behind him; then he ran up to him and beat him with the staff, blow after blow, until he was stunned.

⁶ But when Abel fell down on the ground, seeing that his brother meant to kill him, he said to Cain, “O, my brother, have pity on me. By the breasts we have sucked, don’t hit me! By the womb that bore us and that brought us into the world, don’t beat me to death with that staff! If you will kill me, take one of these large stones and kill me outright.”

⁷ Then Cain, the hard-hearted, and cruel murderer, took a large stone, and beat his brother’s head with it, until his brains oozed out, and he wallowed in his blood, before him.

⁸ And Cain repented not of what he had done.

⁹ But the earth, when the blood of righteous Abel fell on it, trembled, as it drank his blood, and would have destroyed Cain because of it.

¹⁰ And the blood of Abel cried mysteriously to God, to avenge him of his murderer.

¹¹ Then Cain began at once to dig the ground wherein to lay his brother; for he was trembling from the fear that came over him, when he saw the earth tremble on his account.

¹² He then cast his brother into the pit he made, and covered him with dust. But the ground would not receive him; but it threw him up at once.

¹³ Again Cain dug the ground and hid his brother in it; but again the ground threw him up on itself; until three times the ground thus threw up on itself the body of Abel.

¹⁴ The muddy ground threw him up the first time, because he was not the first creation; and it threw him up the second time and would not receive him, because he was righteous and good, and was killed without a cause; and the ground threw him up the third time and would not receive him, that there might remain before his brother a witness against him.

¹⁵ And so the earth mocked Cain, until the Word of God, came to him concerning his brother.

¹⁶ Then was God angry, and much displeased at Abel’s death; and He thundered from heaven, and lightnings went before Him, and the Word of the Lord God came from heaven to Cain, and said to him, “Where is Abel your brother?”

¹⁷ Then Cain answered with a proud heart and a gruff voice, “How, O God? Am I my brother’s keeper?”

¹⁸ Then God said to Cain, “Cursed be the earth that has drunk the blood of Abel your brother; and as for you, you will always be trembling and shaking; and this will be a mark on you so that whoever finds you, will kill you.”

¹⁹ But Cain cried because God had said those words to him; and Cain said to Him, “O God, whosoever finds me shall kill me, and I shall be blotted out from the face of the earth.”

²⁰ Then God said to Cain, “Whoever finds you will not kill you;” because before this, God had been saying to Cain, “I shall put seven punishments on anyone that kills Cain.” For as to the word of God to Cain, “Where is your brother?” God said it in mercy for him, to try and make him repent.

²¹ For if Cain had repented at that time, and had said, “O God, forgive me my sin, and the murder of my brother,” God would then have forgiven him his sin.

²² And as to God saying to Cain, “Cursed be the ground that has drunk the blood of your brother.” That also, was God’s mercy on Cain. For God did not curse him, but He cursed the ground; although it was not the ground that had killed Abel, and committed a wicked sin.

²³ For it was fitting that the curse should fall on the murderer; yet in mercy did God so manage His thoughts as that no one should know it, and turn away from Cain.

²⁴ And He said to him, “Where is your brother?” To which he answered and said, “I know not.” Then the Creator said to him, “Be trembling and quaking.”

²⁵ Then Cain trembled and became terrified; and through this sign did God make him an example before all the creation, as the murderer of his brother. Also did God bring trembling and terror over him, that he might see the peace in which he was at first, and see also the trembling and terror he endured at the last; so that he might humble himself before God, and repent of his sin, and seek the peace that he enjoyed at first.

²⁶ And in the word of God that said, “I will put seven punishments on anyone who kills Cain,” God was not seeking to kill Cain with the sword, but He sought to make him die of fasting, and praying and crying by hard rule, until the time that he was delivered from his sin.

²⁷ And the seven punishments are the seven generations during which God awaited Cain for the murder of his brother.

²⁸ But as to Cain, ever since he had killed his brother, he could find no rest in any place; but went back to Adam and Eve, trembling, terrified, and defiled with blood. . . .

~~~ The End of First Book of Adam and Eve ~~~

Posted in Books of Ancients

Chapter LXI – They begin to follow Satan.

¹ Then he took Adam and Eve by the hand, and began to bring them out of the cave.

² But when they had come a little ways out of it, God knew that Satan had overcome them, and had brought them out before the forty days were ended, to take them to some distant place, and to destroy them.

³ Then the Word of the Lord God again came and cursed Satan, and drove him away from them.

⁴ And God began to speak to Adam and Eve, saying to them, “What made you come out of the cave, to this place?”

⁵ Then Adam said to God, “Did you create a man before us? For when we were in the cave there suddenly came to us a friendly old man who said to us, ‘I am a messenger from God to you, to bring you back to some place of rest.’

⁶ And we believed, O God, that he was a messenger from you; and we came out with him; and knew not where we should go with him.”

⁷ Then God said to Adam, “See, that is the father of evil arts, who brought you and Eve out of the Garden of Delights. And now, indeed, when he saw that you and Eve both joined together in fasting and praying, and that you came not out of the cave before the end of the forty days, he wished to make your purpose vein, to break your mutual bond; to cut off all hope from you, and to drive you to some place where he might destroy you.

⁸ Because he couldn’t do anything to you unless he showed himself in the likeness of you.

⁹ Therefore he came to you with a face like your own, and began to give you tokens as if they were all true.

¹⁰ But because I am merciful and am favorable to you, I did not allow him to destroy you; instead I drove him away from you.

¹¹ Now, therefore, O Adam, take Eve, and return to your cave, and remain in it until the morning after the fortieth day. And when you come out, go towards the eastern gate of the garden.”

¹² Then Adam and Eve worshipped God, and praised and blessed Him for the deliverance that had come to them from Him. And they returned towards the cave. This happened in the evening of the thirty-ninth day.

¹³ Then Adam and Eve stood up and with a fiery passion, prayed to God, to give them strength; for they had become weak because of hunger and thirst and prayer. But they watched the whole of that night praying, until morning.

¹⁴ Then Adam said to Eve, “Get up, let us go towards the eastern gate of the garden as God told us.”

¹⁵ And they said their prayers as they were accustomed to do every day; and they left the cave to go near to the eastern gate of the garden.

¹⁶ Then Adam and Eve stood up and prayed, and appealed to God to strengthen them, and to send them something to satisfy their hunger.

¹⁷ But after they finished their prayers, they were too weak to move.

¹⁸ Then came the Word of God again, and said to them, “O Adam, get up, go and bring the two figs here.”

¹⁹ Then Adam and Eve got up, and went until they came near to the cave.

Chapter LXII – Two fruit trees.

¹ But Satan the wicked was envious, because of the consolation God had given them.

² So he prevented them, and went into the cave and took the two figs, and buried them outside the cave, so that Adam and Eve should not find them. He also had in his thoughts to destroy them.

³ But by God’s mercy, as soon as those two figs were in the ground, God defeated Satan’s counsel regarding them; and made them into two fruit trees, that overshadowed the cave. For Satan had buried them on the eastern side of it.

⁴ Then when the two trees were grown, and were covered with fruit, Satan grieved and mourned, and said, “It would have been better to have left those figs where they were; for now, behold, they have become two fruit trees, whereof Adam will eat all the days of his life. Whereas I had in mind, when I buried them, to destroy them entirely, and to hide them forever.

⁵ But God has overturned my counsel; and would not that this sacred fruit should perish; and He has made plain my intention, and has defeated the counsel I had formed against His servants.”

⁶ Then Satan went away ashamed because he hadn’t thought his plans all the way through.

Chapter LXIII – The first joy of trees.

¹ But Adam and Eve, as they got closer to the cave, saw two fig trees, covered with fruit, and overshadowing the cave.

² Then Adam said to Eve, “It seems to me that we have gone the wrong way. When did these two trees grow here? It seems to me that the enemy wishes to lead us the wrong way. Do you suppose that there is another cave besides this one in the earth?

³ Yet, O Eve, let us go into the cave, and find in it the two figs; for this is our cave, in which we were. But if we should not find the two figs in it, then it cannot be our cave.”

⁴ They went then into the cave, and looked into the four corners of it, but found not the two figs.

⁵ And Adam cried and said to Eve, “Did we go to the wrong cave, then, O Eve? It seems to me these two fig trees are the two figs that were in the cave.” And Eve said, “I, for my part, do not know.”

⁶ Then Adam stood up and prayed and said, “O God, You commanded us to come back to the cave, to take the two figs, and then to return to you.

⁷ But now, we have not found them. O God, have you taken them, and sown these two trees, or have we gone astray in the earth; or has the enemy deceived us? If it be real, then, O God, reveal to us the secret of these two trees and of the two figs.”

⁸ Then came the Word of God to Adam, and said to him, “O Adam, when I sent you to fetch the figs, Satan went before you to the cave, took the figs, and buried them outside, eastward of the cave, thinking to destroy them; and not sowing them with good intent.

⁹ Not for his mere sake, then, have these trees grown up at once; but I had mercy on you and I commanded them to grow. And they grew to be two large trees, that you be overshadowed by their branches, and find rest; and that I made you see My power and My marvelous works.

¹⁰ And, also, to show you Satan’s meanness, and his evil works, for ever since you came out of the garden, he has not ceased, no, not one day, from doing you some harm. But I have not given him power over you.”

¹¹ And God said, “From now on, O Adam, rejoice on account of the trees, you and Eve; and rest under them when you feel weary. But do not eat any of their fruit or come near them.”

¹² Then Adam cried, and said, “O God, will You again kill us, or will You drive us away from before Your face, and cut our life from off the face of the earth?

¹³ O God, I beg you, if You know that there be in these trees either death or some other evil, as at the first time, root them up from near our cave, and with them; and leave us to die of the heat, of hunger and of thirst.

¹⁴ For we know Your marvelous works, O God, that they are great, and that by Your power You can bring one thing out of another, without one’s wish. For Your power can make rocks to become trees, and trees to become rocks.”

Chapter LXIV – Adam and Eve partake of the first earthly food.

¹ Then God looked at Adam and at his strength of mind, at his endurance of hunger and thirst, and of the heat. And He changed the two fig trees into two figs, as they were at first, and then said to Adam and to Eve, “Each of you may take one fig.” And they took them, as the Lord commanded them.

² And He said to them, “You must now go into the cave and eat the figs, and satisfy your hunger, or else you will die.”

³ So, as God commanded them, they went into the cave about sunset. And Adam and Eve stood up and prayed during the setting sun.

⁴ Then they sat down to eat the figs; but they knew not how to eat them; for they were not accustomed to eat earthly food. They were afraid that if they ate, their stomach would be burdened and their flesh thickened, and their hearts would take to liking earthly food.

⁵ But while they were thus seated, God, out of pity for them, sent them His angel, so they wouldn’t perish of hunger and thirst.

⁶ And the angel said to Adam and Eve, “God says to you that you do not have the strength that would be required to fast until death; eat, therefore, and strengthen your bodies; for you are now animal flesh and cannot subsist without food and drink.”

⁷ Then Adam and Eve took the figs and began to eat of them. But God had put into them a mixture as of savory bread and blood.

⁸ Then the angel went from Adam and Eve, who ate of the figs until they had satisfied their hunger. Then they put aside what was left; but by the power of God, the figs became whole again, because God blessed them.

⁹ After this Adam and Eve got up, and prayed with a joyful heart and renewed strength, and praised and rejoiced abundantly the whole of that night. And this was the end of the eighty-third day.

Chapter LXV – Adam and Eve acquire digestive organs. Final hope of returning to the Garden is lost.

¹ And when it was day, they got up and prayed, after their custom, and then went out of the cave.

² But they became sick from the food they had eaten because they were not used to it, so they went about in the cave saying to each other:—

³ “What has our eating caused to happen to us, that we should be in such pain? We are in misery, we shall die! It would have been better for us to have died keeping our bodies pure than to have eaten and defiled them with food.”

⁴ Then Adam said to Eve, “This pain did not come to us in the garden, neither did we eat such bad food there. Do you think, O Eve, that God will plague us through the food that is in us, or that our innards will come out; or that God means to kill us with this pain before He has fulfilled His promise to us?”

⁵ Then Adam besought the Lord and said, “O Lord, let us not perish through the food we have eaten. O Lord, don’t punish us; but deal with us according to Your great mercy, and forsake us not until the day of the promise You have made us.”

⁶ Then God looked at them, and then fitted them for eating food at once; as to this day; so that they should not perish.

⁷ Then Adam and Eve came back into the cave sorrowful and crying because of the alteration of their bodies. And they both knew from that hour that they were altered beings, that all hope of returning to the garden was now lost; and that they could not enter it.

⁸ For that now their bodies had strange functions; and all flesh that requires food and drink for its existence, cannot be in the garden.

⁹ Then Adam said to Eve, “Behold, our hope is now lost; and so is our trust to enter the garden. We no longer belong to the inhabitants of the garden; but from now on we are earthy and of the dust, and of the inhabitants of the earth. We shall not return to the garden, until the day in which God has promised to save us, and to bring us again into the garden, as He promised us.”

¹⁰ Then they prayed to God that He would have mercy on them; after which, their mind was quieted, their hearts were broken, and their longing was cooled down; and they were like strangers on earth. That night Adam and Eve spent in the cave, where they slept heavily by reason of the food they had eaten.

Chapter LXVI – Adam does his first day’s work.

¹ When it was morning, the day after they had eaten food, Adam and Eve prayed in the cave, and Adam said to Eve, “Look, we asked for food of God, and He gave it. But now let us also ask Him to give us a drink of water.”

² Then they got up, and went to the bank of the stream of water, that was on the south border of the garden, in which they had before thrown themselves. And they stood on the bank, and prayed to God that He would command them to drink of the water.

³ Then the Word of God came to Adam, and said to him, “O Adam, your body has become brutish, and requires water to drink. Take some and drink it, you and Eve, then give thanks and praise.”

⁴ Adam and Eve then went down to the stream and drank from it, until their bodies felt refreshed. After having drunk, they praised God, and then returned to their cave, after their former custom. This happened at the end of eighty-three days.

⁵ Then on the eighty-fourth day, they took the two figs and hung them in the cave, together with the leaves thereof, to be to them a sign and a blessing from God. And they placed them there so that if their descendants came there, they would see the wonderful things God had done for them.

⁶ Then Adam and Eve again stood outside the cave, and asked God to show them some food with which they could nourish their bodies.

⁷ Then the Word of God came and said to him, “O Adam, go down to the westward of the cave until you come to a land of dark soil, and there you shall find food.”

⁸ And Adam obeyed the Word of God, took Eve, and went down to a land of dark soil, and found there wheat* growing in the ear and ripe, and figs to eat; and Adam rejoiced over it.

⁹ Then the Word of God came again to Adam, and said to him, “Take some of this wheat and make yourselves some bread with it, to nourish your body therewith.” And God gave Adam’s heart wisdom, to work out the corn until it became bread.

¹⁰ Adam accomplished all that, until he grew very faint and weary. He then returned to the cave; rejoicing at what he had learned of what is done with wheat, until it is made into bread for one’s use.

* In this book, the terms ‘corn’ and ‘wheat’ are used interchangeably. The reference is possibly used to indicate a type of ancient grain resembling Egyptian Corn also known as Durra. Durra is a wheat-like cereal grain frequently cultivated in dry regions such as Egypt.

Chapter LXVII – “Then Satan began to lead astray Adam and Eve.…”

¹ When Adam and Eve went down to the land of black mud and came near to the wheat God had showed them and saw that it was ripe and ready for reaping, they did not have a sickle to reap it with. So they readied themselves, and began to pull up the wheat by hand, until it was all done.

² Then they heaped it into a pile; and, faint from heat and from thirst, they went under a shady tree, where the breeze fanned them to sleep.

³ But Satan saw what Adam and Eve had done. And he called his hosts, and said to them, “Since God has shown to Adam and Eve all about this wheat, wherewith to strengthen their bodies—and, look, they have come and made a big pile of it, and faint from the toil are now asleep—come, let us set fire to this heap of corn, and burn it, and let us take that bottle of water that is by them, and empty it out, so that they may find nothing to drink, and we kill them with hunger and thirst.

⁴ Then, when they wake up from their sleep, and seek to return to the cave, we will come to them in the way, and will lead them astray; so that they die of hunger and thirst; when they may, perhaps, deny God, and He destroy them. So shall we be rid of them.”

⁵ Then Satan and his hosts set the wheat on fire and burned it up.

⁶ But from the heat of the flame Adam and Eve awoke from their sleep, and saw the wheat burning, and the bucket of water by them, poured out.

⁷ Then they cried and went back to the cave.

⁸ But as they were going up from below the mountain where they were, Satan and his hosts met them in the form of angels, praising God.

⁹ Then Satan said to Adam, “O Adam, why are you so pained with hunger and thirst? It seems to me that Satan has burnt up the wheat.” And Adam said to him, “Yes.”

¹⁰ Again Satan said to Adam, “Come back with us; we are angels of God. God sent us to you, to show you another field of corn, better than that; and beyond it is a fountain of good water, and many trees, where you shall live near it, and work the corn field to better purpose than that which Satan has consumed.”

¹¹ Adam thought that he was true, and that they were angels who talked with him; and he went back with them.

¹² Then Satan began to lead astray Adam and Eve eight days, until they both fell down as if dead, from hunger, thirst, and faintness. Then he fled with his hosts, and left them.

Chapter LXVIII – How destruction and trouble is of Satan when he is the master. Adam and Eve establish the custom of worship.

¹ Then God looked at Adam and Eve, and at what had come over them from Satan, and how he had made them perish.

² God, therefore, sent His Word, and raised up Adam and Eve from their state of death.

³ Then, Adam, when he was raised, said, “O God, You have burnt and taken from us the corn You have given us, and You have emptied out the bucket of water. And You have sent Your angels, who have caused us to lose our way from the corn field. Will You make us perish? If this be from you, O God, then take away our souls; but punish us not.”

⁴ Then God said to Adam, “I did not burn down the wheat, and I did not pour the water out of the bucket, and I did not send My angels to lead you astray.

⁵ But it is Satan, your master who did it; he to whom you have subjected yourself; my commandment being meanwhile set aside. He it is, who burnt down the corn, and poured out the water, and who has led you astray; and all the promises he has made you were just a trick, a deception, and a lie.

⁶ But now, O Adam, you shall acknowledge My good deeds done to you.”

⁷ And God told His angels to take Adam and Eve, and to bear them up to the field of wheat, which they found as before, with the bucket full of water.

⁸ There they saw a tree, and found on it solid manna; and wondered at God’s power. And the angels commanded them to eat of the manna when they were hungry.

9 And God admonished Satan with a curse, not to come again, and destroy the field of corn.

¹⁰ Then Adam and Eve took of the corn, and made of it an offering, and took it and offered it up on the mountain, the place where they had offered up their first offering of blood.

¹¹ And they offered this offering again on the altar they had built at first. And they stood up and prayed, and besought the Lord saying, “Thus, O God, when we were in the garden, our praises went up to you, like this offering; and our innocence went up to you like incense. But now, O God, accept this offering from us, and don’t turn us away, deprived of Your mercy.”

¹² Then God said to Adam and Eve, “Since you have made this offering and have offered it to Me, I shall make it My flesh, when I come down on earth to save you; and I shall cause it to be offered continually on an altar, for forgiveness and for mercy, for those who partake of it duly.”

¹³ And God sent a bright fire over the offering of Adam and Eve, and filled it with brightness, grace, and light; and the Holy Ghost came down on that offering.

¹⁴ Then God commanded an angel to take fire tongs, like a spoon, and with it to take an offering and bring it to Adam and Eve. And the angel did so, as God had commanded him, and offered it to them.

¹⁵ And the souls of Adam and Eve were brightened, and their hearts were filled with joy and gladness and with the praises of God.

¹⁶ And God said to Adam, “This shall be to you a custom, to do so, when affliction and sorrow come over you. But your deliverance and your entrance in to the garden, shall not be until the days are fulfilled as agreed between you and Me; were it not so, I would, of My mercy and pity for you, bring you back to My garden and to My favor for the sake of the offering you have just made to My name.”

¹⁷ Adam rejoiced at these words which he heard from God; and he and Eve worshipped before the altar, to which they bowed, and then went back to the Cave of Treasures.

¹⁸ And this took place at the end of the twelfth day after the eightieth day, from the time Adam and Eve came out of the garden.

¹⁹ And they stood up the whole night praying until morning; and then went out of the cave.

²⁰ Then Adam said to Eve, with joy of heart, because of the offering they had made to God, and that had been accepted of Him, “Let us do this three times every week, on the fourth day Wednesday, on the preparation day Friday, and on the Sabbath Sunday, all the days of our life.”

²¹ And as they agreed to these words between themselves, God was pleased with their thoughts, and with the resolution they had each taken with the other.

²² After this, came the Word of God to Adam, and said, “O Adam, you have determined beforehand the days in which sufferings shall come over Me, when I am made flesh; for they are the fourth Wednesday, and the preparation day Friday.

²³ But as to the first day, I created in it all things, and I raised the heavens. And, again, through My rising again on this day, will I create joy, and raise them on high, who believe in Me; O Adam, offer this offering, all the days of your life.”

²⁴ Then God withdrew His Word from Adam.

²⁵ But Adam continued to offer this offering thus, every week three times, until the end of seven weeks. And on the first day, which is the fiftieth, Adam made an offering as he was accustomed, and he and Eve took it and came to the altar before God, as He had taught them.

Chapter LXIX – Twelfth apparition of Satan to Adam and Eve, while Adam was praying over the offering on the altar; when Satan beat him.

¹ Then Satan, the hater of all good, envious of Adam and of his offering through which he found favor with God, hastened and took a sharp stone from among the sharp iron stones; appeared in the form of a man, and went and stood by Adam and Eve.

² Adam was then offering on the altar, and had begun to pray, with his hands spread before God.

³ Then Satan hastened with the sharp iron stone he had with him, and with it pierced Adam on the right side, from which flowed blood and water, then Adam fell on the altar like a corpse. And Satan fled.

⁴ Then Eve came, and took Adam and placed him below the altar. And there she stayed, crying over him; while a stream of blood flowed from Adam’s side over his offering.

⁵ But God looked at the death of Adam. He then sent His Word, and raised him up and said to him, “Fulfil your offering, for indeed, Adam, it is worth much, and there is no shortcoming in it.”

⁶ God said further to Adam, “Thus will it also happen to Me, on the earth, when I shall be pierced and blood and water shall flow from My side and run over My body, which is the true offering; and which shall be offered on the altar as a perfect offering.”

⁷ Then God commanded Adam to finish his offering, and when he had ended it he worshipped before God, and praised Him for the signs He had showed him.

⁸ And God healed Adam in one day, which is the end of the seven weeks; and that is the fiftieth day.

⁹ Then Adam and Eve returned from the mountain, and went into the Cave of Treasures, as they were used to do. This completed for Adam and Eve, one hundred and forty days since their coming out of the garden.

¹⁰ Then they both stood up that night and prayed to God. And when it was morning, they went out, and went down westward of the cave, to the place where their corn was, and there rested under the shadow of a tree, as they were accustomed.

¹¹ But when there a multitude of beasts came all around them. It was Satan’s doing, in his wickedness; in order to wage war against Adam through marriage.

Chapter LXX – Thirteenth apparition of Satan, to trick Adam into marrying Eve.

¹ After this Satan, the hater of all good, took the form of an angel, and with him two others, so that they looked like the three angels who had brought to Adam gold, incense, and myrrh.

² They passed before Adam and Eve while they were under the tree, and greeted Adam and Eve with fair words that were full of deceit.

³ But when Adam and Eve saw their pleasant expression, and heard their sweet speech, Adam rose, welcomed them, and brought them to Eve, and they remained all together; Adam’s heart the while, being glad because he thought concerning them, that they were the same angels, who had brought him gold, incense, and myrrh.

⁴ Because, when they came to Adam the first time, there came over him from them, peace and joy, through their bringing him good tokens; so Adam thought that they had come a second time to give him other tokens for him to rejoice therewith. For he did not know it was Satan; therefore he received them with joy and consorted with them.

⁵ Then Satan, the tallest of them, said, “Rejoice, O Adam, and be glad. Look, God has sent us to you to tell you something.”

⁶ And Adam said, “What is it?” Then Satan answered, “It is a simple thing, yet it is the Word of God, will you accept it from us and do it? But if you will not accept it, we will return to God, and tell Him that you would not receive His Word.”

⁷ And Satan said again to Adam, “Don’t be afraid and don’t tremble; don’t you know us?”

⁸ But Adam said, “I do not know you.”

⁹ Then Satan said to him, “I am the angel that brought you gold, and took it to the cave; this other angel is the one that brought you incense; and that third angel, is the one who brought you myrrh when you were on top of the mountain, and who carried you to the cave.

¹⁰ But as to the other angels our fellows, who bare you to the cave, God has not sent them with us this time; for He said to us, ‘You will be enough’.”

¹¹ So when Adam heard these words he believed them, and said to these angels, “Speak the Word of God, that I may receive it.”

¹² And Satan said to him, “Swear, and promise me that you will receive it.”

¹³ Then Adam said, “I do not know how to swear and promise.”

¹⁴ And Satan said to him, “Hold out your hand, and put it inside my hand.”

¹⁵ Then Adam held out his hand, and put it into Satan’s hand; when Satan said to him, “Say, now—So true as God is living, rational, and speaking, who raised the stars in heaven, and established the dry ground on the waters, and has created me out of the four elements*, and out of the dust of the earth—I will not break my promise, nor renounce my word.”

¹⁶ And Adam swore thus.

¹⁷ Then Satan said to him, “Look, it is now some time since you came out of the garden, and you know neither wickedness nor evil. But now God says to you, to take Eve who came out of your side, and to marry her so that she will bear you children, to comfort you, and to drive from you trouble and sorrow; now this thing is not difficult, neither is there any scandal in it to you.

* See the previous footnote in chapter XXXIV regarding the ‘four elements’.

Posted in Books of Ancients

Chapter LI – “What is his beauty that you should have followed him?”

¹ When Adam heard these words from God, he took Eve and went from the northern end of the garden to the south of it, by the river of water where they once fasted.

² But as they were going on their way, and before they got there, Satan, the wicked one, had heard the Word of God communing with Adam respecting his covering.

³ It grieved him, and he hastened to the place where the sheep-skins were, with the intention of taking them and throwing them into the sea, or of burning them with fire, so that Adam and Eve would not find them.

⁴ But as he was about to take them, the Word of God came from heaven, and bound him by the side of those skins until Adam and Eve came near him. But as they got closer to him they were afraid of him, and of his hideous look.

⁵ Then came the Word of God to Adam and Eve, and said to them, “This is he who was hidden in the serpent, and who deceived you, and stripped you of the garment of light and glory in which you were.

⁶ This is he who promised you majesty and divinity. Where, then, is the beauty that was on him? Where is his divinity? Where is his light? Where is the glory that rested on him?

⁷ Now his figure is hideous; he is become abominable among angels; and he has come to be called Satan.

⁸ O Adam, he wished to take from you this earthly garment of sheep-skins, and to destroy it, and not let you be covered with it.

⁹ What, then, is his beauty that you should have followed him? And what have you gained by obeying him? See his evil works and then look at Me; at Me, your Creator, and at the good deeds I do you.

¹⁰ See, I bound him until you came and saw him and beheld his weakness, that no power is left with him.”

¹¹ And God released him from his bonds.

Chapter LII – Adam and Eve sew the first shirt.

¹ After this Adam and Eve said no more, but cried before God on account of their creation, and of their bodies that required an earthly covering.

² Then Adam said to Eve, “O Eve, this is the skin of beasts with which we shall be covered, but when we put it on, behold, we shall be wearing a token of death on our bodies. Just as the owners of these skins have died and have wasted away, so also shall we die and pass away.”

³ Then Adam and Eve took the skins, and went back to the Cave of Treasures; and when in it, they stood and prayed as they were accustomed.

⁴ And they thought how they could make garments of those skins; for they had no skill for it.

⁵ Then God sent to them His angel to show them how to work it out. And the angel said to Adam, “Go forth, and bring some palm-thorns.” Then Adam went out, and brought some, as the angel had commanded him.

⁶ Then the angel began before them to work out the skins, after the manner of one who prepares a shirt. And he took the thorns and stuck them into the skins, before their eyes.

⁷ Then the angel again stood up and prayed God that the thorns in those skins should be hidden, so as to be, as it were, sewn with one thread.

⁸ And so it was, by God’s order; they became garments for Adam and Eve, and He clothed them therewith.

⁹ From that time the nakedness of their bodies was covered from the sight of each other’s eyes.

¹⁰ And this happened at the end of the fifty-first day.

¹¹ Then when Adam’s and Eve’s bodies were covered, they stood and prayed, and sought mercy of the Lord, and forgiveness, and gave Him thanks for that He had had mercy on them, and had covered their nakedness. And they ceased not from prayer the whole of that night.

¹² Then when the morning dawned at the rising of the sun, they said their prayers after their custom; and then went out of the cave.

¹³ And Adam said to Eve, “Since we don’t know what there is to the west of this cave, let us go out and see it today.” Then they came forth and went toward the western border.

Chapter LIII – The prophecy of the Western Lands and of the great flood.

¹ They were not very far from the cave, when Satan came towards them, and hid himself between them and the cave, under the form of two ravenous lions three days without food, that came towards Adam and Eve, as if to break them in pieces and devour them.

² Then Adam and Eve cried, and prayed God to deliver them from their paws.

³ Then the Word of God came to them, and drove away the lions from them.

⁴ And God said to Adam, “O Adam, what do you seek on the western border? And why have you left of thine own accord the eastern border, in which was your living place?

⁵ Now then, turn back to your cave, and remain in it, so that Satan won’t deceive you or work his purpose over you.

⁶ For in this western border, O Adam, there will go from you a descendant, that shall replenish it; and that will defile themselves with their sins, and with their yielding to the commands of Satan, and by following his works.

⁷ Therefore will I bring over them the waters of a flood, and overwhelm them all. But I will deliver what is left of the righteous among them; and I will bring them to a distant land, and the land in which you live now shall remain desolate and without one inhabitant in it.

⁸ After God had thus spoken to them, they went back to the Cave of Treasures. But their flesh was dried up, and they were weak from fasting and praying, and from the sorrow they felt at having trespassed against God.

Chapter LIV – Adam and Eve go exploring.

¹ Then Adam and Eve stood up in the cave and prayed the whole of that night until the morning dawned. And when the sun was risen they both went out of the cave; their heads were wandering from heaviness of sorrow and they didn’t know where they were going.

² And they walked in that condition to the southern border of the garden. And they began to go up that border until they came to the eastern border beyond which there was no more land.

³ And the cherub who guarded the garden was standing at the western gate, and guarding it against Adam and Eve, lest they should suddenly come into the garden. And the cherub turned around, as if to put them to death; according to the commandment God had given him.

⁴ When Adam and Eve came to the eastern border of the garden—thinking in their hearts that the cherub was not watching—as they were standing by the gate as if wishing to go in, suddenly came the cherub with a flashing sword of fire in his hand; and when he saw them, he went forth to kill them. For he was afraid that God would destroy him if they went into the garden without His order.

⁵ And the sword of the cherub seemed to shoot flames a distance away from it. But when he raised it over Adam and Eve, the flame of the sword did not flash forth.

⁶ Therefore the cherub thought that God was favorable to them, and was bringing them back into the garden. And the cherub stood wondering.

⁷ He could not go up to Heaven to determine God’s order regarding their getting into the garden; he therefore continued to stand by them, unable as he was to part from them; for he was afraid that if they should enter the garden without permission, God would destroy him.

⁸ When Adam and Eve saw the cherub coming towards them with a flaming sword of fire in his hand, they fell on their faces from fear, and were as dead.

⁹ At that time the heavens and the earth shook; and another cherubim came down from heaven to the cherub who guarded the garden, and saw him amazed and silent.

¹⁰ Then, again, other angels came down close to the place where Adam and Eve were. They were divided between joy and sorrow.

¹¹ They were glad, because they thought that God was favorable to Adam, and wished him to return to the garden; and wished to restore him to the gladness he once enjoyed.

¹² But they sorrowed over Adam, because he was fallen like a dead man, he and Eve; and they said in their thoughts, “Adam has not died in this place; but God has put him to death, for his having come to this place, and wishing to get into the garden without His permission.”

Chapter LV – The Conflict between God and Satan.

¹ Then came the Word of God to Adam and Eve, and raised them from their dead state, saying to them, “Why did you come up here? Do you intend to go into the garden, from which I brought you out? It cannot be today; but only when the covenant I have made with you is fulfilled.”

² Then Adam, when he heard the Word of God, and the fluttering of the angels whom he did not see, but only heard the sound of them with his ears, he and Eve cried, and said to the angels:—

³ “O Spirits, who wait on God, look at me, and at my being unable to see you! For when I was in my former bright nature, then I could see you. I sang praises as you do; and my heart was far above you.

⁴ But now, that I have transgressed, that bright nature is gone from me, and I am come to this miserable state. And now I have come to this, that I cannot see you, and you do not serve me like you used to do. For I have become animal flesh.

⁵ Yet now, O angels of God, ask God with me, to restore me to that wherein I was formerly; to rescue me from this misery, and to remove from me the sentence of death He passed on me, for having trespassed against Him.”

⁶ Then, when the angels heard these words, they all grieved over him; and cursed Satan who had misled Adam, until he came from the garden to misery; from life to death; from peace to trouble; and from gladness to a strange land.

⁷ Then the angels said to Adam, “You obeyed Satan, and ignored the Word of God who created you; and you believed that Satan would fulfil all he had promised you.

⁸ But now, O Adam, we will make known to you, what came over us though him, before his fall from heaven.

⁹ He gathered together his hosts, and deceived them, promising to give them a great kingdom, a divine nature; and other promises he made them.

¹⁰ His hosts believed that his word was true, so they yielded to him, and renounced the glory of God.

¹¹ He then sent for us—according to the orders in which we were—to come under his command, and to accept his vein promise. But we would not, and we did not take his advice.

¹² Then after he had fought with God, and had dealt forwardly with Him, he gathered together his hosts, and made war with us. And if it had not been for God’s strength that was with us, we could not have prevailed against him to hurl him from heaven.

¹³ But when he fell from among us, there was great joy in heaven, because of his going down from us. For if he had remained in heaven, nothing, not even one angel would have remained in it.

¹⁴ But God in His mercy, drove him from among us to this dark earth; for he had become darkness itself and a worker of unrighteousness.

¹⁵ And he has continued, O Adam, to make war against you, until he tricked you and made you come out of the garden, to this strange land, where all these trials have come to you. And death, which God brought to him, he has also brought to you, O Adam, because you obeyed him, and trespassed against God.”

¹⁶ Then all the angels rejoiced and praised God, and asked Him not to destroy Adam this time, for his having sought to enter the garden; but to bear with him until the fulfillment of the promise; and to help him in this world until he was free from Satan’s hand.

Chapter LVI – A chapter of divine comfort.

¹ Then came the Word of God to Adam, and said to him:—

² “O Adam, look at that garden of joy and at this earth of toil, and behold the garden is full of angels, but look at yourself alone on this earth with Satan whom you obeyed.

³ Yet, if you had submitted, and been obedient to Me, and had kept My Word, you would be with My angels in My garden.

⁴ But when you transgressed and obeyed Satan, you became his guests among his angels, that are full of wickedness; and you came to this earth, that brings forth to you thorns and thistles.

⁵ O Adam, ask him who deceived you, to give you the divine nature he promised you, or to make you a garden as I had made for you; or to fill you with that same bright nature with which I had filled you.

⁶ Ask him to make you a body like the one I made you, or to give you a day of rest as I gave you; or to create within you a reasonable soul, as I created for you; or to take you from here to some other earth than this one which I gave you. But, O Adam, he will not fulfil even one of the things he told you.

7 Acknowledge, then, My favor towards you, and My mercy on you, My creature; that I have not avenged you for your transgression against Me, but in My pity for you I have promised you that at the end of the great five and a half days I will come and save you.”

⁸ Then God said again to Adam and Eve, “Get up, go down from here, before the cherub with a sword of fire in his hand destroys you.”

⁹ But Adam’s heart was comforted by God’s words to him, and he worshipped before Him.

¹⁰ And God commanded His angels to escort Adam and Eve to the cave with joy, instead of the fear that had come over them.

¹¹ Then the angels took up Adam and Eve, and brought them down from the mountain by the garden, with songs and psalms, until they arrived at the cave. There the angels began to comfort and to strengthen them, and then departed from them towards heaven, to their Creator, who had sent them.

¹² But after the angels had departed from Adam and Eve, Satan came with shamefacedness, and stood at the entrance of the cave in which were Adam and Eve. He then called to Adam, and said, “O Adam, come, let me speak to you.”

¹³ Then Adam came out of the cave, thinking he was one of God’s angels that was come to give him some good counsel.

Chapter LVII – “Therefore I fell.… “

¹ But when Adam came out and saw his hideous figure, he was afraid of him, and said to him, “Who are you?”

² Then Satan answered and said to him, “It is I, who hid myself within the serpent, and who spoke to Eve, and who enticed her until she obeyed my command. I am he who sent her, using my deceitful speech, to deceive you, until you both ate of the fruit of the tree and abandoned the command of God.”

³ But when Adam heard these words from him, he said to him, “Can you make me a garden as God made for me? Or can you clothe me in the same bright nature in which God had clothed me?

⁴ Where is the divine nature you promised to give me? Where is that slick speech of yours that you had with us at first, when we were in the garden?”

⁵ Then Satan said to Adam, “Do you think that when I have promised one something that I would actually deliver it to him or fulfil my word? Of course not. For I myself have never even thought of obtaining what I promised.

⁶ Therefore I fell, and I made you fall by that for which I myself fell; and with you also, whosoever accepts my counsel, falls thereby.

⁷ But now, O Adam, because you fell you are under my rule, and I am king over you; because you have obeyed me and have transgressed against your God. Neither will there be any deliverance from my hands until the day promised you by your God.”

⁸ Again he said, “Because we do not know the day agreed on with you by your God, nor the hour in which you shall be delivered, for that reason we will multiply war and murder on you and your descendants after you.

⁹ This is our will and our good pleasure, that we may not leave one of the sons of men to inherit our orders in heaven.

¹⁰ For as to our home, O Adam, it is in burning fire; and we will not stop our evil doing, no, not one day nor one hour. And I, O Adam, shall set you on fire when you come into the cave to live there.”

¹¹ When Adam heard these words he cried and mourned, and said to Eve, “Hear what he said; that he won’t fulfil any of what he told you in the garden. Did he really then become king over us?

¹² But we will ask God, who created us, to deliver us out of his hands.”

Chapter LVIII – “About sunset on the 53rd day. . .”

¹ Then Adam and Eve spread their hands before God, praying and begging Him to drive Satan away from them so that he can’t harm them or force them to deny God.

² Then God sent to them at once, His angel, who drove away Satan from them. This happened about sunset, on the fifty-third day after they had come out of the garden.

³ Then Adam and Eve went into the cave, and stood up and turned their faces to the ground, to pray to God.

⁴ But before they prayed Adam said to Eve, “Look, you have seen what temptations have befallen us in this land. Come, let us get up, and ask God to forgive us the sins we have committed; and we will not come out until the end of the day next to the fortieth. And if we die in here, He will save us.”

⁵ Then Adam and Eve got up, and joined together in entreating God.

⁶ They continued praying like this in the cave; neither did they come out of it, by night or by day, until their prayers went up out of their mouths, like a flame of fire.

Chapter LIX – Eighth apparition of Satan of Satan to Adam and Eve.

¹ But Satan, the hater of all good, did not allow them to finish their prayers. For he called to his hosts, and they came, all of them. Then he said to them, “Since Adam and Eve, whom we deceived, have agreed together to pray to God night and day, and to beg Him to deliver them, and since they will not come out of the cave until the end of the fortieth day.

² And since they will continue their prayers as they have both agreed to do, that He will deliver them out of our hands, and restore them to their former state, see what we shall do to them.” And his hosts said to him, “Power is thine, O our lord, to do what you list.”

³ Then Satan, great in wickedness, took his hosts and came into the cave, in the thirtieth night of the forty days and one; and he beat Adam and Eve, until he left them dead.

⁴ Then came the Word of God to Adam and Eve, who raised them from their suffering, and God said to Adam, “Be strong, and be not afraid of him who has just come to you.”

⁵ But Adam cried and said, “Where were you, O my God, that they should punish me with such blows, and that this suffering should come over us; over me and over Eve, Your handmaiden?”

⁶ Then God said to him, “O Adam, see, he is lord and master of all you have, he who said, he would give you divinity. Where is this love for you? And where is the gift he promised?

⁷ Did it please him just once, O Adam, to come to you, comfort you, strengthen you, rejoice with you, or send his hosts to protect you; because you have obeyed him, and have yielded to his counsel; and have followed his commandment and transgressed Mine?”

⁸ Then Adam cried before the Lord, and said, “O Lord because I transgressed a little, You have severely punished me in return for it, I ask You to deliver me out of his hands; or else have pity on me, and take my soul out of my body now in this strange land.”

⁹ Then God said to Adam, “If only there had been this sighing and praying before, before you transgressed! Then would you have rest from the trouble in which you are now.”

¹⁰ But God had patience with Adam, and let him and Eve remain in the cave until they had fulfilled the forty days.

¹¹ But as to Adam and Eve, their strength and flesh withered from fasting and praying, from hunger and thirst; for they had not tasted either food or drink since they left the garden; nor were the functions of their bodies yet settled; and they had no strength left to continue in prayer from hunger, until the end of the next day to the fortieth. They were fallen down in the cave; yet what speech escaped from their mouths, was only in praises.

Chapter LX – The Devil appears like an old man. He offers “a place of rest.”

¹ Then on the eighty-ninth day, Satan came to the cave, clad in a garment of light, and girt about with a bright girdle.

² In his hands was a staff of light, and he looked most awful; but his face was pleasant and his speech was sweet.

³ He thus transformed himself in order to deceive Adam and Eve, and to make them come out of the cave, before they had fulfilled the forty days.

⁴ For he said within himself, “Now that when they had fulfilled the forty days’ fasting and praying, God would restore them to their former state; but if He did not do so, He would still be favorable to them; and even if He had not mercy on them, would He yet give them something from the garden to comfort them; as already twice before.”

⁵ Then Satan drew near the cave in this fair appearance, and said:—

⁶ “O Adam, get up, stand up, you and Eve, and come along with me, to a good land; and don’t be afraid. I am flesh and bones like you; and at first I was a creature that God created.

⁷ And it was so, that when He had created me, He placed me in a garden in the north, on the border of the world.

⁸ And He said to me, ‘Stay here!’ And I remained there according to His Word, neither did I transgress His commandment.

⁹ Then He made a slumber to come over me, and He brought you, O Adam, out of my side, but did not make you stay with me.

¹⁰ But God took you in His divine hand, and placed you in a garden to the eastward.

¹¹ Then I worried about you, for that while God had taken you out of my side, He had not let you stay with me.

¹² But God said to me: ‘Do not worry about Adam, whom I brought out of your side; no harm will come to him.

¹³ For now I have brought out of his side a help-meet* for him; and I have given him joy by so doing.'”

¹⁴ Then Satan said again, “I did not know how it is you are in this cave, nor anything about this trial that has come over you—until God said to me, ‘Behold, Adam has transgressed, he whom I had taken out of your side, and Eve also, whom I took out of his side; and I have driven them out of the garden; I have made them live in a land of sorrow and misery, because they transgressed against Me, and have obeyed Satan. And look, they are in suffering until this day, the eightieth.’

¹⁵ Then God said to me, ‘Get up, go to them, and make them come to your place, and suffer not that Satan come near them, and afflict them. For they are now in great misery; and lie helpless from hunger.’

¹⁶ He further said to me, ‘When you have taken them to yourself, give them to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Life, and give them to drink of the water of peace; and clothe them in a garment of light, and restore them to their former state of grace, and leave them not in misery, for they came from you. But grieve not over them, nor repent of that which has come over them.

¹⁷ But when I heard this, I was sorry; and my heart could not patiently bear it for your sake, O my child.

¹⁸ But, O Adam, when I heard the name of Satan, I was afraid, and I said within myself, I will not come out because he might trap me as he did my children, Adam and Eve.

¹⁹ And I said, ‘O God, when I go to my children, Satan will meet me in the way, and war against me, as he did against them.’

²⁰ Then God said to me, ‘Fear not; when you find him, hit him with the staff that is in thine hand, and don’t be afraid of him, for you are of old standing, and he shall not prevail against you.’

²¹ Then I said, ‘O my Lord, I am old, and cannot go. Send Your angels to bring them.’

²² But God said to me, ‘Angels, verily, are not like them; and they will not consent to come with them. But I have chosen you, because they are your offspring and are like you, and they will listen to what you say.’

²³ God said further to me, ‘If you don’t have enough strength to walk, I will send a cloud to carry you and set you down at the entrance of their cave; then the cloud will return and leave you there.

²⁴ And if they will come with you, I will send a cloud to carry you and them.’

²⁵ Then He commanded a cloud, and it bear me up and brought me to you; and then went back.

²⁶ And now, O my children, Adam and Eve, look at my old gray hair and at my feeble state, and at my coming from that distant place. Come, come with me, to a place of rest.”

²⁷ Then he began to cry and to sob before Adam and Eve, and his tears poured on the ground like water.

²⁸ And when Adam and Eve raised their eyes and saw his beard, and heard his sweet talk, their hearts softened towards him; they obeyed him, for they believed he was true.

²⁹ And it seemed to them that they were really his offspring, when they saw that his face was like their own; and they trusted him.

* The existence of the two words helpmeet and helpmate, meaning exactly the same thing, is a comedy of errors. God’s promise to Adam, as rendered in the King James version of the Bible, was to give him an help meet for him (that is, a helper fit for him). In the 17th century the two words help and meet in this passage were mistaken for one word, applying to Eve, and thus helpmeet came to mean a wife. Then in the 18th century, in a misguided attempt to make sense of the word, the spelling helpmate was introduced. Both errors are now beyond recall, and both spellings are acceptable.

Posted in Books of Ancients

Chapter XLI – The first Human thirst.

¹ Then Adam took the fig, and laid it on the golden rods. Eve also took her fig, and put it on the incense.

² And the weight of each fig was that of a water-melon; for the fruit of the garden was much larger than the fruit of this land.*

³ But Adam and Eve remained standing and fasting the whole of that night, until the morning dawned.

⁴ When the sun rose they were still praying, but after they had finished praying, Adam said to Eve:—

⁵ “O Eve, come, let us go to the border of the garden looking south; to the place from where the river flows, and is parted into four heads. There we will pray to God, and ask Him to give us some of the Water of Life to drink.

⁶ For God has not fed us with the Tree of Life, in order that we may not live. Therefore, we will ask him to give us some of the Water of Life, and to quench our thirst with it, rather than with a drink of water of this land.”

⁷ When Eve heard these words from Adam, she agreed; and they both got up and came to the southern border of the garden, at the edge of the river of water a short distance from the garden.

⁸ And they stood and prayed before the Lord, and asked Him to look at them this once, to forgive them, and to grant them their request.

⁹ After this prayer from both of them, Adam began to pray with his voice before God, and said;—

¹⁰ “O Lord, when I was in the garden and saw the water that flowed from under the Tree of Life, my heart did not desire, neither did my body require to drink of it; neither did I know thirst, for I was living; and above that which I am now.

¹¹ So that in order to live I did not require any Food of Life, neither did I drink of the Water of Life.

¹² But now, O God, I am dead; my flesh is parched with thirst. Give me of the Water of Life that I may drink of it and live.

¹³ Of Your mercy, O God, save me from these plagues and trials, and bring me into another land different from this, if You will not let me live in Your garden.”

* This is substantiated by Genesis 3:7 whereby the leaves of the fig tree were large enough that Adam and Eve could fashion garments from them.

Chapter XLII – A promise of the Water of Life. The third prophecy of the coming of the Word.

¹ Then came the Word of God to Adam, and said to him:—

² “O Adam, as to what you said, ‘Bring me into a land where there is rest,’ it is not another land than this, but it is the kingdom of heaven where alone there is rest.

³ But you can not make your entrance into it at present; but only after your judgment is past and fulfilled.

⁴ Then will I make you go up into the kingdom of heaven, you and your righteous descendants; and I will give you and them the rest you ask for at present.

⁵ And if you said, ‘Give me of the Water of Life that I may drink and live’—it cannot be this day, but on the day that I shall descend into hell, and break the gates of brass, and bruise in pieces the kingdoms of iron.

⁶ Then will I in mercy save your soul and the souls of the righteous, to give them rest in My garden. And that shall be when the end of the world is come.

⁷ And, again, in regards to the Water of Life you seek, it will not be granted you this day; but on the day that I shall shed My blood on your head* in the land of Golgotha**.

⁸ For My blood shall be the Water of Life to you at that time, and not to just you alone, but to all your descendants who shall believe in Me***; that it be to them for rest forever.”

⁹ The Lord said again to Adam, “O Adam, when you were in the garden, these trials did not come to you.

¹⁰ But since you transgressed My commandment, all these sufferings have come over you.

¹¹ Now, also, does your flesh require food and drink; drink then of that water that flows by you on the face of the earth.

¹² Then God withdrew His Word from Adam.

¹³ And Adam and Eve worshipped the Lord, and returned from the river of water to the cave. It was noon-day; and when they drew near to the cave, they saw a large fire by it.

* This phrase indicates that the bleeding will take place in an elevated position above the populace. This is believed to be a reference to the cross whereby Christ bled profusely above the people below.

** Golgotha (goal-goth-uh) was the hill outside the walls of Jerusalem where Jesus was crucified. Its exact location is not precisely known, but the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is believed to have been constructed on this hill.

*** Reference: John 6:25 and 7:38

Chapter XLIII – The Devil attempts arson.

¹ Then Adam and Eve were afraid, and stood still. And Adam said to Eve, “What is that fire by our cave? We have done nothing in it to cause this fire.

² We neither have bread to bake therein, nor broth to cook there. As to this fire, we have never known anything like it, neither do we know what to call it.

³ But ever since God sent the cherub with a sword of fire that flashed and lightened in his hand, from fear of which we fell down and were like corpses, have we not seen the like.

⁴ But now, O Eve, behold, this is the same fire that was in the cherub’s hand, which God has sent to keep the cave in which we live.

⁵ O Eve, it is because God is angry with us, and will drive us from it.

⁶ O Eve, we have again transgressed His commandment in that cave, so that He had sent this fire to burn around it, and to prevent us from going into it.

⁷ If this be really so, O Eve, where shall we live? And where shall we flee from before the face of the Lord? Since, in regards to the garden, He will not let us live in it, and He has deprived us of the good things thereof; but He has placed us in this cave, in which we have borne darkness, trials and hardships, until at last we have found comfort therein.

⁸ But now that He has brought us out into another land, who knows what may happen in it? And who knows but that the darkness of that land may be far greater than the darkness of this land?

⁹ Who knows what may happen in that land by day or by night? And who knows whether it will be far or near, O Eve? Where it will please God to put us, may be far from the garden, O Eve? Or where God will prevent us from beholding Him, because we have transgressed His commandment, and because we have made requests of Him at all times?

¹⁰ O Eve, if God will bring us into a strange land other than this, in which we find consolation, it must be to put our souls to death, and blot out our name from the face of the earth.

¹¹ O Eve, if we are further alienated from the garden and from God, where shall we find Him again, and ask Him to give us gold, incense, myrrh, and some fruit of the fig-tree?

¹² Where shall we find Him, to comfort us a second time? Where shall we find Him, that He may think of us, as regards the covenant He has made on our behalf?”

¹³ Then Adam said no more. And they kept looking, he and Eve, towards the cave, and at the fire that flared up around it.

¹⁴ But that fire was from Satan. For he had gathered trees and dry grasses, and had carried and brought them to the cave, and had set fire to them, in order to consume the cave and what was in it.

¹⁵ So that Adam and Eve should be left in sorrow, and he should cut off their trust in God, and make them deny Him.

¹⁶ But by the mercy of God he could not burn the cave, for God sent His angel around the cave to guard it from such a fire, until it went out.

¹⁷ And this fire lasted from noon-day until the break of day. That was the forty-fifth day.

Chapter XLIV – The power of fire over man.

¹ Yet Adam and Eve were standing and looking at the fire, and unable to come near the cave from their dread of the fire.

² And Satan kept on bringing trees and throwing them into the fire, until the flames of the fire rose up on high, and covered the whole cave, thinking, as he did in his own mind, to consume the cave with much fire. But the angel of the Lord was guarding it.

³ And yet he could not curse Satan, nor injure him by word, because he had no authority over him, neither did he take to doing so with words from his mouth.

⁴ Therefore the angel tolerated him, without saying one bad word, until the Word of God came who said to Satan, “Go away from here; once before you deceived My servants, and this time you seek to destroy them.

⁵ Were it not for My mercy I would have destroyed you and your hosts from off the earth. But I have had patience with you, until the end of the world.”

⁶ Then Satan fled from before the Lord. But the fire went on burning around the cave like a coal-fire the whole day; which was the forty-sixth day Adam and Eve had spent since they came out of the garden.

⁷ And when Adam and Eve saw that the heat of the fire had somewhat cooled down, they began to walk towards the cave to get into it as they usually did; but they could not, by reason of the heat of the fire.

⁸ Then they both began crying because of the fire that separated them from the cave, and that came towards them, burning. And they were afraid.

⁹ Then Adam said to Eve, “See this fire of which we have a portion in us: which formerly yielded to us, but no longer does so, now that we have transgressed the limit of creation, and changed our condition, and our nature is altered. But the fire is not changed in its nature, nor altered from its creation. Therefore it now has power over us; and when we come near it, it scorches our flesh.”

Chapter XLV – Why Satan didn’t fulfil his promises. Description of hell.

¹ Then Adam rose and prayed to God, saying, “See, this fire has separated us from the cave in which You have commanded us to live; but now, behold, we cannot go into it.”

² Then God heard Adam, and sent him His Word, that said:—

³ “O Adam, see this fire! How different the flame and heat thereof are from the garden of delights and the good things in it!

⁴ When you were under My control, all creatures yielded to you; but after you have transgressed My commandment, they all rise over you.”

⁵ God said again to him, “See, O Adam, how Satan has exalted you! He has deprived you of the Godhead, and of an exalted state like Me, and has not kept his word to you; but has, after all, become your enemy. He is the one who made this fire in which he meant to burn you and Eve.

⁶ Why, O Adam, has he not kept his agreement with you, not even one day; but has deprived you of the glory that was on you—when you yielded to his command?

⁷ Do you think, Adam, that he loved you when he made this agreement with you? Or that he loved you and wished to raise you on high?

⁸ But no, Adam, he did not do all that out of love to you; but he wished to make you come out of light into darkness; and from an exalted state to degradation; from glory to abasement; from joy to sorrow; and from rest to fasting and fainting.”

⁹ God also said to Adam, “See this fire kindled by Satan around your cave; see this wonder that surrounds you; and know that it will encompass about both you and your descendants, when you obey his command; that he will plague you with fire; and that you will go down into hell after you are dead.

¹⁰ Then you will see the burning of his fire, that will be burning around you and likewise your descendants. You will not be delivered from it until My coming; just like you cannot go into your cave right now because of the great fire around it; not until My Word comes and makes a way for you on the day My covenant is fulfilled.

¹¹ There is no way for you at present to come from this life to rest, not until My Word comes, who is My Word. Then He will make a way for you, and you shall have rest.” Then God called with His Word to the fire that burned around the cave, that it split itself in half, until Adam had gone through it. Then the fire parted itself by God’s order, and a way was made for Adam*.

¹² And God withdrew His Word from Adam.

* Reference: Exodus 14:21,22 and Joshua 3:15-17

Chapter XLVI – “How many times have I delivered you out of his hand . . .”

¹ Then Adam and Eve began again to come into the cave. And when they came to the way between the fire, Satan blew into the fire like a whirlwind, and caused the burning coal-fire to cover Adam and Eve; so that their bodies were singed; and the coal-fire scorched them*.

² And from the burning of the fire Adam and Eve screamed, and said, “O Lord, save us! Leave us not to be consumed and plagued by this burning fire; neither require us for having transgressed Your commandment.”

³ Then God looked at their bodies, on which Satan had caused fire to burn, and God sent His angel that stayed the burning fire. But the wounds remained on their bodies.

⁴ And God said to Adam, “See Satan’s love for you, who pretended to give you the Godhead and greatness; and, behold, he burns you with fire, and seeks to destroy you from off the earth.

⁵ Then look at Me, O Adam; I created you, and how many times have I delivered you out of his hand? If not, wouldn’t he have destroyed you?”

⁶ God said again to Eve, “What is that he promised you in the garden, saying, ‘As soon as you eat from the tree, your eyes will be opened, and you shall become like gods, knowing good and evil.’ But look! He has burnt your bodies with fire, and has made you taste the taste of fire, for the taste of the garden; and has made you see the burning of fire, and the evil of it, and the power it has over you.

⁷ Your eyes have seen the good he has taken from you, and in truth he has opened your eyes; and you have seen the garden in which you were with Me, and you have also seen the evil that has come over you from Satan. But as to the Godhead he cannot give it to you, neither fulfil his speech to you. No, he was bitter against you and your descendants, that will come after you.”

⁸ And God withdrew His Word form them.

* At this time, the garments that the Lord had given them in Genesis 3:21 were burned off so that Adam and Eve were again naked. Reference chapter L whereby Adam and Eve seek garments with which to cover their nakedness..

Chapter XLVII – The Devil’s own Scheming.

¹ Then Adam and Eve came into the cave, yet trembling at the fire that had scorched their bodies. So Adam said to Eve:—

² “Look, the fire has burnt our flesh in this world; but how will it be when we are dead, and Satan shall punish our souls? Is not our deliverance long and far off, unless God come, and in mercy to us fulfil His promise?”

³ Then Adam and Eve passed into the cave, blessing themselves for coming into it once more. For it was in their thoughts, that they never should enter it, when they saw the fire around it.

⁴ But as the sun was setting the fire was still burning and nearing Adam and Eve in the cave, so that they could not sleep in it. After the sun had set, they went out of it. This was the forty-seventh day after they came out of the garden.

⁵ Adam and Eve then came under the top of hill by the garden to sleep, as they were accustomed.

⁶ And they stood and prayed God to forgive them their sins, and then fell asleep under the summit of the mountain.

⁷ But Satan, the hater of all good, thought within himself: “Whereas God has promised salvation to Adam by covenant, and that He would deliver him out of all the hardships that have befallen him—but has not promised me by covenant, and will not deliver me out of my hardships; no, since He has promised him that He should make him and his descendants live in the kingdom in which I once was—I will kill Adam.

⁸ The earth shall be rid of him; and shall be left to me alone; so that when he is dead he may not have any descendants left to inherit the kingdom that shall remain my own realm; God will then be wanting me, and He will restore it to me and my hosts.”

Chapter XLVIII – Fifth apparition of Satan to Adam and Eve.

¹ After this Satan called to his hosts, all of which came to him, and said to him:—

² “O, our lord, what will you do?”

³ He then said to them, “You know that this Adam, whom God created out of the dust, is the one who has taken our kingdom, come, let us gather together and kill him; or hurl a rock at him and at Eve, and crush them under it.”

⁴ When Satan’s hosts heard these words, they came to the part of the mountain where Adam and Eve were asleep.

⁵ Then Satan and his host took a huge rock, broad and even, and without blemish, thinking within himself, “If there should be a hole in the rock, when it fell on them, the hole in the rock might come over them, and so they would escape and not die.”

⁶ He then said to his hosts, “Take up this stone, and throw it flat on them, so that it doesn’t roll off them to somewhere else. And when you have hurled it, get away from there quickly.”

⁷ And they did as he told them. But as the rock fell down from the mountain toward Adam and Eve, God commanded the rock to become a dome over them*, that did them no harm. And so it was by God’s order.

⁸ But when the rock fell, the whole earth quaked with it**, and was shaken from the size of the rock.

⁹ And as it quaked and shook, Adam and Eve awoke from sleep, and found themselves under a dome of rock. But they didn’t know what had happened; because when the fell asleep they were under the sky, and not under a dome; and when they saw it, they were afraid.

¹⁰ Then Adam said to Eve, “Wherefore has the mountain bent itself, and the earth quaked and shaken on our account? And why has this rock spread itself over us like a tent?

¹¹ Does God intend to plague us and to shut us up in this prison? Or will He close the earth over us?

¹² He is angry with us for our having come out of the cave, without His order; and for our having done so of our own accord, without consulting Him, when we left the cave and came to this place.”

¹³ Then Eve said, “If, indeed, the earth quaked for our sake, and this rock forms a tent over us because of our transgression, then we will be sorry, O Adam, because our punishment will be long.

¹⁴ But get up and pray to God to let us know concerning this, and what this rock is that is spread over us like a tent.”

¹⁵ Then Adam stood up and prayed before the Lord, to let him know what had brought about this difficult time. And Adam stood praying like that until the morning.

* The word “dome” is used here but the text does not specifically suggest that the covering was round—only that it covered them on all sides, however a dome is the most likely shape that would have be able to withstand the impact with the ground. From verse 9 that says “when they saw it” and verse 11 that says “shut us up in this prison,” we can conclude that the dome had holes in its sides that were big enough to let in light and air but were too small to allow Adam and Eve to escape. Another conclusion would be that the holes were large but too high up for Adam and Eve to reach, however the former is more likely.

** In verse 7 of the next chapter (XLIX), God tells Adam and Eve that the ground was also lowered under them—”I commanded … the rock under you to lower itself.”

Chapter XLIX – The first prophecy of the Resurrection.

¹ Then the Word of God came and said:—

² “O Adam, who counselled you, when you came out of the cave, to come to this place?”

³ And Adam said to God, “O Lord, we came to this place because of the heat of the fire, that came over us inside the cave.”

⁴ Then the Lord God said to Adam, “O Adam, you dread the heat of fire for one night, but how will it be when you live in hell?

⁵ Yet, O Adam, don’t be afraid, and don’t believe that I have placed this dome of rock over you to plague you with it.

⁶ It came from Satan, who had promised you the Godhead and majesty. It is he who threw down this rock to kill you under it, and Eve with you, and thus to prevent you from living on the earth.

⁷ But, in mercy for you, just as that rock was falling down on you, I commanded it to form an dome over you; and the rock under you to lower itself.

⁸ And this sign, O Adam, will happen to Me at My coming on earth: Satan will raise the people of the Jews to put Me to death; and they will lay Me in a rock, and seal a large stone over Me, and I shall remain within that rock three days and three nights.

⁹ But on the third day I shall rise again, and it shall be salvation to you, O Adam, and to your descendants, to believe in Me. But, O Adam, I will not bring you from under this rock until three days and three nights have passed.”

¹⁰ And God withdrew His Word from Adam.

¹¹ But Adam and Eve lived under the rock three days and three nights, as God had told them.

¹² And God did so to them because they had left their cave and had come to this same place without God’s order.

¹³ But, after three days and three nights, God created an opening in the dome of rock and allowed them to get out from under it. Their flesh was dried up, and their eyes and hearts were troubled from crying and sorrow.

Chapter L – Adam and Eve seek to cover their nakedness.

¹ Then Adam and Eve went forth and came into the Cave of Treasures, and they stood praying in it the whole of that day, until the evening.

² And this took place at the end of the fifty days after they had left the garden.

³ But Adam and Eve rose again and prayed to God in the cave the whole of that night, and begged for mercy from Him.

⁴ And when the day dawned, Adam said to Eve, “Come! Let us go and do some work for our bodies.”

⁵ So they went out of the cave, and came to the northern border of the garden, and they looked for something to cover their bodies with*. But they found nothing, and knew not how to do the work. Yet their bodies were stained, and they were speechless from cold and heat.

⁶ Then Adam stood and asked God to show him something with which to cover their bodies.

⁷ Then came the Word of God and said to him, “O Adam, take Eve and come to the seashore where you fasted before. There you will find skins of sheep that were left after lions ate the carcasses. Take them and make garments for yourselves, and clothe yourselves with them.

* Chapter XLVI, verse 1, says “Satan blew into the fire … so that their bodies were singed.” At this time, the garments that the Lord had given them in Genesis 3:21 were burned off so that Adam and Eve were again naked.

Posted in Books of Ancients

Chapter XXXI – They make themselves more comfortable in the Cave of Treasures on the third day.

¹ After these things God said to Adam, “You asked Me for something from the garden, to be comforted therewith, and I have given you these three tokens as a consolation to you; that you trust in Me and in My covenant with you.

— the golden rods from the Indian sea, by Michael; the incense was from the eastern border of the garden, by Gabriel; and some myrrh from the western border of the garden, by Raphael;

² For I will come and save you; and kings shall bring me when in the flesh, gold, incense and myrrh; gold as a token of My kingdom; incense as a token of My divinity; and myrrh as a token of My suffering and of My death.

³ But, O Adam, put these by you in the cave; the gold that it may shed light over you by night; the incense, that you smell its sweet savor; and the myrrh, to comfort you in your sorrow.”

⁴ When Adam heard these words from God, he worshipped before Him. He and Eve worshipped Him and gave Him thanks, because He had dealt mercifully with them.

⁵ Then God commanded the three angels, Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, each to bring what he had brought, and give it to Adam. And they did so, one by one.

⁶ And God commanded Suriyel and Salathiel to bear up Adam and Eve, and bring them down from the top of the high mountain, and to take them to the Cave of Treasures.

— Adam and Eve were assisted by Suriyel, the fourth angel; and Salathiel the fifth angel;

⁷ There they laid the gold on the south side of the cave, the incense on the eastern side, and the myrrh on the western side. For the mouth of the cave was on the north side.

— the third heaven is towards the north, so the light from the golden rods is rightly place on the southern end;

⁸ The angels then comforted Adam and Eve, and departed.

⁹ The gold was seventy rods*; the incense, twelve pounds; and the myrrh, three pounds.

¹⁰ These remained by Adam in the Cave of Treasures**.

¹¹ God gave these three things to Adam on the third day after he had come out of the garden, in token of the three days the Lord should remain in the heart of the earth.

¹² And these three things, as they continued with Adam in the cave, gave him light by night; and by day they gave him a little relief from his sorrow.

* A rod is a unit of linear measure equivalent to 5.5 yards and also a unit of area measure equivalent to 30.25 square yards. In this case, the word rod simply means a kind of long, thin piece of gold of unspecified size and weight.

** This is the original text which appears to contain embedded editorial content: “These remained by Adam in the House of Treasures; therefore was it called ‘of concealment.’ But other interpreters say it was called the ‘Cave of Treasures,’ by reason of the bodies of righteous men that were in it.

Chapter XXXII – Adam and Eve go into the water to pray.

¹ And Adam and Eve remained in the Cave of Treasures until the seventh day; they neither ate of the fruit the earth, nor drank water.

² And when it dawned on the eighth day, Adam said to Eve, “O Eve, we prayed God to give us something from the garden, and He sent his angels who brought us what we had desired.

³ But now, get up, let us go to the sea of water we saw at first, and let us stand in it, praying that God will again be favorable to us and take us back to the garden; or give us something; or that He will give us comfort in some other land than this in which we are.”

⁴ Then Adam and Eve came out of the cave, went and stood on the border of the sea in which they had before thrown themselves, and Adam said to Eve:—

⁵ Come, go down into this place, and come not out of it until the end of thirty days, when I shall come to you. And pray to God with burning heart and a sweet voice, to forgive us.

⁶ And I will go to another place, and go down into it, and do like you.”

⁷ Then Eve went down into the water, as Adam had commanded her. Adam also went down into the water; and they stood praying; and besought the Lord to forgive them their offense, and to restore them to their former state.

⁸ And they stood like that praying, until the end of the thirty-five days.

Chapter XXXIII – Satan falsely promises the “bright light.”

¹ But Satan, the hater of all good, sought them in the cave, but found them not, although he searched diligently for them.

² But he found them standing in the water praying and thought within himself, “Adam and Eve are standing like that in that water praying to God to forgive them their transgression, and to restore them to their former state, and to take them from under my hand.

³ But I will deceive them so that they shall come out of the water, and not fulfil their vow.”

⁴ Then the hater of all good, went not to Adam, but he went to Eve, and took the form of an angel of God, praising and rejoicing, and said to her:—

⁵ “Peace be to you! Be glad and rejoice! God is favorable to you, and He sent me to Adam. I have brought him the glad tidings of salvation, and of his being filled with bright light as he was at first.

⁶ And Adam, in his joy for his restoration, has sent me to you, that you come to me, in order that I crown you with light like him.

⁷ And he said to me, ‘Speak to Eve; if she does not come with you, tell her of the sign when we were on the top of the mountain; how God sent his angels who took us and brought us to the Cave of Treasures; and laid the gold on the southern side; incense, on the eastern side; and myrrh on the western side.’ Now come to him.”

⁸ When Eve hear these words from him, she rejoiced greatly. And thinking Satan’s appearance was real, she came out of the sea.

⁹ He went before, and she followed him until they came to Adam. Then Satan hid himself from her, and she saw him no more.

¹⁰ She then came and stood before Adam, who was standing by the water and rejoicing in God’s forgiveness.

¹¹ And as she called to him, he turned around, found her there and cried when he saw her, and beat his chest; and from the bitterness of his grief, he sank into the water.

¹² But God looked at him and at his misery, and at his being about to breathe his last. And the Word of God came from heaven, raised him out of the water, and said to him, “Go up the high bank to Eve.” And when he came up to Eve he said to her, “Who told you to come here?”

¹³ Then she told him the discourse of the angel who had appeared to her and had given her a sign.

¹⁴ But Adam grieved, and gave her to know it was Satan. He then took her and they both returned to the cave.

¹⁵ These things happened to them the second time they went down to the water, seven days after their coming out of the garden.

¹⁶ They fasted in the water thirty-five days; altogether forty-two days since they had left the garden.

Chapter XXXIV – Adam recalls the creation of Eve. He eloquently appeals for food and drink.

¹ And on the morning of the forty-third day, they came out of the cave, sorrowful and crying. Their bodies were lean, and they were parched from hunger and thirst, from fasting and praying, and from their heavy sorrow on account of their transgression.

² And when they had come out of the cave they went up the mountain to the west of the garden.

³ There they stood and prayed and besought God to grant them forgiveness of their sins.

⁴ And after their prayers Adam began to beg God, saying, “O my Lord, my God, and my Creator, You commanded the four elements* to be gathered together, and they were gathered together by Thine order.

⁵ Then You spread Your hand and created me out of one element, that of dust of the earth; and You brought me into the garden at the third hour, on a Friday, and informed me of it in the cave.

⁶ Then, at first, I knew neither night nor day, for I had a bright nature; neither did the light in which I lived ever leave me to know night or day.

⁷ Then, again, O Lord, in that third hour in which You created me, You brought to me all beasts, and lions, and ostriches, and fowls of the air, and all things that move in the earth, which You had created at the first hour before me of the Friday.

⁸ And Your will was that I should name them all, one by one, with a suitable name. But You gave me understanding and knowledge, and a pure heart and a right mind from you, that I should name them after Thine own mind regarding the naming of them.

⁹ O God, You made them obedient to me, and ordered that not one of them break from my sway, according to Your commandment, and to the dominion which You had given me over them. But now they are all estranged from me.

¹⁰ Then it was in that third hour of Friday, in which You created me, and commanded me concerning the tree, to which I was neither to go near, nor to eat thereof; for You said to me in the garden, ‘When you eat of it, of death you shall die.’

¹¹ And if You had punished me as You said, with death, I should have died that very moment.

¹² Moreover, when You commanded me regarding the tree, I was neither to approach nor to eat thereof, Eve was not with me; You had not yet created her, neither had You yet taken her out of my side; nor had she yet heard this order from you.

¹³ Then, at the end of the third hour of that Friday, O Lord, You caused a slumber and a sleep to come over me, and I slept, and was overwhelmed in sleep.

¹⁴ Then You drew a rib out of my side, and created it after my own likeness and image. Then I awoke; and when I saw her and knew who she was, I said, ‘This is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; from now on she shall be called woman.’

¹⁵ It was of Your good will, O God, that You brought a slumber in a sleep over me, and that You immediately brought Eve out of my side, until she was out, so that I did not see how she was made; neither could I witness, O my Lord, how awful and great are Your goodness and glory.

¹⁶ And of Your goodwill, O Lord, You made us both with bodies of a bright nature, and You made us two, one; and You gave us Your grace, and filled us with praises of the Holy Spirit; that we should be neither hungry nor thirsty, nor know what sorrow is, nor yet faintness of heart; neither suffering, fasting nor weariness.

¹⁷ But now, O God, since we transgressed Your commandment and broke Your law, You have brought us out into a strange land, and have caused suffering, and faintness, hunger and thirst to come over us.

¹⁸ Now, therefore, O God, we pray you, give us something to eat from the garden, to satisfy our hunger with it; and something wherewith to quench our thirst.

¹⁹ For, behold, many days, O God, we have tasted nothing and drunk nothing, and our flesh is dried up, and our strength is wasted, and sleep is gone from our eyes from faintness and crying.

²⁰ Then, O God, we dare not gather anything from the fruit of trees, from fear of you. For when we transgress at first You spared us and did not make us die.

²¹ But now, we thought in our hearts, if we eat of the fruit of the trees, without God’s order, He will destroy us this time, and will wipe us off from the face of the earth.

²² And if we drink of this water, without God’s order, He will make an end of us and root us up at once.

²³ Now, therefore, O God, that I am come to this place with Eve, we beg You to give us some fruit from the garden, that we may be satisfied with it.

²⁴ For we desire the fruit that is on the earth, and all else that we lack in it.”

* The medieval belief that there were only four elements—fire, earth, air, and water—was widely accepted until about 1500 AD when the current atomic theory was in its infancy [wood is the fifth element].

Chapter XXXV – God’s reply.

¹ Then God looked again at Adam and his crying and groaning, and the Word of God came to him, and said to him:—

² “O Adam, when you were in My garden, you knew neither eating nor drinking; neither faintness nor suffering; neither leanness of flesh, nor change; neither did sleep depart from thine eyes. But since you transgressed, and came into this strange land, all these trials are come over you.”

Chapter XXXVI – Figs.

¹ Then God commanded the cherub, who kept the gate of the garden with a sword of fire in his hand, to take some of the fruit of the fig-tree, and to give it to Adam.

² The cherub obeyed the command of the Lord God, and went into the garden and brought two figs on two twigs, each fig hanging to its leaf; they were from two of the trees among which Adam and Eve hid themselves when God went to walk in the garden, and the Word of God came to Adam and Eve and said to them, “Adam, Adam, where are you?”

³ And Adam answered, “O God, here I am. When I heard the sound of You and Your voice, I hid myself, because I am naked.”

⁴ Then the cherub took two figs and brought them to Adam and Eve. But he threw them to them from a distance; for they might not come near the cherub by reason of their flesh, that could not come near the fire.

⁵ At first, angels trembled at the presence of Adam and were afraid of him. But now Adam trembled before the angels and was afraid of them.

⁶ Then Adam came closer and took one fig, and Eve also came in turn and took the other.

⁷ And as they took them up in their hands, they looked at them, and knew they were from the trees among which they had hidden themselves.

Chapter XXXVII – Forty-three days of penance do not redeem one hour of sin (v 6).

¹ Then Adam said to Eve, “Do you not see these figs and their leaves, with which we covered ourselves when we were stripped of our bright nature? But now, we do not know what misery and suffering may come over us from eating them.

² Now, therefore, O Eve, let us restrain ourselves and not eat of them, you and I; and let us ask God to give us of the fruit of the Tree of Life.”

³ Thus did Adam and Eve restrain themselves, and did not eat of these figs.

⁴ But Adam began to pray to God and to beseech Him to give him of the fruit of the Tree of Life, saying thus: “O God, when we transgressed Your commandment at the sixth hour of Friday, we were stripped of the bright nature we had, and did not continue in the garden after our transgression, more than three hours.

⁵ But in the evening You made us come out of it. O God, we transgressed against You one hour, and all these trials and sorrows have come over us until this day.

⁶ And those days together with this the forty-third day, do not redeem that one hour in which we transgressed!

⁷ O God, look at us with an eye of pity, and do not avenge us according to our transgression of Your commandment, in Your presence.

⁸ O God, give us of the fruit of the Tree of Life, that we may eat of it, and live, and turn not to see sufferings and other trouble, in this earth; for You are God.

⁹ When we transgressed Your commandment, You made us come out of the garden, and sent a cherub to keep the Tree of Life, lest we should eat thereof, and live; and know nothing of faintness after we transgressed.

¹⁰ But now, O Lord, behold, we have endured all these days, and have borne sufferings. Make these forty-three days an equivalent for the one hour in which we transgressed.”

Chapter XXXVIII – “When 5500 years are fulfilled.…”

¹ After these things the Word of God came to Adam, and said to him:—

² “O Adam, as to the fruit on the Tree of Life that you have asked for, I will not give it to you now, but only when the 5500 years are fulfilled. At that time I will give you fruit from the Tree of Life, and you will eat, and live forever, you, and Eve, and your righteous descendants.

³ But these forty-three days cannot make amends for the hour in which you transgressed My commandment.

⁴ O Adam, I gave you the fruit of the fig-tree to eat in which you hid yourself. Go and eat of it, you and Eve.

⁵ I will not deny your request, neither will I disappoint your hope; therefore, endure until the fulfillment of the covenant I made with you.”

⁶ And God withdrew His Word from Adam.

Chapter XXXIX – Adam is cautious—but too late.

¹ Then Adam returned to Eve, and said to her, “Get up, and take a fig for yourself, and I will take another; and let us go to our cave.”

² Then Adam and Eve took each a fig and went towards the cave; the time was about the setting of the sun; and their thoughts made them long to eat of the fruit.

³ But Adam said to Eve, “I am afraid to eat of this fig. I know not what may come over me from it.”

⁴ So Adam cried, and stood praying before God, saying, “Satisfy my hunger, without my having to eat this fig; for after I have eaten it, what will it profit me? And what shall I desire and ask of you, O God, when it is gone?”

⁵ And he said again, “I am afraid to eat of it; for I know not what will befall me through it.”

Chapter XL – The first Human hunger.

¹ Then the Word of God came to Adam, and said to him, “O Adam, why didn’t you have this dread, or this fasting, or this care before now? And why didn’t you have this fear before you transgressed?

² But when you came to live in this strange land, your animal body could not survive on earth without earthly food, to strengthen it and to restore its powers.”

³ And God withdrew His Word from Adam.

Posted in Books of Ancients

Chapter XXI – Adam and Eve attempt suicide.

¹ Then Adam and Eve went in search of the garden.

² And the heat beat like a flame on their faces; and they sweated from the heat, and cried before the Lord.

³ But the place where they cried was close to a high mountain, facing the western gate of the garden.

⁴ Then Adam threw himself down from the top of that mountain; his face was torn and his flesh was ripped; he lost a lot of blood and was close to death.

⁵ Meanwhile Eve remained standing on the mountain crying over him, thus lying.

⁶ And she said, “I don’t wish to live after him; for all that he did to himself was through me.”

⁷ Then she threw herself after him; and was torn and ripped by stones; and remained lying as dead.

⁸ But the merciful God, who looks over His creatures, looked at Adam and Eve as they lay dead, and He sent His Word to them, and raised them.

⁹ And said to Adam, “O Adam, all this misery which you have brought on yourself, will have no affect against My rule, neither will it alter the covenant of the 5,500 years.”

Chapter XXII – Adam in a gracious mood.

¹ Then Adam said to God, “I dry up in the heat, I am faint from walking, and I don’t want to be in this world. And I don’t know when You will take me out of it to rest.”

² Then the Lord God said to him, “O Adam, it cannot be now, not until you have ended your days. Then shall I bring you out of this miserable land.”

³ And Adam said to God, “While I was in the garden I knew neither heat, nor languor, neither moving about, nor trembling, nor fear; but now since I came to this land, all this affliction has come over me.

⁴ Then God said to Adam, “So long as you were keeping My commandment, My light and My grace rested on you. But when you transgressed My commandment, sorrow and misery came to you in this land.”

⁵ And Adam cried and said, “O Lord, do not cut me off for this, neither punish me with heavy plagues, nor yet repay me according to my sin; for we, of our own will, transgressed Your commandment, and ignored Your law, and tried to become gods like you, when Satan the enemy deceived us.”

⁶ Then God said again to Adam, “Because you have endured fear and trembling in this land, languor and suffering, treading and walking about, going on this mountain, and dying from it, I will take all this on Myself in order to save you.”

Chapter XXIII – Adam and Eve strengthen themselves and make the first altar ever built.

¹ Then Adam cried more and said, “O God, have mercy on me, so far as to take on yourself, that which I will do.”

² But God withdrew His Word from Adam and Eve.

³ Then Adam and Eve stood on their feet; and Adam said to Eve, “Strengthen yourself, and I also will strengthen myself.” And she strengthened herself, as Adam told her.

⁴ Then Adam and Eve took stones and placed them in the shape of an altar; and they took leaves from the trees outside the garden, with which they wiped, from the face of the rock, the blood they had spilled.

⁵ But that which had dropped on the sand, they took together with the dust with which it was mingled and offered it on the altar as an offering to God.

⁶ Then Adam and Eve stood under the Altar and cried, thus praying to God, “Forgive us our trespass and our sin, and look at us with Thine eye of mercy. For when we were in the garden our praises and our hymns went up before you without ceasing.

⁷ But when we came into this strange land, pure praise was not longer ours, nor righteous prayer, nor understanding hearts, nor sweet thoughts, nor just counsels, nor long discernment, nor upright feelings, neither is our bright nature left us. But our body is changed from the likeness in which it was at first, when we were created.

⁸ Yet now look at our blood which is offered on these stones, and accept it at our hands, like the praise we used to sing to you at first, when in the garden.”

⁹ And Adam began to make more requests of God.

Chapter XXIV – A vivid prophecy of the life and death of the Word.

¹ Then the merciful God, good and lover of men, looked at Adam and Eve, and at their blood, which they had held up as an offering to Him; without an order from Him for so doing. But He wondered at them; and accepted their offerings.

² And God sent from His presence a bright fire, that consumed their offering.

³ He smelled the sweet savor of their offering, and showed them mercy.

⁴ Then came the Word of God to Adam, and said to him, “O Adam, as you have shed your blood, so will I shed My own blood when I become flesh of your descendants; and as you died, O Adam, so also will I die. And as you built an altar, so also will I make for you an altar of the earth; and as you offered your blood on it, so also will I offer My blood on an altar on the earth.

⁵ And as you sued for forgiveness through that blood, so also will I make My blood forgiveness of sins, and erase transgressions in it.

⁶ And now, behold, I have accepted your offering, O Adam, but the days of the covenant in which I have bound you are not fulfilled. When they are fulfilled, then will I bring you back into the garden.

⁷ Now, therefore, strengthen your heart; and when sorrow comes over you, make Me an offering, and I will be favorable to you.”

Chapter XXV – God represented as merciful and loving. The establishing of worship.

¹ But God knew that Adam believed he should frequently kill himself and make an offering to Him of his blood.

² Therefore He said to him, “O Adam, don’t ever kill yourself like this again, by throwing yourself down from that mountain.”

³ But Adam said to God, “I was thinking to put an end to myself at once, for having transgressed Your commandments, and for my having come out of the beautiful garden; and for the bright light of which You have deprived me; and for the praises which poured forth from my mouth without ceasing, and for the light that covered me.

⁴ Yet of Your goodness, O God, do not get rid of me altogether; but be favorable to me every time I die, and bring me to life.

⁵ And thereby it will be made known that You are a merciful God, who does not want anyone to perish; who loves not that one should fall; and who does not condemn any one cruelly, badly, and by whole destruction.”

⁶ Then Adam remained silent.

⁷ And the Word of God came to him, and blessed him, and comforted him, and covenanted with him, that He would save him at the end of the days determined for him.

⁸ This, then, was the first offering Adam made to God; and so it became his custom to do.

Chapter XXVI – A beautiful prophecy of eternal life and joy (v 15). The fall of night.

¹ Then Adam took Eve, and they began to return to the Cave of Treasures where they lived. But when they got closer to it and saw it from a distance, heavy sorrow fell on Adam and Eve when they looked at it.

² Then Adam said to Eve, “When we were on the mountain we were comforted by the Word of God that conversed with us; and the light that came from the east shown over us.

³ But now the Word of God is hidden from us; and the light that shown over us is so changed as to disappear, and let darkness and sorrow come over us.

⁴ And we are forced to enter this cave which is like a prison, in which darkness covers us, so that we are separated from each other; and you can not see me, neither can I see you.”

⁵ When Adam had said these words, they cried and spread their hands before God; for they were full of sorrow.

⁶ And they prayed to God to bring the sun to them, to shine on them, so that darkness would not return to them, and that they wouldn’t have to go under this covering of rock. And they wished to die rather than see the darkness.

⁷ Then God looked at Adam and Eve and at their great sorrow, and at all they had done with a fervent heart, on account of all the trouble they were in, instead of their former well-being, and on account of all the misery that came over them in a strange land.

⁸ Therefore God was not angry with them; nor impatient with them; but he was patient and forbearing towards them, as towards the children He had created.

⁹ Then came the Word of God to Adam, and said to him, “Adam, as for the sun, if I were to take it and bring it to you, days, hours, years and months would all stop, and the covenant I have made with you, would never be fulfilled.

¹⁰ But then you would be deserted and stuck in a perpetual plague, and you would never be saved.

¹¹ Yes, rather, bear long and calm your soul while you live night and day; until the fulfillment of the days, and the time of My covenant is come.

¹² Then shall I come and save you, O Adam, for I do not wish that you be afflicted.

¹³ And when I look at all the good things in which you lived, and why you came out of them, then would I willingly show you mercy.

¹⁴ But I cannot alter the covenant that has gone out of My mouth; otherwise I would have brought you back into the garden.

¹⁵ When, however, the covenant is fulfilled, then shall I show you and your descendants mercy, and bring you into a land of gladness, where there is neither sorrow nor suffering; but abiding joy and gladness, and light that never fails, and praises that never cease; and a beautiful garden that shall never pass away.”

¹⁶ And God said again to Adam, “Be patient and enter the cave, for the darkness, of which you were afraid, shall only be twelve hours long; and when ended, light shall come up.”

¹⁷ Then when Adam heard these words from God, he and Eve worshipped before Him, and their hearts were comforted. They returned into the cave after their custom, while tears flowed from their eyes, sorrow and wailing came from their hearts, and they wished their soul would leave their body.

¹⁸ And Adam and Eve stood praying until the darkness of night came over them, and Adam was hid from Eve, and she from him.

¹⁹ And they remained standing in prayer.

Chapter XXVII – The second tempting of Adam and Eve. The devil takes on the form of a beguiling light.

¹ When Satan, the hater of all good, saw how they continued in prayer, and how God communed with them, and comforted them, and how He had accepted their offering—Satan made an apparition.

² He began with transforming his hosts; in his hands was a flashing fire, and they were in a great light.

³ He then placed his throne near the mouth of the cave because he could not enter into it by reason of their prayers. And he shed light into the cave, until the cave glistened over Adam and Eve; while his hosts began to sing praises.

⁴ And Satan did this, in order that when Adam saw the light, he should think within himself that it was a heavenly light, and that Satan’s hosts were angels; and that God had sent them to watch at the cave, and to give him light in the darkness.

⁵ So that when Adam came out of the cave and saw them, and Adam and Eve bowed to Satan, then he would overcome Adam thereby, and a second time humble him before God.

⁶ When, therefore, Adam and Eve saw the light, fancying it was real, they strengthened their hearts; yet, as they were trembling, Adam said to Eve:—

⁷ “Look at that great light, and at those many songs of praise, and at that host standing outside who won’t come into our cave. Why don’t they tell us what they want, where they are from, what the meaning of this light is, what those praises are, why they have been sent to this place, and why they won’t come in?

⁸ If they were from God, they would come into the cave with us, and would tell us why they were sent.”

⁹ Then Adam stood up and prayed to God with a burning heart, and said:—

¹⁰ “O Lord, is there in the world another god besides You, who created angels and filled them with light, and sent them to keep us, who would come with them?

¹¹ But, look, we see these hosts that stand at the mouth of the cave; they are in a great light; they sing loud praises. If they are of some other god than You, tell me; and if they are sent by you, inform me of the reason for which You have sent them.”

¹² No sooner had Adam said this, than an angel from God appeared to him in the cave, who said to him, “O Adam, fear not. This is Satan and his hosts; he wishes to deceive you as he deceived you at first. For the first time, he was hidden in the serpent; but this time he is come to you in the likeness of an angel of light; in order that, when you worshipped him, he might enslave you, in the very presence of God.”

¹³ Then the angel went from Adam and seized Satan at the opening of the cave, and stripped him of the pretense he had assumed, and brought him in his own hideous form to Adam and Eve; who were afraid of him when they saw him.

¹⁴ And the angel said to Adam, “This hideous form has been his ever since God made him fall from heaven. He could not have come near you in it; he therefore transformed himself into an angel of light.”

¹⁵ Then the angel drove away Satan and his hosts from Adam and Eve, and said to them, “Fear not; God who created you, will strengthen you.”

¹⁶ And the angel left them.

¹⁷ But Adam and Eve remained standing in the cave; no consolation came to them; they divided in their thoughts.

¹⁸ And when it was morning they prayed; and then went out to seek the garden. For their hearts were towards it, and they could get no consolation for having left it.

Chapter XXVIII – The Devil pretends to lead Adam and Eve to the water to bathe.

¹ But when the crafty Satan saw them, that they were going to the garden, he gathered together his host, and came in appearance on a cloud, intent on deceiving them.

² But when Adam and Eve saw him thus in a vision, they thought they were angels of God come to comfort them about having left the garden, or to bring them back again into it.

³ And Adam spread his hands before God, beseeching Him to make him understand what they were.

⁴ Then Satan, the hater of all good, said to Adam, “O Adam, I am an angel of the great God; and, behold the hosts that surround me.

⁵ God has sent us to take you and bring you to the border of the garden northwards; to the shore of the clear sea, and bathe you and Eve in it, and raise you to your former gladness, that you return again to the garden.”

⁶ These words sank into the heart of Adam and Eve.

⁷ Yet God withheld His Word from Adam, and did not make him understand at once, but waited to see his strength; whether he would be overcome as Eve was when in the garden, or whether he would prevail.

⁸ Then Satan called to Adam and Eve, and said, “Behold, we go to the sea of water,” and they began to go.

⁹ And Adam and Eve followed them at some little distance.

¹⁰ But when they came to the mountain to the north of the garden, a very high mountain, without any steps to the top of it, the Devil drew near to Adam and Eve, and made them go up to the top in reality, and not in a vision; wishing, as he did, to throw them down and kill them, and to wipe off their name from the earth; so that this earth should remain to him and his hosts alone.

Chapter XXIX – God tells Adam of the Devil’s purpose (v 4).

¹ But when the merciful God saw that Satan wished to kill Adam with his many tricks, and saw that Adam was meek and without guile, God spoke to Satan in a loud voice, and cursed him.

² Then he and his hosts fled, and Adam and Eve remained standing on the top of the mountain, from there they saw below them the wide world, high above which they were. But they saw none of the host which time after time were by them.

³ They cried, both Adam and Eve, before God, and begged for forgiveness of Him.

⁴ Then came the Word from God to Adam, and said to him, “Know you and understand concerning this Satan, that he seeks to deceive you and your descendants after you.”

⁵ And Adam cried before the Lord God, and begged and prayed to Him to give him something from the garden, as a token to him, wherein to be comforted.

⁶ And God considered Adam’s thought, and sent the angel Michael as far as the sea that reaches India, to take from there golden rods and bring them to Adam.

⁷ This did God in His wisdom in order that these golden rods, being with Adam in the cave, should shine forth with light in the night around him, and put an end to his fear of the darkness.

⁸ Then the angel Michael went down by God’s order, took golden rods, as God had commanded him, and brought them to God.

Chapter XXX – Adam receives the first worldly goods.

¹ After these things, God commanded the angel Gabriel to go down to the garden, and say to the cherub who kept it, “Behold, God has commanded me to come into the garden, and to take from it sweet smelling incense, and give it to Adam.”

² Then the angel Gabriel went down by God’s order to the garden, and told the cherub as God had commanded him.

³ The cherub then said, “Well.” And Gabriel went in and took the incense.

⁴ Then God commanded his angel Raphael to go down to the garden, and speak to the cherub about some myrrh, to give to Adam.

⁵ And the angel Raphael went down and told the cherub as God had commanded him, and the cherub said, “Well.” Then Raphael went in and took the myrrh.

⁶ The golden rods were from the Indian sea, where there are precious stones. The incense was from the eastern border of the garden; and the myrrh from the western border, from where bitterness came over Adam.

⁷ And the angels brought these things to God, by the Tree of Life, in the garden.

⁸ Then God said to the angels, “Dip them in the spring of water; then take them and sprinkle their water over Adam and Eve, that they be a little comforted in their sorrow, and give them to Adam and Eve.

⁹ And the angels did as God had commanded them, and they gave all those things to Adam and Eve on the top of the mountain on which Satan had placed them, when he sought to make an end of them.

¹⁰ And when Adam saw the golden rods, the incense and the myrrh, he was rejoiced and cried because he thought that the gold was a token of the kingdom from where he had come, that the incense was a token of the bright light which had been taken from him, and that the myrrh was a token of the sorrow in which he was.

Posted in Books of Ancients

Chapter XI – A recollection of the glorious days in the Garden.

¹ Then Adam and Eve felt themselves burning with thirst, and heat, and sorrow.

² And Adam said to Eve, “We shall not drink of this water, even if we were to die. O Eve, when this water comes into our inner parts, it will increase our punishments and that of our descendants.”

³ Both Adam and Eve then went away from the water, and drank none of it at all; but came and entered the Cave of Treasures.

⁴ But when in it Adam could not see Eve; he only heard the noise she made. Neither could she see Adam, but heard the noise he made.

⁵ Then Adam cried, in deep affliction, and beat his chest; and he got up and said to Eve, “Where are you?”

⁶ And she said to him, “Look, I am standing in this darkness.”

⁷ He then said to her, “Remember the bright nature in which we lived, when we lived in the garden!

⁸ O Eve! Remember the glory that rested on us in the garden. O Eve! Remember the trees that overshadowed us in the garden while we moved among them.

⁹ O Eve! Remember that while we were in the garden, we knew neither night nor day. Think of the Tree of Life, from below which flowed the water, and that shed lustre over us! Remember, O Eve, the garden land, and the brightness thereof!

¹⁰ Think, oh think of that garden in which was no darkness, while we lived in it.

¹¹ Whereas no sooner did we come into this Cave of Treasures than darkness surrounded us all around; until we can no longer see each other; and all the pleasure of this life has come to an end.”

Chapter XII – How darkness came between Adam and Eve.

¹ Then Adam beat his chest, he and Eve, and they mourned the whole night until the crack of dawn, and they sighed over the length of the night in Miyazia.

² And Adam beat himself, and threw himself on the ground in the cave, from bitter grief, and because of the darkness, and lay there as dead.

³ But Eve heard the noise he made in falling on the ground. And she felt about for him with her hands, and found him like a corpse.

⁴ Then she was afraid, speechless, and remained by him.

⁵ But the merciful Lord looked on the death of Adam, and on Eve’s silence from fear of the darkness.

⁶ And the Word of God came to Adam and raised him from his death, and opened Eve’s mouth that she might speak.

— again, this is a foretaste of what the Word, who is also the Son and Messiah, would do, to raise mankind in the resurrection; (the first time was in Chapter 10:3);

⁷ Then Adam stood up in the cave and said, “O God, why has light departed from us, and darkness covered us? Why did you leave us in this long darkness? Why do you plague us like this?

⁸ And this darkness, O Lord, where was it before it covered us? It is because of this that we cannot see each other.

⁹ For so long as we were in the garden, we neither saw nor even knew what darkness is. I was not hidden from Eve, neither was she hidden from me, until now that she cannot see me; and no darkness came over us to separate us from each other.

¹⁰ But she and I were both in one bright light. I saw her and she saw me. Yet now since we came into this cave, darkness has covered us, and separated us from each other, so that I do not see her, and she does not see me.

¹¹ O Lord, will You then plague us with this darkness?”

Chapter XIII – The fall of Adam. Why night and day were created.

¹ Then when God, who is merciful and full of pity, heard Adam’s voice, He said to him:—

² “O Adam, so long as the good angel was obedient to Me, a bright light rested on him and on his hosts.

³ But when he transgressed My commandment, I deprived him of that bright nature, and he became dark.

⁴ And when he was in the heavens, in the realms of light, he knew nothing of darkness.

⁵ But he transgressed, and I made him fall from the heaven onto the earth; and it was this darkness that came over him.

⁶ And on you, O Adam, while in My garden and obedient to Me, did that bright light rest also.

⁷ But when I heard of your transgression, I deprived you of that bright light. Yet, of My mercy, I did not turn you into darkness, but I made you your body of flesh, over which I spread this skin, in order that it may bear cold and heat.

⁸ If I had let My wrath fall heavily on you, I should have destroyed you; and had I turned you into darkness, it would have been as if I had killed you.

⁹ But in My mercy, I have made you as you are; when you transgressed My commandment, O Adam, I drove you from the garden, and made you come forth into this land; and commanded you to live in this cave; and darkness covered you, as it did over him who transgressed My commandment.

¹⁰ Thus, O Adam, has this night deceived you. It is not to last forever; but is only of twelve hours; when it is over, daylight will return.

¹¹ Sigh not, therefore, neither be moved; and say not in your heart that this darkness is long and drags on wearily; and say not in your heart that I plague you with it.

¹² Strengthen your heart, and be not afraid. This darkness is not a punishment. But, O Adam, I have made the day, and have placed the sun in it to give light; in order that you and your children should do your work.

¹³ For I knew you would sin and transgress, and come out into this land. Yet I wouldn’t force you, nor be heard over you, nor shut up; nor doom you through your fall; nor through your coming out from light into darkness; nor yet through your coming from the garden into this land.

¹⁴ For I made you of the light; and I willed to bring out children of light from you and like to you.

¹⁵ But you did not keep My commandment one day; until I had finished the creation and blessed everything in it.

¹⁶ Then, concerning the tree, I commanded you not to eat of it. Yet I knew that Satan, who deceived himself, would also deceive you.

¹⁷ So I made known to you by means of the tree, not to come near him. And I told you not to eat of the fruit thereof, nor to taste of it, nor yet to sit under it, nor to yield to it.

¹⁸ Had I not been and spoken to you, O Adam, concerning the tree, and had I left you without a commandment, and you had sinned—it would have been an offence on My part, for not having given you any order; you would turn around and blame Me for it.

¹⁹ But I commanded you, and warned you, and you fell. So that My creatures cannot blame Me; but the blame rests on them alone.

²⁰ And, O Adam, I have made the day so that you and your descendants can work and toil in it. And I have made the night for them to rest in it from their work; and for the beasts of the field to go forth by night and look for their food.

²¹ But little of darkness now remains, O Adam, and daylight will soon appear.”

Chapter XIV – The earliest prophesy of the coming of Christ.

¹ Then Adam said to God: “O Lord, take You my soul, and let me not see this gloom any more; or remove me to some place where there is no darkness.”

² But God the Lord said to Adam, “Indeed I say to you, this darkness will pass from you, every day I have determined for you, until the fulfillment of My covenant; when I will save you and bring you back again into the garden, into the house of light you long for, in which there is no darkness.* I will bring you to it—in the kingdom of heaven.”

³ Again said God to Adam, “All this misery that you have been made to take on yourself because of your transgression, will not free you from the hand of Satan, and will not save you.

⁴ But I will. When I shall come down from heaven, and shall become flesh of your descendants, and take on Myself the infirmity from which you suffer, then the darkness that covered you in this cave shall cover Me in the grave, when I am in the flesh of your descendants.

⁵ And I, who am without years, shall be subject to the reckoning of years, of times, of months, and of days, and I shall be reckoned as one of the sons of men, in order to save you.”

⁶ And God ceased to commune with Adam.

* Reference: John 12:46

Chapter XV – Adam and Eve grieve over the suffering of God to save them from their sins.

¹ Then Adam and Eve cried and sorrowed by reason of God’s word to them, that they should not return to the garden until the fulfillment of the days decreed on them; but mostly because God had told them that He should suffer for their salvation.

Chapter XVI – The first sunrise. Adam and Eve think it is a fire coming to burn them.

¹ After this, Adam and Eve continued to stand in the cave, praying and crying, until the morning dawned on them.

² And when they saw the light returned to them, they retrained from fear, and strengthened their hearts.

³ Then Adam began to come out of the cave. And when he came to the mouth of it, and stood and turned his face towards the east, and saw the sunrise in glowing rays, and felt the heat thereof on his body, he was afraid of it, and thought in his heart that this flame came forth to plague him.

⁴ He then cried and beat his chest, then he fell on the ground on his face and made his request, saying:—

⁵ “O Lord, plague me not, neither consume me, nor yet take away my life from the earth.”

⁶ For he thought the sun was God.

⁷ Because while he was in the garden and heard the voice of God and the sound He made in the garden, and feared Him, Adam never saw the brilliant light of the sun, neither did its flaming heat touch his body.

⁸ Therefore he was afraid of the sun when flaming rays of it reached him. He thought God meant to plague him therewith all the days He had decreed for him.

⁹ For Adam also said in his thoughts, as God did not plague us with darkness, behold, He has caused this sun to rise and to plague us with burning heat.

¹⁰ But while he was thinking like this in his heart, the Word of God came to him and said:—

¹¹ “O Adam, get up on your feet. This sun is not God; but it has been created to give light by day, of which I spoke to you in the cave saying, ‘that the dawn would come, and there would be light by day.’

¹² But I am God who comforted you in the night.”

— the Word of God is also God as stated clearly in John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

¹³ And God ceased to commune with Adam.

Chapter XVII – The Chapter of the Serpent.

¹ The Adam and Eve came out at the mouth of the cave, and went towards the garden.

² But as they went near it, before the western gate, from which Satan came when he deceived Adam and Eve, they found the serpent that became Satan coming at the gate, and sorrowfully licking the dust, and wiggling on its breast on the ground, by reason of the curse that fell on it from God.

³ And whereas before the serpent was the most exalted of all beasts, now it was changed and become slippery, and the meanest of them all, and it crept on its breast and went on its belly.

⁴ And whereas it was the fairest of all beasts, it had been changed, and was become the ugliest of them all. Instead of feeding on the best food, now it turned to eat the dust. Instead of living, as before, in the best places, now it lived in the dust.

⁵ And, whereas it had been the most beautiful of all beasts, all of which stood dumb at its beauty, it was now abhorred of them.

⁶ And, again, whereas it lived in one beautiful home, to which all other animals came from elsewhere; and where it drank, they drank also of the same; now, after it had become venomous, by reason of God’s curse, all beasts fled from its home, and would not drink of the water it drank; but fled from it.

Chapter XVIII – The mortal combat with the serpent.

¹ When the accursed serpent saw Adam and Eve, it swelled its head, stood on its tail, and with eyes blood-red, acted like it would kill them.

² It made straight for Eve, and ran after her; while Adam standing by, cried because he had no stick in his hand with which to hit the serpent, and did not know how to put it to death.

³ But with a heart burning for Eve, Adam approached the serpent, and held it by the tail; when it turned towards him and said to him:—

⁴ “O Adam, because of you and of Eve, I am slippery, and go on my belly.” Then with its great strength, it threw down Adam and Eve and squeezed them, and tried to kill them.

⁵ But God sent an angel who threw the serpent away from them, and raised them up.

⁶ Then the Word of God came to the serpent, and said to it, “The first time I made you slick, and made you to go on your belly; but I did not deprive you of speech.

⁷ This time, however, you will be mute, and you and your race will speak no more; because, the first time My creatures were ruined because of you, and this time you tried to kill them.”

⁸ Then the serpent was struck mute, and was no longer able to speak.

⁹ And a wind blew down from heaven by the command of God and carried away the serpent from Adam and Eve, and threw it on the seashore where it landed in India.

— the snake, symbolised by Satan, was cast to india; maybe there are many snakes in India and many snake charmers there, too; as a result, Hinduism has long held serpents to be sacred; the animals are believed to be related to the Nagas, and many gods are pictured under the protection of the cobra;

— one of the biblical records of snake charming appears in Psalm 58:

The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.

Their poison is like the poison of a serpent; they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear,

which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charm they ever so wisely. Psalm 58:3–5

Chapter XIX – Beasts made subject to Adam.

¹ But Adam and Eve cried before God. And Adam said to Him:—

² “O Lord, when I was in the cave, I said this to you, my Lord, the beasts of the field would rise and devour me, and cut off my life from the earth.”

³ Then Adam, because of what had happened to him, beat his chest and fell on the ground like a corpse. Then the Word of God came to him, who raised him, and said to him,

⁴ “O Adam, not one of these beasts will be able to hurt you; because I have made the beasts and other moving things come to you in the cave. I did not let the serpent come with them because it might have risen against you and made you tremble; and the fear of it should fall into your hearts.

⁵ For I knew that the accursed one is wicked; therefore I would not let it come near you with the other beasts.

⁶ But now strengthen your heart and fear not. I am with you to the end of the days I have determined on you.”

Chapter XX – Adam wishes to protect Eve.

¹ Then Adam cried and said, “O God, take us away to some other place, where the serpent can not come near us again, and rise against us. For fear that it might find Your handmaid Eve alone and kill her; for its eyes are hideous and evil.”

² But God said to Adam and Eve, “From now on, don’t be afraid, I will not let it come near you; I have driven it away from you, from this mountain; neither will I leave in it the ability to hurt you.”

³ Then Adam and Eve worshipped before God and gave Him thanks, and praised Him for having delivered them from death.

Posted in Books of Ancients

The First Book of Adam and Eve by Rutherford Platt

Introduction

The First Book of Adam and Eve (also known as the Forgotten Books of Eden) is a 6th-century extracanonical work found in Ge’ez, translated from an Old Arabic original which is translated from a Syriac source, namely the Cave of Treasures.

It was first translated from the Ge’ez Ethiopic version into German by August Dillmann. It was first translated into English by S C Malan from the German of Ernest Trumpp. The first half of Malan’s translation is included as the “First Book of Adam and Eve” and the “Second Book of Adam and Eve” in The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden.

The Book details the life and times of Adam and Eve after they were expelled from the garden to the time that Cain kills his brother Abel. It tells of Adam and Eve’s first dwelling—the Cave of Treasures; their trials and temptations; Satan’s many apparitions to them; the birth of Cain, Abel, and their twin sisters; and Cain’s love for his beautiful twin sister, Luluwa, whom Adam and Eve wished to join to Abel.

This book is simply a version of an account handed down by word of mouth, from generation to generation, linking the time that the first human life was created to the time when someone finally decided to write it down. The lack of historical allusion makes it difficult to precisely date the writing, however, but some believe it was probably written a few hundred years before the birth of Christ.

Parts of this version are found in the Jewish Talmud and the Islamic Koran, showing what a vital role it played in the original literature of human wisdom. The original Egyptian authors might have written in Arabic, but later translations were found written in Ethiopic. The present English translation was translated in the late 1800’s by Dr S C Malan and Dr E Trumpp.

They translated into King James English from both the Arabic version and the Ethiopic version which was then published in The Forgotten Books of Eden in 1927 by The World Publishing Company. In 1995, the text was extracted from a copy of The Forgotten Books of Eden and converted to electronic form by Dennis Hawkins. It was then translated into more modern English by simply exchanging ‘Thou’s for ‘You’s, ‘Art’s for ‘Are’s, and so forth. The text was then carefully re-read to ensure its integrity.

Chapter I – The crystal sea, God commands Adam, expelled from Eden, to live in the Cave of Treasures.

¹ On the third day, God planted the garden in the east of the earth, on the border of the world eastward, beyond which, towards the sun-rising, one finds nothing but water, that encompasses the whole world, and reaches to the borders of heaven.

² And to the north of the garden there is a sea of water, clear and pure to the taste, unlike anything else; so that, through the clearness thereof, one may look into the depths of the earth.

³ And when a man washes himself in it, he becomes clean of the cleanness thereof, and white of its whiteness—even if he were dark.

⁴ And God created that sea of his own good pleasure, for He knew what would come of the man He would make; so that after he had left the garden, on account of his transgression, men should be born in the earth. Among them are righteous ones who will die, whose souls God would raise at the last day; when all of them will return to their flesh, bathe in the water of that sea, and repent of their sins.

⁵ But when God made Adam go out of the garden, He did not place him on the border of it northward. This was so that he and Eve would not be able to go near to the sea of water where they could wash themselves in it, be cleansed from their sins, erase the transgression they had committed, and be no longer reminded of it in the thought of their punishment.

⁶ As to the southern side of the garden, God did not want Adam to live there either; because, when the wind blew from the north, it would bring him, on that southern side, the delicious smell of the trees of the garden.

⁷ Wherefore God did not put Adam there. This was so that he would not be able to smell the sweet smell of those trees, forget his transgression, and find consolation for what he had done by taking delight in the smell of the trees and yet not be cleansed from his transgression.

⁸ Again, also, because God is merciful and of great pity, and governs all things in a way that He alone knows—He made our father Adam live in the western border of the garden, because on that side the earth is very broad.

⁹ And God commanded him to live there in a cave in a rock—the Cave of Treasures below the garden.

Chapter II – Adam and Eve faint when they leave the Garden. God sends His Word to encourage them.

¹ But when our father, Adam and Eve, went out of the garden, they walked the ground on their feet, not knowing they were walking.

² And when they came to the opening of the gate of the garden, and saw the broad earth spread before them, covered with stones large and small, and with sand, they feared and trembled, and fell on their faces, from the fear that came over them; and they were as dead.

³ Because—whereas until this time they had been in the garden, land beautifully planted with all manner of trees—they now saw themselves, in a strange land, which they knew not, and had never seen.

⁴ And because, when they were in the garden they were filled with the grace of a bright nature, and they had not hearts turned toward earthly things.

⁵ Therefore God had pity on them; and when He saw them fallen before the gate of the garden, He sent His Word to our father, Adam and Eve, and raised them from their fallen state.

— the Word of God would reappeared in John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

Chapter III – Concerning the promise of the great five and a half days.

¹ God said to Adam, “I have ordained on this earth days and years, and you and your descendants shall live and walk in them, until the days and years are fulfilled; when I shall send the Word that created you, and against which you have transgressed, the Word that made you come out of the garden, and that raised you when you were fallen.

— the Word that created you; this is reaffirmed in John 1:3 “All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.”

² Yes, the Word that will again save you when the five and a half days are fulfilled.”

— the Word, or the Messiah, or Christ would save Adam (and humanity) when the time is fulfilled;

³ But when Adam heard these words from God, and of the great five and a half days, he did not understand the meaning of them.

⁴ For Adam was thinking there would be only five and a half days for him until the end of the world.

⁵ And Adam cried, and prayed to God to explain it to him.

⁶ Then God in his mercy for Adam who was made after His own image and likeness, explained to him, that these were 5,000 and 500 years; and how One would then come and save him and his descendants.

⁷ But before that, God had made this covenant with our father, Adam, in the same terms, before he came out of the garden, when he was by the tree where Eve took of the fruit and gave it to him to eat.

⁸ Because, when our father Adam came out of the garden, he passed by that tree, and saw how God had changed the appearance of it into another form, and how it shriveled.

⁹ And as Adam went to it he feared, trembled and fell down; but God in His mercy lifted him up, and then made this covenant with him.

¹⁰ And again, when Adam was by the gate of the garden, and saw the cherub with a sword of flashing fire in his hand, and the cherub grew angry and frowned at him, both Adam and Eve became afraid of him, and thought he meant to put them to death. So they fell on their faces, trembled with fear.

¹¹ But he had pity on them, and showed them mercy; and turning from them went up to heaven, and prayed to the Lord, and said;—

— the narrator “he” seems to have changed to the cherub;

¹² “Lord, You sent me to watch at the gate of the garden, with a sword of fire.

¹³ But when Your servants, Adam and Eve, saw me, they fell on their faces, and were as dead. O my Lord, what shall we do to Your servants?”

¹⁴ Then God had pity on them, and showed them mercy, and sent His Angel to keep the garden.

¹⁵ And the Word of the Lord came to Adam and Eve, and raised them up.

— here, the Word of the Lord came to raise Adam and Eve could be a foretaste; a preamble of what is to come in the resurrection; (repeated in 10:3)

¹⁶ And the Lord said to Adam, “I told you that at the end of the five and a half days, I will send my Word and save you.

¹⁷ Strengthen your heart, therefore, and stay in the Cave of Treasures, of which I have before spoken to you.”

¹⁸ And when Adam heard this Word from God, he was comforted with that which God had told him. For He had told him how He would save him.

Chapter IV – Adam mourns over the changed conditions. Adam and Eve enter the Cave of Treasures.

¹ But Adam and Eve cried for having come out of the garden, their first home.

² And indeed, when Adam looked at his flesh, that was altered, he cried bitterly, he and Eve, over what they had done. And they walked and went gently down into the Cave of Treasures.

³ And as they came to it, Adam cried over himself and said to Eve, “Look at this cave that is to be our prison in this world, and a place of punishment!

⁴ What is it compared with the garden? What is its narrowness compared with the space of the other?

⁵ What is this rock, by the side of those groves? What is the gloom of this cavern, compared with the light of the garden?

⁶ What is this overhanging ledge of rock to shelter us, compared with the mercy of the Lord that overshadowed us?

⁷ What is the soil of this cave compared with the garden land? This earth, strewed with stones; and that, planted with delicious fruit trees?”

⁸ And Adam said to Eve, “Look at your eyes, and at mine, which before beheld angels praising in heaven; and they too, without ceasing.

⁹ But now we do not see as we did; our eyes have become of flesh; they cannot see like they used to see before.”

¹⁰ Adam said again to Eve, “What is our body today, compared to what it was in former days, when we lived in the garden?”

¹¹ After this, Adam did not want to enter the cave, under the overhanging rock; nor would he ever want to enter it.

¹² But he bowed to God’s orders; and said to himself, “Unless I enter the cave, I shall again be a transgressor.”

Chapter V – Eve makes a noble and emotional intercession, taking the blame on herself.

¹ Then Adam and Eve entered the cave, and stood praying, in their own tongue, unknown to us, but which they knew well.

² And as they prayed, Adam raised his eyes and saw the rock and the roof of the cave that covered him overhead. This prevented him from seeing either heaven or God’s creatures. So he cried and beat his chest hard, until he dropped, and was as dead.

³ And Eve sat crying; for she believed he was dead.

⁴ Then she got up, spread her hands toward God, appealing to Him for mercy and pity, and said, “O God, forgive me my sin, the sin which I committed, and don’t remember it against me.

⁵ For I alone caused Your servant to fall from the garden into this condemned land; from light into this darkness; and from the house of joy into this prison.

⁶ O God, look at this Your servant fallen in this manner, and bring him back to life, that he may cry and repent of his transgression which he committed through me.

⁷ Don’t take away his soul right now; but let him live that he may stand after the measure of his repentance, and do Your will, as before his death.

⁸ But if You do not bring him back to life, then, O God, take away my own soul, that I be like him, and leave me not in this dungeon, one and alone; for I could not stand alone in this world, but with him only.

⁹ For You, O God, caused him to fall asleep, and took a bone from his side, and restored the flesh in the place of it, by Your divine power.

¹⁰ And You took me, the bone, and make me a woman, bright like him, with heart, reason, and speech; and in flesh, like to his own; and You made me after the likeness of his looks, by Your mercy and power.

¹¹ O Lord, I and he are one, and You, O God, are our Creator, You are He who made us both in one day.

¹² Therefore, O God, give him life, that he may be with me in this strange land, while we live in it on account of our transgression.

¹³ But if You will not give him life, then take me, even me, like him; that we both may die the same day.”

¹⁴ And Eve cried bitterly, and fell on our father Adam; from her great sorrow.

Chapter VI – God’s reprimand to Adam and Eve in which he points out how and why they sinned.

¹ But God looked at them; for they had killed themselves through great grief.

² But He decided to raise them and comfort them.

³ He, therefore, sent His Word to them; that they should stand and be raised immediately.

⁴ And the Lord said to Adam and Eve, “You transgressed of your own free will, until you came out of the garden in which I had placed you.

⁵ Of your own free will have you transgressed through your desire for divinity, greatness, and an exalted state, such as I have; so that I deprived you of the bright nature in which you then were, and I made you come out of the garden to this land, rough and full of trouble.

⁶ If only you had not transgressed My commandment and had kept My law, and had not eaten of the fruit of the tree which I told you not to come near! And there were fruit trees in the garden better than that one.

⁷ But the wicked Satan did not keep his faith and had no good intent towards Me, that although I had created him, he considered Me to be useless, and sought the Godhead for himself; for this I hurled him down from heaven so that he could not remain in his first estate—it was he who made the tree appear pleasant in your eyes, until you ate of it, by believing his words.

— driven by pride of beauty and vanity, Satan wanted himself to be God; not just to be part of the Godhead, but considered God as useless and wanted for himself the seat of the Most High; as a result, Jesus said, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” Luke 10:18

— “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, who didst weaken the nations!” Isaiah 14:12; for his punishment, Satan was hurled down from heaven but he was not bound, unlike Azazel, who sinned greatly by perverting mankind and taking human as their wives, who is bound (Book of Enoch);

⁸ Thus have you transgressed My commandment, and therefore I have brought on you all these sorrows.

⁹ For I am God the Creator, who, when I created My creatures, did not intend to destroy them. But after they had sorely roused My anger, I punished them with grievous plagues, until they repent.

¹⁰ But, if on the contrary, they still continue hardened in their transgression, they shall be under a curse forever.”

Chapter VII – The beasts are appeased.

¹ When Adam and Eve heard these words from God, they cried and sobbed yet more; but they strengthened their hearts in God, because they now felt that the Lord was to them like a father and a mother; and for this very reason, they cried before Him, and sought mercy from Him.

² Then God had pity on them, and said: “O Adam, I have made My covenant with you, and I will not turn from it; neither will I let you return to the garden, until My covenant of the great five and a half days is fulfilled.”

³ Then Adam said to God, “O Lord, You created us, and made us fit to be in the garden; and before I transgressed, You made all beasts come to me, that I should name them.

⁴ Your grace was then on me; and I named every one according to Your mind; and you made them all subject to me.

⁵ But now, O Lord God, that I have transgressed Your commandment, all beasts will rise against me and will devour me, and Eve Your handmaid; and will cut off our life from the face of the earth.

⁶ I therefore beg you, O God, that since You have made us come out of the garden, and have made us be in a strange land, You will not let the beasts hurt us.”

⁷ When the Lord heard these words from Adam, He had pity on him, and felt that he had truly said that the beasts of the field would rise and devour him and Eve, because He, the Lord, was angry with the two of them on account of their transgressions.

⁸ Then God commanded the beasts, and the birds, and all that moves on the earth, to come to Adam and to be familiar with him, and not to trouble him and Eve; nor yet any of the good and righteous among their offspring.

⁹ Then all the beasts paid homage to Adam, according to the commandment of God; except the serpent, against which God was angry. It did not come to Adam, with the beasts.

Chapter VIII – The “Bright Nature” of man is taken away.

¹ Then Adam cried and said, “O God, when we lived in the garden, and our hearts were lifted up, we saw the angels that sang praises in heaven, but now we can’t see like we used to; no, when we entered the cave, all creation became hidden from us.”

² Then God the Lord said to Adam, “When you were under subjection to Me, you had a bright nature within you, and for that reason you could see things far away. But after your transgression your bright nature was withdrawn from you; and it was not left to you to see things far away, but only near at hand; after the ability of the flesh; for it is brutish.”

³ When Adam and Eve had heard these words from God, they went their way; praising and worshipping Him with a sorrowful heart.

⁴ And God ceased to commune with them.

Chapter IX – Water from the Tree of Life. Adam and Eve near drowning.

¹ Then Adam and Eve came out of the Cave of Treasures, and went near to the garden gate, and there they stood to look at it, and cried for having come away from it.

² And Adam and Eve went from before the gate of the garden to the southern side of it, and found there the water that watered the garden, from the root of the Tree of Life, and that split itself from there into four rivers over the earth.

³ Then they came and went near to that water, and looked at it; and saw that it was the water that came forth from under the root of the Tree of Life in the garden.

⁴ And Adam cried and wailed, and beat his chest, for being severed from the garden; and said to Eve:—

⁵ “Why have you brought on me, on yourself, and on our descendants, so many of these plagues and punishments?”

⁶ And Eve said to him, “What is it you have seen that has caused you to cry and to speak to me in this manner?”

⁷ And he said to Eve, “Do you not see this water that was with us in the garden, that watered the trees of the garden, and flowed out from there?

⁸ And we, when we were in the garden, did not care about it; but since we came to this strange land, we love it, and turn it to use for our body.”

⁹ But when Eve heard these words from him, she cried; and from the soreness of their crying, they fell into that water; and would have put an end to themselves in it, so as never again to return and behold the creation; for when they looked at the work of creation, they felt they must put an end to themselves.

Chapter X – Their bodies need water after they leave the garden.

¹ Then God, merciful and gracious, looked at them thus lying in the water, and close to death, and sent an angel, who brought them out of the water, and laid them on the seashore as dead.

² Then the angel went up to God, was welcome, and said, “O God, Your creatures have breathed their last.”

³ Then God sent His Word to Adam and Eve, who raised them from their death.

— this is a foretaste of what the Word, who is also the Son and Messiah, would do, to raise mankind in the resurrection; but they have to wait some 5 to 6 thousand years later; (repeated in 3:15)

⁴ And Adam said, after he was raised, “O God, while we were in the garden we did not require, or care for this water; but since we came to this land we cannot do without it.”

⁵ Then God said to Adam, “While you were under My command and were a bright angel, you knew not this water.

⁶ But now that you have transgressed My commandment, you can not do without water, wherein to wash your body and make it grow; for it is now like that of beasts, and is in want of water.”

⁷ When Adam and Eve heard these words from God, they cried a bitter cry; and Adam entreated God to let him return into the garden, and look at it a second time.

⁸ But God said to Adam, “I have made you a promise; when that promise is fulfilled, I will bring you back into the garden, you and your righteous descendants.”

⁹ And God ceased to commune with Adam.

Posted in Books of Ancients

~~~

The Book of Jubilees, or “the little Genesis” as it is sometimes called, purports to be a revelation given by God to Moses through the medium of an angel, “the Angel of the Presence,” which seems like a generic title and not a name. But he appears later to be the prince or chief of the spirits, “Mastema” in chapters 10:8; 18:9; and was “put to shame” (18:12); and, he, the prince Mastema, stood up against Moses (48:9)!

No complete Hebrew, Aramic, Greek or Latin version is known to have survived, but the Ethiopian Geʽez version has a more complete text of the numerous fragments in thee original Hebrew, numbered around fifteen that were found between 1947 and 1956 among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Apart from the Ethiopian Jewish community, the book is not considered canonical within any of the denominations of Judaism.

Who wrote the Book of Jubliees remains a mystery, but it points with strong evidence that the text was being revered and utilized by the Qumran community, who promoted living in isolated communities around the Dead Sea and the Jordan region. These Qumran communities seem to had been started by a Levitical Jews of a priestly background who grew dissatisfied with those operating in the main center of Jerusalem.

Jubilees was written with a history, divided up into jubilee-periods of forty-nine years, from the creation to the time of Moses. It covers much of the same ground as Genesis, but often with additional detail, and addressing Moses in the second person as the entire history of creation, and of Israel up to that point, is recounted in divisions of 49 years each, or “Jubilees” which contradicts a jubilee of fifty years in Leviticus 25:

And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof. It shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. Leviticus 25:10

Noah’s life of 950 year in chapter 10:16 was described as “nineteen jubilees and two weeks and five years.” In such calculation, a Jubilee is only 49 years; as 19 x 49 + 14 + 5 = 950 year. Of others: Sarah 127 years (17:7); Abraham 175 (23:8); Rebecca 155 (35:27); Jacob 147 years (45:13);

The elapsed time from the creation, up to Moses receiving the scriptures upon Sinai during the Exodus, is calculated as fifty Jubilees, less the 40 years still to be spent wandering in the desert before entering Canaan – or 2,410 years.

Of interest was the land divided after Noah’s flood: to Ham was given land towards the south; first portion for Cush towards the east, the west for Mizraim; the west of him for Put, and to the west of him for Canaan (9:1).

To Shem was given the middle portion; Elam, from the river Tigris till it approaches the east, and whole of India; Asshur came Nineveh and Shinar; for Arpachshad, east of the Euphrates down to the Red Sea; for Aram, the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates; for Lud the fifth portion, of Asshur till it reaches the Great Sea (9:2-6).

To Japheth, for Gomer to the east from the north side; for Magog and others all the inner portions of the north (9:7-13). Japheth’s land is cold, that of Ham is hot, Shem’s is neither cold nor hot.

But Canaan looked from the land at Lebanon all the way to Egypt, and westward from the Jordan (10:29), coverted it and settled there; drawing rebukes from Ham, his father; Cush and Mizraim; hence were accursed (verses 30-33); hence that land was named Canaan; and today, a land with endless hideous conflicts.

Of another great value of the Book of Jubilees is its elaboration of the rivary between Jacob and Esau, which has a significant implication of understanding the enormous impact of the development of world’s nations, both the events of the Old World and even more so, the events of the New World.

“And Esau harbored hatred in his heart against Jacob, his brother, because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him.

“And Esau said in his heart, ‘I will not do as Cain did, who killed Abel during their father’s lifetime and then their father had another son, Seth.

“Rather, I will wait until the days of mourning for my father have passed, and then I will kill Jacob my brother, and I will be the sole heir.’” Genesis 27:41 Jonathan

Understanding the above complex prophecy is one of the many endeavours of this site.

The feast of the firstfruits, was particularly emphazised to be observed on “in the third month, in the middle of the month” (15:1; 16:13); which appears to promote or gave rise to the Essenes Calendar; and was radically different from that calendar which was used by the Pharisees as Sivan 6, or fifty days from the morrow after the Sabbath, the first high day of Unleavened Bread.

The Calendar promoted in the Book of Jubilees is similar to the Essenes Calendar. It advocates a year of 52 weeks of strictly 364 days, in chapter 6:29-32, 38; and the new moons of the first month, the fourth month, the seventh month, and of the tenth month as days of remembrance, in 6:23.

And the Book of Jubilees was critical of the Jewish Calendar from year to year as “ten days too soon” (v36); and claim of their calendar to be “engraven and ordained on the heavenly tablets” (v30) for authenticity and authorization; but which were not supported by the Masoretic Text.

The Jewish Calendar had been empowered with the following mandates:

Deuteronomy 16:18 “Judges and officers shalt thou make thee in all thy gates which the Lord thy God giveth thee, throughout thy tribes; and they shall judge the people with just judgement.

¹⁹ Thou shalt not distort judgement; thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a bribe; for a bribe doth blind the eyes of the wise and pervert the words of the righteous.

Deuteronomy 17:11 According to the sentence of the law which they shall teach thee and according to the judgement which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do. Thou shalt not decline from the sentence which they shall show thee to the right hand nor to the left.

¹² And the man who will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest who standeth to minister there before the Lord thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die; and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel.

The Sadducees, however, used the same Calendar as the Pharisees, but they count the feast of firstfruits from the morrow after the weekly Sabbath. Both the Essenes and the Sadducees went the way of Sodom and Gomorrah and couldn’t survive the inferno of Judea and Jerusalem around AD 70.

Posted in Books of Ancients