Part 6

Amongst the Revelations of S. Amadeus are found two psalms, which, in vision, he heard had been composed by Adam. One was on the production of Eve, the other is a hymn of repentance, a joint composition of the two outcasts. It runs as follows:—

_Adam._—“Adonai, my Lord God, have mercy upon me for Thy great goodness, and according to the multitude of Thy mercies do away my transgressions. I am bowed down with trouble, Thy waves and storms have gone over me. Deliver me, O God, and save me from the flood of many waters. Hear my words, O Heavens, and all ye that dwell in them. May the Angels bear up all my thoughts and words to Thee, and may the celestial virtues declare them. May the Lord bend His compassionate ear to my lowly petition. May He hear my prayer, and let the cry of my heart reach Him. Thou, O God, art the true and most brilliant light; all other lights are mingled with darkness. Thou art the sun that knowest no down-setting, that dwellest in inaccessible light. Thou art the end to which all flesh come. Thou art the only satisfaction of all the blessed.”

_Eve._—“Adonai, Lord God, have mercy upon me for Thy great goodness, and for the multitude of Thy mercies do away my transgressions. Thou before all things didst create the immoveable heaven as a holy and exalted home, and Thou didst adorn it with angel spirits, to whom Thou didst in goodness declare thy purposes. They were the bright morning stars who sang to Thee through ages of ages. Thou didst form the moveable heaven and Thou didst set in it the watery clouds. Those waters are under the immoveable heaven, and are above all that live and move. Thou didst create the light; the beauteous sun, the moon with the five planets didst Thou place in the midst, and didst fix the signs and constellations. Thou didst produce four elements, and didst kindle all with Thy wisdom.”

_Adam._—“Adonai, Lord God, have mercy upon me for Thy great goodness, and for the multitude of Thy mercies do away my transgressions. Thou hast cast out the proud and rebel dragon with Thy mighty arm. Thou hast put down the mighty from their seat and hast exalted the humble and meek. Thou hast filled the hungry with good things, and the rich Thou hast sent empty away. Thou didst fashion me in Thine own image of the dust of earth, and destine me, mortal, to be immortal; and me, frail, to endure. Thou didst lead me into the place of life and joy, and didst surround me with all good things; Thou didst put all things under my feet, and didst reveal to me Thy great name, Adonai. Thou didst give me Eve, to be a help meet for me, whom Thou didst draw from my side.”

_Adam._—“Adonai, Lord and God, have mercy upon me for Thy great goodness, and for the multitude of Thy mercies do away my transgressions; for Thou hast made me the head of all men. Thou hast inspired me and my consort with Thy wisdom, and hast given us a free will and placed our lot in our own hands. But Thou hast given us precepts and laws, and hast placed life and death before us that we might keep Thy commandments, and in keeping them find life; but if we keep them not, we shall die. Lucifer, the envious one, saw and envied. He fought against us and prevailed. Conquered by angels, he conquered man, and subjugated all his race. I have sinned. I am he who have committed iniquity. If I had refused in my free will, neither Eve nor the Enemy could have obtained my destruction. But being in honour I had no understanding and I lost my dignity. I am like to the cattle, the horse, and the mule, which have no understanding.”

_Eve._—“Adonai, Lord and God, have mercy upon me for Thy great goodness, and for the multitude of Thy mercies do away mine offences. Great is our God, and great is His mercy; His goodness is unmeasured. He will supply the remedy to our sin, that if we will to rise, we may be able to arise; He has appointed His Son, the glorifier of all, and our Redeemer; and He has appointed the Holy Mother to be our mediatrix, in whose image He has built me, Eve, the mother of all flesh. He has fashioned the Mother after the likeness of her daughter. He has made the father after the image and likeness of His Son; and He will blot out our transgressions for His merits, if we yield our wills thereto, and receive His sacraments. He will receive a free-will offering, and He will not despise a contrite heart. To those going towards Him, He will fly with welcome, He will pardon their offences and will crown them with glory.”

_Adam._—“Adonai, Lord and God, have mercy upon me for Thy great goodness, and for the multitude of Thy mercies do away mine offences. O God, great is the abundance of Thy sweetness. Blessed are all they that hope in Thee. After the darkness Thou bringest in the light; and pain is converted into joy. Thou repayest a thousand for a hundred, and for a thousand thou givest ten thousand. For the least things, Thou rewardest with the greatest things; and for temporal joys, Thou givest those that are eternal. Blessed are they that keep Thy statutes, and bend their necks to Thy yoke. They shall dwell in Thy tabernacle and rest upon Thy holy hill. They shall be denizens of Thy courts with Thee, whose roofs shine above gold and precious stones. Blessed are they who believe in the triune God, and will to know His ways. We all sing, Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, and we magnify our God. As in the beginning the angels sang, so shall we now and ever, and in ages of ages. Amen.”[95]

Manasseh Ben-Israel has preserved a prophecy of Adam, that the world is to last seven thousand years. He says this secret was handed down from Adam to Enoch, and from Enoch to Noah, and from Noah to Shem.[96]

At Hebron is a cave, “which,” says an old traveller, “Christians and Turks point out as having been the place where Adam and Eve bewailed their sins for a hundred years. This spot is towards the west, in a valley, about a hundred paces from the Damascene field; it is a dark grotto, not very long or broad, very low, in a hard rock, and not apparently artificial, but natural. This valley is called _La valle de Lagrime_, the Vale of Tears, as they shed such copious tears over their transgressions.”[97]

Abu Mohammed Mustapha Ben-Alschit Hasen, in his Universal History, says that Adam’s garment of fig-leaves, in which he went out of Eden, was left by him, when he fell, on Adam’s Peak in Ceylon. There it dried to dust, and the dust was scattered by the wind over the island, and from this sprang the odoriferous plants which grow there.[98]

Adam is said to have not gone altogether empty-handed out of Paradise. Hottinger, in his Oriental History, quoting Jewish authorities, says: “Adam having gone into the land of Babel, took with him many wonderful things, amongst others a tree with flowers, leaves and branches of gold, also a stone tree, also the leaves of a tree so strong that they were inconsumable in fire, and so large as to be able to shelter under them ten thousand men of the stature of Adam; and he carried about with him two of these leaves, of which one would shelter two men, or clothe them.”[99] Of these trees we read in the Gemara that the Rabbi Canaan asked of the Rabbi Simon, son of Assa, who had gone to see them, whether this was true. He was told in reply that it was so, and that at the time of the Captivity the Jews had seated themselves under these trees, and in their shadow had found consolation.

But Palestine seems also to have possessed some of the trees of Adam’s planting, for Jacob Vitriacus in his Jewish History says: “There are in that land wonderful trees, which for their pre-excellence are called Apples of Paradise, bearing oblong fruit, very sweet and unctuous, having a most delicious savour, bearing in one cluster more than a hundred compressed berries. The leaves of this tree are a cubit long and half a cubit wide. There are three other trees producing beautiful apples or citrons, in which the bite of a man’s teeth is naturally manifest, wherefore they are called Adam’s Apples.”[100] Hottinger says that at Tripoli grows a tree called Almaus, or Adam’s apple, with a green head, and leaves like outspread fingers, no branches, but only leaves, and with a fruit like a bean-pod, of delicious flavour, and an odour of roses. Buntingius, in his Itinerary, describes an Adam’s apple which he tasted at Alexandria, and he said the taste was like pears, and the clusters of prodigious size, with twenty in each cluster, like magnificent bunches of grapes. But the most remarkable fact about them was that, if one of the fruit were cut with a knife, the figure of a crucifix was found to be contained in it.[101] And this tree was supposed to have been the forbidden tree, and the fruit to have thus brought hope as it also brought death to the eater. Nider, “In Formicario,” also relates that this fruit, thus marked with the form of the Crucified, grows in Granada.[102]

“At Beyrut, of which S. Nicodemus was the first bishop,” writes the Friar, Ignatius von Rheinfelden, “I saw a wonderful fruit which is called by the Arabs, Mauza, and by the Christians Adam’s fig. This fruit grows upon a trunk in clusters of fifty or more, and hangs down towards the ground on account of its weight. The fruit is in shape something like a cucumber, and is a span long, yellow, and tasting something like figs. The Christians of those parts say it is the fruit of which Adam and Eve ate in Paradise, and they argue thus: first, there are no apples in those parts; secondly, S. Jerome translated the word in the Bible, Mauza; thirdly, if the fruit be cut, within it is seen the figure of a crucifix, and they conclude thereby that the first parents were showed by this figure how their sin would be atoned; fourthly, the leaves being three ells long and half an ell wide, were admirably adapted to make skirts of, when Adam and Eve were conscious of their nakedness. And Holy Scripture says nothing of apples, but says merely—fruit. But whether this was the fruit or not, I leave to others to decide.”[103]

Adam is said by the Easterns to have received from Raphael a magic ring, which became his symbol, and which he handed down to his descendants selected to know and read mysteries. This was no other than the ‘crux ansata,’ or handled cross, so common on Egyptian monuments as the hieroglyph of Life out of death. The circle symbolized the apple, and thus the Carthusian emblem, which bears the motto “Stat crux dum volvitur orbis,” is in reality the mystic symbol of Adam. “Which,” says the Arabic philosopher, Ibn-ephi, “Mizraim received from Ham, and Ham from Noah, and Noah from Enoch, and Enoch from Seth, and Seth from Adam, and Adam from the angel Raphael. Ham wrought with it great marvels, and Hermes received it from him and placed it amongst the hieroglyphics. But this character signifies the progress and motion of the Spirit of the world, and it was a magic seal, kept secret among their mysteries, and a ring constraining demons.”[104]

Footnote 81:

Weil, p. 28.

Footnote 82:

Basnage, Histoire des Juifs. La Haye, iii. p. 391.

Footnote 83:

Tract. Avod., f. 1, col. 3; also Tract. Pesachim, f. 118, col. 1.

Footnote 84:

Eisenmenger, i. pp. 376, 377.

Footnote 85:

Eisenmenger, i. pp. 377-80.

Footnote 86:

Talmud, Avoda Sara, fol. 8 a, and in Levy, Parabeln, p. 300.

Footnote 87:

It is a popular superstition among the lower orders in England that a woman who dies in childbirth, even if she be unmarried, cannot be lost.

Footnote 88:

Weil, pp. 29-38.

Footnote 89:

Dillman, Das Adambuch des Morgenlandes; Göttingen, 1853. This book is not to be confounded with the Testament of Adam.

Footnote 90:

Tabari, i., capp. xxviii. xxix.

Footnote 91:

In More Nevochim, quoted by Fabricius, i. p. 5.

Footnote 92:

Gen. v. 1.

Footnote 93:

Fabricius, i. p. 11.

Footnote 94:

Adv. Hæresi, c. 5.

Footnote 95:

Eusebius Nierembergius, De Origine S. Scripturæ. Lugd., 1641, p. 46.

Footnote 96:

Fabricius, i. p. 33.

Footnote 97:

Ferdinand de Troilo, Orientale Itinerario. Dresd., 1676, p. 323.

Footnote 98:

Selden, De Synedriis, ii. p. 452.

Footnote 99:

Hottinger, Historia Orientalis, lib. i. c. 8.

Footnote 100:

Jacobus Vitriacus, Hist. Hierosol., c. lxxxv.

Footnote 101:

As King Charles’s oak may be seen in the fern-root.

Footnote 102:

Fabricius, i. p. 84.

Footnote 103:

Neue Ierosolymitanische Pilgerfahrt. Würtzburg, 1667, p. 47.

Footnote 104:

Stephanus Le Moyne, Notæ ad Varia Sacra, p. 863.

VI. CAIN AND ABEL.

After that the child given to Satan died, says Tabari, Adam had another son, and he called him Seth, and Seth was prophet in the room of his father, after the death of Adam.

Adam had many more children; every time that Eve bore, she bare twins, whereof one was male, the other female, and the twins were given to one another as husband and wife.

Now Adam sought to give to Abel the twin sister of Cain, when she was old enough to be married, but Cain (Kabil, in Arabic) was dissatisfied.[105] Adam said to the brothers, Cain and Abel, “Go, my sons, and sacrifice to the Lord; and he whose sacrifice is accepted, shall have the young girl. Take each of you offerings in your hand and go, sacrifice to the Lord, and He shall decide.”

Abel was a shepherd, and he took the fattest of the sheep, and bore it to the place of sacrifice; but Cain, who was a tiller of the soil, took a sheaf of corn, the poorest he could find, and placed it on the altar. Then fire descended from heaven and consumed the offering of Abel, so that not even the cinders remained; but the sheaf of Cain was left untouched.

Adam gave the maiden to Abel, and Cain was sore vexed.

One day, Abel was asleep on a mountain. Cain took a stone and crushed his head. Then he threw the corpse on his back, and carried it about, not knowing what to do with it; but he saw two crows fighting, and one killed the other; then the crow that survived dug a hole in the earth with his beak, and buried the dead bird. Cain said, “I have not the sense of this bird. I too will lay my brother in the ground.” And he did so.

When Adam learned the death of his son, he set out in search of Cain, but could not find him; then he recited the following lines:—

“Every city is alike, each mortal man is vile, The face of earth has desert grown, the sky has ceased to smile, Every flower has lost its hue, and every gem is dim. Alas! my son, my son is dead; the brown earth swallows him! We one have had in midst of us whom death has not yet found, No peace for him, no rest for him, treading the blood-drenched ground.”[106]

This is how the story is told in the Midrash:[107] Cain and Abel could not agree, for, what one had, the other wanted; then Abel devised a scheme that they should make a division of property, and thus remove the possibility of contention. The proposition pleased Cain. So Cain took the earth, and all that is stationary, and Abel took all that is moveable.

But the envy which lay in the heart of Cain gave him no rest. One day he said to his brother, “Remove thy foot, thou standest on my property; the plain is mine.”

Then Abel ran upon the hills, but Cain cried, “Away, the hills are mine!” Then he climbed the mountains, but still Cain followed him, calling, “Away! the stony mountains are mine.”

In the Book of Jasher the cause of quarrel is differently stated. One day the flock of Abel ran over the ground Cain had been ploughing; Cain rushed furiously upon him and bade him leave the spot. “Not,” said Abel, “till you have paid me for the skins of my sheep and wool of their fleeces used for your clothing.” Then Cain took the coulter from his plough, and with it slew his brother.[108]

The Targum of Jerusalem says, the subject of contention was that Cain denied a Judgment to come and Eternal Life; and Abel argued for both.[109] The Rabbi Menachem, however, asserts that the point on which they strove was whether a word was written _zizit_ or _zizis_ in the Parascha.[110]

“And when they were in the field together, the brothers quarrelled, saying, ‘Let us divide the world.’ One said, ‘The earth you stand on is my soil.’ The other said, ‘You are standing on my earth.’ One said, ‘The Holy Temple shall stand on my lot;’ the other said, ‘It shall stand on my lot.’ So they quarrelled. Now there were born with Abel two daughters, his sisters. Then said Cain, ‘I will take the one I choose, I am the eldest;’ Abel said, ‘They were born with me, and I will have them both to wife.’ And when they fought, Abel flung Cain down and was above him; and he lay on Cain. Then Cain said to Abel, ‘Are we not both sons of one father; why wilt thou kill me?’ And Abel had compassion, and let Cain get up. And so Cain fell on him and killed him. From this we learn not to render good to the evil, for, because Abel showed mercy to Cain, Cain took advantage of it to slay Abel.”[111]

S. Methodius the Younger refers to this tradition. He says: “Be it known that Adam and Eve when they left Paradise were virgins. But the third year after the expulsion from Eden, they had Cain, their first-born, and his sister Calmana; and after this, next year, they had Abel and his sister Deborah. But in the three hundredth year of Adam’s life, Cain slew his brother, and Adam and Eve wailed over him a hundred years.”[112]

Eutychius, Patriarch of Alexandria, says, “When Adam and Eve rebelled against God, He expelled them from Paradise at the ninth hour on Friday to a certain mountain in India, and He bade them produce children to increase and multiply upon the earth. Adam and Eve therefore became parents, first of a boy named Cain, and of a girl named Azrun, who were twins; then of another boy named Abel, and of a twin sister named Owain, or in Greek Laphura.

“Now, when the children were grown up, Adam said to Eve, ‘Let Cain marry Owain, who was born with Abel, and let Abel have Azrun, who was born with Cain.’ But Cain said to his mother, ‘I will marry my own twin sister, and Abel shall marry his.’ For Azrun was prettier than Owain. But when Adam heard this, he said, ‘It is contrary to the precept that thou shouldst marry thy twin sister.’

“Now Cain was a tiller of the ground, but Abel was a pastor of sheep. Adam said to them, ‘Take of the fruits of the earth, and of the young of the sheep, and ascend the top of this holy mountain, and offer there the best and choicest to God.’ Abel offered of the best and fattest of the first-born of the flock. Now as they were ascending the summit of the mountain, Satan put it into the head of Cain to kill his brother, so as to get Azrun. For that reason his oblation was not accepted by God. Therefore he was the more inflamed with rage against Abel, and as they were going down the mount, he rushed upon him and beat him about the head with a stone and killed him. Adam and Eve bewailed Abel a hundred years with the greatest grief.... And God cast out Cain whilst he was still unmarried into the land of Nod. But Cain carried off with him his sister Azrun.”[113]

The Rabbi Zadok said, “This was the reason why Cain slew Abel. His twin sister and wife was not at all good-looking. Then he said, ‘I will kill my brother Abel, and carry off his wife.’”[114]

Gregory Abulfaraj gives this account of the strife: “According to the opinion of Mar Theodosius, thirty years after he was expelled from Paradise, Adam knew his wife Eve, and she bore twins, Cain and his sister Climia; and after thirty more years she bore Abel and his twin sister Lebuda. Then, seventy years after when Adam wanted to marry one of the brothers with the twin sister of the other, Cain refused, asking to have his own twin sister.”[115]

The Pseudo-Athanasius says, “Up to this time no man had died so that Cain should know how to kill. The devil instructed him in this in a dream.”[116]

Leonhard Marius on Genesis iv. says, “As to what instrument Cain used, Scripture is silent. Chrysostom calls it a sword; Prudentius, a spade; Irenæus, an axe; Isidore says simply, steel; but artists generally paint a club, and Abulensis thinks he was killed with stones.” Reuchlin thinks, as iron was not discovered till the times of Tubal-cain, the weapon must have been made of wood, and he points out how much more this completes the type of Christ.[117]

Cain and Abel had been born and had lived with Adam in the land of Adamah; but after Cain slew his brother, he was cast out into the land Erez, and wherever he went, swords sounded and flashed as though thirsting to smite him. And he fled that land and came to Acra, where he had children, and his descendants who live there to this day have two heads.[118]

Before Cain slew his brother, says the Targum of Jerusalem, the earth brought forth fruits as the fruits of Eden; but from the day that blood was spilt upon it, thistles and thorns sprang up; for the face of earth grew sad, its joy was gone, the stain was on its brow.

Abel’s offering had been of the fattest of his sheep, the Targum adds, but Cain offered flax.[119]

Abel’s offering, say certain Rabbis, was not perfect; for he offered the chief part to God, but the remainder he dedicated to the Devil, and Cain offered the chief part to Satan, and only the remainder to God.[120]

The Rabbi Johanan said, Cain exclaimed when accused by God of the murder, “My iniquity is greater than I can bear,” and this is supposed to mean, “My iniquity is too great to be atoned for, except by my brother rising from the earth and slaying me.” What did the Holy One then? He took one letter of the twenty-two which are in the Law, and He wrote it on the arm of Cain, as it is written, “He put a mark upon him.”[121]

After Abel was slain, the dog which had kept his sheep guarded his body, says the Midrash. Adam and Eve sat beside it and wept, and knew not what to do. Then said a raven whose friend was dead, “I will teach Adam a lesson,” and he dug a hole in the soil and laid his friend there and covered him up. And when Adam saw this, he said to Eve, “We will do the same with Abel.” God rewarded the raven for this by promising that none should ever injure his young, that he should always have meat in abundance, and that his prayer for rain should be immediately answered.[122]

But the Rabbi Johanan taught that Cain buried his brother to hide what he had done from the eye of God, not knowing that God can see even the most secret things.[123]

According to some Rabbis, all good souls are derived from Abel and all bad souls from Cain. Cain’s soul was derived from Satan, his body alone was from Eve; for the Evil Spirit Sammael, according to some, Satan, according to others, deceived Eve, and thus Cain was the son of the Evil One.[124] All the children of Cain also became demons of darkness and nightmares, and therefore it is, say the Cabbalists, that there is no mention in Genesis of the death of any of Cain’s offspring.[125]

When Cain had slain his brother, we are told in Scripture that he fled. Certain Rabbis give the reason:—He feared lest Satan should kill him: now Satan has no power over any one whose face he does not see, thus he had none over Lot’s wife till she turned her face towards Sodom, and he could see it; and Cain fled, to keep his face from being seen by the Evil One, and thus give him an opportunity of taking his life.[126]

With regard to the mark put upon Cain, there is great diverging of opinion. Some say that his tongue turned white; others, that he was given a peculiar dress; others, that his face became black; but the most prevalent opinion is that he became covered with hair, and a horn grew in the midst of his forehead.

The Little Genesis says, Cain was born when Adam was aged seventy, and Abel when he was seventy-seven.